We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Imageshows two things: the difference between half squat and full squat, and terrible form in the second image
Squats (and deadlifts) are the two most functional muscular exercises. The former is getting up, and the latter is picking up stuff.
Squats are known as "The King of Exercises" because so many muscle groups are stressed. They are also said to be beneficial for knee joints.
Squats come in many forms: the basic barbell back squat (a power lift), and calisthenics like body-weight squats, squat-and press, side squats, squat jumps, heavy ball wall throws, etc.
I have been thinking about how to deepen my barbell squats. With body-weight or hand weights, I can do full squats easily, but with heavier weight I do not go below 45 degrees. It's partly confidence and partly weakness.
To do full squats with barbell weights (instead of half-squats, 90 degrees) I think I need to reset my barbell squat program with the plain bar (45 lbs) or light weights and to try to work up quickly from there. I'm convinced that the full squat is the real deal.
As a general rule, if the bar is so heavy that you cannot squat below parallel with it and stand back up, it’s too heavy to have on your back.
What about you?
Below the fold, image depicting all of the muscles engaged in a full squat. She's using dumbells, but it is not as if gals cannot do barbell squats. They sure can, and using the bar makes it more reliable to keep a chest-up posture. On the other hand, dumbell squats get you low if you touch the dumbells to the ground...but on the third hand, barbell back squats let you squat with more weight than your grip is strong.
Half or more of The Guardian is difficult to distinguish from the Babylon Bee. Seems to me that their specialty to beclown themselves much of the time.
The apple is an import from the Chinese mountains. The pie idea has been around since there was flour - probably the Sumerians put some fruit or meat inside some dough.
In my view, the nurseryman Johnny Appleseed, aka John Chapman -(photo) did us all a great favor. I am not a big fan of fruit, but most people are. Well, I like cooked fruit in desserts because fruit is nothing but sugar anyway.
The idiot who wrote the Guardian article clearly did not know that pumpkins came from Mexico, not from England. Pumpkins, and all squash, were appropriated from Central American farmers by North American natives - and by the Spanish too. Shame on them.
For me, I prefer a Tarte Tatin with a hard caramelized crust to an apple pie. With some ice cream (invented in Egypt). Is that un-American of me?
As Sex Pistol John Lydon put it: 'I never thought I'd see the day when the Right would become the cool ones giving the middle finger to the Establishment and the Left become the snivelling self-righteous ones going around shaming everybody.'
I'm interested in what our readers do for calisthenics, and whether they do them on separate days or just mix them in with weights days and cardio days.
I include recreational sports (other than running, biking, or swimming) as calisthenics.
Calisthenics are about agility, endurance, general fitness, athleticism, balance, and things like that. Our list and variety is long. Some of them: Pushups, pullups, planks, heavy ball throws, burpees, body-weight squats, inclined pulls, Farmer walks, sled pushes and pulls, jumping jacks, band walks, step-ups, box jumps, lunges. As we've said often, just 3 hrs of calis/wk, with nothing else, is a lot better than nothing.
4:26 He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,
4:27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.
4:28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.
4:29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come."
4:30 He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?
4:31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
4:32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
4:33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;
4:34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
ProPublica compared the amount of taxes paid by these people not to their earned income but to the amount their wealth grew during the period in question. That’s not an analysis of their incomes but their wealth. So, what ProPublica is engaged in isn’t a dive into our tax code but a speculative lobbying effort in favor of taxing wealth.