Strength Training's Effects on Longevity



Aging’s Effects on Our Musculoskeletal System
When we are born, our muscular and skeletal systems undergo growth at an incredible rate during infancy, followed by a second growth spurt at puberty which lasts through most of our adolescence. This growth occurs naturally in the absence of any limiting factors. Once we reach adulthood, this natural growth rate reaches its peak and within a few years begins its long, steady decline.

After reaching peak strength at around 25 years of age, our muscular system plateaus and then declines at a rate of about 3 to 5 percent per decade after the age of 30. This is known as Sarcopenia. This same time frame can be applied to bone density as well where, after it peaks, bone strength naturally weakens (a process known as osteopenia), and for many, leads to osteoporosis (a disease characterized by low bone mass and structural breakdown).

Intro to The ALP

Intro to The Adventure Life Project



The Adventure Life Project is about living a fitter, stronger, healthier, longer, happier, more adventurous life. It’s not just about getting outside, but getting outside our box and expanding our comfort zone. It’s about facing challenges and overcoming fears that have blocked our path for way too long.

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second-best time is now. The Adventure Life Project is a novel approach to developing a lifestyle that will not only allow us to not only live longer, but to live better by breaking down our “ideal” lifestyle into its core components - health and fitness, longevity, happiness, self-improvement, and living adventurously.

A Little Bit About Vitamin D

A little Bit About Vitamin D
The Sunshine “Vitamin”


Vitamin D is not really a vitamin but a major steroidal hormone (note - steroids are known for their anti-inflammatory effects), but whether you want to call it a vitamin or a hormone, it is crucial that we get enough of it. Along with its own stand-alone importance for our overall health, its presence is required for optimal calcium uptake as well. Vitamin D may be one of the most important hormones for our overall health.

Live Like The Frenchy!

Live Like The Frenchy!

Jacques Houot is an 82 year old transplant from France, living the adventure life dream in Carbondale, Co. "The Frenchy" is an incredibly active man, not just for his age, but for anyone at any age. He downhill mountain bikes, he skis, he hikes, he exercises, he does anything that he considers a challenge. But he wasn’t always this active, not even close.

Our Hierarchy of Needs

Our Hierarchy of Needs
Living According Abraham Maslow

A very important step in our own personal evolution from the person we were programmed to be to the person we desire to be is to figure out just how did we get here?

At some point in our life we left childhood behind and charged into adulthood down a path that was laid out for us whether we realized it or not. Once we were out on our own, free from the control and safety of our parents, we realized that life was a little more difficult than we were led to believe.

Our path was littered with hurdles and roadblocks, each of which being a detour off the path that was to lead us to the good life and the happiness that it would provide for us. And while these hurdles seemed like obstacles thrown in our way by external forces, upon reflection, we need to realize that they were actually choices and decisions that we made that seemed to make sense to our past self, but now our present self has to deal with the consequences.

Living The Adventure Life

Living The Adventure Life
Getting Out There

---

Nature is a wondrous thing and getting out in it is what we were hard-wired for many eons ago. Experiencing the colors, textures and scents elicit feelings and emotions in us that are in-explainable, unless we realize that they have a meaning that goes beyond just beauty. For our distant ancestors living on the Savanna, the color green meant life, as well as the color of flowers, and even more so, the sound of running water.

There was a time when living the adventure life was just known as living, but it was a way of life that we learned to exploit and master. And while we may have evolved beyond the point of relying on nature for our mere subsistence, and although we have exerted a great deal of control over it, nature still has the power to affect us in profound ways. All we have to do is let it.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

While the adventure life is out there waiting for us, it's the adventurer within us that has to take that first step. By taking a long, deep, and honest look inside ourselves, we can figure out what has been holding us back and keeping us from getting out there. That is when we can start becoming that adventurer inside us striving to get out.

The Four Agreements

The Four Agreements
By Don Miguel Ruiz

Introduction
There are so many hurdles on our path to living a fulfilling life that it is understandable that we would choose to take the path of least resistance, the path that is already laid out for us. When we deviate too far from society’s path we start to experience all kinds of negative emotions from within us as well as scorn and judgement from without.

Creating our own path in life could require a complete mental, emotional, and even physical overhaul, and that can feel damn near impossible. So we make the best of the hand we were dealt. We set out to build our future with the only instructions and tools we have available. But Ruiz beautifully points out, in The Four Agreements, that we do not have to follow the instructions given to us and we are not limited to the tools society had provided us. We have within us the ability to develop a new set of plans and create a custom set of tools needed to build our own personal life path.

At the core of this rebuilding project is our character.