Cool Equipment Alert!
by Andrew Heffernan on Mar 8, 2010 4:45 PM EST
2 comments
Recently I was given a writing assignment to cover fitness technology. And not just 'stuff', meaning kettlebells and resistance bands and cool items that enhance an already-functional workout. No: I'm supposed to write about beeping, blinking, plug-in devices of the sort I often rail about in this space.
Interesting challenge, because the second you have to plug a piece of fitness equipment in, my hackles go up. I mean, it's bad enough that we can't capture all the energy being burned in gyms and use it to light and power our cities (though that may be coming!), but that we actually burn up MORE energy giving ourselves a workout? Well, you can't tell me that's right.
Laying that personal objection aside, I've been on the hunt for fitness devices--machines, even, as I'm not allowed to cheat and just use athletic watches with heart rate monitors and GPS tracking--which at the very least don't fly in the face of the basic idea that Exercise Should Make Your Body Function Better. That fitness programs and equipment should accommodate the body's natural functions--rather than vice versa.
To that end I discovered a very cool treadmill called "The Force". Essentially, YOU power it. Get on it, run, and it goes. Run slower, and it goes slower. It's a resisted-running device, and it's very cool. Haven't been on one--the closest I've gotten was getting on one of these last year--but I'm thinking this is where treadmills are going. You know, to the extent that treadmills can "go" anywhere.
Again, I'm not in the business of prognostication, but if you're into the single-joint machine exercises and the bodybuilding-only based training, I'd stockpile that equipment because it's going away.
(I'd say "Use the Force," but I'm pretty sure I'd be inundated with "Unsubscribe" notes.)
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Off-Topic Hilarity
by Andrew Heffernan on Mar 5, 2010 1:00 PM EST
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Does this have anything to do with fitness? Don't think so, but I've got a shoulder injury, it's making me mad, and I desperately needed this laugh. Make sure to stick around for the 'toy steering wheel' bit.
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Trust Thy Trainer
by Andrew Heffernan on Mar 4, 2010 12:54 PM EST
1 comment
So I recently acquired a client who wanted to work out three days a week.
Wonderful, I thought: three days a week is a good amount of time to get something done. True, you might not be able to do everything you'd like in three hours a week, but it's a good base from which to work, and if people are watching their diet and staying off the couch most other days, they're going to see some good progress pretty quickly.
A couple of weeks into our work together, I asked this client--let's call her "Emily"--what she'd done since I saw her last. I know she has a very active dog, and that she had recently started jazz-dance classes, but she responded, "No, I've done nothing since I saw you last."
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Newsflash: Diets (Alone) Don't Work, Either
by Andrew Heffernan on Mar 3, 2010 4:10 PM EST
4 comments
A few months ago we read--and mostly conceded--that exercise alone doesn't work for effective weight loss.
Now a study has emerged suggesting that dieting doesn't either.
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JACKED (Based on the Novel 'Pump' by Veiny)
by Andrew Heffernan on Mar 3, 2010 12:28 AM EST
0 comments
I was recently sent a couple of fitness books to review; photos and links are below.
I'll try to say this without being horribly un-gallant: neither book represents what I would consider a high standard of fitness writing or exercise science. There is decent information in both books; however, if you're looking for up-to-date, attractively presented and engagingly written information with its own spin on things--I urge you to look elsewhere.
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Testing My Mettle at Aikido
by Andrew Heffernan on Mar 1, 2010 2:04 PM EST
1 comment
Yesterday I officially tested for my 5th-kyu in aikido. Before you get too excited, realize that a "5th kyu" is something like "Private, First Class" in the military: the bottom rung on the ladder. Graduation from boot camp. The point at which the drill sergeant stops calling you a maggot and an abortion. 'Kyu' designation descends until you reach "shodan", or first-degree black belt, at which point the numbers begin ascending: second degree, third degree, and on up until one dies or gives up the art.
One major benefit of this unnervingly difficult martial art is that it doesn't rely on strength: I've worked with high-ranking 90-pound girls and 80-year old men who were able to toss me about quite easily. The downside, for a guy with almost 20 years of strength-training behind me, is that...it doesn't rely on strength, meaning that technique is everything, and if they spot you leaning on your hard-earned muscle, they dock ya.
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High-Fives Beget Success
by Andrew Heffernan on Feb 25, 2010 1:39 PM EST
2 comments
Forgive the blog-lapse; my family has been passing around a wicked stomach virus. I was patient zero; now everyone else has it and I'm spending my free time washing barfy bed linens and shopping for herbal remedies. Parenthood!
I was tooling about for a blog topic this morning and when I found it--this article on the influence of touch in team-building, success, and life in general--I was reminded of a piece of dating advice I must have heard a hundred times growing up: "If she ever touches you--anywhere--on the arm, on the hand, on your face--for any reason, even to brush a fly away, you're in, baby!" I took this advice to heart, and must have contrived a dozen ways to trick girls into brushing into me, even by accident, just to sooth my dateless ego: I'd walk around with toy houseflies taped to my arms; I'd spend as much time as possible in the cafeteria, trying to predict which Italian Ice Sorbet the cute sophomore was going to go for and shoot for the same one just as she extended her arm. Alas, no dates came of any of it.
More story after the "jump" below...
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If You Get a Pig Spine of Your Own
by Andrew Heffernan on Feb 22, 2010 4:30 PM EST
0 comments
Nick Tumminello dug up some cool videos showing Mark Young taking us on a guided tour through a pig's spine. Good stuff! Literally pointing out--with he surgical tool--how the spine works, Mark makes a strong case for emphasizing some of the more popular fitness techniques du jour: thoracic mobility and unilateral lower-body training while minimizing lumbar rotation and excessive spinal flexion and extension.
What that means to you and me is to foam-roll the thoracic spine and find additional ways to twist and mobilize the upper spine; to work with lunges, step-ups and other single-limb lower-body movements in lieu of a lot of compressive movements like heavy squats (unless they are an essential part of your athletic program), and to remove crunches and broomstick rotations from your program at all costs. if you're still doing those things after all my ranting and raving anyway, I don't know what to do with you.
When it comes to heavy bilateral squats, Mark suggests to rotate them in and out of your program so as to avoid damage inflicted by repetitive movement.
But the most interesting thing is watching Mark poking away at the pig's spine, and hearing him suggest, at the end of the video, that we get "a pig spine of our own," which he says we can get at our local butcher's for next to nothing. What are you waiting for? And why am I sitting here blogging away when I could be at the Ralph's picking one up? I'm outta here!
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