I went to see Iron Man 2 last weekend. It wasn’t bad, though perhaps not as good as the first one. However, the film was really ruined for me by the two leading ladies, namely Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett Johansson (isn’t it odd that Microsoft Word spell-checker recognises the spelling of Ms Johansson’s name but has an issue with “Paltrow”?). Why? Because every time we had a shot of the two of them walking anywhere in their short business skirts and high heels they had the most astoundingly bad lumbar lordosis.
The curve was so bad on both of them that their belly buttons were almost further forward than their noses while the back of their glutes would have protruded past a plumb-line attached to the backs of their heads. I couldn’t stop cringing at the thought of what they were doing to themselves. Yes, high heels can do that to your posture, but they don’t have to if you are careful and ensure your abs are engaged at all times.
I’d attach a picture here but I’d probably be breaking thousands of copyright laws to do so.
Anyway, female posture aside there were some good quality fight moves from Ms Johansson and I do recommend the film. Just be on the look out for those shots of the two of them…
Having got that off my chest, let’s move onto this week’s links.
- I’m stripping some fat (again) at the moment, so just to rub it in a bit here are some excellent looking smoothie recipes for muscle building from Jason Ferrugia. I’m drooling just from looking at the pictures, but then anything that resembles foodstuffs is doing that to me at the moment.
- You may remember some time ago I linked to a post about Jordan Romero who, at 13 years old, was attempting to become the youngest ever to climb Everest. For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing (but who have had their heads buried in the ground and have therefore missed the news) you’ll be pleased to hear that he succeeded! Congratulations to Jordan and the rest of his team, since climbing Everest is never about the single person but also about the whole cast of thousands who support the climber, both at the top of the mountain and in various support roles at home and at base camp.
- I know I’ve done a few posts about pregnancy including some information from Cassandra Forsythe about the post-pregnancy issues. However, I also stumbled across some health professionals providing advice in response to a reader’s question to The Daily Telegraph about postnatal depression. Postnatal depression seems to grip so many new mothers that I thought this was a worthwhile topic to touch on. See what you think of their advice.
- Watching Iron Man 2 last weekend was a carefully calculated move. We had two evenings free and three films we wanted to see at the cinema – Iron Man 2, Robin Hood and Prince of Persia. Having recently got around to watching Body of Lies, made in 2008 and in which Russell Crowe is pretty porky, and Proof of Life, a superb film with Meg Ryan proving she can act in serious role alongside a reasonably muscular Russell Crowe, we decided that Robin Hood would be the one to be missed. After all, much as I love Russell Crowe’s films he isn’t a good enough actor to prevent you superimposing his other roles over the top of the one in whatever you are watching at the time. I had been a bit disturbed by his chunkiness is Body of Lies so I was really pleased to hear that he has leaned out successfully for Robin Hood.
- Having kicked this post off with a rant about lumbar lordosis, it seems worth pointing out that it is often closely to a lack of mobility in the thoracic spine since the lower back has to compensate. Chris did a helpful post about how this works and all the connections a while ago. Mark Sisson has recently done some posts about how to improve thoracic mobility which, alongside the advice in Chris’s post should get you well on the way to avoiding that heinous posture of the Iron Man ladies. Perhaps I should forward the links to them too…
- I’m not normally a lover of “Fail” videos. They usually just make me wince in pain. However, there are a few particularly good ones to be found on the FailJunkies YouTube channel. If you enjoy watching stunts (or even just normal life) going horribly wrong, take a browse through their videos.
- More food-related links. This time the fantastic news that the world is finally prepared to listen to the truth that red meat is not the evil food that nutritionists would have had us believe. Brian St Pierre has also done a brilliant article on this same topic, kicked off by a Wall St Journal article about red meat not being as bad as people originally believed.
- After my Blog-watch the other week about the importance of hand, wrist and elbow strength, Eric Cressey has recently been writing a series about understanding elbow pain. Given Eric’s background as the Go-To Man for baseball athleticism and all the related shoulder and arm issues associated with baseball, this is definitely a series worth reading if you have even a hint of an issue with your elbows.
- A few weeks late but congratulations go out to Jessica Stroup for completely steam-rollering some PA State Raw Powerlifting records a few weeks ago. She didn’t just beat the old records but completely left them for dead. One to watch perhaps?
- In case you hadn’t had enough of my Iron Man 2 chat yet, here’s some information about Scarlett Johansson’s workouts for the film. Like I said, the fight scenes were great and I can’t believe that they were all done by stunt doubles. Nothing surprising in the article but yet more evidence that if you want to have a great toned figure then you need weights as well as cardio.
I’ve been holding back on posting this video for a while. I know there have been lots of parkour videos on my blog recently but I just can’t wait any longer to share it with you – this goes a whole step further than parkour – this guy is AMAZING! Thanks to Mike T. Nelson and Chris at Conditioning Research for bringing it to my attention.
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