Anyone who regularly keeps up with current affairs globally has probably noticed a new story regarding the Greek economy. In an attempt to meet the incredibly stern requirements needed to successfully receive a second bailout, the governing body of the Mediterranean island have been pushed to do something so horrible, so downright terrifying, that any squeamish person should cease reading this article this very moment and go to their happy place.They are considering introducing a six-day working week.The very sound of the sentence above leaves a bitter taste on the lips of any who speak it. It’s easy to complain about the five-day working week when it becomes draining and routine, but the contemporary masses seem to have forgotten that we should be grateful that it’s only five. We need to dive back in time to where the working week has come from, and, more importantly, why today’s system is a hell of a lot better than what it once was.So who actually invented the five-day week? After all, does it not seem like something that has existed since the beginning of time, an unwritten rule so embedded within us that it almost stands as an axiom of the human race? Well, no actually. It’s not even been going for a century yet. Until 1914, pretty much everyone had no choice but to subscribe to six-days a week – at nine hours a day. That means our standard forty-hour week bloats into a hideous sixty-three, over half-a-week extra of working time.”Who was our mighty liberator?” you ask. Well, the answer may come as something as a surprise. Rather than coming as the decision of a governing body or a union of workers, it actually originated with Henry Ford, the man who also gave us the car. Ford was frustrated with losing good employees and, subsequently, losing money, so he made a radical move. He shaved an hour of work off each day, and gave his workers Saturday off too, with almost double pay.Some people were awestruck by his generosity, others by his stupidity, and some genuinely concerned that he might have lost the plot. However, in the end, Ford’s tactic paid off – employee loyalty skyrocketed, as did productivity, and eventually Ford’s profits were outrageous. Other employers looked towards him as an innovator and, frankly, a really rich guy, and it made sense to adopt his technique.And so slowly, the five-day week become a global phenomenon.Can you imagine waking up every Saturday knowing that you had to get up and head back into the office again? The beauty of the five-day week is what is often called ‘Hump Day’, the cherry on the cake, the peak at midday every Wednesday when one can bask in the realization that half of the week is completed, that they are ‘over the hump’. There’s no hump in a six-day week. And that is why it is an abomination.So remember, five days a week isn’t actually that bad. In fact, it’s good for our psychology. Work gets a lot harder when we never do any of it, because we can’t develop a proper routine. Five days is the perfect point between over- and under-working. Let’s take solace in that.I mean, it could be worse. You could live in Greece.
Examining Well-Known Health and Fitness Myths
People like to think they have all the answers when it comes to magic secrets of weight loss, and so they put it out for whomever to grab a hold onto. But there are many myths when it comes to exercise and fitness. Below, we examine some of the most common ones, as advised by experts:Doing Crunches or Using an Ab Machine Will Get Rid of Belly Fat
Experts agree that although ab exercises can strengthen and tone your midsection, they do nothing by themselves to decrease body fat. “You can’t pick and choose areas where you’d like to burn fat,” says Phil Tyne, Director of the fitness center at the Baylor Tom Landry Health & Wellness Center in Dallas. To burn fat, you need a fitness routine that includes cardiovascular and strength-training elements. This will decrease your overall body fat, which includes belly fat.WebMD recommends that to lose fat around your midsection, instead of focusing on ab work, do exercises that work multiple muscle groups at one time, and of course, pay attention to your diet. Tom Holland, Exercise Physiologist and author of Beat the Gym says, “Abs are made in the kitchen, not by crunches.” Holland also cautions not to work your abs every day because, like every other muscle group, they need time to rest and recover. “Training a muscle causes the muscle to break down,” he says. “And it is during rest that it is allowed to repair and rebuild itself.”You Have to Work Up a Sweat to Burn Calories
In fact, you can burn a lot of calories without breaking a sweat. Sweat has nothing to do with intensity. It is just the body’s way of cooling itself. Liz Neporent, a health and fitness expert and national spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise, says that the idea that if you don’t sweat, you’re not working hard enough is “just an illusion.” She says, “You will initially lose more weight when you sweat more, but as soon as you drink something, you replace the water weight.”You Have to Work Up a Sweat to Remove Toxins
Many people believe that sweating is also a good way to detoxify your body. In fact, only about one percent of the total amount of toxins in the body are released through perspiration, according to Jari Love, a certified personal trainer and creator of the Get RIPPED! Workout. “[T]he main organs responsible for excreting waste are actually the gastrointestinal tract – the liver, kidneys, immune systems and lungs.” Working up a sweat is healthy for your body, but does very little to actually detoxify your system.If You Aren’t Sore After a Workout, You Aren’t Working Hard Enough
Fitness and health experts agree that the “no pain, no gain” adage could be one of the most dangerous fitness myths out there. “A fitness activity should not hurt while you are doing it, and if it does, then either you are doing it wrong, or you already have an injury,” says Todd Schlifstein, a clinical instructor at New York University Medical Center’s Rusk Institute.Soreness results from inflammation and the chemical response to inflammation. If you are sore the day after exercising a muscle group, it means you should take your workout in that area down a notch. Many athletes don’t feel pain because they know how to expend just the right amount of energy for their body. Gauging your progress by your pain threshold is not accurate because you don’t have to have soreness to gain muscle size or strength.If a Woman Lifts Heavy Weights, She Will Bulk Up
Many women believe the best way to work out is to do many reps with light weights to avoid looking like a professional weight lifter. In fact, most women lack the hormones or the muscle mass necessary to bulk up without supplements or more dangerous substances.Liz Neporent recommends lifting increasingly heavy weights until your muscles are fatigued after eight to 15 reps. It is important to work up to heavier weights gradually, and to not hesitate to ask someone to spot you. Form is crucial with heavier weights to avoid injury, but there’s no reason to worry about looking like Ms. Olympia.There are many misperceptions about what works and what does not when it comes to losing weight, eating healthy and staying fit. It is important to do your research rather than rely on what you have always heard.
Figure Photography
Photography can be considered as one of the sciences that has developed a lot in the past few decades. Figure photography is one of the types of photography that are becoming really popular these days. Science and technology has developed a lot in the recent past and as a result you find that technological advancements have made a lot of sciences really complicated. It is not always very easy to understand figure photography like many other branches of photography. You need to have a sense of understanding the science working behind successful figure photography and you need to be really good at what you do. Only then you can master the art of figure photography.The world of fashion has also changed a lot in the recent past. With the internet as a household phenomenon today and with the ever innovative technology, every thing has changed. The world today is a small village where communication is very impressive and easy. As a result fashions of one part of the world affect the other parts of the world as well. In fact, this is one of the reasons that figure photography has flourished in almost all parts of the world. Figure photography is the kind of photography in which the photographers are focused on figures. There has been a strong trend of nude and semi nude figure photography’s in the past. At present you find fashion photography to be too close to the figure photography. The art and romanticism of the field is to be understood. It is not only the photography of semi nude people; it is the art which is important. You can only understand the technicalities of the figure photography only by understanding the themes of the task.Photography has changed a lot in the recent past. In fact a few decades back there were very limited choices in cameras and the work of art was totally dependent on chances and the ability of the person who is working as a photographer to judge the angle of light and other factors while shooting. If the photographer failed at what he was doing, no one was able to save the photographs. Thus this branch of physics has improved a lot. Now you find it to be a reliable and very expensively researched branch of science.