Stroke Survivors Benefit From Regular, Brisk Outdoor Walks

A new study finds that taking regular brisk walks outdoors can help people recovering from a stroke to improve their physical fitness, enjoy a better quality of life, and increase their mobility.

The researchers, from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, write about their findings in the 6 March online issue of the journal Stroke.

After experiencing a stroke, many survivors have less energy and walk less because of fear of falling. They also tend to reduce meaningful activity like going to the shops, visiting family and friends, or going to church.

Previous studies have already suggested that exercise that doesn't put undue stress on the body can help stroke survivors increase their quality of life, but these have mainly studied the effect of indoor activities such as walking on a treadmill or using an exercise bike.

"Little is known about the effects of community-based walking programs in persons with chronic stroke," write the authors.

So lead author and physical therapy lecturer Carron Gordon and colleagues decided to carry out a randomized controlled trial to investigate effects of aerobic training, namely walking outdoors, on stroke survivors.

They recruited 128 stroke survivors (70 women and 58 men) from three hospitals in Jamaica and randomly assigned them to the intervention group (64 members) or to the control group (64).

The participants, whose average age was 64, had suffered either an ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke six to 24 months before the study and could walk on their own with or without a cane.

Participants of the intervention group undertook supervised outdoor walking for 30 minutes three times a week for 12 weeks. At first they walked with supervisors, but eventually, friends or family members could walk along instead, until they were confident enough to walk on their own.

The participants in the control group just received massage to the side of their body affected by stroke and did not have supervised walking sessions.

Before and after the study, the participants' quality of life, fitness, mobility, strength and functional status were assessed using a mix of physical tests and standardized questionnaires. Blood pressure and heart rate were also assessed.

The results showed that compared to the controls, the exercisers reported a 16.7% improvement in health-related quality of life, and they walked 17.6% further in a six-minute physical endurance test.

The walking group also had a 1.5% lower resting heart rate at the end of the study than they did at the beginning, while the controls' resting heart rate went up 6.7%.

Gordon says in a press statement:

"Walking is a great way to get active after a stroke. It's familiar, inexpensive, and it's something people could very easily get into."

She explains that walking can help control blood pressure, reduce lipid or fat levels, and keep weight under control. All these are cardiovascular risk factors, "So doctors should encourage it for patients who have had a stroke".

Gordon says while most of the participants in their study were black and living in Jamaica, similar results can be expected in other ethnic groups living in other parts of the world.

But, it would not be reasonable to assume the same would be true of patients more severely affected by stroke or who can't walk independently, she cautions.

The American Heart Association recommends stroke survivors do aerobic exercise for 20 to 60 minutes, three to seven days a week, depending on fitness.

Research presented last month at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013, also suggests that practising Tai Chi may reduce falls among adult stroke survivors.

Continue to Read more ...

People Eat More, Gain Weight With Less Sleep

When people don't get enough sleep they tend to eat more, causing them to gain weight. This was the conclusion of a new study led by University of Colorado Boulder in the US that was published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers found that volunteers who slept only 5 hours a night during a working week put on nearly two pounds (0.8 kg) in weight if they had unlimited access to food.

There is already a lot of evidence linking insufficient sleep with obesity, write the researchers in their background information, but we know little about how repeated nights of insufficient sleep affect energy balance.

Kenneth Wright, director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder), says in a statement:

"Just getting less sleep, by itself, is not going to lead to weight gain. But when people get insufficient sleep, it leads them to eat more than they actually need."

Weight Loss Programs Should Include Healthy Sleep

In their study, Wright and colleagues found that while staying awake longer requires more energy, the extra calories consumed are more than the extra calories burned.

They suggest encouraging people to get the sleep they need could help fight the obesity epidemic, but emphasize the problem is not that simple:

"I don't think extra sleep by itself is going to lead to weight loss," says Wright, "But I think it could help."

"If we can incorporate healthy sleep into weight-loss and weight-maintenance programs, our findings suggest that it may assist people to obtain a healthier weight," he proposes, although he adds that more research is needed to test that idea.

The Study

For their study, Wright and colleagues invited 16 young, lean, healthy adult volunteers to live in a "sleep suite" at the University of Colorado Hospital for about two weeks.

The "sleep suite" offers a quiet and peaceful setting for sleeping, but it is also a controlled environment. The researchers decide when lights go on and off, and the sealed room allows them to measure the oxygen that participants breathe in and the carbon dioxide they breathe out from which they can work out how much energy they are using.

The first three days were spent establishing the baseline measures. All volunteers had the chance to sleep 9 hours a night and they were given only enough food to maintain weight.

After that they were put into two groups for five days: one group had their sleep opportunity restricted to 5 hours and the other continued with 9 hours. Also, their food provision changed so they could eat larger meals and help themselves outside mealtimes to snacks ranging from yogurt and fruit to potato chips and ice cream.

Then, the researchers switched the groups over for the next five days.

The Findings: Restricted Sleep Followed By Overeating, Weight Gain

The results showed that when their sleep was restricted to 5 hours a night, the volunteers on average burned about 5% more calories than when they could sleep up to 9 hours a night, but they consumed 6% more calories.

Also, while on restricted sleep, they ate smaller breakfasts but ate more snacks after the evening meal, to the extent that the total calories consumed in evening snacks was more than the calories in any one meal.

Moving to a restricted sleep schedule resulted in weight gain of nearly 2 pounds (0.8 kg), and also caused a shift in the biological clock, leading to an "earlier circadian phase of wake time", write the authors.

But moving the other way, from restricted sleep to sufficient sleep, reduced energy intake, especially of fats and carbohydrates, and led to a slight drop in weight.

There were also differences between the male and female volunteers. When they could sleep up to 9 hours a night men tended to put on weight whereas women maintained their weight, "whereas insufficient sleep reduced dietary restraint and led to weight gain in women".

The researchers suggest their findings add to the growing evidence that eating too much at night may lead to weight gain.

Wright says their study shows when people don't get enough sleep they eat at night, when their bodies are not equipped for taking in food.

He and his colleagues are now planning another study that looks at the effect of when people eat, as opposed to what they eat, on weight.

An animal study that has shed some light in this area was published in Nature Medicine in 2012, where scientists described how deleting a clock gene leads to obesity in mice, and also causes a change in the timing of their normal eating schedule.

Grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in collaboration with the Biological Sciences Initiative and CU-Boulder's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program helped finance this latest study.

Continue to Read more ...

Lower Back Pain (A Complete Guide)

Complete guide for Lower back pain: causes / symptoms of low back injuries, what can i do for back pain relief, tips for preventing, best position to: sit, standing and sleeping, useful back pain exercises and golden rules.

Continue to Read more ...

Simple Eye Exercise which can improve Your Vision

The yoga practitioners attach special importance to eye exercises, for two reasons.

Firstly, a lot of eye problems in later life are due to a loss of tone in the eye muscles. These muscles become rigid, and this loss of elasticity reduces the ability of the lens of the eye to focus at different distances. It also causes the eyesight to become weaker. These exercises tone the eye muscles up and keep them elastic. If you already have eye problems when you begin these exercises, you will find your eyesight improving after a few months.

Secondly, any eye tension present will tend to produce a general feeling of tension, due to the eye's connection to the brain via the optic nerve. What happens is that eye tension produces an increase in the nerve impulses in the eye muscles. This increase in nerve impulses travels along the optic nerve and bombards the brain, causing a general feeling of tension and anxiety. The eye exercises will reduce tension in the eye muscles, as well as reduce general tension.

It is best to do these eye exercises while lying down after you've finished the asanas. This way you're resting after the asanas and doing the eye exercises at the same time, thus reducing the time taken to do your yoga routine.

When doing the eye exercises keep your eyes open and don't move your head.

Sitting (as in the exercises for the neck given above), open your eyes, then check on your posture. Is your spine erect? Hands on the knees? Body relaxed? Head straight? That is how you should always remain while doing eye exercises. The whole body must be motionless; nothing must move except the eyes.

Raise your eyes and find a small point that you can see clearly without straining, without frowning, without becoming tense and, of course, without moving your head. While doing this exercise look at this point each time you raise your eyes.

Next, lower your eyes to find a small point on the floor which you can see clearly when glancing down. Look at it each time you lower your eyes. Breathing should be normal. In other words, you don't have to do deep breathing.

Exercise 1

Move your eyes upwards as far as you can, and then downwards as far as you can. Repeat four more times. Blink quickly a few times 1 to relax the eye muscles.

Exercise 2

Now do the same using points to your right and to your left, at eye level. Keep your raised fingers or two pencils on each side as guides and adjust them so that you can see them clearly when moving the eyes to the right and to the left, but without straining. Keeping the fingers at eye level, and moving only the eyes, look to the right at your chosen point, then to the left. Repeat four times. Blink several times, then close your eyes and rest.

Exercise 3

Choose a point you can see from the right corner of your eyes when you raise them, and another that you can see from the left corner of your eyes when you lower them, half closing the lids. Remember to retain your original posture: spine erect, hands on knees, head straight and motionless.

Look at your chosen point in right corner up, then to the one in left corner down. Repeat four times. Blink several times. Close the eyes and rest.

Now do the same exercise in reverse. That is, first look to the left corner up, then to the right corner down. Repeat four times. Blink several times. Close the eyes and rest.

Exercise 4

This exercise should not be done until three or four days after you have begun eye exercises given here.

Slowly roll your eyes first clockwise, then counterclockwise as follows: Lower your eyes and look at the floor, then slowly move the eyes to the left, higher and higher until you see the ceiling. Now continue circling to the right, lower and lower down, until you see the floor again. Do this slowly, making a full-vision circle. Blink, close your eyes and rest. Then repeat the same action counterclockwise. Do this five times then blink the eyes for at least five seconds.

When rolling the eyes, make as large a circle as possible, so that you feet a little strain as you do the exercise. This stretches the eye muscles to the maximum extent, giving better results.

Exercise 5

Next comes a changing-vision exercise. While doing it you alternately shift your vision from close to distant points several times. Take a pencil, or use your finger, and hold it under the tip of your nose. Then start moving it away, without raising it, until you have fixed it at the closest possible distance where you can see it clearly without any blur. Then raise your eyes a little, look straight into the distance and there find a small point which you can also see very clearly.

Now look at the closer point-the pencil or your finger tip then shift to the farther point in the distance. Repeat several times, blink, close your eyes and squeeze them tight.

Exercise 6

Close your eyes as tightly as you possibly can. Really squeeze the eyes, so the eye muscles contract. Hold this contraction for three seconds, and then let go quickly.

This exercise causes a deep relaxation of the eye muscles, and is especially beneficial after the slight strain caused by the eye exercises. Blink the eyes a few times.

Exercise 7

This exercise is called 'palming' and is very relaxing to the eyes. It is also most important for preserving the eyesight. Palming also has a beneficial, relaxing effect on your nervous system.

It's an ideal way to finish off the eye exercises.

Remain seated on the floor. Draw up your knees, keeping your feet on the floor and slightly apart. Now briskly rub your palms to charge them with electricity and place the cupped palms over your closed eyes. The fingers of the right hand should be crossed over the fingers of the left hand on the forehead. The elbows should rest on your raised knees and the neck should be kept straight. Don't bend your head. Do the deep breathing while palming your eyes.

If you are going to do the palming for longer than a few minutes, better sit down at a table, place some books or pillows in front of you to support your elbows so that you will be able to keep the neck straight, and palm the eyes in this position. If the palming is done for only a short period one can do deep breathing for half a minute or so at first, gradually increasing it every week.

Benefits:

This exercise helps to do away with eye strain, and tension. Your vision will get better and clearer as the ophthalmic, or eye, nerves receive a richer supply of blood. Some people use this to improve their vision

Continue to Read more ...

Want To Lose Belly Fat? Aerobic Exercise Beats Weights

If you want to lose belly fat, the most damaging to your health, you will be more successful if you do aerobic exercise than resistant training, researchers from Duke University Medical Center reported in the American Journal of Physiology.

Belly fat, also known as abdominal fat, intra-abdominal fat or visceral fat is located inside the abdominal cavity, packed in between the stomach, liver, intestines and other organs. Belly fat is different from fat under the skin (subcutaneous fat) and intramuscular fat which is interspersed in skeletal muscles. People with excessive amounts of visceral fat have a higher risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers.

Aerobic exercise is any physical activity which raises the heartbeat and makes the lungs and heart work harder to meet the body's increased demand for oxygen. Aerobic exercise raises the circulation of oxygen through the blood. Examples include jogging, running, swimming, cycling, rowing, and skipping.

Resistance training is any physical activity that uses the force of a muscle against some kind of resistance to build muscle strength and size. Examples include weight training, push-ups, chin ups, and moving or holding in position elastic/hydraulic devices.

Lead author, Cris Slentz, PhD, an exercise physiologist, said:

"When it comes to increased health risks, where fat is deposited in the body is more important than how much fat you have. Our study sought to identify the most effective form of exercise to get rid of that unhealthy fat."

Slentz said:

"Resistance training is great for improving strength and increasing lean body mass. But if you are overweight, which two-thirds of the population is, and you want to lose belly fat, aerobic exercise is the better choice because it burns more calories."

The investigators found that aerobic exercise consumed 67% more calories than resistance training.

They tracked 196 adults aged between 18 and 70 years. They were all overweight and had led sedentary lifestyles. The volunteers were randomly selected into three groups:

• Aerobic training group - they did the equivalent of 12 miles jogging weekly, at 80% maximum heart rate
• Resistance training group - they did 3 sets of 8-12 repetitions three times per week
• Combination group (aerobic plus resistance

The participants were supervised closely to make sure they participated correctly.

They found that aerobic training reduces visceral fat and liver fat considerably. Aerobic training was also found to be better at improving fasting insulin resistance, compared to doing weights. It also reduced liver enzymes and fasting triglyceride levels more effectively. All these are risk factors for heart disease and diabetes.

The authors wrote that resistance training had virtually no impact on levels of visceral fat, liver enzyme levels, liver fat, or insulin resistance. Combining resistance training with aerobic exercise was found to have similar results to just doing aerobic exercises.

Even though the training program in this study was "rigorous and substantial", Slentz believes that people could achieve similar results with milder aerobic exercise regimes.

Slentz said:

"What really counts is how much exercise you do, how many miles you walk, and how many calories you burn. If you choose to work at a lower aerobic intensity, it will simply take longer to burn the same amount of unhealthy fat."

Continue to Read more ...

Skechers Shape-Ups – Proven Sketchy!

Skechers Shape-Ups – Proven Sketchy!

The first time I heard about Sketchers Shape-Up shoes I knew they weren’t going to be a success. It was like I was watching another commercial on diet pills that help you lose weight fast without changing your diet. It’s all a scam, because there’s no such thing as easy weight loss. I think it’s just another example of consumerism in our society.


I read part of an article in the Boston Globe that talked about a study on three different brand toning shoes: Skechers Shape-Ups, MBT, and Reebok’s EasyTone. The study showed that the people who participated in the study had no difference in muscle activity wearing the toning shoes instead of regular running shoes. Consumers who bought these products saw no change and are now eligible for a refund under a lawsuit settlement for the companies’ false advertisements.

So, in other words, you shouldn’t always believe what you see on TV – especially when the ads claim the product will help you to lose weight. Weight loss takes effort and hard work. Wearing a certain kind of sneaker or taking diet pills isn’t the answer. Weight loss starts with healthy eating habits and moving more by getting into an exercise routine. Don’t believe everything you read or see on TV. If the ad sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Continue to Read more ...

Deep Breathing Exercises

Deep Breathing Exercises

Remember

• Deep breathing has many benefits.
• Deep breathing exercises can be used when you feel stressed or anxious.
• Deep breathing exercises are useful before medical tests and procedures.

Do you ever just need a minute to yourself so you can relax? Do you ever let out a big sigh after experiencing some stress or anxiety? Do you ever notice how your breathing is fast when you're nervous right before or during a test? If you answered yes to any of these questions you might want to try deep breathing exercises to help you relax. Read on to learn more about deep breathing and about the positive affects it can have on your body.

What are deep breathing exercises?

Deep breathing is a type of exercise that makes you aware of your breathing so when you inhale (take in air) through your nose, the breath is long and slow so and the air completely fills your lungs. The second part of the exercise is to blow out all of the air from your lungs, nice and slow. You should see your lower belly rise when you breathe in and lower when you breathe out.

What affects breathing?

Stress, anxiety, anger, fear and other emotions can cause your breathing to become faster than normal. When you are happy and content your breathing is slower, and more regular.

How can deep breathing exercises help me?

Deep breathing can help you relax, decrease anxiety, improve coping skills and even help to lower your blood pressure.

When should I use deep breathing exercises?

Deep breathing exercises can be used when you feel stressed, anxious, or you're in any situation where you need to slow down and feel in control. For example: if you're anxious before a test at school, deep breathing is a great tool to use to help you relax and focus. Even if you feel stressed in the middle of a tough day, taking a few deep breaths will help you feel relaxed and calm.

Deep breathing can also be useful before any medical tests or procedures, such as when you have your blood drawn. Deep breathing gives you a feeling of peace and is an easy skill to learn and use whenever you feel anxious or tense.

Who can teach me about deep breathing exercises?

Many different types of health care providers can talk to you about deep breathing exercises including nurses, health care providers, social workers, and psychologists. Deep breathing is often connected with yoga and meditation so teachers who are trained in these activities can also show you how to do it.

I don't have a lot of free time, is deep breathing exercise something I can do on my own?

Yes! You can use deep breathing exercises anytime for as long or short as you want. Unlike other forms of exercise you don't need any equipment, and it's free!

How do I do deep breathing exercises?

Something simple to do is: Close your eyes for a few minutes and imagine yourself on a beach or another place you find relaxing. Then, take a deep breath through your nose and count to ten. Release the breath through your mouth until you have pushed all the air out. Then repeat the exercise.

Important things to remember when practicing deep breathing exercises:

• Find a quiet and comfortable place where you can sit or lie down where no one will bother you for a while.
• Sit or lie in a comfortable position with your back straight.
• Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a relaxing place.
• Take a couple of "cleansing breaths" (breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth) and find a comfortable position, either sitting or standing.
• Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth using your abdominal muscles so your diaphragm can flex and contract.
• Inhale slowly. This should take about 10 seconds. (You can count in your head to 10) so that your lower abdomen rises and falls. Now, exhale slowly for another 10 seconds.
• Try to get into a routine and practice deep breathing for 5-10 minutes each day. Practicing helps you get into a routine so you can use deep breathing whenever you feel the need to relax or calm down.

Deep breathing is a practice that has many benefits. It is often combined with yoga, meditation, guided imagery and other relaxation techniques for even more positive results. Try an activity that you think you might enjoy. Learning ways to relax will help you to become more in tune with your body so you can respond to stress in a healthy way.

Continue to Read more ...

The GSP Workout: The Evolution of the Ultimate Fighter

Georges St-Pierre is one of the best fighters in the world. But to stay on top, he treats himself like a white belt

 
 UFC champion Georges St-Pierre, or GSP, shows off his rock-hard abs while training for an important fight.

Georges St-Pierre knows an unusual amount about megalodon, terror of the ancient seas.

He speaks of it with grave importance; he wants to make clear that 2 million years ago, this predator, a shark larger than a city bus, went extinct. Poof.

As did the American lion, the short-faced bear, and several other giants whose Latin names sound musical in his Quebecois accent.

And why does he care so much about this?

"In fighting, in evolution, in life, efficiency is the key," says St-Pierre, who hopes to one day return to school to study paleontology. "It's not the most powerful animal that survives. It's the most efficient."

Paraphrasing Darwin is a neat trick for a guy who's paid to cut off the blood supply to people's brains. But St-Pierre, whose next bout is scheduled for April 30 against welterweight Jake Shields, isn't your typical fighter. He's arguably the best mixed martial artist in the world, a 5-foot 11-inch, 190-pound destroyer who drops 20 pounds for bouts. St-Pierre has cleaned out his division and could go down as the greatest champion in the UFC's history. He hasn't lost a round in more than 3 years. He's faster than other fighters. More efficient. More fit, in the truest Darwinian sense.

"There is a difference between a fighter and a martial artist," St-Pierre says. "A fighter is training for a purpose: He has a fight. I'm a martial artist. I don't train for a fight. I train for myself. I'm training all the time. My goal is perfection. But I will never reach perfection."

So why bother? Because evolution must be constant. He is never a master, complete in his studies. Rather, he is a trainer, a learner, as humble as a white belt. And he reminds himself of this by surrounding himself with smart people—all experts at something he wants to master—who can teach and challenge him.

He has coaches for every fighting discipline, and his main coaches work together to come up with the right strategies and to prepare him for individual opponents. But he also has a talent agent, who pushes him toward the kind of salesmanship and glad-handing that doesn't tend to come naturally to a fighter. That's led to promotional deals with Gatorade, Affliction Clothing, and Under Armour.

Understandably, St-Pierre's goals are lofty—and prioritized. For later: He wants to marry and have five kids. For now: He's 29, single, aiming to become the best pound-for-pound mixed martial artist of all time, the man who is crescent-kicking a fringe sport into the mainstream. Too bold? No. "The danger is not to set your goal too high and fail to reach it," St-Pierre says, now channeling Michelangelo.

"It's to set your goal too low and reach it."

ST-PIERRE'S FIRST FIGHT TOOK PLACE at around age 7. He reached the top of the hill during a schoolyard game, and an older kid punched him in the nose. More hits would come during his childhood in Saint-Isidore, a parish just outside Montreal, population 2,500. "I was bullied," says St-Pierre, once a nerdy, studious boy who competed in chess tournaments. "I was not very popular."

To protect himself, he learned Kyokushin karate from his father. That gave him the striking base he still uses today, he says. He discovered the importance of looking up to other experts when at 15 he watched Royce Gracie, a skinny Brazilian jujitsu master, tap out oversize foes in the early days of the UFC. "I asked myself, 'How can this happen? How can this small guy beat all these monsters?' " he says.

And now St-Pierre has the answer.

"Because of the knowledge," he says, "that every war is won by the strongest weapon. Royce Gracie had the knowledge. The next day I started looking for a trainer."

By 2001, St-Pierre was competing professionally. He'd remade himself as an expert in submission grappling. To pay for his training and kinesiology classes at a local college, he held three jobs: resurfacing floors, picking up garbage, and bouncing at a rowdy club called Fuzzy Brossard. In 2004, the UFC offered him a title shot against Matt Hughes. The opportunity was too good to pass up. He dropped out of school. Then he lost to Hughes. Once again, St-Pierre had climbed to the top of the hill only to be punched in the nose.

 A lesser man might have been discouraged. St-Pierre grew more committed. Two years later, he fought Hughes again and TKO'd him to win the championship. Since then, St-Pierre has become a collector of people: those who help him in person, and those whose philosophies inspire him. He learned Muay Thai with the help of an elite trainer. Ditto boxing, Brazilian jujitsu, wrestling, strength conditioning, sports psychology. He can cite the 10,000-hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell: You achieve success after that much practice. He might even turn profound and paraphrase Bruce Lee: We are told that talent creates opportunity, yet it is desire that creates talent.

Desire creates talent. Let that concept linger. How many of us are brave enough to pursue a passion at any cost, as St-Pierre has? If the UFC didn't exist and there weren't a cent to be made in the sport, he says, he'd still be training twice a day for 90 minutes at a clip. He'd still be learning to punch on unstable surfaces in order to activate hidden muscles and increase his power. He'd be studying gymnastics and walking over obstacles on his hands. It's about mastering himself. "I don't do this for the fame," he says. "I do this for the love."

Maybe that explains St-Pierre's behavior when he ran into one of his childhood tormentors at a mall some time ago—and simply, casually nodded. Not to scare the guy. Just to say hi. To let him know that he'd moved past any place where revenge mattered. (The bully was scared nonetheless.)

"I don't have anger toward this guy anymore," St-Pierre says. "I don't want to fill up my heart with anger."

IT IS MID-DECEMBER, AND A holiday soiree is in full swing in the lower lobby of the Montreal Marriott Chateau Champlain. Guests arrive in expensive suits and shimmering gowns. As it happens, the lobby is also the muster point for undercard fighters at tonight's UFC 124, which creates a surreal scene: cauliflower-eared athletes and tipsy socialites appraising one another, unsure of who is more dangerous.

High above the clamor, St-Pierre sits silently in a suite on the 34th floor. The hours before a fight swell with tension, and the best way to deal with it is to move. But St-Pierre has been taught exactly when to start moving. Too soon and he wastes energy. He must stay calm as he is bundled into an SUV and transported to the Bell Centre, where, backstage, he will wait some more as the muffled thunder of the crowd oscillates through the walls: G-S-P! G-S-P! G-S-P!

At the arena, his focus is total. He tapes a simple handwritten sign, in French, to his dressing room wall. Translation: On December 11th in Montreal, I will destroy Josh Koscheck and remain world champion. An attainable goal. He makes a sign for each fight. "Every time I wake up in the morning, I put that up so I see it when I brush my teeth," he says.

St-Pierre begins his warmup: trunk twists, crab steps, hamstring kicks, triangle submission drills, arm bar drills, guillotine chokes, superman punches, combination strikes on pads, breathing exercises with arms upraised against the wall, hands opening and closing methodically. Every movement is precise, efficient. His trainers go over his game plan. He is ready.

Time to move. St-Pierre runs out of his dressing room. He runs to the cage. The fight begins. "Watch how he controls the pace and rhythm," says Greg Jackson, one of St-Pierre's coaches. "Human brains are looking for a pattern. Establishing that pattern and then breaking it can be very powerful."

In the first round, St-Pierre establishes a rhythm, and then breaks it on Josh Koscheck's face. Over and over. St-Pierre's left jab is a trip hammer. He seems to have shattered Koscheck's orbital bone within minutes and begins attacking his opponent's leg with lead kicks.

The next four rounds mimic the first, with Koscheck looking increasingly battered and desperate. St-Pierre circles out of the range of Koscheck's looping, obvious right hand. When Koscheck lunges wildly, St-Pierre sidesteps him like a matador and taps him on the head. The crowd laughs. Actually laughs. Koscheck may be a four-time Division I All-American wrestler, but tonight he looks like an earlier model of fighter. Obsolete. Homo habilis. He keeps trying to slug it out with St-Pierre, who is superior on his feet and happy to oblige.

("Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake," St-Pierre will say later, quoting Napoleon.) St-Pierre easily wins every round. He lands 136 strikes to Koscheck's 30.

And what is GSP doing moments later in his dressing room after defending his title in front of a hometown crowd? He's on a mat, rolling with a coach, training, taking pointers about what he did wrong, about how he could have used a move called the "head snapdown" when he had Koscheck on the ground at one point. He does this after every fight, always training, always learning. Desire creates talent.

"It's like life," St-Pierre says. "The more knowledge you get, the more questions you ask. The smarter you get, the more you realize that everything can be possible."

Behold evolution in real time. The megalodon never stood a chance.

Prepare like St-Pierre
Georges-St Pierre's impressive physique wouldn't exist if he spent all his time recovering from injuries. The UFC champ protects his body by performing a fast-paced routine before he starts each training session. "A warmup is essential because it activates all your muscles and improves bloodflow to help prevent injury, while also preparing your body to increase its performance," says Erik Owings, one of St-Pierre's trainers and the owner of Mushin Mixed Martial Arts, in New York City. Before your next workout, try this full-body igniter. It should take less than 5 minutes.

Perform each exercise for 60 seconds, then move to the next without any rest.

Continue to Read more ...