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...

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...

Given the need to attend a wedding in Elk Grove, the lucky contiguity to my son, Shawn, and his family who live in Elk Grove, and the opportunity for lunch with a former assistant Hatem, who now lives in Roseville, my husband, Carl, I, and my youngest son, CB, packed up the car on Friday afternoon for a weekend adventure three hours from where we live. The Studio, a martial arts center in Roseville three hours from our home in San Juan Bautista is the closest gym that offers ninja training -- both for kids (which turned out to be fortunate for short little me) and for adults. The Studio had scheduled the next iteration of the adult class for Saturday, July 28, absolutely perfect timing. I could get there Friday night, get a full night of sleep to be fresh for the ninja training, then have lunch with Hatem, race back to the hotel for a change of clothes, and finish the day at the wedding, with a planned breakfast the next morning our grandchildren and daughter-in-law. Tight ti...

  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...

  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...

Today, I began my yoga classes. I dropped in to the gym's Flow Yoga class. Earlier, when I consulted with my trainer, Brittany, she suggested that, of the classes that the gym offered, yoga would be the most beneficial for me in my seeking to develop the skills needed for coping successfully with the ninja obstacles. I quickly saw how well she had identified my weaknesses, the most significant of them being balance. The yoga instructor was patient with me as I topped over again and again. Stand on one foot? No, I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. My ability to handle positions, like the downward dog pose above, surprised me, pleasantly so. All the work on core with Brittany for the past six months really had prepared me for poses requiring core development. Planks? Not a problem. Contort legs and arms? Not a problem -- for six months, I have also been working on flexibility. However, balancing on one foot ended up with both feet on the floor or real tipping over. Than...

Pacific Edge Gym Teaching Room In accordance with my planned approach to developing ninja capabilities, two weeks ago I enrolled in a rock climbing class. One of the things I had learned from watching the stories of competitors on American Ninja Warriors included seeing how many of them were either rock climbers or spent time at rock-climbing gyms. Good climbing depends on feet, not arms. In fact, with feet properly placed, one can hang by one arm for a very long time and feel little strain. Shoes should fit snugly and have bottoms that create friction in order to use feet more effectively. The "climber's triange" -- toes and ball of foot -- indicates where a climber should place his ore her weight when climbing. (After scaling the wall in the gym three times, my toes were really sore! I gave them a nice bubbling session in my foot massager afterward.) I thought I would have to build arm and shoulder strength. I never thought I would have to build toe ...

One of the things I thought about only cursorily when I entered on this quest was what the cost would be. Sure, I figured there would be some cost for training and for gym membership, but with obstacles around the neighborhood and at home, I figured a lot of training could actually be obtained for free, just through the course of living. To some extnet, the free-from-living training expecttion has panned out. Running into stores from parking lots. Jumping up and down curbs. Flying across car hoods and landing at the door to my  misaligned-elbow-from-lifting-a-sectional-sofa-with-one-hand physiotherpist (he was looking out the window once and saw that -- said I was his only patient who arrived at his door that way). The basics, though, the very necessary things where I need advice and access to equipment that speeds up the building up of specific muscles and specific ninja techniques (not available at our local gym, so travel to distant gyms is required), undeerstanding what...