"Core training". Now there is a buzz phrase in the fitness and medical worlds these days. Apparently, everyone's got a core strength issue. You have a sore back? Must be caused by your weak core. Lousy golf game? Make your core stronger. Pain with sitting? Must be your weak abdominals. If you're involved with an active population - you've heard it a thousand times. Now you're hearing it with the sedentary population. Before long, core strengthening will be introduced as a solution to heart disease, stroke, and world hunger.

Well, maybe not heart disease - but I digress.

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If you were to ask any of the people I've known over the years, they would probably tell you that I am goal-oriented. I enjoy the focus that comes with having a task, setting a plan, being passionate about the process, and heading towards the goal. Sometimes that may be a totally single-minded flurry of activity to get there ... and in others, it's a methodical stepwise process to inch steadily towards the destination.

I used to think it was all about the goal - and attaining it.

In recent times, I have discovered that it is truly all about the process ... and though goals do help to define the road we're on, they are not the "be all and end all" in the mix. Life involves growth, and within that growth lies the opportunity for evolving focus, process, perspective, and how we define ourselves.

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Politics. A topic that will always instill debate, discussion, and perhaps even social revolt. It seems like there is a political slant to everything these days. Health care and fitness ... aren't any different. There is always a lobbyist pushing for the rights of some special interest group - regardless of the point of contention or discussion. It seems we're becoming more fragmented in the way we live - and think - in our world today.

If we all truly believed that self-care and "wellness" were the way to go forward with our health "care" system (and I use this phrase loosely), then we'd have to admit some deep-seated issues and incongruities in our professional lives.

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This would have to be my word for the week:

"Incomprehensible:
–adjective: impossible to understand or comprehend; unintelligible; impossible to know or fathom.
-synonyms: baffling, bewildering, obscure."

I guess it all started off with the slayings at Virginia Tech. An event like this is simply not within our comprehension. There aren't many people that can say that they truly understand the magnitude of the suffering, anguish, or horror. As I've heard said before - "not until you've walked a day in my mocassins".

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A "mentor" is defined as "a wise and trusted guide and advisor". Perhaps this sounds like a crazy idea - but if we have sports coaches and life coaches, what about health coaches? Or better yet, let's put the right slant on it - because, as they say, perception is everything - and call them health mentors. Is this not what we need in the world of health to foster competent self care?

Yes, there is a need for health "care" - and health care providers. That will always be the case. But examine the medical problems faced by our society today. Obesity. Heart disease. Diabetes. All are issues that would benefit significantly from a different approach to health. These are conditions that either have a significant "preventative" aspect or that benefit tremendously from straightforward education and lifestyle changes. They are also conditions that are putting a tremendous strain on the health care system - and that strain doesn't look to be getting better any time soon, especially with an aging populace.

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April 4th came and went this year ... and it amazes me how little was said about it. I asked my class why the date of April 4, 1968 was important. No response. In some ways I wasn't surprised - and in others, I was mortified.

Here's something to think about - a Canadian that can recite the date of Martin Luther King's assassination - and why we all should care.

It befuddles me how this can be so far removed from the national psyche. King - perhaps the greatest civil rights leader of our time, the man who forged the speech from August 28, 1963 containing the stark lines "I have a dream", words that could speak to so many across all racial borders - forgotten?

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I was originally exposed to the concept of the SAID Principle, or "Specific Adaptations To Imposed Demands", via exercise physiology. From a cellular perspective, this simply means that the tissues of the body, be they muscle, bone, tendon, cartilage, or ligament - adapt to the demands imposed upon them. For example, weight bearing activities foster an in crease in bone density, and strength training fosters muscular strength and power development. Both are examples of very specific adaptations that the human body makes in order to adapt to the demands placed on the system.

But all cells respond to stimuli.

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