Health & Fitness

Health and Fitness are two words which are synonymous with each other and usually mentioned in the same breath. Good health is best maintained by regular exercise, and peak fitness and wellbeing is only reached by having a healthy diet.

Though everybody recognises that regular exercise and a good diet is a key to staying healthy, we also know from the levels of obesity, heart disease and diabetes that an increasing numbers within our society do not exercise enough and have poor diet.

Modern conveniences have been designed to make life easier however it is too easy to use excuses such as being too busy, or being restricted by, pain from old injuries, or bad health, in reality the major reason is a combination of apathy and a “she’ll be right attitude”. Laziness is a poor excuse and not a reason to prevent you from getting fit and healthy. It’s never too late to start (refer to the story of Noel Johnson below) but you need to get off the couch and do something about it.

A visit to the Natural Law Living Clinic will start you on the road to recovery from your physical ailments. Part of your recovery will involve physical rehabilitation and exercise this is likely to be limited initially but will require a degree of motivation and effort. Practitioners are also Instructors in Combined Martial Arts so have an in depth knowledge of exercise.

The first step is to restore the bodies balance via a combination of acupressure, rehabilitation therapy and Natural Law Living back to a state where it can do more active training such as C.M.A. Martial Arts. A combination of going diet and doing C.M.A. Martial Arts will promote fitness and health and improve energy levels and maintain good health. This is a main goal of doing C.M.A. Martial Arts by Grandmaster of Woo.

C.M.A. is based on Self Defence, but takes on the broader role of self improvement in all aspects of life. The benefits of doing C.M.A. are wide but include increased fitness and energy levels, flexibility of joints, injury rehabilitation, strength, concentration and focus. It has both traditional and modern day aspects blended together. To find out more about C.M.A. go to www.cmamartialarts.org.

The Story of Noel Johnson (7 July 1899 - 21 January 1996)

Noel Johnson was an advanced age marathon runner and athlete who set a number of records in the New York City Marathon and the Senior Olympics and author of two book "A Dud at 70, A Stud at 80: How To Do It, 1981" and "The Living Proof, 1990".

Noel Johnson was told by his doctors at age 70 that he had only six months to live, he described himself as so overweight and so out of shape it was all he could do to lift his cigarette to his lips.

In terms of exercise he had a ready made excuse, his doctor had told him that anything as strenuous as mowing the lawn would kill him. Given no more than six months to live because of a heart condition, when his son told him that he was about ready for a rest home, Mr. Johnson drew the line. He decided that he did not have much to lose and ignored the medical warning and started walking, and then running.

By embarking on a new life of diet, exercise, weight training, isometrics, walking, and marathon running, he became the premiere athlete in the 65 and over age group in the United States. His diet included eating fresh raw vegetables and bee pollen. He appeared on over a million wheaties boxes in 1977.

Noel Johnson died at the age of 96, outliving the doctors predictions by a quarter of a century, over that time he set age records in everything from the half mile to the marathon, astounding physicians and serving as "poster child" for the proposition that the active life promotes longevity.

Indeed, Mr. Johnson, who was regularly the oldest man to complete the New York City Marathon in the 1980's, became a prize specimen in a medical study, Doctors who examined him generally reported that he had the respiratory system of men half his age.

Mr. Johnson, whose training regimen through his 80's called for nine-mile runs three times a week followed by workouts on a stationary bicycle, with weight training on the off days, also became a nutritionist lending his name to nutritional causes.

For the New York marathon he held the 26.2-mile race's age records for 84-year-olds (5 hours 42 minutes 19 seconds) and 88-year-olds (7:40:58) and ran in his last New York race at the age of 90 in 1989, though but did not finish.

In an interview three years later he made it clear that he had no regrets about his athletic pursuits. "I'd rather be 92 years young," he said, "than 70 years old."