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Muscles
contract and relax to allow the body to perform crucial
activity. Electrical signals tell the muscle when to
contract, but when the muscle needs to relax, the signal
is deliberately ignored. This week's focus is on
Skeletal muscles: How do they work? |
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Bicycle crunch is a rigorous crunch that works out your entire stomach. Lie on
your back placing your hands behind your head for support. Lift your legs in the
air so that your legs form a 90° angle. Move your legs in a bicycle motion. When
your left knee is closer to your body, reach your right elbow to it. When your
right knee gets closer to your body, bring your left elbow to it.
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Start Your Day
You can be number one!
I'm personally convinced that everybody can be number one. No, I don't believe
that that everyone can be the biggest, the strongest, the fastest, or the
smartest, but I do believe you can be number one.
Start each day of your life by looking in the mirror and saying "Today I'm going
to do my very best at whatever I do". Then proceed to do exactly that. At
the end of the day, if you can again look yourself directly in the eye and say
"Today I did my best," you, will be number one with the most important person in
the world as far as your success and happiness is concerned.
When you use what you have to the best of your ability, you will discover that
your ability is more than adequate to reach your objectives. You will
also discover that the more you use of what you have, the more you will be
given to use.
Learn more |
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"Fight one
more round. When your arms are so tired that you can
hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more
round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are
black and you are so tired that you wish your opponent
would crack you one on the jaw and put you to sleep,
fight one more round – remembering that the man who
always fights one more round is never whipped"
- James Corbett |
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Zesty Chicken with Rice and Black-Eyed Peas
Ingredients:
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1 tsp. paprika
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1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
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1/4 tsp. celery salt
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1/4 tsp. mustard seed
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1/8 tsp. cinnamon
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1/8 tsp. ginger
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4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, 1 lb. total
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2 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
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2 cloves garlic, minced
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1 large onion, chopped
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1 tsp. hot sauce
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1 cup brown basmati rice, cooked per package directions
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1 (15 oz.) can unsalted black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained
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1/4 cup green onions, sliced
Direction:
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
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In a small bowl, combine paprika, red pepper, celery salt, mustard seed,
cinnamon and ginger. Sprinkle the spice rub over chicken.
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Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large ovenproof skillet over medium heat. Add
chicken to skillet and cook 2 minutes on each side. Place skillet in oven
and bake for 10-15 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Remove from oven,
cover and keep warm.
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Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add garlic
and onion and saute 3 minutes. Stir in hot sauce, cooked rice and black-eyed
peas. Cook approximately 3 minutes, stirring often until thoroughly heated.
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Off heat, sprinkle the rice mixture with green onions, top with chicken and
serve.
Makes: 4 servings.
Nutritional Information:
Per serving: 330 calories, 10 g. total fat (1.5 g. saturated fat), 27 g.
carbohydrate, 33 g. protein, 5 g. dietary fiber, 160 mg. sodium.
Courtesy: AICR |
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Skeletal muscles: How do they work?
Muscles contract and relax to allow the body to perform
crucial activity. Electrical signals tell the muscle
when to contract, but when the muscle needs to relax,
the signal is deliberately ignored. Until now scientists
have been unable to understand how the body ignores this
signal.
Muscle is an organ specializing in the transformation of
chemical energy into movement. Movement is essential to
life, and takes many forms, from cytoplasmic streaming
and the growth of neurones at the cellular level, to the
long distance flight of the albatross or the explosive
performance of a sprinter. Although only a few families
of protein are responsible for movement in the
biological world, muscle has developed to optimize this
function, and is packed with movement-related proteins.
There are many types of muscles, but they fall into
three categories: skeletal muscle (or striated muscle),
responsible for locomotion, flight etc; cardiac muscle,
which has a vital role and is able to function for a
century or more, without ever taking a break, and smooth
muscle (or involuntary muscle) which lines the walls of
the arteries to control blood pressure, or controls the
digestion of food by causing movement of the intestine.
Having established that each muscle is comprised of
numerous fibres, each of these in turn consists of many
myofibrils, which form the functional units of muscle
and effect the contraction and relaxation process. The
functional part of the myofibrils consists of numerous
contractile units, called sarcomere connected in series.
Each sarcomere is composed of different muscle proteins,
in particular the two main contractile proteins (myofilaments)
called actin and myosin. Myosin filaments are thick
contractile proteins and remain relatively stationery
during contraction. Actin filaments are thin contractile
proteins that are drawn towards each other from both
ends of the sarcomere during muscle contraction. The
actin and myosin filaments lie parallel to each other
and become interlocked during contraction. The two
contractile proteins are connected during contraction by
myosin cross-bridges. (These are globular proteins that
originate from the larger myosin filaments and are
chemically bound to the actin filaments during
contraction.)
Learn more about this article |
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