Pretty productive day around the house - I was able to get a bunch of chores done with an efficiency that surprised me. What I still can't believe is that I'm still sore from working out last Thursday. Starting back at the gym after a long layoff is tough. I find that I'm still strong enough to pick up pretty much wherever I leave off, but the endurance has disappeared such that what would have a been a regular-to-light workout has repercussions for many days after. Chest exercises seem to be most effected area. Arms recover quickly, in general, but I always seem to hurt the tendons or the ends of the muscles after a layoff. End up where I can't quite straighten my arm - but that only lasts for 1 or 2 days past the workout. I have read (but I don't remember exactly where) that biceps will recover 80% of capability within 90 seconds after an exercise. Your arms get used so much and so often that they are capable of extreme recovery. Someone like Lance Armstrong would have legs that could recover like that. I know he has some anatomic advantages plus years of training to make that true. The chest muscles are behaving like they've just been worked on every day. Guess I really over did them - oh well. Still, I've got to make it to the gym tomorrow - gotta make something else hurt to balance things.
I've been reading the latest Spectrum and been enjoying it immensely. I was surprised by the information related to the cover article on prosthetic arms/hands. This is part of their annual winners/losers techonolgy which tries to make an educated guess on how technologies scheduled for release in the upcoming year will fare. This is definitely a winner. The war in Afganistan and in Iraq has resulted in large increase in amputations, so there are many military researchers who are eager to improve prosthetic upper limbs. Legs and feet are relatively easy - they require limbs with 3 or 4 degrees of freedom. Plus non-war related amputations are usually lower limbs. Myoelectric arms provide 3 degrees of freedom, but natural arms provide 25 degrees of freedom, with opening a doorknob requiring 5 degrees of freedom. A useful upper limb replacement needs 22 degrees of freedom to come close to replacing a natural limb, plus natural limbs have a sense of touch and heat. The system being researched is first off an "open" system that describes how things are connected, so future work can target a specific area and improve that and work with all other implementations. Second, really progress is being made in the control by neural or muscular systems to enable smoother and more practical movements. Still research but looks like some true steps have been made here. Pretty exciting.
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