The Top 5 Free Weight Exercises

In order:

1. Squat
2. Pull-up
3. Dead-lift
4. Bench Press
5. Standing Shoulder Press

Chocolate Milk is Perfect

The best thing to have post workout is a big, chilled glass of chocolate milk. A poor imitation is squeezing Hershey's chocolate syrup into skim, 1%, or whatever milk you drink. Go for the real, already made stuff.

Vitamin Poisoning

One of the most common misnomers among those trying to improve their overall wellness and health is that vitamin supplementation is necessary-It is not.

Hypervitaminosis or vitamin poisoning is very common. Supplementing your eating with tablets of various vitamins is not necessary. The media and fitness industry tout the overwhelming benefits of vitamin supplementation- beware. Although the abundance of vitamin shops and stores is widespread- it is wise to avoid them. I've seen hypervitaminosis and it's effects up close, and it is not pretty once it reaches a certain level of toxicity.

Of course, this is all valid assuming you that you intake SOME form of normal food on a daily basis. Even those who don't eat in an "ideal" way obtain more than enough adequate vitamins and minerals.

Walking vs. Running: Part 3

Now onto running.

Let's begin by looking at the graph above. Remember the walk curve? (Blue dotted line from part 2). Now we're going to look at the red line labeled "running" floating above it.

Fundamentally, running is very different from walking. Not only from an energy consumption standpoint, but running produces an entirely different movement with your legs.

In part 2, I talked about your legs acting like pendulums during walking. The big difference in running is that your legs act like springs.

If you examine the red line on the graph you'll see the line hovers just above where the walk curve ends. Two reasons:

Running does burn more calories than walking. Second, to show fast walking and slow running are very close to each other. And that closeness produces the biggest calorie burn.

To explain,

Try an experiment next time you're in the gym. Walk slow on a treadmill. Then slowly increase your speed.

When you reach 4.6 - 5.3 mph (a fast walk) try not to run. You'll feel uncomfortable. You'll want to run. Notice now the difference between walking and running is so small, that you COULD do either.

But, at this threshold, it's more efficient for your body to run than walk. Due to the relationship between stride length, speed of your limbs, along with the center of mass in your body. And the fact your body is shifting from a pendulum like movement to the recoil movement of a spring.

But notice how the line starts to creep down as you increase your run speed? That's because you actually become more efficient as you run faster. In other words - you burn just a little less calories as run speed increases.

To summarize: The current research shows running does burn more calories than walking. We can see this by looking at the graph. The slowest running speeds use more transport cost than slow, regular, or fast walking.

In the end, the choice to run or walk is dependent on your goals, medical condition, and other factors. Both movements are excellent, with running having the slight edge in terms of using more calories / energy.

Beware the Quick Fix

Anyone trying to sell you a product, idea, or solution to your problem that seems to good to be true - should generally be dismissed and ignored.

You'll find this a lot in the fitness / wellness industry. A lot of companies know people have no compass to navigate through the products being offered. So they prey upon your lack of knowledge by offering quick fixes and overly ambitious results that resonate with your emotions.

Try this supplement! It will do wonders. Buy a year membership - you'll be sure to come in every day if you pay for the full year! Pay lots of money for an 'experienced' personal trainer: they know what they're doing! (Answers in order: mostly false, mostly false, experience doesn't correlate with quality).

Look for those that offer realistic, yet optimistic assessments.

Walking vs. Running: Part 2

Take a look at the walking curve.

You'll notice that the line resembles the letter "U". If you look closer, you'll see the left side of the "U" is a little skewed. Higher than the right side.

Let's begin by taking your finger and putting it on the far left side of the blue dotted line labeled "Slow". Take your finger and trace down. The speed is right around .5 m/s.

Now, move your finger back up to the label "slow " and move left towards the Transport Cost" side. The number corresponds to a 3, reflecting the calories or energy used.

This will begin to make sense once we look at the other labels on the walk curve.

Let's continue our examination by moving towards the right. Look for the label "normal". See it? When you do, start by tracing your finger from the small circle where the label is, and move down again.

The speed corresponds to 1.5 m/s. This makes sense intuitively; this is how you walk most of the time. The speed at which you are consciously using the least effort.

What's interesting is, although you're moving faster, there is something revealing about the energy used.

Repeat the same process we did with the slow walking. Move your finger back up to the circle dubbed "normal" and trace towards the left. Notice the number corresponds to a 2. Compare this to the number for slow walking (3).

Finally, lets continue to slide right towards the label "fast". Here, walking speed is the fastest, at about 2 m/s. But look at the transport cost- The number corresponds to a 2.5.

What does it all mean?

To understand what it means, we have to visualize the movement of walking. We'll rely on biomechanics to help us.

Think of your legs as inverted pendulums. Pendulums that are upside down.

Walking is the most efficient when the energy exchange between swings of the inverted pendulum is maximized. That is, when more energy is transferred than lost.

In slow walking, swings of the pendulum (your legs) are such that more energy is lost, making it less efficient. Thus, requiring more calories /energy to sustain.

Normal walking produces a smoother swing of the inverted pendulum. Making it more efficient for energy to transfer. Therefore requiring less calories / energy.

Fast walking isn't as efficient as normal walking, but more efficient that slow walking.

Make sense?

All of this comes together to tell us: Fast walking burns more calories than normal walking, but slow walking burns more than either of them.

When the speed of walking reaches a certain speed - The body no longer uses an inverted pendulum for movement; but shifts gradually towards something else. That something else is running. This will be covered in my next post.

Walking Vs. Running: Part 1

Here is a graph showing running vs. walking. The red line represents running, while the dotted blue line is walking.

The Y-Axis - 'Transport Cost' is the amount of calories (or energy expressed in joules per kilogram per meter) you use during these activities. Speed is expressed in meters per second.


Look at the graph... What can you tell by the way the lines are shaped? Does running burn more calories? Walking? Why is running a straight line? More to come.

Exercising While You're Sick

Working out when you're sick isn't a good idea.

Even if one nostril is slightly runny, and only one arm is falling off (well, maybe).

Gyms are crowded right now. Cold weather and new resolutions combine to make more people working out indoors. Coughing, sneezing, on you - me, everything. Making it more likely you'll contract an unwanted bug.

My message:

I have an Emergency Physician as a client. Recently, he poured over data from nearly 2000 patients who all died due to exercising while sick. (Working on getting the primary article linked). A possibility why this happens?

Your heart works harder if you have a fever. There is scientific evidence that placing your heart under a higher cardiac output (stroke volume x heart rate) during exercise (while sick) may increase your chances of sepsis, and infection. It's unlikely, but why take the risk?

Also, you feel crappy. You're low on energy, cleaning your runny nose every 5 minutes. Hit the weights / treadmill / meet with your trainer when you're close to 100% - No sooner.

So, If you're sick, stay home.

Your $200 Challenge

I will be holding a contest for my current, new, and returning female clients.

Whoever can Squat the most, complete the most pull-ups, and Bench Press (flat bench) by April 31st, 2009 will win $200. Criteria are stated below:

1) Squat: Defined as successfully descending to a parallel position with the floor (minimum), pausing one second, then returning (pushing) to the starting position without help.

2) Pull-ups: Defined as gripping the bar with hands facing away from you. Keeping your torso straight and gently pulling yourself upwards, chin clearing the bar.

3) Bench Press: Defined as being able to lower the weight within 5.5" parallel to mid-line of the chest. Then returning (pushing) the bar back to starting position / rest.

Awarding is absolute, or by category. Squats and pull-ups are more fiscally rewarding - because they are more challenging (plus they are better for you) than the bench.

The prize breakdown:

Squat: $95
Pull-up: $65
Bench: $40

This means- you can take it all, or be the best at a certain movement and win the money for that category.

For instance: If you're a good squatter,ho-hum bench presser, and mediocre pull-upper, you can possibly win the squat portion.

However, if somebody comes along - out squats, pulls, and presses you (and everyone else) they win the entire amount.

It pays to be well rounded. Are you up for it?

Interval Training: The Panacea?

Welcome! My first blog post will address what kind of cardiovascular / aerobic exercise should I do on my own to lose body fat?

First things first - any movement is good movement. But one way of training is more effective to lose body fat than others.

An acronym that is simple and easy to remember:

F.I.T.T

Translated:

Frequency
Intensity
Time
Type

Can you guess which one of these 4 is the most important? The temptation is to say time. After all, we are conditioned (magazines, peers, gyms, trainers) to spend as much time as possible exercising. For most of us, that option isn't realistic. Especially gyms - buy a year membership, spend more time there - spend more money.

But in the end, time doesn't matter too much.

Now you may be quick to guess type. Am I rowing? running? pushing cars? (yes, it's great exercise ask me about it). True, the body conditions itself to a repeated stimulus. And to a degree, type is a little more important than time. But not by much.

Frequency: How often are you doing what you're doing. Are you training 1, 2, 7 times a week? Again, you may be tempted to think the more the better, but that is conventional wisdom. And conventional wisdom will often surprise you with it's lack of wisdom.

The wise choice?

Frequency
Intensity
Time
Type

Intensity defeats extensity, frequency, and type. Each time.

You can accomplish more through 3 x 20-minute sessions of intense training than any other training method. Pick a movement: Biking, running, steps, jump rope - they all can be used to further your training via this method.

A typical high intensity program uses intervals at its core. After a thorough warm-up, you exercise at a relatively easy pace for a few minutes. Then engage in high intensity for 30 seconds - 1 minute. Cycling rest with intensity for the elapsed time.

But how do you know if you're training hard enough? Perceived exertion is one way. Assigning a numerical rating to how hard it is for you. 1 being the easiest, 10 being borderline impossible. Most assign good interval training a high 7 or low 8.

There is another way, a little more scientific - which I will cover in my next post. But in the meantime, questions, comments, discuss.