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.
Deads are about picking up heavy stuff, and putting it back on the floor. A basic functional effort and good training for how to pick things up without back strain.
Good technique is essential. Do them wrong (eg lifting with your back istead of your legs) and you can hurt yourself. Do them right - it's not complicated - and your whole body gets stronger including your back. Deadlifts prevent aging! Mrs. BD does them weekly, and swears at by them.
Besides general fitness, just doing 5 sets (including a warm-up set) of heavy deads once-weekly has been great for my posture. Generally finishing with my 6-8-rep max. I only aim for a max one-rep effort every couple of months, just for fun (?). Since I am not a big strong guy, I can probably only get to around 300 with a trap bar at this point, and that is good enough for government work. With a plain bar, my grip tends to fail first. (I do need to work on my grip strength.)
Mens sana in corpore sano. (The former is a tougher challenge than the latter.)
(An important deadlift tip - and for barbell squats too - that is rarely mentioned: Make sure your bowels are well-emptied first. The intra-abdominal pressure gets high with heavy weights, and you do not want an accident. Farts are expected, but...)
Imagine a new president whose first year saw: withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord; wiped out ISIS; reversed hundreds of Obama Administration regulatory overreaches; saw back-to-back quarters of 3 percent economic growth; a stock market gain of over 20 percent; illegal immigration plummeting by more than 50 percent; a sterling originalist appointed to the Supreme Court and a record number of similarly-minded judges to the lower appellate courts; and the most fundamental pro-growth tax reform in 30 years.
50% of max heart rate for an hour? It seems inefficient and not stressful enough for my taste (not to mention boring), but maybe as a once-weekly thing on a day following a strenuous weight session it might be warranted as a form of "active recovery." Or, of course, for beginner exercisers, anorectics, the elderly, or the terminally-sedentary.
At the same time, moving at all is probably a better idea than not moving. It burns no fat (not that you need that) and builds no strength, but certainly helps maintain some minimal degree of endurance and mobility.
I tried to introduce one hour of this sort of thing into my weekly regimen a few months ago as a "recovery day" (with a mix of treadmill, stairmaster, and elliptical) but I just can't stay with it. My body seems to insist on bursting into one-minute sprints in the course of it every several minutes, thus converting it to HIIT. Maybe it's because I am in half-decent shape, but my body just wants to pound it every few minutes instead of slogging along. I guess that's a good effect of my fitness training - energy.
VDH notes the paradox of middle class people filling gyms while immigrants do their physical chores for them. Brawn in an Age of Brains:
Sometime in the 1970s and 1980s, millions of Americans—far more than just those constituting an economic elite—decided that a key to the good life was to be free from, say, the need to cook, watch children, mow the lawn, or rake leaves. Illegal immigration promised cheap help for the upper middle classes that had once been the exclusive domain of the aristocracy. In theory, skipping the gym for four hours a week would provide more than enough time to mow the lawn, prune the bushes, or vacuum the floor. Yet sweaty and studied exercise is often deemed preferable to rote labor, given that it is more scientifically calibrated to making one look and feel better. Repetitive muscular work is not seen as commensurately valuable, whether for the exercise it provides or for its psychic benefits. Yet for all one’s degrees and income, a person can still retain some sense of autonomy and an ability to master the surrounding material landscape, if only for a few hours each week, and to appreciate how the other half lives that does such physical labor for wages. It is a choice...
I get his point, but I do not think that fitness is equivalent to physical labor. Our carpenter lifts weights in the gym with the intention of continuing to be able to carry heavy things at work through his 70s. In my case, I have always done all of the outdoor labor at the HQ and the farm that I have time for (ie weekends), but I never saw any fitness gains from that. It is enjoyable for me, though.
For house-cleaning and laundry, we have two high-energy Polish immigrants who leave everything spotless, neat, and sparkling. Their only requirement of us is that there be no clutter, nothing on the floor, and nothing on any surfaces.
When you have day jobs, nobody wants to spend a weekend house-cleaning and doing laundry. Heck, we even do our workouts Sunday morning before church.
One of my sisters sent me this pic from her driveway early this morning in western Mass. Very nice, because she and my excellent brother-in-law are without their boys this weekend and can spend the day snuggling by their fire drinking Baileys and probably reading yesterday's Sunday Pravda NYT.
Subaru people, if you know what I mean. I love them.
Photo is Christmas Eve at the olde Bird Dog homestead a few years ago. Cozy. Imagine the Judd's Christmas album too.
Luke 1:26-38
1:26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
1:27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
1:28 And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you."
1:29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
1:30 The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
1:31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.
1:32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.
1:33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
1:34 Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?"
1:35 The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.
1:36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.
1:37 For nothing will be impossible with God."
1:38 Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
Our friendly little neighborhood gym has been running a challenge test (a general fitness race) through the month of December.
Here's how it works: A 60-second sprint on the row erg, an exactly 3-minute rest, then a 60-second sprint on the ski erg. Then your trainer adds up your total meters and posts it on the board. Only trainers can record the test.
They post your name, age, and total meters on the white board. There is a column for men and one for the women. Talk about exposure - but it is highly motivational. If you repeat the test (which everybody does to try to improve their score), your highest score goes on the board.
The reason this is a good general fitness test is because it is cardio fitness combined with maximum power (power= strength x speed) demands from the entire body. I felt like puking for 10 minutes afterwards which I feel is evidence of genuine effort.
I managed to just break the 500 meter mark this week, but there are guys with over 600. The women are mostly in the 300s. A 74 year-old guy had a 545 so I feel I definitely have to beat that codger. I have a week to get there.
In fitness, you mostly compete with yourself but it's fun to see how you measure up once in a while. Reality hurts, but truth is good for the soul.
Most people reading this were trained to think hard work built character so a desire to work was a sign of good character. That’s a perfectly sensible belief in a world of scarcity. In a post-scarcity society, one where automation is increasing taking over human labor, maybe those sentiments about work are counter-productive. Maybe the way forward is self-actualizing leisure.
Handy tip from my chef friend for the holidays: The rule is Four Days in the Fridge.
You include the day you made it in the 4 days. After that, it's garbage. I have learned this over the years from unfortunate experience - especially with Thanksgiving leftovers.
You Won't Be Able to Pay Taxes on a Postcard, and That's Exactly How H&R Block Likes It - The Republican tax bill means most Americans will keep more of the money they earn. But the process will still be frustrating and terrible.
The sad answer is "Not really." Only moving the heavy weights can improve strength efficiently, but some calisthenics can at least maintain strength, prevent muscle decay, and maybe build a little strength too if not just muscle endurance.
That post mentioned some of those key lower body exercises.
Below the fold, good video tips on often-neglected Side Lunges and correct technique for Body-Weight Squats (We believe in "Ass To Grass").
As I said to Tucker Carlson the other night, the demographic transformation of the western world is "the biggest story of our time", and it will indeed determine all the others.
Maybe Donald Trump is just not your type of guy, and certainly not the guy you would want to be President; but keep in mind who was the alternative. Before these things fade into the memory hole, bring back to mind a few of the wildly incompetent policies of the previous administration...
The way I see it. Conservatives like me did not elect Donald Trump. The Liberals did by driving ordinary working class Americans round the bend with their left-wing insanity, their incredible arrogance, and their contempt for America and Americans. Trump is the ordinary American-in-the-street’s rejoinder. And they obviously deserve it.
As an anti-Trumper, he advises not listening to Trump at all but to just see what his admin is doing
The final night of Hanukkah and Christmas is bursting out all over. Lots of things to cover so let us commence. Leading off we have President Trump who delivered a national security speech for the ages. Calling his strategy "principled realism," it is exactly that. In short, for the world to be a better and freer place, America must be an economic and military powerhouse. He also urged tighter, saner immigration policy and renewed his pledge to build the border wall. With the Dow Jones poised to hurtle through the 25,000 point barrier, business and consumer confidence is at an all-time high; certainly at a level we have not felt in nearly 20 years. The President knows and understands that American decline is not inevitable. Despite the lost decade of the Obama years, where we had political and cultural elites who not only thought that the best we could do was manage the decline but who actively took a sledgehammer to our institutions to hasten the decline, this president's first year in office has been a rhetorical and actual declaration of "not one inch further."
Deads are about picking up heavy stuff, and putting it back on the floor. A basic functional effort and good training for how to pick things up without back strain.
NYT: 
Genetically engineered ‘super-horses’ 
One of my sisters sent me this pic from her driveway early this morning in western Mass. Very nice, because she and my excellent brother-in-law are without their boys this weekend and can spend the day snuggling by their fire drinking Baileys and probably reading yesterday's Sunday 
Yale Secular Humanists 
IAN MCKELLEN RECALLS ACTRESSES 
Portland’s Disgraceful Anarchy - 
Why ‘The Last Jedi’