Physical skill acquisition lessens depression and fatigue
Physical activity is known to reduce depression and fatigue in people struggling with chronic illness. A new study indicates that this effect may stem from an individual’s sense of mastery over — or belief in his or her ability to achieve — certain physical goals.
Says the lead researcher, “The relationship between physical activity and reductions in fatigue in breast-cancer survivors and people with MS can be explained in part by the effect of physical activity on mastery experiences… That sense of accomplishment, or situation-specific self-confidence, serves to reduce depression, which in turn reduces fatigue.”
The lesson: Pursue skill and productive self-mastery through activity, not an abstract “perfection” or “fixing yourself”.
Sports Medicine Open Courseware
Lurn at home — E-zy!
FutureMedica has published “25 Free Open Courseware Classes About Sports Medicine”. If you’re a self-schooling go-getter type, check it out and lurn yrself good!
Can home surgery be far behind?
*grabs hacksaw, old rags, bottle of JD, and biting stick*
Creatine and depression
Interesting study recently from the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. (What? You didn’t see the latest issue on newsstands?! The one with Lindsay Lohan on the cover? Har.)
Anyway, this study in rats suggests that creatine, a supplement commonly used to enhance athletic performance, may have some effects on mood… but only in females…
Is bottled water really that bad? Yes
Check out the infographic here.
Folks, if you can drink your tap water, do so.
I’ve currently got a very stylish system of old glass milk bottles and tall jars for my water drinking habit. Fancy!
Chilean weightlifter has unexpected baby during training
Just when you think you’ve heard it all…
Chilean Olympic weightlifter Elizabeth Poblete has given birth to a baby boy during a training session, without having known she was pregnant.
Well, ladies, now you have something else to worry about besides “getting too big” from weight lifting: surprise birth. This is the best part for me:
The head trainer at the gym, Horacio Reis, said the birth had been “a surprise”. “A week ago I acted as a judge in a competition in Chile and this girl was competing. All went well and she won the competition.”
Wins a weightlifting competition a week before giving birth. Much respect.
Is this irony? EAS and Play Clean
“Poignantly contrary to what was expected or implied”? Yeah, I’d say so.
Many eons ago, when old Mistress K was young, there was a magical playground for foulmouthed muscle heads called misc.fitness.weights. In this fantastical land, the iron-lovers with enough technical skill to use this new series of interconnected computers (the “Inter-Net”) could speak to one another, usually in profanities and allusions about various people’s mothers…
I’m an official bitch!!
Hooray! Stumptuous.com is in Bitch magazine — an awesome interview with me by Yael Grauer. Check it out! It’s not listed in the table of contents, but it IS there. I get to say that women’s magazine workouts are “100% useless bullshit” in print! Suck on that, Conde Nast!
The Stumptuous Eats project
Gentle readers: I am hunkering down to put my crazy culinary ideas to paper. (Or, truthfully, ideas to electrons.)
Tell me: What do you want to see in a Stumptuous cookbook?
Any and all ideas will be entertained. Hit me with the comments or email me directly at mistresskrista [at] stumptuous [dot] com.
I’ll put out a call for recipe testers soon.
Higher BMI and risk of death in sumo wrestlers
We’ve looked at BMI and risk of death/morbidity in heavyweight NFL players; here’s a study released yesterday that examines the same issue in sumo wrestlers.
Artificial sweeteners not a “get out of bad habits free” card
An interesting piece in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association raises one of the concerns that I’ve long had about artificial sweeteners: that calories alone are not the only problem with sweet tastes.