Many women wonder why their legs and buttocks don’t look like those of the model shown above, even if they diet, avoid junk food, and exercise daily. So what’s the reason? Keep reading!

The gluteal muscles are one of the first muscles to atrophy with age. This is thought to result at least in part from a partial occlusion of capillaries (the smallest blood vessels) when a person is seated on a hard surface. Gluteal atrophy can be masked by fat. Gel cushions can distribute weight more evenly, reducing the chance of capillary occlusion. While gel cushions help somewhat, every one I’ve seen is too firm, whether it is intended for use on a chair or a bike seat.

I don’t know what sort of education it takes to become a seating engineer, but I’ll hazard a wild guess and speculate that none of those geniuses have been to medical school. Had they done that, or had they even thought about this matter from a common sense perspective, they’d know that most of their cushions, pads, and whatnot are too darn firm to have any hope of optimizing weight distribution, while others are so ridiculously soft that they may as well be made from cotton candy. I’ve often wondered if they design their products so their squishiness feels good when poked by a finger in a store, which is often the only presale investigation that consumers perform before buying an item.

Another mistake made by seating engineers is manufacturing cushions (pads, seats, etc.) whose firmness is uniform from the center to the edge. If asked to justify why they think that ease of manufacture is more important than a lifetime of seating comfort for their customers, they would likely reply that it is too difficult to vary the firmness. Nonsense. I developed an easy way to modify the items, making them more or less firm. In fact, my technique is so easy that you can do it at home. See this page if you want to find out more about it.

Unfortunately, poor seats are not confined to homes and workplaces. Automobile, snowmobile, motorcycle, personal watercraft (what people usually call “Jet-skis”), and tractor seats are often flawed, sometimes to an alarming degree. For example, I test drove a top-of-the-line Jeep Grand Cherokee a few years ago and found that its seats were so hard that my butt and posterior thighs would “go to sleep” after 90 minutes or so of driving, even though I can sit for 16 hours on a variety of crummy other seats and never experience those same unpleasant tingling sensations (a form of paresthesia; see #1 below for definition). Those paresthesias indicate nerve ischemia—in other words, the blood circulation to a nerve is impaired or totally cut off. Nerves are particularly susceptible to ischemia because they require a lot of glucose and oxygen to function normally. Those nutrients, and others, are supplied by the bloodstream. In addition to carrying nutrients to nerves and other tissues, the bloodstream also performs another vital function by removing waste products, such as carbon dioxide and lactic acid.

The person riding with me in the Jeep had no circulation problems, yet she also experienced the same discomfort. I was so disgusted by those seats that I investigated why a manufacturer would use such atrocious ones in their luxury vehicles. I was told that the arrogant German engineers liked firm seats, so they decided that everyone should have them. In other words, it’s my way or the highway. Is it any wonder that Chrysler is faltering?

I don’t mean to single out Chrysler, because plenty of other companies are equally inept. Perhaps those companies are giving less attention to the padding of their products now that people, especially in the United States, carry more of their own padding than ever. Incidentally, that extra blubber can substitute to a certain extent for product padding, making slim people somewhat more susceptible to nerve ischemia triggered by sitting on hard seats.

Perhaps you’re wondering, “Isn’t this nerve ischemia just a temporary problem?”

Yes and no. One short period of nerve ischemia—or even a thousand such periods—isn’t going to produce noticeable lasting damage in most people (it’s another story for people with inherently impaired circulation). However, the paresthesias accompanying nerve ischemia are really a canary in a coal mine (an early warning of danger). While nerves have a lower threshold for ringing the alarm bell, that doesn’t mean that other tissues are not affected by ischemia. Muscle cells don’t scream “I’m dying!” and fat/connective tissue cells don’t warn, “Here comes the cellulite!” but they experience the same pressure that nerves in the affected area are subjected to. Tissues function best when their blood supply isn’t compromised. Repeatedly choking it off—even partially—has detrimental long-term effects, not enough to bring you to an emergency department, but enough to accelerate tissue aging and degradation.

(1) Paresthesia = a generally unpleasant but not painful skin sensation, such as burning, prickling, tingling, or itching, that often occurs in the absence of an obvious physical cause (not obvious to laymen, that is, because doctors often know they can arise from the actions of various drugs and physical agents).

An interesting sidelight to this topic is that the GTO inhibition of strength can itself be inhibited. This is the primary means by which ordinary individuals can exhibit extraordinary strength in certain dire crises. For example, most people have heard of the case in which a mother lifted a car that had fallen on her son. There are several other stories, many of which are documented. The manner in which the GTO is inhibited is not known, but it must involve the central nervous system.

While there is no known conscious method of inhibiting the GTO to allow superhuman feats of strength to be performed at will, the GTO can be desensitized over time to allow some increase in strength independent of muscle growth. This is accomplished by performing jerky movements against resistance, performing the same or similar movement in which increased strength is desired. There is some attendant risk of straining muscles or tendons with this technique, and it is certainly not intended for beginners. For an advanced athlete looking for a competitive edge, it may be the difference between winning and losing, and thus may be worth the risk.

Although this should be fairly obvious, it is worth mentioning that strength increases resulting from GTO inhibition will do nothing to augment muscle size. Since most people who work out with weights do so for cosmetic reasons (i.e., to appear stronger or to lose weight), GTO inhibition is of no use to them.

The next topic about dreams in the “fun facts to know and tell” series is that the content and outcome of one dream usually affects the subject of subsequent dreams. However, your brain—acting in the manner of a hard-nosed television executive—will often decide to “cancel” a series for unfathomable reasons. The next execration that occurs is reruns. No, reruns are not just limited to network television and HBO. They occur, or should I say reoccur, in your dream life, too. And, to complete the television analogy, it’s often the worst stuff that is replayed. Go figure.

• They supply missing nutrients.
• They minimize the chance of nutrient interactions by enabling you to take supplements at different times.
• They permit you to take supplements at the optimal time of day. Some, like lecithin or choline, are best consumed with breakfast, while others are best taken at bedtime.
• They allow you to individualize the dose to suit your needs. For example, taking extra lecithin or choline before an exam is usually advantageous, but taking them before attending a funeral is highly inadvisable.

Even the multivitamin/mineral supplements that seem to contain everything under the sun usually supply inadequate amounts of several nutrients, such as biotin, magnesium, calcium, choline, vitamin C, vitamin E, boron, and chromium.

(1) The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that controls endocrine activity, such as thyroid and adrenal function. The pituitary is the so-called “master gland.” An analogy might be that the pituitary is the thermostat in your home, and you are the hypothalamus. The temperature of your home is regulated by the thermostat, but the thermostat is controlled by you.

Another frequently neglected concept regarding body temperature is that of its diurnal (daily) variation. While the average body temperature is 97.6°, normal body temperature actually varies from a low of about 96.6° in the early morning hours to 98.6° or above when the person is active later in the day. Vigorous exercise can easily raise body temperature into the “fever” range. Smoking, caffeine, stress, consuming hot food, and exposure to a hot environment can also elevate body temperature.

Can you trust ear thermometers? You have probably seen them used in a hospital or doctor’s office, and they are available for in-home use. Because they can determine the temperature in a second, they are convenient to use on fussy children. But, to return to my original question, can you trust them? Given that they are used in hospitals, it would seem logical to assume that they are accurate. While they can be accurate, they can also be very inaccurate, too. When they err, they tend to issue a falsely low reading—precisely what you don’t want when you are trying to gauge whether a fever is present.

When I worked in the ER, it was not unusual to be told that a patient’s temperature was 90° F, even when the patient obviously had a normal temperature (which was then confirmed using a rectal thermometer). While there are several reasons why they can be inaccurate, I’ll spare you from a lecture in physics and simply point out how you can use them so that their readings are reasonably reliable. To achieve the most reliable result:

• The ear canal should not have excessive wax (cerumen) present.
• The speculum of the thermometer should be pointed at the ear drum. Because the ear canal curves somewhat, this is not as easy as it sounds. To straighten the canal, grasp the outer ear (auricle) at the 10 o’clock position and gently pull up, back, and slightly out.
• Take the temperature several times, and consider the highest reading to be the actual temperature.
• Practice using the instrument until you get the knack of it. Since the highest result is generally the most accurate, you can use this fact as feedback to determine when you have mastered the technique. It is best to experiment with the thermometer before you actually need it. It is obviously easier to obtain the cooperation of a person when they are not sick (especially in the case of children), and this will give you a reasonable idea of the person’s baseline body temperature.