2 June 2010 (am)

Workout notes am: lifting and ab work. The lifting:
arm bike: 2 minutes
rotator cuff: both sides, slow this time.
pull ups: 3 sets of 10
chin ups: 2 sets of 10
Rows: 10 x 115, 7 x 135, 7 x 135 Smith Machine
Rows: 7 x 95, 7 x 95 (free)
Pull downs: (rotator cuff friendly bar) 7 x 160, 7 x 160, 10 x 140
military press (dumbbell): 10 x 45, 10 x 45, 8 x 50
incline bench press: 10 x 135, 10 x 135
Squats: 2 sets of 15 x 135 (Smith Machine)
Extensions: 2 sets of 10 x 130
Leg Curls: 2 sets of 10 x ???(forgot)
toe raises: 2 sets of 20 x 70, 2 sets of 10 x 130
glute push backs: 2 sets of 10 x 130
leg raises: hanging, 2 sets of 10 (first set: got them up there)
twists: 2 sets of 10 x 130
crunches: 2 sets of 20 (vertical)
The shoulder felt fine, though I iced it anyway.

This evening: 5 miles with the group or on my own (treadmill) if lighting cancels the group workout.

Fun:
I still have incentive to get out to the races, even if I don’t walk my best:

In all honesty check this out:

Now look at me:

(Yes, I had a torn meniscus at this time). See how my rear leg “bends” prematurely? At this time, pushing back with a straight leg is painful. I am legal in this photo, but inefficient.

(hat tip: Tammy)

More fun
I am so glad that I am not in the world of dating:

Political humor
Alabama just had a primary election (as did other states). Can you tell which ads are real?

(answer: 1 and 3 are genuine ads; to see the results of the primary, surf here)

Social: I wonder how many middle aged women feel this way? Personally, I know that I don’t attract younger women and that doesn’t bother me. I am bothered a bit by my physical weakness and my slowing mind.
Were I to be thrust onto the dating scene, I’d be more interested in women in the 40-60′ish year old range.

Politics Robert Reich answers questions about how the President might put BP under a “temporary receivership” to get this spill cleaned up.

Nature/Science
Even slacker crows help out when another crow is injured:

Freeloading crows start to contribute to group efforts when hardworking birds become handicapped, a study shows.

Carrion crows (Corvus corone) form stable groups that share the responsibilities of breeding and caring for the young. Dominant breeders rely on helpers to feed chicks, but they also tolerate individuals that don’t seem to help at all. Puzzled about the reasons for this leniency, scientists have suggested that dominants may indirectly benefit from the survival and future reproduction of lazy relatives, and that larger groups — even those filled with dallying birds — may have a lower risk of predation or be more efficient at foraging.

Evolutionary biologist Vittorio Baglione at the University of Valladolid in Palencia, Spain, and colleagues now reveal an unexpected role for the laziest members of the group. They report their findings today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences1. [...]

In short, even a group of crows has a “bench”.

Acupuncture: Here is a serious study: the needles might cause tissue damage thereby increasing the flow of natural pain-killers to the sites of the injury:

Researchers have developed two hypotheses for how acupuncture relieves pain. One holds that the needle stimulates pain-sensing nerves, which trigger the brain to release opiumlike compounds called endorphins that circulate in the body. The other holds that acupuncture works through a placebo effect, in which the patient’s thinking releases endorphins. Neuroscientist Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York state was skeptical about both hypotheses because acupuncture doesn’t hurt and often works only when needles are inserted near the sore site. Nedergaard instead suspected that when acupuncturists insert and rotate needles, they cause minor damage to the tissue, which releases a compound called adenosine that acts as a local pain reliever.

Nedergaard first assigned the study as a summer project to her then-16-year-old daughter, Nanna Goldman. Goldman and other researchers in Nedergaard’s lab lightly anesthetized mice to get them to hold still, inserted a needle into an acupuncture point on the lower leg, and sampled the fluid around the needle. They found a 24-fold rise in adenosine, which seemed promising. [...]

Inserting an acupuncture needle or locally injecting a drug that boosted adenosine’s action made the mice far less sensitive to pain. But neither treatment eased pain in mice that lacked a cell-surface receptor through which adenosine exerts its effects. These results demonstrate that adenosine acts as a biochemical messenger that helped soothe pain during acupuncture, says Nedergaard. The researchers obtained further confirmation by showing that both treatments lowered the activity in a pain-sensing area of the brain known as the anterior cingulate cortex. [...]

World Events: please, Israel: can’t you admit that you screwed up just this once?