Backstory: Flying Over I-40 N. With Fitbit Step Challenge.
Tag: Exercise
No Dog. No Walks.
Dog walking is a popular everyday physical activity. Dog owners are generally more active than non-owners, but some rarely walk with their dog. The strength of the dog–owner relationship is known to be correlated with dog walking, and this qualitative study investigates why. Twenty-six interviews were combined with autoethnography of dog walking experiences. Dog walking was constructed as “for the dog”, however, owners represented their dog’s needs in a way which aligned with their own. Central to the construction of need was perceptions of dog personality and behaviour. Owners reported deriving positive outcomes from dog walking, most notably, feelings of “happiness”, but these were “contingent” on the perception that their dogs were enjoying the experience. Owner physical activity and social interaction were secondary bonuses but rarely motivating. Perceptions and beliefs of owners about dog walking were continually negotiated, depending on how the needs of the owner and dog were constructed at that time. Complex social interactions with the “significant other” of a pet can strongly motivate human health behaviour. Potential interventions to promote dog walking need to account for this complexity and the effect of the dog-owner relationship on owner mental wellbeing.
~ Carri Westgarth, abstract from I Walk My Dog Because It Makes Me Happy: A Qualitative Study to Understand Why Dogs Motivate Walking and Improved Health (mdpi.com, August 19, 2017)
Notes:
- Inspired by our Zeke, and his passing one year ago today. (9/5/16) His photo above.
- Related Posts: Zeke
Bike Ride Anyone?
A thesis could be written on the rigours of the Tour de France, but Poljanski’s photo, showing legs riven with veins that look poised to burst and skin frazzled by the sun, says it all.
“After sixteen stages I think my legs look little tired,” the cyclist wrote on Instagram alongside the picture.
Dr Bradley Launikonis, from the University of Queensland’s School of Biomedical Science, explained what happens to the legs during long-distance cycling. “The amount of blood that we get normally going down to our legs is five litres per minute, for anyone at rest. For an untrained athlete, their maximum exercise will have 20 litres per minute flowing through the muscles.”
The 27-year-old Polish cyclist, who rides for Bora–Hansgrohe, is currently 75th in the general classification, after finishing 66th in the 16th stage between Le Puy-en-Velay and Romans-sur-Isere.
~ Chris Graham, ‘That can’t be healthy’: Polish cyclist Pawel Poljanski’s photo reveals the ravages of Tour de France (The Guardian, July 19, 2017)
Source: Photo – Pawel Poljanski via Your Eyes Blaze Out. Quote: The Guardian:
Bones to me
Forget Calories. Go for Awe.
Excerpts from Julia Baird’s Forget Calories. Exercise for Awe. (May 6, 2017, NY Times):
If you joined the hundreds of people in my swim squad, you might think at first that the routine was simply about getting a solid bout of exercise before the day begins…The caps we wear are bright pink. The name we call ourselves, the Bold and Beautiful, is also quite daft, but it’s a reminder that the squad was formed several years ago by middle-aged women who were too nervous to swim the distance alone. This morning swim was never about skill, but about pluck.
Most days, at some spot along the mile-long route, heads will cluster, arms pointing down under the water at enormous blue groupers, white dolphins, color-changing cuttlefish, wobbegongs (bearded sharks), and even tiny turtles and sea horses. One summer, a white dolphin frequently appeared. At this time every year, gangs of young dusky whaler sharks swarm the bay, several feet beneath us, migrating only after they have already become large enough to make people nervous. There’s a reason a collective term for sharks is a shiver.
It’s not always sheer delight. Sometimes we emerge with red welts from stingers (usually jellyfish) across faces and limbs, and have to battle thickets of seaweed, powerful currents and crashing waves. But the daily difference in conditions is part of what makes it thrilling. One day, a whale glided into the bay and played with the swimmers for an hour — though I refuse to talk about it because I wasn’t there…My atheist friends who were there described it as like a prayer or quasi-religious experience; their faces turned solemn at the recollection… Continue reading “Forget Calories. Go for Awe.”