[Cob] Health and Building with Cob

[Shannon C. Dealy]

Hi everyone,

I started writing this email a long time ago and just found it buried in my 
stuff to do, hopefully some of you find it useful.

This is kind of marginally on topic, I'm posting this because health issues are 
unquestionably one reason some people never build with cob, and as someone 
who has faced some of these issues, I think this may be of value.

A number of people in the past have made reference to their age/health as a 
reason for not being able to do the manual mixing and applying. I do not know 
any of your specific circumstances, so this does not necessarily apply to any 
of you in particular, and is certainly not intended as a criticism, only you 
know your particular issues.  This is also not intended as medical advice, it 
is just a summary of things I have learned over the years that may be useful 
for you to know:

    - As we age our muscles become less efficient, however, it is not
      nearly as much as people think, the best estimate I have seen is
      a 30% reduction in efficiency (strength relative to the amount of
      muscle) by the time you are about 75 to 80 years old.  The majority
      of people never at any time in their lives achieved even 50% of their
      physical limits, so at 75, most people (assuming no other problems
      prevent it) could be physically stronger than they were at 20 if they
      are willing to put in the time and effort.  Since it is harder to
      build muscle when you are older, this may be a lot of time and effort

    - For most people in the USA, the majority of the decrease in strength
      as we age is atrophy, not efficiency reduction, in other words, we
      don't use the muscle, so we lose it.  Once we are old enough to
      drive, we stop (or greatly reduce) walking and biking, and once we
      are out of school, what little physical activity we engaged in for
      fun (or because it was required) often stops.

    - For some types of arthritis, the most effective treatment known is
      physical exercise.

    - The overwhelming majority (90%+) of back problems can be controlled
      or cured by the proper combination of strengthening and range of
      motion exercises.

I used to be crippled by back problems that first showed up when I was 17 and 
in excellent physical condition, I also used to be seriously obese,
partly due to the back (which made many forms of exercise almost impossible) 
and partly due to an addiction to Ice Cream :-) I am by no means a perfect 
physical specimen (though I'm getting there :-) however, working alone I can 
easily mix 2 cubic yards of cob a day, or mix and apply one cubic yard a day (8 
hour day).  When I started with cob I could not have done more than 
perhaps 1/8 this amount. Some of this improvement is due to better techique 
and some is due to better physical conditioning specifically from doing a lot 
of cob building. This did not make me "fit" so much as my muscles adapted 
specifically to building with cob.

FWIW.

Shannon C. Dealy               |       DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com              | Biotechnology Development Services
Telephone USA: +1 541-929-4089 |      USA and the Netherlands
Netherlands:   +31 85 208 5570 |          www.deatech.com