Syed-Abdul, MM, Soni, DS, Miller, WM, Johnson, RJ, Barnes, JT, Pujol, TJ, and Wagganer, JD. Traditional versus suspended push-up muscle activation in athletes and sedentary women. J Strength Cond Res 32(7): 1816-1820, 2018-Many strength training programs incorporate push-up exercises, which primarily activate upper-body muscles. Past data support the fact that shoulder girdle muscles (i.e., triceps (T) and anterior deltoids [AD]) exhibit greater electromyography (EMG) activity when a push-up is performed on an unstable (i.e., suspended [SP]) vs. stable (i.e., traditional [TD]) surface (). Sixty-nine healthy female volunteers (soccer players [SO], n = 24; gymnasts [GY], n = 21; sedentary [SE], n = 24) performed three TD and three SP push-ups. Muscle activation, expressed as absolute integral (mV), was measured using EMG analysis. Significant increases in muscle activation were exhibited by GY (TD: p < 0.01 and SP: p < 0.001) and SO (TD: p < 0.05 and SP: p < 0.05) compared to SE for the T muscle. Only SO (p < 0.05) exhibited significantly higher muscle activation during the SP versus TD. For the AD, values were significantly higher for SO (TD: p < 0.001 and SP: p < 0.001) and GY (TD: p < 0.01 and SP: p < 0.01) compared to the SE group. In addition, significantly higher values were exhibited by SO compared with GY during TD push-ups (p < 0.01). Both the SO (p < 0.05) and GY (p < 0.05) group exhibited significantly higher values during SP versus TD push-ups. Finally, values were significantly higher for the AD compared to the T muscle only in the SO group during TD (p < 0.01) and SP (p < 0.05) push-ups. Data from this study for trained women (i.e., SO) are consistent with previous studies, whereas for untrained women (i.e., SE) the findings differed during TD and SP push-ups for both muscles. Differences were also observed between female SO and GY are unexplainable and therefore need further investigation.

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Ryan J. Johnson’s “On the Surface: The Deleuze-Stoicism Encounter” investigates Deleuze’s reworking of Stoic ontology and the theory of incorporeals. Contrary to the traditional interpretation, Johnson argues that there are three, not four, primary incorporeals: space, λεκτόν‎, and time. Deploying Deleuze’s thinking of the intensive-extensive ontological distinction, Johnson shows that each of the three incorporeals are paradoxically structured by the slight Stoic surface-without-thickness separating and connecting their respective extensive and intensive dimensions (place/void, verb/noun, Aion/Chronos). It is through this strange ontology of the incorporeals that the Stoics become the initiators of a new image of philosophy that generates a lineage of thought leading, eventually, to Deleuze himself.

This book explores how Deleuze's thought was shaped by Lucretian atomism — a formative but often-ignored influence from ancient philosophy. More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Gilles Deleuze considers himself an apprentice to the history of philosophy. But scholarship has ignored one of the more formative influences on Deleuze: Lucretian atomism. Deleuze's encounter with Lucretius sparked a way of thinking that resonates throughout all his writings: from immanent ontology to affirmative ethics, from dynamic materialism to the generation of thought itself. Filling a significant gap in Deleuze Studies, this book tells the story of the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter that begins and ends with a powerful claim: Lucretian atomism produced Deleuzianism.

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