Divine Sport

 

Fran Checa’s wonderful world

He became one of the best 10 scores among Peruvian male swimmers. Now he shares his reflections and pictures to us.

Text and photos from Fran Checa

Water may not be our element but that never has prevented us to go in, and we have watched the freedon of oceans with envy and wonder.

Speedy swimmers don’t born but become. The training is just teaching the swimmers to have the best scores in worst scenarios.

Your body listens to everything your mind says. Being a proffessional is doing the things you love to do in the days you are not motivated to do them.

Swimming is one of the most complete sports because helps and benefits our organisms. It improves our muscles because we use the most located in arms and legs.

Swimming is a sport that all person must practice, from children to adults, because of great benefits it brings us:

• Improves focusing.
• Helps our heart.
• Hydratate our skin.
• Improves health conditions, like asthma.

Life gives you many things but swimming gives you much more. Swimming world is is a pretty World where everybody can learn this beautiful sport.

Fran is available for workshops, seminars and exhibitions by contacting him here.

Post-produced by Sheyla Benavente.

The time according to James Lenger

This sportsman and musician brings the ‘busy’ concept very close to ‘useful’ – and ‘inspiring’.

By ChulucanasGym. Photos Courtesy by James Lenger.

How does he make to have time for sports and music? He says he finds that time and he can accomplish everything he plans. But he doesn’t practice just one sport neither he just plays one instrument. He goes in and out five different sports and plays and teaches music as well . and he also travels!

The life of James Lenger  is the right opposite to inactivity. He is doing something around the clock, only stopping to sleep. Well, we hope so.

James has practiced sports along his life and tried the most different ones including soccer. But he is specialized in modern pentathlon, developed by modern Olympics’ promotor Pierr de Coubertin.

“I played those sports in high school and college, before I knew about pentathlon. I grew up always loving and playing sports.”

According to James’ website, de Coubertin wanted to save the traditional main event of Ancient Olympics created in Greece, around 3000 years ago. That he only did was to replace five ancient disciplines for modern ones: swimming, running, riding, fencing and shooting. James practices all those ones.

“It depends on the day. I usually schedule swimming 5-6 days a week, running 4-5 days, shooting 2-3 days, fencing 3 days, and riding 1-2 days. It sometimes depends on what my coaches want me to do.”

Beating

James’ motivation to have that pretty active life is very personal: “The pentathlon got me into all of the sports, and I dedicated my training to my mother, who had died a few years ago.”

It’s probable that many of us consider practicing five sports during many hours a day is enough. Well, many of us but James doesn’t, because he finds time to teach in GuitarCities, his own music school what promises you to approach proffessionally to that art, no matter if you’re a beginner or a senior.

“It's busy. It is around 30 hours training and 40-50 hours working every week. I own my own business, so my schedule can be a little flexible.”

James usually teaches in Chicago, Illinois, and sometimes he goes to the other studios in New York City, San Francisco or London. There are projects to come to Latin America, once he proves the teaching scheme is much more consistent than today.

“Eventually. I want to make sure we have a good system down, and we continue to refine it in the US first. I even had some conversations about doing sport and music camps in Latin America. It will just take a little while to get that going, but definitely something I thought of.”

Patience for combination

And having a busy schedule, James wins. How does he do? The simple answer is: he just does it. Why not you?

“It's therapy for me, so it has helped me out to cope with the loss, but I am also motivated to keep training for those that can't train. I want to make the most I can with what I have been given.

James assures that combination of sports and music, especially beginning the day, can make you more productive.

“Both can be very therapeutic. For myself, and many students, sometimes describing your mood can be difficult, so often we can write a song based on how we feel, and that can be a good outlet. Sports can also be a great way to get away for a while.”

And the key word, even being in a hurry, is patience.

“When I teach, I have to constantly remind the student to slow down when they play, so they are sure to get the correct technique. When I practice sports, I have to always remind myself the same thing, as I have a tendency to want to rush through things. On the other hand, I know how difficult it can be to learn something new (like fencing), and have to remember to apply patience when I instruct music, because it is a reminder to me how tough something new can be.

So the next time you think about 24 hours are not enough for you, you should think about James: playing and winning – all in time.

Post-produced by Sheyla Benavente.

Read also: Fran Checa’s wonderful world

Clean as water, strong as metal

Dive, then save lives

A swimming school and some female volunteers have joined in Piura City, Peru, for raising funds against cancer. They’re Berenson Academy and the Association of Ladies Supporting the Patient with Cancer.

The idea is gathering much money as possible to help patients with cancer but without resources. Also, it looks for educating on prevention of this disease, and sports are one of the most effective, cheapest methods to achieve it.

The procedure is simple – every 100 meters or 330 feet you swim, you have to donate 10 soles (about US$ 2.70). If you don’t know to swim, the promoters look for a swimmer who represents you for swimming the equivalent distance to your donation. The participation can be individual or in group.

The activity began in 2019 but it had to pause because of Covid-19 pandemic. 300 people in Piura, Chiclayo, and Trujillo swam that year, covering about 200 km or 150 miles in total. For 2022, the activity was called for May 28^th from 10:00 in the morning to 7:00 at night.

Peru’s National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases detected about 17,000 new cases of cancer across that nation in 2021. Only in piura Department, Regional Direction of Health counted 2930 new cases of cancer in 2019.

Do you use sports to support social campaigns? Tell us on our Twitter account or at chulucanasgym@gmail.com

  

Aerobics at the beach

Having so much free space and the sea in the background, why not moving your body?

By ChulucanasGym

During many time, El Toril Beach in Paita, peru, was abandoned. Adding the belonging contamination of the sand due to the solid residues, the sea in front of it has been suffering from a similar process caused by waste water emission.

The Peruvian authorities took control of the second one and started a surveillance plan that allowed to identify the companies uncontrolling  their emissions to prevent or to penalize just in case. The first one implied a citizen movement  which was joined later by the local authorities, until in the last years many cleaning journeys were hold for letting the space in acceptable conditions, at least for taking a sunbath.

El Toril Beach is attended by sports fans because it's next to Paita City, having the sea right there. People jogging, playing ball, working out someway, even swimming, meet there daily. 

For Perfect Body Gym's senior trainer Félix Oviedo, the beach is an ideal place to get balance within physical and mental health by moving the body. That's why he and his staff chose it as the right stage for  having an aerobics master class, last December 2nd.

During three hours, around 40 people summoned to learn with trainers coming from  cities around Paita.  "What we wanted was the people to take the stress away, burning fat, and enjoying the beach," Oviedo commented to ChulucanasGym.

Doing aerobics outdoors is not new but funny indeed. And it's not new because the humankind, inclusive since before it evolved such,  was in constant movement and needed agility and stamina  for moving around and getting everything  it required.

Essentially, the aerobic exercise consists into a series of moderate-impact moves with high repetitions, what inside the body, uses the oxygen to decompose the fat among the muscles, having it as fuel.

As a result, the internal and external tone of the tissues improves, heart beating regulates, cognitive capability increases, aging slows down in every level. and in a country with high levels of violence, it reduces  the stress  and  raises the wellbeing sensation.

By definition, running, biking, swimming, walking, and even doing home chores vigorously, are types of aerobic exercise. What is done at a gym class is spotting  the work on certain muscular groups, or along the body, controlling sequence and repetitions.

For the people trying to lose weight, the aerobic exercise is ideal because of the same in-muscle fat elimination process, what is good news for the ones ripping them, what means staying lean, that improves aesthetics. Remember you could have volume, but if it has no defined shape, won't look like well.

It's good to enlarge the fact of improving the heart beating in a big part because it makes the existent vessels wider, what reduces the heart work inclusive when you rest. Also, it holds away  the LDL-cholesterol (the bad one) and triglicerides, very related to hypertension.

Plus, it makes the vascularization more efficient, allowing  the blod to reach the parts of your body  where it made so difficult before.

If the exercise in general puts the body under  a constant renovation process, the aerobics are notable because  allows to regenerate the neurones,  your nervous cells.  And that is the explanation of improving  your cognitive levels, adding of course habits like reading , the academic study, and the memory games even.

And if this seems little, it decreases the adrenaline levels,  the stress-related hormone, increasing endorphines instead, the hormones  those give us the sensation of satisfaction.

Don't forget the aerobics improve the breathing, what increases stamina, so it allows to support the physical work for better.

If we add to all this the fact of practicing it outdoors, preferently natural, we see the benefit multiplies, and that is the intention of Félix Oviedo and  the Perfect Body staff who got involved into the beach activity.

"This is the sixth time we already do aerobics at the beach," he adds.

If you want to know when his next activity will take, you can follow him on his Facebook fanpage.

Finally, you must know that the World Health Organization recommends at least  30 minutes of daily physical activity someway, or 15 minutes per day  in intense mode at least, and before attending an aerobics class,  visit your most reliable cardiologist for determining your perfect time and rythm for you by an effort test.

So, let's go to the beach for working out?

My Profile – Frank Alamo

Why you should fall in love of physical culture

As Luis Rodríguez told it to ChulucanasGym

I realized a little time ago many things about the physical culture, things I didn’t know absolutely there were. That’s why the history is important. I’m currently attending to an International Federation of Fitness and Bodybuilding, the IFBB, course for improving myself as a personal trainer. The IFBB is in over 160 countries, including Peru.

Among the coaches illustrating us with their lessons, is Jorge Montero, an expert in millennial physical culture. I should call this subject as History of Physical Culture, that goes back to the 15^th century with the Marcet Rouet’s French School, when the first training center with barbells made of cannon balls was created, and other apparel that we continue to use today, and one of the things I ever confirm in classes is that nothing has been invented about physical culture. There was everything, already.

Now, to my criterion, the physical culture represents a move. The human body is designed to move, to be active, and it’s something to be fundamental in our lives. And a thought comes to my mind from the Father of Physical Culture, Hipolito Triat, that “you have to grow the body and the spirit as well, at the same time, because both are driving, like two horses, to the man” And I ever have it in mind.

For me, the physical culture turned in something fundamental. I do bodybuilding since I was 15 years old. I did mainly because I didn’t feel well being too thin. I was 110 pounds, I was skinny. I have ever fought with my weight. I’m ektomorphe somatotype, badly complicated to gain muscular mass. But I fell in love of the results, of forgetting everything for 45 minutes. It’s because just training demands you much brain capability: you connect through breathing, pushing, pulling. You have no mind for anything else!

It’s already currently a part of my life. I don’t know what I would do not doing physical activity, because I’m not only a weight-lover but everything about physical activity: running, trail, swimming, climbing, extreme sports, obstacles circuit (InkaChallenge, SpartaRace). I like adrenalin and the satisfaction of reaching goals. I think the life’s about that.

Amazing Benefits

• Anti-aging: I’m 32 years old  but I look like 25. Well, that’s what they say me and  I believe so. Honestly, I feel that age.
• Inmuniiefficience: Doo you know how many times I get sick through the year? How many times I get cold? Once or twice at the most.
• More sexual power: My testosterone levels are ever high due to the power workout. This means more vigor, more cardio-vascular exercise when I make love.
• Exfoliation: My skin is ever clean because when we sweat, we release toxins, and we regenerate tissue later.
• Happiness: Due to endorphins, serotonins, and other hormones of happiness and pleasure. Surely, all this ggoes combined to agood feeding because it’s the perfect balance.

How should you motivate?

First, think of health andwellbeing words, then, ask how I want to live my old age. We just discussed about that topic in clases, and it’s the fact that the society links the old age term to multiple factors those downgrade our life quality (motor weakness, sarcopenia, and a infinity of deplorable conditions for the human being). So it was currently proved that that all these old-age typical conditions can be eliminated, to reach an age, like 60 years old, active. And believe me, I have seen it and lived it: gentlemen in their 60s lifting the same weight than me. I see them and I see myself later. They’re my pride.

People must think of that, not of losing weight for the summer and forgetting it further. Think of how you want to end your days. And please, that nobody comes to me with the excuse that there’s no time. The day is 24 hours -8 hours sleeping = 16, -8 hours of worktime = 8 hours, and only 45 minutes are enough to train.

Currently there are thousand ways to workout: parks, home professional personal trainers, which must be health generators instead of aesthetics. So, get motivated. Take the first step. That’s how you start, and when you do once, and you realize it’s a spirit matter rather than anything, you’re going to fall in love of the physical culture. And I leavetake with an amazing thought which confirms everything what I say: “You have to strengthen the body health because the dominion of the spirit depends on it.” (Plato: Republic, 597B)

Workout with Luis Rodríguez – Look for him asLR Fit Plan.