Sticking it to the pain

Thomas D. Sparrow exudes the quiet, easy, no-mountain-is-too-high confidence of a long-time farmer steeped in years of self-reliance.

Being sidelined by chronic pain has been difficult — frustrating, irritating, depressing — for the 61-year-old resident of Ridgway, Ill.

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MayoClinic.com Features New Strength Training Videos

For the best results with strength training, proper technique is vital. MayoClinic.com has a new series of online strength training videos that help individuals maximize their strength training program. The new series includes detailed instruction on more than 30 strength training exercises, including body weight, resistance tubing, free weight and weight machine exercises.

When done correctly, strength training can help people lose fat, increase strength and muscle tone, and improve bone density. But if done incorrectly, strength training won't provide these benefits -- and may even lead to injury.

Here are some simple tips to help individuals maximize their strength training program:

-- Lift an appropriate amount of weight. Start with a weight you can lift comfortably 12 to 15 times.


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Fesoterodine Provides Significant And Rapid Improvement In Multiple Subgroups With Overactive Bladder

In most subpopulations of patients with overactive bladder (OAB), the percentage of patients who respond positively to treatment is significantly higher in those who receive fesoterodine 4 or 8 mg or tolterodine extended release (ER) versus those treated with placebo, investigators announced here at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Urology (EAU).

Importantly, the response was seen as early as two weeks and was usually maintained at the end of the 12-week treatment period.

Andrea Tubaro, MD, with Sant Andrea Hospital in Rome, Italy, and colleagues elsewhere assessed the efficacy of fesoterodine as measured by self-reported treatment response rates at two and 12 weeks in all subjects with OAB drawn from a recent phase III trial and in subpopulations stratified by sex, age, and incontinence status.


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Fitness column: Overweight, obese women improve quality of life with a little exercise

The American Heart Association shared the following information in the Web site ScienceDaily on March 17, 2008. Fitness column: Overweight, obese women improve quality of life with a little exercise Todd Smoot The American Heart Association shared the following information in the Web site ScienceDaily on March 17, 2008.

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Speaker inspires packed room

Inspirational speaker Bryan Dodge encouraged a packed audience Thursday during the Keene Chamber of Commerce's monthly luncheon to make 2008 the best year they've ever had for themselves, their businesses and their city."Reach down and grab the reins of your life," Dodge said to the 110 people at the meeting. "Decide where you want to go." Dodge, speaking at the Senior Center, emphasized personal development and goal setting during his speech to an increasingly enthusiastic audience.He encouraged audience members to write down their goals and pursue them."Goals are a responsibility," he said. "They're not an option." He pulled five cards out of his pocket, one for each member of his family. Written on each of the cards were 18 goals for him, his wife and his three children. He said setting those goals had helped bring him and his family to where they are today.Dodge said audience members had 48 hours to write their goals down, according to the rule of diminishing intent."What you do today, you'll do," he said.


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Speaker inspires packed room

Inspirational speaker Bryan Dodge encouraged a packed audience Thursday during the Keene Chamber of Commerce's monthly luncheon to make 2008 the best year they've ever had for themselves, their businesses and their city."Reach down and grab the reins of your life," Dodge said to the 110 people at the meeting. "Decide where you want to go." Dodge, speaking at the Senior Center, emphasized personal development and goal setting during his speech to an increasingly enthusiastic audience.He encouraged audience members to write down their goals and pursue them."Goals are a responsibility," he said. "They're not an option." He pulled five cards out of his pocket, one for each member of his family. Written on each of the cards were 18 goals for him, his wife and his three children. He said setting those goals had helped bring him and his family to where they are today.Dodge said audience members had 48 hours to write their goals down, according to the rule of diminishing intent."What you do today, you'll do," he said.



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The Jacoby Factor

As a Native American warrior, your ultimate triumph in battle was not to kill your enemy. It was to use your speed and your smarts and your wiles to get close enough to touch him, and then to slip away. The message was irrefutable: There was still breath in his chest only because you allowed it. Talk about power. Talk about speed. Talk about pride. Native Americans had a term for their definition of victory. They called it counting coup. When Billy Mills was 8, his mother died. His father, a member of the Lakota nation in South Dakota, stroked the boy's arms and told him, "You have broken wings." He used a stick to draw a circle in the dirt. "Step inside your soul," he said. "It is the pursuit of the dream that will heal you."

He encouraged his son to find his dream in sports, which were providing the Indian with a new way to compete against the white man after centuries of slaughter and treacherous treaties.



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