Mom Runs Wholesome Hair Workshops for Dads to Learn How to Style Daughters’ Hair (Watch)

Dads completing hair styling workshop – Bonnie Braids / SWNS
A mom started leading hair care workshops teaching dads how to manage their daughters’ hair, training more hands to help in the mornings before school. Sarah Eaton had been organizing lessons showing moms how to do elaborate plaits and braids when she got the idea because many of the women said their male partners should learn the skills too. Now, the 38-year-old runs hour-long Dad & Me workshops at her local community center where they learn how to do the basics, like detangle long hair, tie it back in ponytails, and style it into simple braids, bunches, and buns for ballet class. The hairstylist from West Lothian, Scotland, reports that all the fathers comment on how much more confident it has made them feel. “The look of admiration on their face after each session is amazing.” Sarah started her small workshop business, Bonnie Braids, after trying to dress up her two daughters for Halloween in 2022. She bought them both red synthetic wigs which she planned to braid but was surprised to find how hard it was to do. After chatting with other moms in her town of Armadale, she learned that many of them wanted to know how to do Dutch and French braids. “It went really well, and then a few moms started telling me how
Bonnie Braids / SWNS
their husbands wanted to learn how to do it, so I decided to set one up for them.”Sarah has run three sessions for dads so far, and says they are only getting more and more popular. One of the activities in the workshop which draws the most laughs is when the dads are learning how to do the high bun.
Dad’s style their daughter’s hair at Sarah Eaton’s ‘Dad & Me’ workshop – Bonnie Braids / SWNS
(See the video below…) “We get the kids to stand up and the dads hold the hair up high while the girls spin around. The kids are so happy because dad can do a bun for their ballet.” Sarah runs the workshops on an “ad hoc basis” with a maximum of eight dads per session, and says it overwrites the myth that doing hair is a female job. “It just goes to show how valuable it is to break down stigmas,” she said.“Dads should feel just as able to do their daughters hair in the morning before school.”Mom Runs Wholesome Hair Workshops for Dads to Learn How to Style Daughters’ Hair (Watch)
Read More........

Only walking for exercise? Here’s how to get the most out of it

We’re living longer than in previous generations, with one in eight Australians aged over 85. But the current gap between life expectancy (“lifespan”) and health-adjusted life expectancy (“healthspan”) is about ten years. This means many of us live with significant health problems in our later years.

To increase our healthspan, we need planned, structured and regular physical activity (or exercise). The World Health Organization recommends 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise – such as brisk walking, cycling and swimming – per week and muscle strengthening twice a week.

Yet few of us meet these recommendations. Only 10% meet the strength-training recommendations. Lack of time is one of the most common reasons.

Walking is cost-effective, doesn’t require any special equipment or training, and can be done with small pockets of time. Our preliminary research, published this week, shows there are ways to incorporate strength-training components into walking to improve your muscle strength and balance.

Why walking isn’t usually enough

Regular walking does not appear to work as muscle-strengthening exercise.

In contrast, exercises consisting of “eccentric” or muscle-lengthening contractions improve muscle strength, prevent muscle wasting and improve other functions such as balance and flexibility.

Typical eccentric contractions are seen, for example, when we sit on a chair slowly. The front thigh muscles lengthen with force generation.

When you sit down slowly on a chair, the front thigh muscles lengthen. buritora/Shutterstock

Our research

Our previous research found body-weight-based eccentric exercise training, such as sitting down on a chair slowly, improved lower limb muscle strength and balance in healthy older adults.

We also showed walking down stairs, with the front thigh muscles undergoing eccentric contractions, increased leg muscle strength and balance in older women more than walking up stairs. When climbing stairs, the front thigh muscles undergo “concentric” contractions, with the muscles shortening.

It can be difficult to find stairs or slopes suitable for eccentric exercises. But if they could be incorporated into daily walking, lower limb muscle strength and balance function could be improved.

This is where the idea of “eccentric walking” comes into play. This means inserting lunges in conventional walking, in addition to downstairs and downhill walking.

Eccentric walking means incorporating deep lunges into your movement.

In our new research, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, we investigated the effects of eccentric walking on lower limb muscle strength and balance in 11 regular walkers aged 54 to 88 years.

The intervention period was 12 weeks. It consisted of four weeks of normal walking followed by eight weeks of eccentric walking.

The number of eccentric steps in the eccentric walking period gradually increased over eight weeks from 100 to 1,000 steps (including lunges, downhill and downstairs steps). Participants took a total of 3,900 eccentric steps over the eight-week eccentric walking period while the total number of steps was the same as the previous four weeks.

We measured the thickness of the participants’ front thigh muscles, muscle strength in their knee, their balance and endurance, including how many times they could go from a sitting position to standing in 30 seconds without using their arms. We took these measurements before the study started, at four weeks, after the conventional walking period, and at four and eight weeks into the eccentric walking period.

We also tested their cognitive function using a digit symbol-substitution test at the same time points of other tests. And we asked participants to complete a questionnaire relating to their activities of daily living, such as dressing and moving around at home.

Finally, we tested participants’ blood sugar, cholesterol levels and complement component 1q (C1q) concentrations, a potential marker of sarcopenia (muscle wasting with ageing).

Regular walking won’t contract your muscles in the same way as eccentric walking. alexei_tm/Shutterstock

What did we find?

We found no significant changes in any of the outcomes in the first four weeks when participants walked conventionally.

From week four to 12, we found significant improvements in muscle strength (19%), chair-stand ability (24%), balance (45%) and a cognitive function test (21%).

Serum C1q concentration decreased by 10% after the eccentric walking intervention, indicating participants’ muscles were effectively stimulated.

The sample size of the study was small, so we need larger and more comprehensive studies to verify our findings and investigate whether eccentric walking is effective for sedentary people, older people, how the different types of eccentric exercise compare and the potential cognitive and mental health benefits.

But, in the meantime, “eccentric walking” appears to be a beneficial exercise that will extend your healthspan. It may look a bit eccentric if we insert lunges while walking on the street, but the more people do it and benefit from it, the less eccentric it will become. The Conversation

Ken Nosaka, Professor of Exercise and Sports Science, Edith Cowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........