LOL Mianevem . There were days during Vitality when my mother declared, "We don't need to take any rests." Usually I overrode her on the grounds that I needed the breaks. We have only been taking one minute breaks, and sometimes even only 30 seconds for Vitality. But I feel the shoulder work in these programs and do actually need a break to make it through seven sets. My mother does not feel the shoulder work as quickly as I do, because she has much less range of motion in her shoulders. She cannot do the arm circles or chest expansions, for instance, with her arms fully horizontal. But when she gets tired, she starts cheating the exercises and doing them with even less than her full ROM. So I've been insisting on breaks in an effort to get her to use her full ROM throughout.

In the beginning we were just working from a PDF. But my mother would gripe after a couple of sets. "Another set?! How many sets are we doing? Seven! That's a lot!" So I switched to using the interactive pages so she can see the seven set protocol is not just something I'm making up. My mother really likes seeing those little set count boxes turn red after each set we complete. As soon as I started using them, she stopped questioning the number of sets. She has now completed every day of two programs on Level III.

Yay for your mom!

Ha, I could try that too, using the interactive pages, I mean. Mom hates cheating and tries to do everything with full force, sometimes I have to even warn her to do certain exercises slower, more carefully or else she'll pull a muscle... Maybe if she sees that there are four more boxes to be ticked, she'll want to complete it to lvl III.

May 19 Daily Dose of Nature

Thank you for that link to info on the Eurasian Wren, Colin .

This is our wren that's most similar to the Eurasian Wren:



This is a Winter Wren (Troglodytes hiemalis). As you can tell from this bird's scientific name, it is a member of the same Genus as the Eurasian Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes). But then, so is the House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) that we met yesterday. The Winter Wren, however, is more similar to the Eurasian Wren than it is to its New World cousin the House Wren. In fact, until 2010, the Eurasian Wren, the Winter Wren, and another New World wren now called the Pacific Wren (Troglodytes pacificus) used to be considered all the same species.



There is an adage regarding the naming of organisms that states, "Common names change from place to place, and scientific names change from time to time." With the Winter, Pacific, and Eurasian Wrens, we have examples of both types of names changing. When all three birds were considered the same species, they still had different common names in the New and Old Worlds ("Winter Wren" in the New World, but simply "Wren" in the old world where there is only one species of wren and so no need to provide a second name to differentiate it from others of its kind.) When scientists decided the species Troglodytes troglodytes needed to be split, the Old World bird retained the original scientific name, and the two New World species received new names.



As NancyTree mentioned, wrens are very talkative and have quite a distinctive song. Whether you're searching for a Eurasian Wren, a Winter Wren, or a Pacific Wren, you're likely to know one of these little brown birds is about by hearing its song long before you're able to locate the bird visually.

As with the common names which humans give to birds, bird songs also change from place to place. While the song of a specific species will always be recognizable as belonging to that species, the same species of birds can have many different "dialects" which vary from one location to the next. Studies involving the different songs of Winter and Pacific Wrens are one of the factors which led to the decision to split the original Troglodytes troglodytes species into three.

For the most part, Winter Wrens live in eastern North America and Pacific Wrens live in western North America. Initially it was believed that the eastern and western populations of what was then all considered to be the same species did not interbreed because their ranges did not overlap. Then it was discovered that there is a location in British Columbia where wrens of both types do co-exist. Biologists studying wrens in this area of range overlap discovered that all the birds which sang the eastern-type song had distinctly eastern-type DNA whereas all birds which sang the western-type song had western DNA. Birds of both types might have territories which were right beside one another, yet very little if any interbreeding was going on between the two groups of birds.

To our human ears, the song of a wren sounds very fast and jumbled. But listening to wren song played back at a slowed down speed reveals an amazingly intricate and beautiful sound.

That's so interesting about the wrens singing in different "dialects" - and the song played at slowed down speed really is beautiful!

Tuesday, May 19 - Rainbow's Days of Fitness Day 27


Knee Push-ups Challenge - Day 10: 30 seconds - done on my toes - 0 push-ups this day. 21/56 week-to-date for The Pushers Week #2.

Baseline (version 1.0) - Day 30: 24:00 - Level III with my mother. That's two programs we've completed together now! My father even got in on the act this day, to the extent to which he was able. (Which admittedly is not much, but he gave it the ol' college try.)

Xpress Tone - Day 25: 41:45


Total: 66 minutes


Other stuff:

4 km hiking

Only Homemade Food - ​​ - Total Days: 139/139
A Salad a Day - ​​ - Total Days: 129/129
No Video Games - ​ - Total Consecutive Days: 160
No Seated Television - - Total Consecutive Days: 79
GBOT (10:30) - - Total Days: 45/97 - Made it to bed for 11:30 though, which is another 2.5 hours improvement over the previous night.
GOBOT (6:30) - - Total Days: 64/97 - Let's try this again!

Well done finishing Baseline! Also well done, Rainbow's mom!

Congrats on baseline!

Double Congrats on Baseline

Yeah for family Baseline

Nice, congrats

Congrats on Baseline

Congratulations for the Baseline Program, for both you and your mother !
it's badge day !

Happy badge day!

I like that your dad joined in for the final day of Baseline! Congrats to both you and your mom for finishing