PENNY'S WORKOUT WORLD- brings you:
"Putting The Man In Maniac"
"Chair Today, Gone Tomorrow"
" My ABC Segment on Lifting Weights to Burn Belly Fat"
CHECK OUT MY
WORKOUT WORLD
March 28,2008 Issue#34
|
|
|
|
|
Greetings!
Just to keep me on my toes,
I'm going to resist the urge to use the term "audacious radical fitness zealots"
when referring to CrossFit,
a strength and conditioning program for what I would call the "over-the-top" athlete.
On the CrossFit website, they summarize their program in 100 words:
"Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar.
Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.
Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean squat, presses, C&J, and snatch.
Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds.
Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week
mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow.
Routine is the enemy.
Keep workouts short and intense.
Regularly learn and play new sports."
Okay, I agree with a lot of that.
But after looking at some YouTube videos of some of the main CrossFit workouts,
I'll bet that in ten years,
they will have bad knees,
torn rotator cuffs
and more artificial joints than me.
And the sad thing is that they won't be able to keep doing what they love to do,
which is continue to move with ease and speed.
CrossFit is a fitness craze.
Virginia Heffernan wrote about it in last weekend's New York Times Magazine.
She called it a "grueling online exercise regime that requires near-devotional commitment"
and in my (sort of) humble fitness opinion, she is politely understating it.
Of course, nothing's wrong with have a Goliath-style work (out) ethic
and a lofty Olympic-like fitness threshold
but this workout is a joint-buster.
It puts the man back in maniac.
Although I did find myself lusting
after their handstand pushups
and their rope climbs,
their hurling,
snatching and
dead lifting with near impossible speed. After all, I'm still working on mastering
ONE pull up,
but
I also imagined their knees exploding
on the next ever-deeper squat
or their shoulder dislocating as they balanced in a dangerously unnatural angle on the gymnastic rings.
Could just be the mom in me.
Or the CPR certified aerobics instructor.
Or the non-idiot part of me.
Then I had a horrifying thought.
What if some of my readers who read my articles about working out
look upon MY fitness suggestions with an equal sense of disbelief
or a similar feeling that I had
while reading about CrossFit ,
that the exercises prescribed are
equally impossible?
SO the point I want to make today
is that nothing you have to do
to be healthy is
super-human although on some rainy Mondays mornings, it may feel like it.
All you need to do in order to live
just about as long as the CrossFit
cult members is
25-30 minutes of cardio exercise
(you are sweating and you could talk but not sing) four times per week, fifty crunches and
twenty push-ups, modified to your knees if needed.
Do these most every day.
And you will live just as long.
Unless there's a natural disaster and it's survival of the fittest,
then the CrossFit peeps will survive beyond most of the rest of us.
But that's okay with me. I'm not into sleeping on the ground and I'm not much of a survialist anyway.
Keep reading if you like the idea that less is more.....
CHAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW
One hundred years ago, the average person burned 2100 calories per day.
Today, we only burn 1900 per day,
thanks to the good life: desk jobs and TV-watching and many lifestyle conveniences like cars and riding lawn mowers.
So life has gotten easier but our metabolism has actually devolved, buy slowing down. Meaning we gain more weight.
Some cool workout research has come in about the importance of NEAT,
which is an acronym for non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
This is any OTHER daily movement beyond exercise.
Walking, talking, fidgeting and any other movement you do through out your day. Have you ever known someone who couldn't sit still on a long airplane flight?
They just had to get up and pace the aisles or stand in the back annoying the flight attendants or worse, lean over their seat talking to the person behind them?
Odds are that this person is NOT overweight and that they have a high NEAT, meaning, they can't sit still.
I have several thin friends who
eat like farm animals but they never sit down all day long.
If they are done with their household chores, they will dig in the garden, paint a mural on the garage wall or give the dog a bath, all the while talking to me on the phone, pen in hand for compiling a list of things to do next.
On the other hand,
do you know many people with obesity
that are like that?
Or do they spend more time sitting while doing?
Granted, they might be busy and even more productive than the thin chicks from the previous paragraph but the new research
is proving that the more sedentary you are, the less likely you are to be lean.
People with obesity move two and a half hour LESS per day than lean people.
This is where NEAT comes in.
Mostly it is just busyness: ambulation, meaning you are just up and around on your feet for a bigger part of the day.
Office jobs and computer work force us to do the opposite: sit.
What to do?Limit the time you sit arou nd. Watch less TV.
Have meetings where you take a walk instead of sit around a table.
At my health club we have weekly one hour meetings and I'm going to suggest that we hold them up on our gym floor ,on the row of treadmills.
The idea is not to break a sweat. The treadmills would only be set at about one mile per hour. That's a slow walking pace. The idea is to add movement to our day so that over time we increase our
non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
Check out the feature article "Chair Today, Gone Tomorrow" by James Levine and Bonnie Liebman in the Nutrition Action Newsletter at www.cspinet.org
Then get off your tush and start moving.
|
|
 MY NEW BOOK IS ALMOST READY!
FITNESS RANTS
FOR THE
CHRONOLOGICALLY
ENRICHED
I've got so many people,
at least six or seven so far,
wanting an official copy of my rants on the situation
I find myself in
as I fight the uphill battle
to keep active.
Why am I a fitness expert?
Mostly because I proclaimed myself one.
But, let's just say I started out 25 years ago as an overzealous aerobics instructor and suddenly, two and a half decades have passed.
I feel like I'm entitled. It's as simple as that.
I'm here to inspire you with my story,
despite my bunion and hammertoe,
despite my tight hamstrings,
my torn ACL and the fact that I can't remember my next door neighbor's first name occasionally.
Add in my lack of remaining knee cartilage ,
as well as my two artificial hips.
Maybe I should not even mention my
decreased production of collagen
and the resulting wrinkles (only when I smile, unfortunately-why can't they show when I frown?),
also the morning stiffness
and occasional night time insomnia.
Plus my denial about needing reading glasses.
"Waiter, Just bring me the Chicken Ceasar Salad."
How's that for credentials?
So I have compiled a short little book for you
to keep on your bed side table, or perhaps near your treadmill,
to remind yourself that you are not alone
and that the battle is (or will be) worth all of the effort
and to never,
never,
never give up.
No matter how hard your husband laughs at you
when he sees you in your old jog bra.
And also to sometimes recommend the prudency
of an Advil as a precautionary measure
before your first personal trainer session.
You can buy the book here.
Although it won't be shipped for a few weeks
but my one time introductory pre-sale price is low low low
and you should get 'em while they're hot.
Or rather,
before they're hot.
Just go to my website to read more rants
|
|
|
|
REMEMBER,
GOOD HEALTH IS JUST THE SLOWEST WAY TO DIE!
Penny & My Workout World
|
|
|
|
