JCC Allentown Blog

Gilda Radner
1946-1989

Gilda was an American comedienne and actress. She gained name recognition as one of the original “Not Ready for Prime Time Players”, a member of the freshman group on the first season of Saturday Night Live. She was the first performer cast for the show. Between 1975 and 1980, she created such characters as obnoxious personal advice expert Roseanne Roseannadanna, “Baba Wawa”, a parody of Barbara Walters, and Emily Litella, an elderly hearing-impaired woman who gave angry and misinformed editorial replies on “Weekend Update”. Radner also parodied such celebrities as Lucille Ball, Patti Smith, and Olga Korbut in SNL sketches. She won an Emmy Award in 1978 for her work on SNL. She posthumously won a Grammy for “Best Spoken Word Or Non-Musical Recording” in 1990. In 1992, Radner was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame for her achievements in arts and entertainment and in 2003 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd.

http://www.jewishamericanheritagemonth.us/

To stretch, or not to stretch? Experts used to claim that stretching before a workout can help decrease the risk of orthopedic injuries; however, more recent research shows that stretching is ineffective for warming up your body.  Some research is even proving that pre-workout stretching can be harmful to athletic performance. [1]

As an active person, you may not always be looking for peak performance, but you always strive to be healthy and avoid injury.  So what is the best way to warm up?

A warmup should be designed to move your body in motions similar to the actions you’ll perform during your workout.  If you’re going to do an upper body workout, your warmup must simulate that action in your upper body muscles.  A warmup should also increase blood flow, which in turn increases muscle elasticity. This process requires elevating the heart rate.

Dynamic Stretching (DS) is stretching performed by moving a joint through its full range in a challenging but comfortable motion.  The goal is to lengthen and shorten a muscle by activating your nervous system.  Static stretching does not have this effect.  DS can increase joint range of motion, increase blood flow and increase body awareness, just to name a few benefits.  It also requires a fair amount of coordination, which stimulates neuromuscular activity and alertness.

Do not confuse Dynamic Stretching with Ballistic Stretching where you “bounce” into the stretch.  Ballistic Stretches should only be done with the watchful eye of a Personal Trainer or health professional to avoid potential injury.

See this month’s Exercise of the Month to learn hip swings, a great form of Dynamic Stretching, and contact a Personal Trainer to learn customized stretches specific to your needs!

[1] “Static Stretching Impairs Sprint Performance in Collegiate Track and Field Athletes;” Journal of Strength and Conditioning, Winchester, Nelson, Landin, Young, and Schexnayder.  Vol 22, Number 1, January 2008

Bob Dylan
1941

He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan’s early songs, such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan’s six-minute single “Like a Rolling Stone” radically altered the parameters of popular music in 1965.

Dylan’s lyrics have incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored many of the traditions in American song—from folk, blues, and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing. He has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour.

As a songwriter and musician, Dylan has sold more than 100 million records worldwide and received numerous awards over the years including Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards; he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” In May 2000, Dylan was awarded the Polar Music Prize. In May 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.

http://www.jewishamericanheritagemonth.us/ 

Fanny Brice
1891-1951

One of America’s great clowns, Fanny Brice built her career on a Yiddish accent and a flair for zany parody. In an era when ethnic comedy was the norm, she delighted audiences for more than forty years and won a following in almost every branch of American show business. During the fourth decade of her professional life, she became precocious radio brat “Baby Snooks,” and that is the role for which she is most often remembered. Yet “Snooks” was only one of Brice’s many inimitable characters in radio, the last of the entertainment forms in which her comic genius found expression. Before focusing exclusively on “the airwaves,” she appeared in burlesque and vaudeville, drama, film, and musical revues (including nine Ziegfeld Follies between 1910 and 1936). Brooks Atkinson, longtime drama critic of the New York Times, called Brice “a burlesque comic of the rarest vintage” and acknowledged her achievement in comedy, a field men had previously dominated.

http://www.jewishamericanheritagemonth.us/