MSI Press Blog

  Ninja work requires strength, especially upper body strength. That is obvious to any who watch Ninja Warrior games, and I concentrated on upper body strength at every session with my trainer. But there is something else. When I began my ninja training, my bone tests showed mild osteoporosis, not atypical for my age. After a couple of years of strength training as part of my "ninja training, my bone density tested normal. The strength training added to the density of my leg and upper body bones. Walking took care of the spine. I used to think that walking was boring, and that walking was simple. You just put one step in front of the other over and over again, and soon you are striding along, losing weight and gaining health. Then, I learned about High-Intensity Interval Training , varying speed over time. My cup of tea. I could mis things up on an outdoor walk and distract myself from boredom by playing with the controls on the treadmill at the gym: fast, slow, almost-running, st...

  Still in progress, but definitely in the line-up of future publications is Grandma's Ninja Training Diary -- the story and insights of a septaguanarian undertaking training in hopes of submitting an application tape to the ninja games (did not happen because of covid shutdowns and an interesting body discovery -- have to wait for the book to find that out). What was learned in the process, especially about the aging body and fitness, was pretty immense and will be shared in this "diary" in a unique way (experience of "Grandma" and discussion by her trainer, Brittany Renz, author of Girl, You Got This! ) intended to help those who are already in retirement keep fit.  So, aging muscles? Yep! Here are some articles that can shed some light on how they differ from the muscles of young'uns: 50-year-old muscles just can’t grow big like they used to – the biology of how muscles change with age  This is one of the best exercises you can do for your health if you’r...

a precerpt (excerpt prior to publication) from Grandma's Ninja Training Diary (Leaver and Renz) You don’t need a fancy obstacle course or a gym full of equipment to train like a Ninja. Sometimes, the best training obstacles weren’t built by man—they were just waiting for someone stubborn enough to use them. Case in point: my house. It sits proudly at the top of a hill roughly the length of a football field, steep enough to make newcomers pause and reassess their life choices. I climb that hill daily and then top it off with 17 steps to get inside the house. That’s my warm-up. No treadmill on Earth can match the satisfaction of reaching the top and knowing you earned every breath. But wait, it gets better. Once a week, I wrangle three giant bins—trash, yard waste, recycling—and drag them to the bottom of the hill. It's a downhill sled-push simulator on the way down and a full-body sled pull on the way up, minus the sled and with bonus smells. That right there is strength, ca...

The human ability to err comes through in American Ninja Warrior that I have watched. No missteps or a fixed error result in a run to glory. One simple misstep, and even the greatest warrior can fall from glory. Last night, Isaac Caldierno, one of only two ninjas to finish Stage Four at Mount Midoriyama, fell on one of the early obstacles in the Indiana city competition. Had he lost his touch? No. Had his muscles atrophied? No. Did his strategic thinking skills fail to keep up with the ever-evolving courses? No. Had he miscalculated the obstacle? No. Did he feel sick, confused, or distracted? No. He simply took a misstep—as we all do from time to time throughout life, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally. In other words, he is human. When Kacy Catanzaro made her way through tall poles rising from water, situated farther apart from each other than Casey could possibly reach, she did a quick calculation and jumped, managing to grab and hang on to the next pole. The c...

  a precerpt (excerpt prior to publication) from Grandma's Ninja Training Diary : Ninja Training and the Truth About Low-Carb Diets Once I started serious ninja training, diet became important, and the first thing I learned is that not all low-carb diets are alike. Cutting carbs is easy in theory—just avoid bread, rice, and sugar, right? But when your body is being pushed to its limits in training, the details of your nutrition matter more than ever. At first, I made the rookie mistake of assuming all low-carb plans were interchangeable. I experimented with keto, where fats dominate the plate, only to find my energy levels crashing during high-intensity workouts. I tried paleo, focusing on whole foods but still struggled to balance endurance and strength. It turned out that different low-carb approaches serve different goals—and not all of them align with the demands of serious physical training. The Problem with Blanket "Low-Carb" Labels The phrase "low-carb diet...