Weekly Fitness Blog Item
Figures unchanged from last week. Well, you’re supposed to ease off those last few pounds, right? Like the old Lunar Landing BASIC game!
They Say you should change up your workout regimen every 4-8 weeks. Keeps you interested, keeps you from developing lazy habits, works your muscles in different ways or works different muscles. At bottom, you’re still lifting weights and doing cardio workouts, but do them differently. That’s why I switched weight-training protocols to the Body-for-Life program a couple weeks ago. I only did one session before it was aerobic week again, but I’m back to weights this week. It takes a lot longer to complete a session than SuperSlow takes, but it lets me avoid buying more dumbbells for awhile. It’s six sets per exercise versus one, and faster reps (though still not fast).
On the cardio front, I “ran” again today. “Running” is alternating intervals of running and walking, over a 3.2 mile course (through the park to Kemp Mill Shopping Center and back). On the way out, I walked one minute and rested one, then repeated. On the way back I ran only a third as much as I walked. Completed the circuit in 37 minutes.
I also did more walking without weights this week, about 6 miles, as “off day” activity, and just three sessions of Heavyhands.
I’m trying to ramp up the intensity of my workouts because Halloween is only three months away, dammit, and if I’m going to carry off the Spiderman costume (or whatever), merely decent shape won’t cut it. I have my dreams, ridiculous though they may be.
Recovery Tip of the Week: I asked my orthopedist why my quads hurt so badly after weight workouts, and so much worse and longer than the rest of me. His answer: Hello! They’re the biggest muscles in your body! He said 20 minutes of ice right after the session will do wonders, so I’m going to try that.
Heavyhands Tip of the Week: Interval cycles. This is for indoor, in-place workouts. You alternate brief cycles of work and rest, e.g. 6 seconds on, six seconds off; 10 seconds on, 5 seconds off; whatever enables you to handle the workload you’re after. The few seconds allow more recovery than you might think, which lets you work for longer at high workloads. It’s perfect for TV time - I did a half hour the other night at a 20/10 second pace with 8-pound weights for 20 minutes, then 2-pounders for a much faster-paced ten minutes. I couldn’t walk five minutes throwing 8-pounders around, but with the interval cycles, I managed to work them for 2/3 x 20 = 13 minutes. With the two-pounders, I did lots of shadow-boxing, jumps and double ski-poling.
Double ski-poling is a back-oriented move, but it also works your legs and buttockals (glutamates). The in-place version works like this:
1. Start with your arms outstretched over your head. Use lighter weights than you usually do Heavyhands with.
2. Sweep the weights down in an arc while squatting and bending forward on the count of 1.
3. Sweep the weights past your knees and up behind you on the count of two, finishing with your trunk horizontal leaning forward and your arms horizontal behind you.
4. Sweep the weights back past your knees on count three while beginning to straighten.
5. Finish on count four with your body upright, knees straight and arms stretched over your head again, just like you started.
It doesn’t take much of this to get you breathing pretty hard.
For on-the-move DSP, substitute steps for counts. One entire circuit is four steps. Only do about a minute of these at a time at first. You may even want to do them without weights in the beginning.
Diet fun: Lycos has an article on “dangerous diets.” The intro focuses mainly on diets with low calcium intake from food. (Atkins, Sugar Busters, Body for Life and Suzanne Sommers’ diet make the list.) Fair enough. It’s important for women to know they need to either take a calcium supplement or switch diets. Then come ” five signs of a dangerous diet,” including
Lists “good” and “bad” foods
Okay, no one should tell you that sugar is “bad” or fiber is “good.” ‘Kay. Then, whiplash:
A recent study from the Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville that was published in the Journal of Nutrition concluded that low-fat dairy products may help control body fat. Lead researcher Michael Zemel says that a diet rich in low-fat dairy foods will change the way the body’s fat cells do their job. “A diet high in low-fat dairy causes fat cells to make less fat and turns on the machinery to break down fat, which translates into a significantly lower risk of obesity,” he explained in a news release announcing the study results. In other words, dairy foods burn fat.
So low-fat dairy products are a . . . good . . . food. Man, my neck hurts.
In other fitness blog news:
Jessica Grieves advocates food journals. She makes a strong case that some people may really need them. I may yet need one.
Missy likes the fitness items. That’s another one!
Avram Grumer in the land of the weight machines.
Finally, Ellen Goodman simpers about corporations and America’s waistline. Companies giving you more for your money gets recast as conspiring to increase portion sizes. People from poor countries eating more when they get to a rich one is recast as people from thin cultures who move here get fatter.
Ellen, it’s real simple. America does not want to be all that thin all that much. If it did, it would become so. America likes to eat. When that changes, America can get doggy bags and tote half of those large portions home. Or just buy less. (You can still get a regular hamburger, small fries and a small coke at McDonalds. Just try it. The small fries come in a bag no bigger than the ones they had when you were a kid. Better yet, you can get a hamburger, small fries and a cup of ice water. Mrs. Offering speaks highly of the premium salads too.)
I do, by the way, think it’s reasonable for schools to remove junk food vending machines from their grounds if they choose.
