Spinning is a relatively new activity which you can find in most sports, health and fitness clubs, whereby a room full of participants complete a ‘journey’ on a purpose-built, static exercise bike, typically for an hour, and led by an instructor.

As would be expected, an hour’s cycling on an exercise bike provides a good work out, and plenty of benefits for cardiovascular strength, muscle strength, etc.

As a wonderful bonus, however, Spinning facilitates heightened insights into our body’s interaction with resistance.

When we do any form of physical activity, be it canoeing, cycling, running, we generally have a certain degree of physical resistance which may make this work harder or easier. Paddling upstream, for example, provides more resistance than paddling downstream.

The intrigue of Spinning is that each participant has a control lever on their bike with which they can directly determine the level of resistance they endure.

They can thus change their workload to make it harder or easier by however many degrees they wish as and when they wish – every second if desired.

I have found that as soon as one takes up Spinning this opportunity to manipulate the workload ‘at will’ immediately begins to develop ones ability to sense whether the body wishes to do a bit more or a bit less. From this, the overall ability to listen to the body is further mastered and these insights of resistance ‘management’ can be taken into other areas.

Furthermore, the opportunity to take water on board at any moment and in any quantity provides another angle to developing the ability to listen to the body. All the time whilst cycling, I am paying attention to my body and deciding whether to go faster or slower, with more resistance or less, and whether, how much and when to drink water.

So in addition to getting a workout, I also get a self-mastery class in hearing the body in various ways.

After having spent a term participating in Spinning on a weekly basis, I found that I had honed my ability to constantly measure and vary my workrate to a very useful and efficient degree. This also made (all) exercise even more enjoyable.

It also meant that I had an understanding and insight which I was able to take into other activites. I applied the same ‘listening to the required resistance’ process to road running, using the hills as an extra element of resistance. An up hill section means more resistance, so I learned to reduce this uphill resistance by running slower, or even walking if need be.

When I say ‘measure’, I am not talking about recording digital numbers here, or specific measurements of weights. Merely, a very personal and perceived rate of work and effort. So, as I go along, I am simply saying to myself all the while “Do I need or wish to slow down or speed up here? Or maybe reduce the resistance while I get my breath back, or increase it now that I have.”

I have found this all to be a very empowering and useful experience, and invite you all to play around with your relationship with physical resistance in the activities you do.

Kind regards and best wishes,

James Blacker

I also ask how enzymes are relevant to energy and growth.

Here is the full transcript of the question, and David’s response…

Hi David,

Can you tell us please, whilst calories are energy, as we all know, why is it that the amount of literal physical energy a person has is different, as in if you imagine a person who is clinically obese from consuming many thousands of calories of ‘energy’ a day, the opposite is true in terms of how ‘energetic’ they are lifestyle wise?

So in order to have energy, I guess we need to consume calories, which provide this, but is there also some kind of balance, or other issue? How also are enzymes relevant to energy and growth? I understand these can be found in raw foods?

James, your query had its own answer inbuilt. To quote you: a “clinically obese” person would be carrying more weight than average and therefore need much more energy to get through the day.

There is a measure called the Basal Metabolic Rate which indicates the amount of calories needed for a given weight simply to keep breathing, eat, excrete, pump the blood around the body and all the other autonomous activity we need to survive. Obviously that increases as the body mass increases.

So yes we need to keep that in balance and to offset the total calorie intake not only against BMR but also the demand of our lifestyle e.g sedentary, active or very active.

Enzymes are complex protein molecules linked to a non-protein cofactor that might be either a metal ion (iron, magnesium etc) or an organic molecule. These (enzymes) act as catalysts for all biochemical processes in the body, speeding them up.

They usually end in the suffix ase and are grouped according to the function they assist e.g oxidases add oxygen; lipases breakdown lipids. This takes place at the cellular level – so the very foundation of activity.

Perhaps the most obvious example of enzyme activity is in the digestive system where the component parts of our food are broken down for absorbtion by the body in the presence of enzymes.

They are a prerequisite to health and can be found in a variety of foods, but as you intimate, mostly phyto chemicals i.e. plant foodstuffs.

Related Pages

• Postbag: Ask your own questions of David

It turned up some useful distinctions which visitors to Strength for Life may find very useful.

The transcript of both question and reply are below.

Hi David,

From our recording on Happiness I remember you using the word interdependence (or similar); if I remember correctly you used the phrase ‘…and we need each other’ (’these three things; we are unique, yet we’re all the same… and we need each other’ if memory serves correctly).

I wondered if you had any personal thoughs or philosophies on this (interdependence) instead of, or rather presumably as well as, independence.

Hi James,

I can appreciate that the concepts of ‘independence’ and ‘interdependence’ sound contradictory, but let me explain my thinking on this.

We were talking in the context of happiness and my belief is that it starts with Self. If we don’t value ourselves, if we don’t have self-esteem then we can never be happy.

That is not the same as “being selfish” or “self centred” in the common view. It is about understanding ourselves and therefore having a firm base on which to then value the world around us.

So we start with independence – a self evaluating view of Self – irrespective of the aims ambitions prejudices of other people – the over-bearing father, the needy mother, girlfriend/boyfriend etc.

But if that world around us is to have real value then we must also understand our role and our value to those other people. We are social beings, we exist in a society (in fact several societies – work, family, leisure, professional etc) and we have to know and importantly appreciate our standing in those societies.

Other people have the unlimited capacity to add a richness to our lives as we have to theirs. This is what I mean by Interdependence.

So we start with Self and then move on to Self in relation to Others. And that is the key to greater happiness.

Hope this helps and/or stimulates some thought.

Related Pages

• Postbag: Ask your own questions of David

I recently gave David a copy of Peter Ragnar’s book, ‘How Long Do You Choose To Live’. In it, Ragnar explains that his philosophy of a maximised lifespan, healthspan and pursuit of lifelong formidable strength is a ‘work in progress’ – he openly acknowledges that he doesn’t know how long he’ll live for, but that is the point, that if we ‘maximise everything it is that we have’, we’ll find out!

The premise Ragnar offers is that if you seek to remove all negativities from your body, if you seek to remove all negativities from your mind, then you get to see what, where and how far a human life can take you. And that is what a maximised approach to longevity looks like. Nothing more complex than that.

What might be a good starting point for achieving that? Observing, stalking and removing any negative beliefs we find we have and replacing them with positive, natural, empowering one’s is a great place to start. It’s something I’m doing all the time, probably shifting and improving at least 20 negative beliefs a day. It comes with practice of self-awareness and self-observation.

Until next time,

Kind regards,

James

Related Pages

• Living in the Moment
• Removing the Artifical Barriers
• Aging Truths
• An Inner Knowledge of Potential
• Hearing the Body
• View all Articles

Looking back at the first ever blog I wrote for it, it’s a reminder that it has been three years since we first started, so much so that we’ve posted that original blog message below, just to remind us (and you) how long it can take for a top quality offering to find full voice and a large-scale audience. Three years for progress must be something of a nature’s theme for SfL, as the blog also reminds us that it took three years after the initial Strength for Life recording (in 2002 – and ‘Happiness‘ was recorded in 2004) before we were ready with a web presence of any kind. I wonder where we’ll all be in another three years…

We are both thrilled that it is now possible to share the Strength for Life message (amongst others) with you on a greater scale, as part of something that can add tremendous value to all, socially, individually and collectively. We are pleased to be presenting our SfL teachings alongside all the other colleagues who are doing such stirling things through their own teachings. We’re delighted and hugely excited to be working alongside them, and you.

Here’s the first ever posting we started it all off with…

James Blacker, 29th July, 2009.

SfL Website Launched

(Originally posted 30th August, 2005)

Three years in the making, and after a concentrated last twelve months, David and James are delighted to be able to launch the website for the Strength for Life initiative, which looks set to plug many of the gaps left by modern life and inspire renewed ways of thinking and living.

The project brings together people from all walks of life and converges around the message of maximising the resources of life; whatever it is you have, and presents a high level of quality expertise and insight surrounding the concepts of re-discovering and developing the innate skill of listening to the body, removing the artificial barriers of aging, being true to oneself, enjoying the time we have, and exploring and embracing our human potential.

Using audio mp3 files, and supported by written articles, we are able to present information in a such a way that it can be much more easily understood and embraced, and also enjoyed. Covering a wide range of subject areas from aging, vitality and physical strength, to happiness, inner strength, self-belief, confidence, and personal fulfillment, Strength for Life provides a comprehensive and approachable philosophy for improving the collective quality of life in all areas.

Strength for life also has a team message; that we can all be, do and achieve more when we work together. Thusly, the feel of the website and of the movement is very much one of being a mutually supportive and all-inclusive group.

Everyone is welcome and indeed warmly invited to enjoy, expand, share and experience the Strength for Life programme as often and howsoever they wish.

Related Pages

• David Heard
• James Blacker

In a recent exchange, David answered the question ‘what, if anything, had he observed about the wisdom, or evidence of the benefit of developing and mastering the ability for stillness and deep relaxation as a counterweight to developing fitness and capacity for high activity for ADL (Activities for Daily Living)?’

I also asked David, ‘Would you say that the extent to which you can develop and deepen the one (either relaxed stillness or high, dynamic physical activity) enhances and influences our capacity to develop and strengthen the other? His answer is below.

Hi James,

What a good question. But it presupposes that ’stillness’ and ‘deep relaxation’ are separate components of life and not related to exercise. On the contrary I would contend that in order to exercise most effectively and efficiently you will be employing both those aspects.

Sounds like a contradiction, but relaxation is NOT a passive state. We work at being relaxed. In other words we have to allow the mind to take control of the body and putting a muscle into a relaxed state is as much an ‘activity’ as putting that same muscle into a state of extreme effort.

Indeed when we are exercising at the top level we look for the ability to isolate the working muscle and save energy by relaxing all non-involved muscles.

How often have you seen someone in a gym doing leg extensions with a tight neck, grimacing face and bulging arms as they hold on to the seat. So not only are the legs working hard, but the rest of the body as well. All unneccesary and all burning good energy. If you can isolate the muscles (in this case the quads) and let them do the work, then you will be in total harmony with the exercise. Part relaxed and part tensed.

Look at top quality sprinters: the legs are working to max capacity the arms are driving BUT the face and the shoulders and the hands are relaxed. Perfect harmony. Not easy to achieve, but demonstrably possible.

And finally in martial arts there is a great emphasis on working with relaxed muscles that only ’switch-on’ at the point of contact.

A good question with loads of corollary implications.

Hope this helps explain.

Thanks

David

P.s. For the perfect combination think of the traditional biathlon – a combination of the highest demand aerobic sport, cross-country skiing, with the stillness of target shooting. The elite athletes have to switch almost instantly from massive intensity and heartbeats up in the 170’s, to complete calm, bringing that heartbeat down to 80’s and then shoot in between heartbeats.

Of course, this website is also about coaching, simply through an alternative medium.

Strength for Life is an innovative new programme, founded to help guide us toward the greater strengths we are looking for in our lives, from physical vitality and strength, to the financial and the vocational, and in terms of the fulfillment we experience socially, emotionally, and in our souls and our spirit.

David named the initiative ‘Strength for Life’ following our first recorded interview on the subject of aging & physical strength in 2002.

Since then we have both been keen to extend the full concept of “strength” for all areas of life, and this is consistent with our awareness of the growing challenges facing people today, and the demand for a more spiritual and fulfilling relationship with life. This culminated with our recording of the ‘Happiness’ double audio CD presentation in 2004.

Through this website you will be able to access many of Strength for Life’s various features and facilities.

You can listen to many audio clips from our various CD’s, which are also available for purchase in their entirety. You can chat with others on the Strength for Life board of the Champions Club Forum, of course. And you can even ask David a question of your own via our new ‘Postbag’ feature.

And, of course, you can check back here every so often as you wish to read and review the latest articles, features and blog postings.

May your light shine.

Best wishes,

James Blacker,
Founder of Papillon Human Potential
and Co-founder, Strength for Life