Eccentricity for good

Some people, including members of my immediate family, say I'm eccentric already, but when I read that eccentricity is good for you, I have to say, "Hooray to that."

In an article on the BBC website experts explain the benefits of eccentricity. In exercise that is. Let me explain it as I understand the principle. When you lift a weight, say in a bicep curl (muscles contracting), that's concentric exercise; when you lower the weight (muscles lengthening) that's eccentric.

I mention this in particular in relation to my previous post and the walking uphill versus walking downhill discussion. 

From the article:

In one study, participants were asked to either walk up or down the stairs of a 10-storey building, and use a lift in the other direction. They did this twice a week. Amazingly, after 12 weeks, it was the group walking down the stairs that were fitter. 

The group walking downstairs improved their muscle strength by 34%, over twice as much as the group walking upstairs! That’s much more than you would expect from normal exercise. Studies have also shown that eccentric exercise can improve mobility surprisingly quickly – more so than exercises that only focus on stretching.

And with less strain on the heart. The article went into lots more detail but ended with this advice:

One simple thing you can try is the sit-stand challenge: lower yourself down into your chair slowly, then stand up at normal speed. It seems easy but try this enough times and you’ll feel surprisingly sore afterwards.

So walking down the mountain would have been better for us!

* * * * *

An excellent day for collecting driftwood on the beach as the tide is high and there have been storms out at sea, so the beach is littered. So much so that some kind souls built a sheltered bench on the beach out of driftwood.

I was on the lookout for the perfect pieces of driftwood for a cross. I'd already made one but wasn't happy with it, so I was pleased to find some better pieces today.

On the way home with Husband kindly carrying the bigger piece I asked his advice about a base for it. I was coming up with some complicated ideas when it struck me: a Christmas tree stand!

The spare one we have isn't ideal but you get the picture. I will surround the base with stones when it's properly set up. The idea is that it is a prayer cross. We will leave pieces of paper and pens next to it so that anyone who comes in the church hall can leave a prayer request tucked in the string around it, and any requests will be picked up and prayed over by people from the church.