Happy Monday and Happy St Nicholas Day
Hope you all had a lovely weekend. We went and bought our Christmas tree and decorated it on Friday. The smell of pine has filled our home throughout the weekend – the true smell of Christmas. We also went on some beach walks, scooter rides and relaxed.
Happy St Nicholas Day today!
For those not familiar with St Nicholas it is said that the true story of Santa Claus begins with St Nic.
St Nic was born in the third century, his wealthy parents raised him a Christian and passed away when he was only young.
Obeying the words of Jesus ‘’to give to the poor’’. Nicholas used all his inheritance to assist the needy, sick and suffering. He dedicated his life to God and was made a Bishop before becoming a St. Bishop Nicholas became known throughout the land for his generosity for those in need and his love for children.
There are lots of stories of St Nic saving people from famine, sparring lives of the innocently accused and more. One such story tells of a poor man with three daughters destined to a life of slavery. In those days the father had to provide money to the prospective husbands otherwise the chance of marriage was slim and a life of misery was on the cards. Strangely on 3 different occasions, a bag of gold was thrown through the window, landing in stockings or shoes which had been left before the fire to dry. This led to the tradition of hanging stocking and leaving shoes out the night before (December 5th) eagerly awaiting the hope of a gift from St Nic
St Nicholas is something I have celebrated my whole life. St Nic is widely celebrated in Europe on December 6th (the day he passed away). My mum is Hungarian and we celebrate by cleaning our shoes and leaving them out.
I’m not religious but I think St Nic is really about generosity, kindness and giving and for me… that’s pretty cool and a beautiful tradition I can keep giving to my kids
Movement
It’s been a while since I have talked about the what’s and ‘why’s of movement training. So I figured it was time for a refresher
Movement is the foundation of all good training. First move well, then move often. Attempting to put fitness on dysfunction only makes for further dysfunction and greater risk of injury.
Identifying and correcting limitations, restrictions, asymmetries or faulty movement patterns has to be the starting point for all movement training.
Once movement competency is in place, it’s time to look at the functional movement patterns
- Squat
- Hinge
- Lunge
- Push
- Pull
- Twist
- Locomotion
It is these 7 movement patterns that allowed our primal ancestors to
Hinge down to pick up heavy rocks to build shelter
Squat down and cook marshmallows around the fire (I mean meat)
Lunge to step over fallen trees or climbing hills
Push and pull the herds of animals back to camp
Twist to throw spears or to efficiently look behind you
Loco-mote to run away from the sabre-toothed tigers and bears
We continue to use these movements in our everyday life to hinge down and pick up the kids, squat down to the office chair, lunge up stairs or hike a mountain, push and pull heavy doors, twist to look behind us or throw a ball for the dog, loco-mote to catch the bus or simply because it feels good.
As an added bonus all these movement patterns require a-lot of muscle to make happen. This means more calorie burning, more metabolism boosting and more fat burning. Not a bad bonus.
Flash Back
Here is the link to a short post we did December 6th 2019 about surviving the Christmas bulge
6 Ways to Survive the Crazy Christmas Bulge | PT
Have a great day
Paul “The St Nick” and Krystie “my shoes are clean and ready” Miller
Recent Comments