Archive for May, 2008
May 28th, 2008
There are four basic areas — pillars of the building, if you will — of fitness. They are:
Cardiovascular endurance — the ability of your respiratory and circulatory systems to efficiently use oxygen to sustain activities such as running, biking, walking and swimming that involve large muscle groups.
Strength training — the ability of your muscles, tendons, ligaments and other fascia to adapt to stresses of lifting weights or body-weight exercises.
Flexibilty — stretching of the muscles and other fascia to keep them limber for the stresses of exercise.
Nutrition — eating a balanced diet that optimally sustains health and activity levels and doesn’t ingest too many or too few calories.
You can make progress by taking care of two or three pillars, but it doesn’t really all fall together until you take care of all four.
The first three are usually the easy ones, it’s the nutrition part — watching calorie intake, being mindful of portion control, eating the right number of servings of each kind of food and knowing what a “serving” actually is that gets tough.
Mind your nutrition and you may become a pillar of fitness.
May 21st, 2008
First, congratulations to everyone who even toed the starting line for Sunday’s Rockford Marathon. Finishing into that wind had to be nasty.
JOHN F. ELBERS | RRSTAR.COM
Darlene Carlson of Mokena cheers on her husband Craig near the finish of the Rockford Marathon on May 18 in downtown Rockford.
Second, unless runners have changed drastically since the last time I took leave of my senses for 26.2 miles at a time, chances are pretty good that many of you promised yourselves after crossing the finish line that you would never again do that to your body.
Physically, unless you’re a very experienced athlete who knows their body’s recovery time, you should be primarily in a resting mode for the next couple of weeks. Allow muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc. the time to recover. When my wife and I were racing, the rule of thumb was usually to rest one day for every mile of the race.
But what about mentally?
Some of you will decide to break that finish-line promise about the first time one of your friends talks up another marathon. For those who don’t, the idea that you have put a very large goal behind you can be somewhat depressing.
Although I can never know for sure, I have often thought training for a marathon had to be something like being pregnant. It takes over your whole life for several months and every conversation you have eventually gets around to the topic. So, maybe, a letdown after finishing that big goal is a little like post-partum depression.
Runners generally being goal-oriented people, the best thing to do is to set another goal. It doesn’t have to be another running goal.
It could have to do with any aspect of your life as long as it’s reasonably attainable and it could help take your mind off all those aching muscles.
May 20th, 2008
I promised, after writing about how sitting at work all day can kill your ability to burn fat, to brush up on exercises that could be done in the office. So, with the help of some internet searching at exercise.about.com and shelterpub.com to add to a couple of things I practice, here we go:
Of course, being able to get up and walk around for 10 minutes or so is preferable to exercise at your desk – even better if you work in a multi-floor building and you can use the steps to add intensity to your walk — but here are a few stretches and the body parts they benefit you can use if leaving your desk isn’t an option.
Chest — Sit up straight in your chair and clasp your hands behind your head. Pull your elbows back and squeeze your shoulder blades together at the middle of your back.
Back/shoulders — Give yourself a hug, literally. Wrap your arms around your torso and gently reach as far around as possible.
Neck — First, just alternate tilting your head left and right toward your shoulders. Then forward with your chin to your chest and backward looking up. Then combine it into all four directions.
Then, try this. Place the little finger of your left hand on the right side of your chin and turn your head to the left to just past comfortable. Push gently on your chin with the little finger to go a little further. Repeat with the little finger of the right hand on the left side of the chin.
Low back/hamstrings – Stay seated upright in your chair with both feet flat on the floor and knees a comfortable distance apart. Your hands should hang loose at your sides. Bend forward until your hands reach the floor and hold for five seconds or so. Then, tighten your abdominal muscles and slowly return to your upright seated position.
Assuming you won’t be bothering anyone and won’t send your cubicle or half the items in it crashing to the floor, you could also stand up wave your arms or rotate them in a circle as if you were and old-time pitcher in an exaggerated windup. You could march in place or squat as if you were going to sit in a chair but don’t actually do it.
One more thing. Don’t forget to exercise your eyes by occasionally looking away from the computer screen for a minute or so.Â
May 20th, 2008
One of HealthyRockford.com’s main purposes is to promote a healthy lifestyle.
To that end, we would like to publish stories about people who have found what works for them. We think those stories could inspire others to make or stick to changes that can improve their health.
Do you know someone who ran a marathon or who got in shape for some other athletic endeavor against great odds, did they work hard and lose weight, or are they still plugging away in a way that you think is awesome?
Tell us about the people who inspire you and how to contact them. We’ll take it from there.
Rather than put private information on this string, though, e-mail me at mdedoncker@rrstar.com.Â
May 20th, 2008
Get off your duff. It’s killing you.
That command was part of an illustration for an article by Jim Gerard in the March/April 2008 issue of the American Council on Exercise’s Fitness Matters magazine.
I found the article interesting because it talked about something I don’t think I’d have ever guessed about how the body retains fat when we are sitting down.
Gerard wrote about a study done by scientists at the University of Missouri, and published in November 2007, in which they found, to quote Gerard, that “When we sit, the enzymes that are responsible for burning fat just shut down. And not even a regular dose of exercise can combat the resultant weight gain.”
Some other findings Gerard wrote about are:
1. When a small amount of fat was injected into sitting animals it did not remain in the blood vessels that pass through the muscles, where it could be burned. Instead, it was captured by adipose tissue where globules of fat are stored.
2. After the animals had been sitting for several hours, lipase, an enzyme critical to the body’s ability to break down fat, was down to 10 percent of its normal levels.
Gerard also wrote that, according to Dr. Marc Hamilton, the research team’s leader, if a person doesn’t do enough non-exercise activities during their normal movements of the day “You can’t assume that exercise at the end of the day will wipe out the damage you caused the rest of the time you were sitting.”
Gerard’s article goes on to talk about a $4,000 piece of equipment called a Walkstation but, barring your company springing for something like this, it sounds more than ever like a really good idea to at least get up and move around at work to whatever limit your job will allow.
Parking as far from the building as feasible, walking around between assignments, swinging your arms, stretching, or taking a walk on your lunch break, are all ways you could keep the activity level up. I’ll brush up on exercises that can be done at the desk and write about that soon.
Oh, and until then, don’t forget to get in your actual exercise time.Â
May 9th, 2008
If you like to do things by the numbers and you’re trying to lose weight, you can figure the number of calories you need to consume for your needs by knowing how to use two formulas.
First, figure your basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the number of calories your body burns at rest.
This is the equation to figure BMR as it would apply to a 60-year-old person who is 5-feet-10 inches and weighs 190 pounds. I see this person in the mirror every morning.
Step one 66 + (13.8 x weight in kilograms) + (5 x height in centimeters) - 6.8 x age). One pound equals .45 of a kilogram so 190 pounds multiplied by .45 gives us 85.5 kilograms. 5-feet-10 inches is 70 inches and one inch equals 2.54 centimeters, so 70 times 2.54 gives us 177.8 centimeters. 60 times 6.8 gives us 408.
Step two Now the formula would read 66 + (13.8 x 85.5) + (5 x 177.8) - (408).
When we do the multiplication , it becomes 66 + (1179.9) + (889) - (408)
When we add the first three numbers, it’s 2134.9 - 408 = 1726.9 to get my BMR.
Step three The second formula is simply a multiplier based on the amount and type of exercise you get each week and tells you how many calories you need to stay at your current weight.
If you almost never exercise, multiply your BMR by 1.2 — in my case 1726.9 x 1.2Â or 2072.28 calories per day to maintain current weight.
If you exercise, one to three days per week, multiply by 1.375; three to five days per week by 1.55; six or seven days per week by 1.725.
It takes a deficit of 3,500 calories to burn one pound of fat, so if you find a way to cut 250 calories per day from your diet while burning an additional 250 calories during your workout, you could expect to lose a pound per week.Â
May 6th, 2008
Welcome to HealthyRockford.com.
Who would have guessed that taking a pass on the newsroom doughnut club could lead to a new job?
OK, there’s a little more to it than that, but my bosses here at the Register Star have assigned me to be the editor of and a writer for a new Web site called HealthyRockford.com. It’s a one-stop shop for medical, health and fitness, lifestyle and nutrition news for and about the people of the Rock River Valley.
I come into the job after 20 years writing everything from obits to politics on our news side and just short of another 19 covering local sports. I got interested in physical fitness in my early 30s after a photographer friend took what I call the “blue whale” family portrait.
I became a regular runner and weight lifter after that photo and, in 2000, stepped that up a notch and earned a personal trainer certification from what is now the National Exercise Trainers Association. I still maintain that and will be re-certifying this July.
 Since mid-March, we have been recruiting local experts — doctors, nurses, personal trainers, exercise physiologists, registered dietitians and others — to stock HealthyRockford.com with information you can use.
 When you visit HealthyRockford.com, you’ll find a searchable physician’s directory, health topics from Harvard Medical School, local and national health news and features, fitness tips, healthy recipes, a link to health-related careers and, soon, a calendar of health events in the community.
What you won’t find is a Web site that tries to take the place of appropriate visits to and conversation with your own physician.
So, welcome and enjoy.                                                 Â
