Posts filed under 'personal fitness'
August 29th, 2008
I guess it had to happen — the snacks in the vending machines here at the Register Star got bigger last week.
Not surprising when you figure that the concept of what constitutes a serving size is way out of proportion to reality, but that’s another story.
And it’s not that my occasional salty chips fix now costs 75 cents a crack instead of 40 as much as it means I have to pay attention to that serving size.
Instead of something like three-fourths an ounce of deep-fried corn and salt (oh, the tragedy), it’s now one and three-fourths — translating into about 120 more calories, more total fat and more sodium, assuming I eat the whole bag.
So, if you’re like me, what can you do?
Well, barring some weird situation, no one is probably forcing you to eat the whole bag at one sitting. A rubber band around the package will keep a second serving fresh for another day.
Here are a couple of other things you could do:
Bring your snack — you control the serving size — from home and pick a healthier option unless you just h-a-v-e t-o h-a-v-e that salty snack. Either way, you’re better off.
Make sure you’re not confusing hunger with thirst. When you get the urge to hit the snack machine, first drink the biggest glass of water you can stand. Doesn’t have to be all at one gulp, but drink it all. Then wait 10 minutes.
If you’re still hungry, go eat something. If you’re not still hungry, you were only thirsty. You’ve satisfied that thirst and you haven’t ingested one single calorie.
August 21st, 2008
This exercise comes from Al MacIsaac, who worked out at the same gym that I do when he was in town last season as the Rockford IceHogs’ general manager. It takes a little practice, but it puts a lot of muscle groups to work.
You need a flat bench and a medicine ball that you can handle. A ball between two and eight pounds will work.
Hold the ball in either hand and lean back at one end of the bench as if you were going to perform V-situps. When you are stable, flutter-kick your legs up and down as you toss the ball back and forth between them. You can do it if you start slowly and gradually pick up speed as you get better at it.
MacIsaac did it several times during his workouts in between other lifting. When I remember to do it, I usually try to do three sets for as long as I can.
One warning would be that, because of the spinal flexion and the extended legs during the exercise, I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone with low back issues or post menopausal women.
August 18th, 2008
 My wife and I just joined several of our friends for a long weekend in northern Wisconsin and while we there four of us went out for a morning run.
That’s nothing unusual for us, my wife and I have been running for years. What was unusual was how we felt.
Despite running on a road that was never flat for more than two steps in a row, I realized about halfway in that we were moving pretty well without really feeling the effort. The answer was simple, we were enjoying the new scenery — several deer crossing our paths included — too much to pay attention to how hard we were running.
You don’t have to travel five hours north to experience the same thing, though.
If your running times have hit a plateau and just won’t budge, try a different route or several different routes and turn off your stopwatch. Run just for the heck of it.
Even if your times don’t improve when you get back to training, you’re apt to take renewed pleasure in the workout.
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August 8th, 2008
I was working out with a client last week and trying to think of a new chest exercise for him, when I remembered one I had seen in Men’s Health awhile back.
You take two free-weight plates of equal weight and press them together between your hands out in front of your chest. You’re not allowed to wrap your fingers anywhere around the edges of the plates and it’s a really good idea to hold them out far enough to save your toes in case of a mishap.
Then you just hold them together for as long as you can.
I started him out with five-pound weights and it didn’t take long until it became a competition. His best was a shaky minute and 33 seconds. Mine was a minute and 53.
Round two is scheduled for his workout this coming Monday.
The Men’s Health article ( I saved it as I often do when I see exercises I like) says the exercise builds the chest, biceps, shoulders and abs, and will help strengthen your grip. It suggests trying it at “the end of an upper-body routine or a chest workout, or in place of cable crossovers.”
Have fun.
August 4th, 2008
Studies showing that things like fidgeting while you sit can actually burn a significant number of calories have often fascinated me.
I’ve never tried fidgeting long enough to see if it’s true, but the same fascination holds for ”fitness tips” that I never would have thought of.
A public relations firm sent some along the other day as recommended by director/choreographer Helene Phillips. They looked interesting, so here they are:
1. Firing your abs — When you’re in your car at a stoplight, take the palms of your hands and push down on the top of the steering wheel. Keep your shoulders down and your neck relaxed. The minute you press down, you will start to fire your abs.
2. Feet — Anytime you find yourself standing still (as in waiting in line, etc.) push your toes into the ground. You will be working your arch and many muscles in your feet.
3. Glutes — Anytime you are seated, squeeze your glutes, hold for a count of three and release. Repeat several times a day.
4. Neck — While seated, press the back of your head toward the seat. At the same time, press your chin down toward your neck. Hold the position for a few seconds and then release. Repeat several times a day.
So, there you go, but I’d make sure when I’m firing my abs at a red light that my hands don’t slip down and accidentally blow the horn.
July 23rd, 2008
It seems people are always looking for ways to look thinner and one of the easiest ways to do that is simply to stand up straight.
 Sound simple? It is.
In a person with good posture, the head is balanced and the chin doesn’t jut forward, the chest is slightly raised, the abdomen is flat without being sucked in, the knees are relaxed with the kneecaps pointing straight ahead, the shoulders are level and the hips are level and aligned directly under the shoulders. The feet are directly beneath the knees and facing forward.
In addition, there is a natural curve to the lower back and the hands hang naturally at your sides with the palms facing each other.
If all that sounded like things just got complicated, think of this simple trick whenever you catch yourself slouching or you just want to check yourself for that thinner look.
Imagine that two strings run from the bottoms of your feet up through your legs and hips and become one string when they reach your trunk. That string runs all the way up your spine to the top of your head.
Then, when you catch yourself slouching, reach back and pull that imaginary string straight up until it pulls you into proper position and hold it there. The more often you do this, the greater the effect.
You may not have perfect posture, but you may realize that you’re breathing better, your muscles feel more relaxed and you just plain look better.
July 18th, 2008
My wife, who was a better runner than I probably ever will be, passed along an article given to her by a friend the other day.
She had one comment about it. “Discouraging,” she said.
The article, which has the word “Health” printed in italics in its lower right-hand corner, says that, if despite trying to stay trim by running and climbing stairs, you suspect that you’ve been gaining weight around the midsection over the years, you’re right.
In a study of 7,000 lifetime runners, men who ran at a steady level between the ages of 20 and 50 gained an average of 3.3 pounds and three-fourth of an inch at the waist each decade.
“The only way to keep that weight off,” the article said, “is to continually up the exercise. A man who ran 10 miles a week at age 20 would have to run 52 miles a week at age 50 to fit the jeans he bought in college.”
Sure, metabolism is going to slow down with age, and that could lead to weight gain if a person doesn’t change their workout or their nutrition habits. But a theory that the only way to keep weight off is more and more exercise completely overlooks the possibility that a person with a well thought out eating plan couldn’t adjust their calorie intake to take metabolism and, maybe, a decreased activity level into account.
Further, if increased exercise is the choice, it wouldn’t all have to be aerobic exercise, such as running. Strength training routines can burn a ton of calories and a person’s metabolism tends to stay elevated for a longer period of time after a hard strength training workout as opposed to a hard aerobic workout.
July 17th, 2008
You may have heard of the concept of working out at low to moderate intensities to stay “in the fat-burning zone.”
But, if the purpose of your workout is to help lose weight, you need to work at a higher intensity, say 70 percent or more of your maximum heart rate, if you use a heart rate monitor or a rate of perceived exertion that you would classify as hard or very hard.
In a cardio workout, this might mean adding hills to or mixing in a few minutes of a faster pace with your regular pace during a run or simply increasing the grade during your walk on a treadmill.
Basically, you want something that makes you work closer to your maximum heart rate — read work harder.
It’s true that the body burns more fat during a lower intensity workout — something like 50 percent of the calories burned in exercise at 60 to 65 percent of your maximum heart rate are from fat, but as exercise intensity increases the body burns less fat and more carbohydrates.
 It also burns more total calories, and burning more calories than you consume is ultimately what you’re after for weight loss.
July 16th, 2008
When you have trouble squeezing the gym into a busy schedule, exercises that combine to engage more than one major muscle group can be the time savers that also save the workout.
A couple that have become popular with my clients work upper and lower body muscles at the same time.
Try these the next time you’re pressed for time:
Cable fly with lunge – Stand with feet together in the center of a cable crossover machine, holding a handle attached to each side of the machine at shoulder height in each hand. Your arms should be straight, but the elbows not locked out. Without bending the elbows and further, move both hands toward the center of your chest until they meet in the middle. At the same time, step forward with your right leg and lower yourself until your right thigh is approximately parallel to the floor and your left shin is an inch or two above the floor. Make sure your knee is directly over your foot and doesn’t extend farther forward than your toes. Return to the starting position and, as you bring your hands together again, step forward with your left leg and repeat the lunge. Repeat, alternating legs each time, until you have 8 to 10 repetitions with each leg forward.
Squat with one-arm cable row — Attach a handle to one side of a cable crossover machine at slightly above your waist height and set the weight at a challenging but manageable weight. Stand facing where the handle is attached, holding the handle in one hand. Lower your body by bending both legs as if you were going to sit down, making sure that your knees are aligned directly above your feet and don’t extend farther out than your toes. As you lower your body, pull the handle toward you, keeping your elbow as close to your body as you can, until your hand can touch your shirt. You can perform several repetitions with the same hand and then switch hands or switch hands for each squat repetition. Try to work up to two to three sets of 8 to 10 repetitions for each arm.
There are several other exercises that work upper and lower body muscle groups at the same time, including lunges with lateral side raises and stability ball squats with dumbbell curls, but we’ll save those for another time.
July 8th, 2008
It’s difficult to avoid diets. The average American goes on three to four of them a year.
But because nutrition — along with cardiovascular exercise, resistance training and flexibility — is a main component of a healthy lifestyle, it’s important to view a diet more as a performance-enhancing program than a deprivation-based punishment for trying to lose weight.
Safe weight loss is usually considered to be one to two pounds per week. That means it’s a slow, deliberate process so ask yourself when contemplating a diet if it’s one you can live with for the rest of your life.
If you can make the commitment to an eating plan, you won’t need to think about maintenance of a desired weight loss goal because that will have started when you adopted your plan.
That said, remember that even the most motivated dieter is going to overeat once in awhile. Just get back on your plan as soon as you can.
As a good friend of mine used to say, “There is no magic weight-loss bullet, just choices to make.”
