Where Women Glow and Men Plunder

p: i hate winter!

p: i really can't complain, it's been so mild.

p: but imagine, a warm day...

m: yeah.

m: a day without hats.

Movement and Muscles at the Knee summary

	flexion	extension	internal rotation	external rotation
biceps femoris	X			X
semimembranosus	X		X
semitendinosus	X		X
gracilis	X
popliteus	X		X
rectus femoris		X
vastus medialis		X
vastus intermedius		X
vastus lateralis		X
sartorius		X

Movement and Muscles at the Knee internal and external rotation

 

Just to show you, your lower leg slightly rotates at the knee when the knee is flexed. Not going to go into a lot of detail because we don't tend to work this movement a lot. Semimembranosus, semitendinosus, and popliteus do internal rotation, and biceps femoris does external rotation.

Your lower leg does not rotate when it is fully extended, due to the "screw-home mechanism" that locks your femur on the tibia for stability.

Baby Carrots alla Tonnato

I am only supposed to eat half this amount of tonnato with the baby carrots and put the other half away for later.

I have never been able to snack on carrots. Somebody told me dunk them in peanut butter, bleaghh my mouth kept expecting apple and getting carrot. But you know what's good, carrots dunked in tuna salad. Or it started as tuna mushed together with greek yogurt, and then I thought how good would this be all tonnato-style with capers and anchovies. And see, I got flaxseed oil in there too.

1 can Italian tuna packed in olive oil
1/4 cup greek yogurt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon flaxseed oil
1 tablespoon capers
4 anchovies
baby carrots

Puree all the ingredients except obviously the carrots in a food processor. My rocket blender comes with a smaller cup I don't know what for, I guess it's for making tuna smoothies.

Eat with baby carrots or any other vegetables.

The Buyer's Guide to Toe Stops: Snyder Rounds

In the end, my Snyder rounds lasted me about a year. They've been worn down mostly flat for the better part of the year; but they've been working fine and when things work fine, I don't want to change them ever. But finally I had to ask what I was waiting for, actual metal to erupt in the middle of a bout?

I did decide that I prefer Snyders to Gumballs, your mileage may vary. I know a lot of girls who skate on Gumballs, and they seem to wear just as much as Snyders.

I'm actually having a problem now with my new right toe stop loosening all the time. I don't know why. Is it something about the shape until I wear it down? Did I strip the stem? The collar that the stem screws into actually disintegrated during my last bout; it's fixed now, but the toe stop still keeps loosening. I'm not sure what to do, I'm going to wrap a little bit of plumber's tape around the stem. And bring a toe stop wrench with me to the bench.

Oh and, I ordered new skates.

What.

ETA: Steve from Lombard, whose derby name should be Highley Recommended, says thumbs up to plumber's tape, sometimes the threads just need a little help to catch.

Blog Planner

I dunno, is this interesting? This is my blog planner, I used to draw this out every month or so in my notebook; then I realized, they make calendars. This is an At-A-Glance monthly calendar, stapled not spiralbound, so it slides flat into the middle pocket of my notebook.

I pretty much post five days a week about SYSTEMS, Fashion, Gear, Fitness, and Food, roughly on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, though Food has the run of the place (breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, and drink, roughly on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) and right now movement and muscles are all over the joint. Ha ha, get it? Joint.

This works for me because it's not too freeform and not too structured. It's more like set up a structure, riff off the structure, let whatever comes up find its own level. Or I suppose If you build it, they will come is pithier. Maybe that's the subtext of that movie.

Movement and muscles, actually, have given me a huge leg up EEEE I CAN'T STOP on having to think up blog entries, but I'll be finishing them by the end of the month. So I better think of something else, I'm spawning the other three parts of four-part series on gratitude in the upper left and a little pile of pomodoro workouts in the bottom right. If I get really craven, I will post my three-ingredient recipe for ramen.

Actually what really works are the Post-Its, that's how I let whatever comes up find its own level. I have blanks stocked on the left. I pile them up and move them around like the game of solitaire that blogging so essentially is. Or it is the way I play with my comments disabled. What, I'm an introvert. When a post gets written, it gets written down in its own little square. When it gets published, it gets a green X.

There are regular features that always take up squares, like my monthly diet cards and my quarterly charts and fitness and food plans; writing regularly about the same boring thing is good exercise, like scales. Also a twenty-day break four times a year takes up a lot of squares and also is good exercise.

This year also I've started posting some extras like bout day breakfasts and WCR promo videos on bout days and poppylogues as the spirit moves, and the twelve things that happy people do differently on the first and the second to last days of the month wherever that falls.

Thumb War

p: ooh!

p: i get excited when i get even a piece of your thumb.

p: hsss... hsssss...

p: eek!

p: or when i evade your thumb.

p: aaagh!

p: hey.

p: you're not even looking.

Safety First

p: i can pack my snack and some safety pins in the same baggie, right?

p: i mean, they're *safety* pins...

Bout Day Breakfast TF vs HB

Baked eggs in avocado and sweet potato bean mash with OJ

More bout day breakfasts!

Lady In Red and Roller Roadrunners Beware!

My Interview with Urban Folk Circuit

We love roller girls! The one who’s closest to our hearts, though, is Poppy Spock. We’re sponsoring this rad lady and we couldn’t be more excited!

Movement and Muscles at the Knee flexion and extension

I did not photograph Biggie doing movements at the knee for some reason, womp womp. Here's some more pictures of me in my sweats and crocs!

 

What movements happen at this joint?

Flexion is when the angle between the tibia and the femur is decreased by moving them toward each other, and extension is when the angle is increased by moving them away from each other. Of course your knee is backwards, so your lower leg goes behind you to flex and comes back forward to extend.

What muscles make these movements happen?

 

Best if you take this drawing of semimembranosus and semitendinosus with a grain of salt, I think actually ST is on top of SM; it's hard to tell from the pictures in the book. All I can vouch for is that biceps femoris is the lateral hamstring and ST and SM are the medial hamstrings.

By the same token whereas your hip flexors are anterior muscles, your knee flexors are posterior muscles and vice versa for extensors. As a matter of fact, muscles of the thigh are grouped into compartments; the posterior compartment contains the knee flexors, the anterior compartment contains the knee extensors, and the adductor compartment contains the hip adductors, one of which assists in flexing the knee. Anyway without further ado, your knee flexors in the posterior compartment are your biceps femoris, semimembranosus and semitendinosus, or hamstrings, and also your gracilis from the adductor compartment, and also your popliteus, a small muscle behind your knee that "unlocks" your knee from extension, and also your gastrocnemius (not pictured) or calf muscle, and your knee extensors in the anterior compartment are your rectus femoris, vastus medialis, vastus intermedius and vastus lateralis, or quadratus femoris a.k.a. "quads," and also your sartorius.

Note also that some of the muscles that work at the knee also work at the hip, not the least of which are your quads and hamstrings.

What exercises make these muscles work?

Same exercises as for movement at the hip, for the most part. Exercises for rectus femoris also work the rest of the quad muscles, exercises for biceps femoris also work the popliteus.

Winter Chart and Fitness Plan Revised

So you know that I actually started this blog in March 2009, bumbled along for about a year, pulled the plug I think in May 2010, and started over in June 2010 like my sweet Audrina, a joke I'm sure I have used before. Some of the better posts from back then have already been raptured into this new incarnation, like my work/play series and actually also my racerback dress, of all things, is heading up the charts like a bullet, thanks to Pinterest and Stumbleupon, and now and again I think about repopulating the back end of this blog with the rest of the best of my old posts as a record of where I came from. I took at serious cut at this and then decided against, because I was just too out of control back then. I just wouldn't want any of my struggles to be accidentally construed as advice. In this incarnation I have been wrestling with reducing my workout schedule and always ending right back up with five practices per week, which I like to think is lovably ridiculous, but where I came from wasn't even funny with me wild-eyed trying to manage up to eight practices and the twenty different vitamins I was taking, man, my vitamin chart was off the chain.

At long last, a glimmer of sanity:

SUN	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT
SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP
HOBBY	HOBBY	WORK	HOBBY	WORK	HOBBY	PLAY League
HOBBY	HOBBY	WORK	HOBBY study	WORK	HOBBY study	HOBBY
PLAY Leag/Ref	PLAY Fury	PASTIME	HOBBY study	PLAY Scrimmage	HOBBY study	PASTIME
PASTIME	PASTIME	PASTIME	PASTIME	PASTIME	PASTIME	PASTIME
SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP	SLEEP

...or well, insofar as a color-coded chart of one's life represents sanity.

Actually down to four practices a week, though. I know it looks like I'm trying to squeeze in two practices on Sunday. Those are practices that I lead, they count as recovery not key workouts. Lead means lead, Munt. I have a slight ego problem with this that I am working on.

What I got rid of is Wednesday practices. Mainly because my certification exam is coming up in April, so I study instead of practice. I've been doing this since being back from break, and it's been an eyeopener. It's so awesome. It's not even that I need the whole night to study, I just need not to have to wrap it up at 5:00 so I can eat and get dressed. I can press on points that I don't quite get, and wind naturally down by 6:30 or 7:00. And also, I can leisurely cook dinner.

If I don't do all the practices, I actually have the energy to pick up my kettlebell. Which is fun and something different, and which I don't have to bike for twenty minutes to get there. I actually already feel stronger, I only do it for fifteen minutes twice a week.

I mean, whatever. Poppy discovers sliced bread, film at 11.

I'm just saying, I'm so happy. I'm playing better, too. I said this in the car on the way to Naptown and Go-Go paused and said, "I'm glad you finally realized that, Poppy." Ahhh kids, they never listen and always have to figure it out for themselves, and now I have kids who don't listen.

Bones of the Knee

What bones are at this joint?

The bones at the knee are the femur, patella or kneecap, tibia and fibula.

What type of joint is this?

There are actually three joints here:

• the patellofemoral joint is a synovial saddle joint that allows the kneecap to slide up and down and from side to side with knee movement
• the tibiofemoral joint, which is mainly what we're talking about, is a synovial hinge joint that allows flexion and extension and also slight internal and external rotation when the knee is flexed
• the tibiofibular joint is a synovial plane joint that allows for gliding movement between these two bones

What body part moves this joint?

Your thigh muscles move the knee joint.

What body part is moved at this joint?

Your lower leg is moved at the knee joint.

Slow Lemon and Olive Chicken

You don't have to manhandle your chicken as much as I do, then you could serve it in actual pieces. I tend to churn it around with a fork to fish out the bones, and that makes the meat fall apart.

I use whatever olives the sweetie man sees fit to bring home from the store. If they're pitted, I go to town and use the whole jar. If I have to pit them, I lose patience and only half the jar goes in. Both ways are good. This time I got pimento-stuffed, you know what would be really good? Those garlic-stuffed ones.

4-5 chicken thighs
1 large or 2 medium onions
1 large or 2 medium tomatoes
1 jar of olives
1 lemon

Take the skin off the chicken thighs.

Dice the onions and tomatoes, and slice the olives. Put two pieces of chicken in the cooker, lightly salt them, and layer over half the onions and olives. Then put in the rest of the chicken, onions, and olives. Top it all with the tomatoes. I just felt like I wanted to get those onions and olives in with the chicken, and let the juices from the tomatoes seep down over everything. You can also throw in a couple of bay leaves.

Set the slow cooker on low, and then go away for six to eight hours. Towards the end slice the lemon, squeeze the slices over the chicken, and throw the slices in there. I wasn't sure if the lemon flavor would be very bright after eight hours of slow cooking, this way it is.

Serve steamed vegetables.

Slow Lemon and Olive Chicken Quinoa
I think because of the tomato, this slow chicken comes out on the liquidy side. A thing you can do is, pour off the liquid into a measuring cup and add enough water to make two cups. Put the liquid in a saucepan with a cup of quinoa, bring to a boil and then simmer for fifteen minutes. Then stir the cooked quinoa back into the chicken.

Don't Look At Me

p: ugh, i need not to ride this bike for two days.

p: my legs are so tired, i can barely move them.

p: like i'm in the back of the pack seeing who needs to be hit, and i'm like "hey you, take care of that."

m: "i'm more of an idea blocker."

p: ha ha. aw.

Reference: "Me Too," Flirt soundtrack

Baked Eggs in Quinoa and Roasted Vegetable Nest

So you get the idea, you can make a nest out of any leftovers. I will not belabor them all. I will tell you that I made some minnesota wild rice soup over break, I added a little extra rice to that to make it less soupy and more nesty, and that was really, really good.

olive oil
leftover quinoa with roasted vegetables
two eggs
Parmesan cheese

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Lightly oil the bottom and sides of a ramekin, and spoon in quinoa and roasted vegetables about half or three quarters up. Make a well in the center and crack in two eggs. Top with Parmesan cheese.

Bake for twenty-five minutes.

Circus Hair

p: i have a complicated hairdo.

m: woooh!

p: does it look yummy?

m: yes.

p: do i look yummy?

m: yes.

p: i try to look as yummy as possible for you.

p: within the context of a snowsuit.

Movement and Muscles at the Hip summary

	flex	extend	abduct	adduct	horiz abduct	horiz adduct	int rotation	ext rotation
ANTERIOR
iliopsoas	X							X
sartorius	X							X
rectus femoris	X
tensor fascia latae	X		X				X
pectineus	X			X		X		X
addictor brevis				X		X
adductor longus				X		X
adductor magnus				X		X
gracilis				X		X
POSTERIOR
gluteus maximus		X	X		X			X
gluteus medius			X		X		X	X
gluteus minimus			X		X		X	X
piriformis					X			X
gemellus superior								X
gemellus inferior								X
obdurator internus								X
obdurator externus					X			X
quadratus femoris								X
biceps femoris		X	X
semimembranosus		X		X			X
semitendinosus		X		X			X

Movement and Muscles at the Hip internal and external rotation

 

What movements happen at this joint?

So for actual rotation of the leg, the leg hangs straight and the ball of the femur turns around like Linda Blair in the socket of the pelvis. Internal rotation is when the leg turns in toward the hip, and external rotation is when the leg turns out away from the hip.

A way to isolate internal and external rotation is to flex your lower leg at the knee and point your knee straight down, then flip your foot out for internal rotation and flip it in for external rotation.

For skaters, you internally rotate your leg for things like plow stops and externally rotate for mohawks and spreadeagles. I have heard "my legs don't do that" from a lot of students. I think it's helpful to think not about freezing your hips in a turned out position, but about how your hips naturally move in and out of that position. That said, I'm pretty flexible at the hips and I might just be talking out of my butt.

What muscles make these movements happen?

  

The anatomy chapter gives as the muscles that internally rotate your leg at the hip your gluteus medius (anterior fibers) and tensor fascia latae, and slightly your semimembranosus and semitendinosus, which is what I have drawn above; however, the kinesiology chapter also gives the adductor brevis, adductor longus, gluteus minimus, and pectineus and also says that from anatomical position, there are no true primary internal hip rotators. As you flex your leg, the above muscles are in a better position to work as internal hip rotators. I dunno. Just from where they're positioned, smaller glutes and tensor fascia latae and adductors all make sense to me.

The muscles that externally rotate your leg at the hip are a lot: anteriorly, your iliopsoas, sartorius, and pectineus and posteriorly you have your glutes plus six external hip rotators: piriformis, gemellus superior, gemellus inferior, obdurator interus, obdurator externus, and quadratus femoris.

What exercises make these muscles work?

Resisted external rotation will work the external rotators.

Cultivate optimism.

Winners have the ability to manufacture their own optimism. No matter what the situation, the successful diva is the chick who will always find a way to put an optimistic spin on it. She knows failure only as an opportunity to grow and learn a new lesson from life. People who think optimistically see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in trying times.

Jacob Sokol, 12 Things Happy People Do Differently

January Diet Quality Card

This is a Thursday, on a Tuesday I would be eating tacos de lengua from Taco Burrito Express for dinner and watching Voyager. Thursday I work and then I have scrimmage.

Did I tell you this already? That I'm trying to cut carbs from breakfast and lunch and put them towards dinner and post-workout snack? Let me tell you something, I believe in carbs. I silently freak out when I hear people aren't eating carbs, silently because believing is not knowing and I'm my father's daughter in almost every regard but not evangelical. But believing is believing, I believe in carbs for derby and worry about people who go without. That said, I don't think I need quite so many carbs.

Basically, in four meals:

• whole wheat bagel and cream cheese for breakfast - so yeah, I have to do something about this. It's really a matter of convenience, I don't love bagels. I just don't know what else. I could trade up to oatmeal, that's still carbs but better carbs than bagels. Greek yogurt would solve everything, but it's too cold for yogurt.
• slow chicken and steamed vegetables for lunch - this is really working for me, I got the idea of eating a bag of Steamfresh frozen vegetables from this story about this nerd girl powerlifter. Though I cannot eat the whole bag of vegetables, which is just as well because I eat half on Tuesday and the other half on Thursday. They're pretty okay for frozen vegetables, and now my vegetable consumption is beyond reproach.
• vegetables though, they fill you up right away and then three hours later you are STARVING. I need something for an afternoon snack. Probably fruit, because I don't eat any fruit. I say this every month. I did start eating fruit salad as a post-yoga snack, I liked that. And I can eat a whole jar of fruit salad, I would be set for fruit if I did that twice a week. If, sigh, blargh.
• quinoa and beans with roasted vegetables - that leaves quinoa for dinner, which I had been dragging my heels about. It was either that I was imagining it was too dry or not enough food, both of which I solved by adding beans to the quinoa.
• ramen with egg, tofu, and peas - which is my attempt to make ramen not so bad. Ha.

But this, in a nutshell, is how I "diet," which is to say, 1) I eat what I want, which might be easier for me because not much of what I want is that bad, and 2) I fix little problems progressively, not everything all at once. Like Coke, fixed. Carbs out of lunch, fixed with steamfresh veggies. Actually carbs out of breakfast, mostly fixed except for these two bagels. I couldn't fix my whole diet, but I can fix these two bagels.

ETA: Fixed! Poached eggs and curried vegetable stew!

Express Gratitude 1

You may have noticed that I am thinking on 12 Things Happy People Do Differently by Jacob Sokol this year, twelve things for twelve months conveniently enough, which is something that I can keep up with, because if you ask me, 1 Thing People Who Write Self-Help Lists Do is write lists with too damn many things, seriously, a list of a thirty or sixty ways to be fitter or happier or more productive does not help me help myself. So actually probably a thing that you could do to be happier is to be happier with fewer things that could make you happier.

Or to be less subjunctive, a thing that you can do to be happy is to be happy with things that make you happy. Which intrinsically means things that you have.

When you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value. Kinda cool right? So basically, being grateful for the goodness that is already evident in your life will bring you a deeper sense of happiness. And that’s without having to go out and buy anything. It makes sense. We’re gonna have a hard time ever being happy if we aren’t thankful for what we already have.

You don't have to stop there, but you do have to start there. Or as I standardly say, you don't have to do anything. Do what you want! I'm just saying and because I'm me, I'm saying it in chart form:

	make you happy	don't make you happy
have	1. be grateful for this	3. get rid of that
don't have	4. then, get this	2. be grateful for this

Do you want to know how you get things that make you happy that you don't have?

Pay attention, that's fourth. Don't skip!

1. Be grateful for things that make you happy that you have.

Is there a difference between being grateful and expressing gratitude, though. If you ask me, there's also an order to this:

1. knowing what you have
2. being grateful for what you have
3. expressing that you're grateful for what you have

I'm taking all the fun out of being grateful, aren't I. Look, I'm not saying that I do everything in a totally linear fashion. I forget the word for when you attack something from all angles, but that's mostly what I do: grab at the whip end of a problem, which isn't just a whip but a cat o' nines. Maybe that's your thing, but try the handle sometime why don't you.

Anyway if you ask me, expressing gratitude like everything else comes in talking the talk and walking the walk forms. So expressing gratitude is partly writing in your journal or posting as your facebook status, I am grateful that the sweetie man has taken out the trash since 2008, but even more I think it's practicing every day like you're grateful for what you have, which is to say knowing what you have, which is what all the charts are for, and knowing what you need, and knowing what you want. And what you don't really need and what you don't really want. And not wanting what you don't really want. And not getting what you don't really want, augh to mindless shopping. All I know is, I get a lot more pleasure lately pruning away stuff that's extraneous to my life and appreciating the four really nice blooms that I've left on the branch.

But you know, maybe I'm just old! Maybe there's a time in your life when you're supposed to be greedily piling up clay on your armature and later you're supposed sculpt, uh apparently, your sculpture of a branch with blooms. I mean, that's what I did. Insofar as I am any kind of role model. How do you know which blooms you don't want if you don't try them—

Bout Day Breakfast Charity Round Robin Tournament

Fried eggs and tomatoes on mashed potatoes and beans with OJ

More bout day breakfasts!

The Showdown Begins

Movement and Muscles at the Hip horizontal abduction and adduction

Horizontal abduction and adduction of the leg at the hip isn't covered in the book, why not! It's so great.

 

What movements happen at this joint?

So it may look like Biggie is abducting her leg in the left pic and flexing her leg in the right pic, except for the telltale blur on the return. Instead she first flexes her leg and then abducts her leg in a horizontal position, which is horizontal abduction. Then she adducts her leg, still in a horizontal position, for horizontal adduction. Not the easiest thing to do standing, which is to say standing on one leg. It takes strength! Balance! Flexibility! If you are lacking in any of these and can't do this without falling over, you can bend your leg at the knee to make your leg weigh less.

Like your shoulder, your hip is a highly mobile ball and socket joint and can "rotate" through flexion, horizontal abduction, abduction, horizontal (backwards) adduction, (backwards) adduction, and extension, which is to say circumduction.

What muscles make these movements happen?

 

The muscles that horizontally abduct your leg at the hip are your gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, piriformis, and obdurator externus, which is to say your glutes and uppermost external rotators. The muscles that horizontally adduct your leg at the hip are your pectineus, adductor brevis, adductor longus, adductor magnus, and gracilis, which is to say your adductors. I am not sure about semimembranosus and semitendinosus, which are involved in adduction according to the book; but my info for horizontal abduction and adduction is pieced together from the internet, so take with salt.

What exercises make these muscles work?

Exercises for the external rotators will be given in the next post.

Pomodoro Workout stairs

Can I tell you something really stupid about myself? Of course, that's what this blog is for. For the past year I've been working on the fourth floor of the Marquette Building, I take the Blue Line to work which drops me off right underneath the building and I've been running the stairs up to street level to make up for knowing that I will never ride my bike to work again as long as public transportation is this convenient. And for the past year, I've been bemoaning that the door at the top of the grand marble staircase that goes up from the lobby to the second floor is locked on the outside. You can go out that door, but not in. Because that would be a perfect little morning workout, wouldn't it? Up two flights of stairs from the subway to the street, and up four flights of stairs to the office. At the end of the day, I do go down the stairs from the fourth floor to the lobby; but that's not a workout, I'm just too impatient to wait for an elevator.

It never occurred to me, for a year, that the stairs that go down from the fourth floor to the lobby... go up to the top of the building.

Until I started these pomodoro workouts. I'm such a Pavlov's dog, that bell goes off and I really feel like I should do a little something something; but I'm too self conscious to do, like, situps in the office. I work with economists, they've started playing chess on their breaks. I liked the year that we had the pushup contest, I kicked ass at pushups.

So what do you know, those stairs go up from four to, I think, sixteen. I don't know for sure because I made it up to fourteen and I was breathing so loud I was too embarrassed to keep going up.

So that's ten floors, right?

So based on the formula in How to Get a Complete Workout with Nothing But Your Body but totally changed to suit my own nefarious purposes, I have calculated my workout as follows:

1. Run up as many floors as you can. Skip steps in between if you can (not). Stop when you're so tired you can't climb another floor.
2. Take the total number of floors and halve it. So, ten floors halved is five.
3. Ta da, your stair workout is: run up 5 floors of stairs then down, then up 4 floors and down, 3 floors and down, 2 floors and down, and 1 floor and down. I don't know if I'm doing it wrong, but going down is recovery for me so I like to break it up.
4. So as not to demotivate myself from escalating, ha ha, this workout, I will keep this at five sets, so next up will be 6 floors up and down, 5 floors, 4 floors, 3 floors, and finish with 2 floors. Etc.

Huntress boots, unfortunately, are not ideal for running stairs, I keep tripping on the toes. Unintentional burpees, I guess. I need a pair of, like, slip on running shoes...

You may be doing the math and thinking to yourself, twenty-five minutes of work plus five minutes of break in an eight hour workday, minus lunch, is fourteen pomodoros, Poppy, are you running up and down ten floors fourteen times a day?? The answer to which is, HA. Man if I were solidly working through an eight hour workday, I wouldn't need pomodoros. Right now I feel pretty good if I do two good pomodoros, the rest of the time I nibble away the time in my usual "SQUIRREL!" style. I'm working on getting better, but I will not be running 1400 floors twice a week anytime soon. I will get unselfconscious about situps well before that becomes a possibility.

ETA: Also woah, hello calf muscles, probably best to alternate stair runs with stair stretches, as it happens, stairs are great for calf stretches.

ETA: And also I have to keep in mind that I designed these pomodoro workouts during league break, when I had energy to burn. I am finally walking the walk when it comes to recovery, I don't want that to come undone.

Brought to You by Urban Folk Circuit

The Urban Folk Circuit is a simple practice:: we bring an old-fashioned awareness to a hip, urban market. We exist to support local livelihoods and reconnect mindful buyers to modern handmakers.

The Urban Folk Circuit, Chicago’s only traveling year-round craft-market series, debuted in October 2010 as a means to promote fellow local artisans, musicians, and neighborhood establishments in a way that is sustainable and beneficial to all.

Movement and Muscles at the Hip abduction and adduction

More meat leg demystified!

 

What movements happen at this joint?

So abduction at the hip is when you move your leg away from the midline of your body, and adduction is when you move it back to midline of your body, and hyperadduction is when you move it past the midline of the body.

What muscles make these movements happen?

 

Your hip abductors are gluteus maximus, below that gluteus medius, and below that gluteus miniums, and also tensor fascia latae and the big hamstring biceps femoris. These muscles contract and pull the top of your leg in, so the rest of your leg swings out; the glutes are the primary abductors, with the tensor fascia latae assisting.

Your hip adductors basically your inner thigh muscles starting with pectineus, then adductor brevis, adductor longus, adductor magnus, and gracilis. These muscles, obviously, contract and pull your leg back in.

What exercises make these muscles work?

Same exercises for the abductors for abduction as for extension. Side leg raises work gluteus medius and minimus, and so does walking and running.

Side bottom leg raises work the adductors, and so does resisted adduction with a band. But what you can already tell from the picture is, your adductors are what you use to pull under your inside leg for crossovers.

Winter Pastime Outerwear

Snowsuit, again, for pastime wear. Having a snowsuit, to me, means never having to think of what to wear all winter. I just wear the damn snowsuit. For Ska's wedding remix, I wore it with a black longsleeved t-shirt, pearls, and an up do. For Juanna's NYE smoked meat party, green longsleeved t-shirt and stringy neckwarmers (TK!) of many colors. For Fury brunch, orange Fury tank top. I have leggings underneath. I love sitting around like an old farmer in my overall bib and shirt sleeves at parties.

Same outerwear as fall, black WCR dickies jacket, and these are my blue gloves for winter to go with, and look, Viral's grandmother is knitting Fury scarves for the whole team, mine says CAPT THE FURY. I still think that WCR hat is too many logos, but it matches nicely with my new gloves, so—

Baked Eggs in Curried Vegetable Nest

So I'm developing a food chart in my book of charts, really a food rotation, by season, and when I have it and my fashion chart perfectly worked out, well, I was going to say that I can stop writing this blog because I will be totally set with what to eat and what to wear all year round, but if I actually do get that worked out, there's other charts I can work on, like I've always wanted a chart for my bathroom.

What.

Look at these delicious eggs!!

I had it in my head that it would be baked eggs for winter, I looked up some recipes and figured out that the basic formula is a veg + bechamel sauce + egg + cheese all the while knowing that I was never going to get all that together first thing in the AM. This was only going to happen if I used something already cooked and on hand—i.e., leftovers—e.g., curried veg stew, which is in rotation for winter lunches.

olive oil
leftover curried veg stew
two eggs
Parmesan cheese

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Lightly oil the bottom and sides of a ramekin, and spoon in curried veg stew about half or three quarters up. Make a well in the center and crack in two eggs. Top with Parmesan cheese.

Bake for twenty-five minutes.

Bout Day Breakfast The Fury vs The Warning Belles at Naptown

Slow chicken with lemon and olives, brown rice, fried egg & OJ

More bout day breakfasts!

Movement and Muscles at the Hip flexion and extension

Now we're talking business, this is what we're talking about when we talk about MEAT LEGS. I've talked about my quads and my glutes and my hamstrings with the best of them, honestly though with just the vaguest notion of the actual muscles that these magic words invoke. I have been looking forward to being demystified.

 

What movements happen at this joint?

Flexion is when the angle between the femur and the ilium is decreased by moving them toward each other, and extension is when the angle is increased by moving them away from each other. So at the shoulder it's the angle between the humerus and the scapula; this was so confusing to me when I started studying motion at the joints, and now it seems obvious. Progress! But anyway, flexion at the hip is bringing your thigh forward and extension is bringing it back. In the picture above, Biggie is actually hyperextending her thigh past neutral.

What muscles make these movements happen?

 

I have never known what people were talking about when they said "hip flexors," now behold the man behind the curtain. The muscles that flex your thigh are your iliopsoas, which is actually made up of the psoas major, psoas minor, and iliacus, sartorius, the "tailor's muscle" that stretches from your pelvis all the way to your tibia and is the muscle that allows you to sit crosslegged, rectus femoris, one of the four muscles that you probably refer to as your "quad," tensor fascia latae, a short muscle at the side of your hip that attaches to the long iliotibial ligament a.k.a. "IT band" that also stretches from pelvis to your tibia, and pectineus, which is more commonly grouped with the hip adductors.

The muscles that extend and hyperextend your thigh are your gluteus maximus, the largest and closest to the surface of your three gluteal muscles, and your three "hamstrings," biceps femoris, semimembranosus, and semitendinosus.

And it all makes sense, right? The flexors are anterior muscles, they contract and pull your thigh forward; the extensors are posterior muscles, they contract and pull your thigh back.

What exercises make these muscles work?

Straight leg situps, high knee running, leg raises, and hanging leg raises work iliopsoas; my iliopsoas is pretty weak, I hate high knees but am getting better at them. Knee raises (lifts) with hip external rotation work sartorius, which is also involved in hip external rotation and knee flexion. Squats, leg presses and also running and jumping rope work rectus femoris. Hanging knee raises, side leg raises, and running work tensor fascia latae. Hanging knee raises, side bottom leg raises, and resisted external rotation work pectineus.

An interesting note about straight leg situps and leg raises: because the psoas muscles are short, they exert a lot of force in lifting the trunk or legs and most people do not have strong enough abdominal muscles to counteract this force and keep the spine in a neutral position. You can feel this when you're doing these exercises and your spine pulls off the ground; you should only do these exercises to the extent that you can keep your spine printed on the ground, to protect your spine and lower back muscles. Pull down with your abdominal muscles to strengthen them.

Squats, plyos, and also cycling, stair climbing, and jumping rope work gluteus maximus. Cycling also works hamstrings, as do hamstring curls.

Hamstrings are the primary movers in low-intensity activities such as walking, whereas glutes are the primary movers in high-intensity activities such as sprinting and stair climbing. Also at least 90 degrees of hip flexion is a guideline for activating the glutes.

The more I write up these exercises, the more I would not organize exercises like this. I would never think about working myself out muscle by muscle, I would do it by groups or by movement or I would train to be a champion jumproper and might want to know what muscles were involved. I have to know these for the test, though.

Pomodoro Workout kettlebell

So let's start with the easiest workout, by which I mean the easiest to post because there's this video:

But also it's not too hard of a workout, very basic. You don't have to know how to clean, which I don't have the hang of quite yet.

The only thing I do different is alternating dippers—whoop, these are called single leg deadlifts—instead of the pushup position hold a.k.a. plank for that third exercise. Not that planks aren't excellent, I have a floor series where I do all sorts of planks though. Single leg deadlifts are more in line with the rest of this workout, which to my mind is about dynamic core strength.

To do single leg deadlifts:

   

1. Stand straight with the kettlebell in front of, say, your left foot.
2. Bend forward and grab the kettlebell with your right hand.
3. Stand up.
4. Bend forward and set the kettlebell down in front of your left foot.

Then stand up and slightly adjust your position so that the kettlebell is in front of your right foot, and repeat on the other side.

I started with my 20# kettlebell for all this workout, and it was totally right to get a thirty pounder as a ninth present. I wasn't sure that I could manage thirty pounds for the halos with my little T-Rex arms, but it just takes more focus. Which is all good, for the whole workout. I'm finding that using the heaviest weight that I can possibly manage makes sure that I don't cheat—i.e., compensate with my dominant muscles; if low belly doesn't join in, that kettlebell is not getting off the ground and that's that.

If you want to do this as a proper workout, do three complete sets back to back. I do one set as a pomodoro break, probably 3-5 sets in any given afternoon.

Bones of the Hip

What bones are at this joint?

The bones at the hip are the three bones of the pelvic girdle, ilium, ischium, and pubis, and the femur, the head of which fits into a cup-shaped space on the pelvis called the acetabulum.

Please excuse, Mr. Skeleton's pelvis is still not quite right with regard to the three pelvic bones, the ilium is the flat piece of bone up there and the ischium is the outside bottom and the pubis is the inside top of that looped bit underneath.

What type of joint is this?

This acetabulofemoral joint is a synovial ball and socket joint.

What body part moves this joint?

I'm gonna say that the meat that does the work at your hip joint is your hip and your butt, since most of the muscles that work at the hip originate from the pelvis.

What body part is moved at this joint?

So we are talking about is how muscles in your hip and butt move your upper leg or thigh at the hip.

Winter Play Outerwear

Look here's me fronting like I waited for it to snow to start wearing my snowsuit, everybody is so sick of me in this snowsuit already and it's only January. I will be wearing this through March, bitches. I am warm for the first time in my life.

Underneath is just play wear, which is in a state of dire emergency. I finally biked to Target to replenish my leggings and they are out of stock in my size, in store and on line. No, that's not true. They had one medium pair in BLACK SNAKESKIN, holla, those are going to be my bout leggings. At least I will not be skating in rags in public. And I also picked up two new work skirts, so I'm covered, ba ha, at work. What am I talking about, what lies beneath the snowsuit. Play wear, WCR track jacket as a sort of waistcoat, snowsuit, Buffy hoody, Fury track jacket.

For biking in winter, black knit gloves under my orange paws. Usually no hat, just my bandana and bike helmet. But it was cold getting my picture taken. No scarf, because the track jacket zips up and the hoody and the other track jacket.

And new snow boots! They're Lands End snow trekker boots; they were on sale, they're perfect with my snowsuit (also from Lands End), and they complete my winter shoe collection. Better shoe pics TK.

Moment of silence for my old snow boots, which I had for well over ten years and the soles still look like new, but I mended the uppers last winter and they wouldn't be mended again. Be not afraid old boots, I am going to make you into glitter boots.

P is for Pomodoro

Here is pomodoro in use in its Bonne Maman cone of silence. Or at least it takes the edge off when the timer rings and I'm immersed in my work. I can still hear it ticking in there, though.

So I have an idea for an alphabet book, except it's all words that start with P. What, it's my favorite letter! Not that you want to be the kid whose initials are pee pee. I own it now, though. Yeah. I seriously have a thing for things that start with the letter P, do you want to see my list?

* Persephone
* pigs
* especially pigasuses
* poppies

And now:

* pomodoros

In other words, I was destined for pomodoro technique. You can read about the actual pomodoro technique here, the entire book is available as a free download. I only do the basics of pomodoro technique: set a timer for 25 minutes, work until the timer rings, take a 5 min break, repeat 3x then take a 30 min break. Ish. I don't always take the breaks. Getting started is what I have a problem with, the pomodoro is great for that. Once I'm in though, I don't want to come out; so sometimes, I just reset the pomodoro for another 25 minutes. The book says not to, but I do.

I started out using Timerrr but do you know, I think timerrr only rings the first time it's set. I dunno, I feel like it wasn't reliable. Having an actual tomato timer works for me: it's cute, and it ticks. It was cheap, too. It checks out with me that winding up the timer is like winding myself up to work, ticking means that I'm working.

Every other pomodoro or so, I do take a break for a little workout. I call these my pomodoro workouts. Little means little, five minute workouts—TK.

Lemonade limonata

My favorite thing to drink at Feed is to mix their sweet tea with their lemonade, so this is the lemonade part. You can also mix it with seltzer water to make limonata, which is also good.

1 quart water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup lemon juice

Put the sugar into a saucepan with the water and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, stir in the lemon juice and let cool. Pour into a pitcher and keep in the refrigerator.

To serve, fill a glass mostly with water and top off with lemonade, or sweet tea and lemonade, to taste, or top off a glass of seltzer water for limonata.

Movement and Muscles at the Trunk summary

	flexion	extension	lateral flexion	rotation
rectus abdominis	X		X
external oblique	X		X	X
internal oblique	X		X	X
tranverse abdominis	compresses abdomen and stabilizes spine
erector spinae		X
multifidi		X	X	X

Movement and Muscles at the Trunk rotation

 

What movements happen at this joint?

Rotation happens at the trunk when you turn your trunk to one side or the other in the transverse plane.

What muscles make these movements happen?

Your external and internal obliques rotate your trunk. Contracting either external oblique produces contralateral rotation—i.e., contracting your right external oblique rotates your trunk to the left. Contracting either internal oblique produces ipsilateral rotation—i.e., contracting your right internal oblique rotates your trunk to the right.

What exercises make these muscles work?

Twisting ab exercises like bicycles and russian twists target the obliques.

Winter Hobby Wear mending

Welp, these old sweatpants will last another season. Whaaat, I tried to buy new sweatpants. I did, honestly! I can't help it that I grew out of them in like three months, I had to cut them down to shorts and made the legs into hats.

I'm not going to tell you that mending isn't a total pain, it totally is. In fact I only mended the one pair of sweats last winter because I ran right out of patience, and actually that's when I decided, hello, it would be a lot easier to just buy new sweatpants. It isn't, though. I guess I don't shop enough though to get that everything that you want in your head isn't just waiting in the store for you to pick it up. I mean, I get this about people. That people exist as separate beings and not as a part of myself, which is from Iris Murdoch's Under The Net, and which gives me a sense of initiative that is perhaps one of the guises of love. I might have more initiative to shop if I understood this about shopping, but I don't. I'm always frustrated. Or if not always, often enough.

So I mend. My mom taught me how to machine mend, you put a bit of cloth behind the hole and smooth it all out. Then you sew all over with whatever darning stitch your machine has. Then you trim the cloth close to where it's sewn and sew all over the edges on the back.