Don't Forget Swimming

The one thing I miss about not doing Triathlons for a couple of years now are the swim workouts. After reading this excerpt from a blog that I've pasted below, I'm getting the itch to swim again. Also, my core wasn't anywhere near as strong as it is now and a strong core is key with a nice efficient stroke. If you've ever used water to workout, you know how effective it can be, if you haven't, you should add it to your array of things you can do to work out your new body.

Consumer Reports Health.org
Kevin McCarthy, associate editor

Swimming is my exercise of choice, which apparently puts me in good company—it’s the second most popular workout in the country. And you know it’s a great workout. Lap swimming is about as effective as jogging at burning calories, building strength, and provides a similar aerobic workout. And it’s easier on the hips and knees, helping those with joint problems work out longer and with less stress.

But lap swimming isn’t the only way to get a good water workout. Walking, running, or lifting weights in a pool is a different kind of workout than on land—and it can be safer too, especially for those who may be frail, overweight, pregnant, or with back or joint problems. One of my colleagues and fellow blogger was required to take a water aerobics class in college. She wasn’t excited about it at first, but says she thoroughly enjoyed it, and lost nearly ten pounds in one semester.

Like some exercise machines, water provides a natural form of resistance—roughly ten times greater than air—forcing you to work harder to move through it, which burns calories faster while building strength and aerobic fitness. And because water surrounds you, it provides resistance in any direction you move. Straight leg lifts on land, for example, tone the muscles in your front thigh, but the same exercise in water has the added benefit of strengthening the hamstring when you push your leg back down.

Is Your Metabolism Slowing Down?

The older you get, the slower your metabolism gets. Obviously the higher your metabolism, the easier it is to lose weight. Here are some tips I found in an article to help get your metabolism going -- especially if you are getting older.

How To Fast Forward Your Metabolism
by Jimmy Warren

Ask anyone who is above the age of 40, and he or she will tell you that burning calories is a top priority. Metabolism is something, which a lot of people inherit. That being said, men have a naturally better metabolism system than women.

Some people may lose the calories faster than others. And in the whole deal, you will find age being a crucial factor. When you come to think of it, there are certain things you cannot do much about when you wish to burn calories. For example, can you do anything about your age or genetics?

Did you know that your body could burn 6 calories even while you are resting daily? May not sound like a lot at this point, but remember, you are burning calories for doing absolutely nothing.

The muscles in the body get all charged up after a bout of resistance training. Be sure to drink at least 8 glasses of water everyday. Water is considered to be very potent for metabolism.
Some studies have revealed that drinking 8 glasses of water has helped a lot of people keep track of their metabolic activities.

You should ideally drink a glass of water just before your meal or snack. You should also prefer eating fruits and vegetables, both of which are extremely rich in fluids. The more fluids you intake, the better it is for your metabolism.

People think that by eating less, they can lose weight. This may be true to a certain extent, but if you eat more of fruits and vegetables, which are full of fluids, you would find losing weight being an easy deal. The fluids intake to the body allows you to burn more calories.

Preferably eat meals in short spurts, like having a small meal once every 2 hours. In doing so, you will ensure that metabolism cycle in your body keeps running all the time. There is no better supplement than adding some spice to your food.

You may not be used to the spicy tingling, but one thing is for sure ” It is extremely healthy for the rate of metabolism. Eating some amount of spices in your diet will help you increase the rate of metabolism by 23%. Ideally speaking, any intake of pasta should be supplemented with some spices.

And here is a no-brainer for you ” If you wish to burn calories fast, take in a lot of proteins, as opposed to carbs or fats. Proteins will help you burn calories faster than these foods. Importantly, what you should do is spice up your pasta with some red flakes, if you really are a pasta fan.

Different foods and drinks do have some amount of impact on the rate of metabolism, but the impact is considerably less as compared to what you could do by exercising on a regular basis.
Regular exercise and a healthy diet can work wonders to keep the rate of metabolism at acceptable levels.

US warns dieters: Stop Hydroxycut use immediately

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — U.S. government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold Canadian-made supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.

The Food and Drug Administration said the maker of the dietary supplement has agreed to recall 14 Hydroxycut products. Available in grocery stores and pharmacies, Hydroxycut is advertised as made from natural ingredients. At least 9 million packages were sold last year, the FDA said.

Dr. Linda Katz of the FDA's food and nutrition division said the agency has received 23 reports of liver problems, including the death of a 19-year-old boy living in the Southwest. The teenager died in 2007, and the death was reported to the FDA this March.

Other patients experienced symptoms ranging from jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, to liver failure. One received a transplant and another was placed on a list to await a new liver.
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. distributor of the diet pill, Iovate Health Sciences, headquartered near Buffalo, New York. Hydroxycut is used by people trying to shed pounds and by body builders to sharpen their muscles.

Dietary supplements aren't as tightly regulated by the government as medications. Manufacturers don't need to prove to the FDA that their products are safe and effective before they can sell them to consumers. But regulators monitor aftermarket reports for signs of trouble, and in recent years companies have been put under stricter requirements to alert the FDA when they learn of problems.

Katz said it has taken so long to get a handle on the Hydroxycut problem because the cases of liver damage were rare and the FDA has no authority to review supplements before they're marketed. "Part of the problem is that the FDA looks at dietary supplements from a post-market perspective, and an isolated incident is often difficult to follow," she said.
The FDA relies on voluntary reports to detect such problems, and many cases are never reported, officials acknowledge.

Health officials said they have been unable to determine which Hydroxycut ingredients are potentially toxic, partially because the formulation of the products has changed several times. A medical journal report last month raised questions about one ingredient, hydroxycitric acid, derived from a tropical fruit. The article said it could potentially damage the liver.

But I Don't Want to Bulk Up

I here this most often from woman that want to lose weight and feel that cardio alone will get them to their fitness goals. Woman fear lifting weights because they have this visual of getting super muscular. But consistent resistance training is a crucial segment of successful weight loss. I found this article that is technical but does a good job of explaining why weight training is so important when you want to lose weight.


Why Weight Training Leads to Fat Burning
kreatefitness.com

Integrating weight training into your regular exercise program can and does assist in fat burning and weight reduction for two significant reasons. The first reason being the muscle fiber type or types that are employed and the second reason is an explicit increase in metabolic rate.
Weight training, or as some refer to as strength or resistance training, should be consistently performed at a minimum of 3 times per week.

Although a skilled-personal trainer can prescribe a condition-appropriate program for you, as a rule of thumb it is recommended that a minimum of one set per exercise for each major muscle group be performed. Even more effective is the performance of several peak-intensive compound (multi-muscle) exercises. The major muscle groups are the chest,quadriceps, abdominals, hamstrings, low-back, upper back, biceps, triceps, neck and shoulders.
Each exercise should consist of about 8-20 repetitions, done in a slow, controlled manner, while emphasizing proper form and joint position. The resistance should fatigue the muscle group near the end of the set.

Simply put, the muscle fibers are the fundamental element of the muscle. The three types of muscle fibers are: slow twitch (slow oxidating (SO) or type I), fast twitch (Fast oxidative - glycolyme (FOG) or type IIA) and pure fast twitch (FT orType IIB). Slow twitch fibers get most of their energy from fat burning, a process that requires oxygen. This is also fueled by the fibers’ ample supply of blood vessels, glycogen, mitochondria (cellular furnaces where fat and nutrients are burned) and the blood fats inside of various related cells. The pure fast twitch fibers are dissimilar in that they contract rapidly and fatigue easier. These fibers get their energy from burning glycogen. There are fewer mitochondria in the cells that compose fast twitch fiber; therefore, these fibers burn less fat than slow twitch fibers.

Similarly yet distinctively, the fast twitch fibers do also contract rapidly, but sustain a greater level of endurance. This may be because they have more mitochondria than the pure fast twitch fibers, but less than the slow twitch fibers. By far the most remarkable benefit of peak or high intensity weight training (or extended duration aerobics) is that you can change pure fast twitch fibers into regular fast twitch oxidative fibers. This particular variety of high intensity weight training activity increases the amount of mitochondria in the fast twitch fibers to levels much higher than those found in the slow twitch fibers. And as you might have guessed, with more mitochondria present and employable in the muscle cells, more fat is burned. This is the key to weight management.

Your metabolism and the rate at which it functions represents the amount of energy you need on a daily basis to sustain your life functions. Even when lounging or sleeping, muscle tissue is very active and can require up to 45 calories per pound per day. Therefore, losing muscle (muscle atrophy) or more specifically not maintaining muscle results in a decline in your metabolic rate. Subsequently, with less muscle, your body requires less energy.
Food (nutrients) once used as energy is now stored as fat. A prudent, long term and consistent weight training program is the greatest contributor to avoiding a decrease in lean muscle mass and overall metabolic rate, as well as metabolic and body systems function diminution. Commencing a regular weight training program can and should take some effort. But no matter what your age or level of conditioning might be, weight training will fuel an abiding lifestyle and add longevity, functionality and vitality to your life.

The Cure for the Plateau

As I have mentioned before, I struggled with getting discouraged because I would hit walls and then stop working out. P90X has helped me to blast through those walls. By using diligent training and muscle confusion, I'm in the best shape of my life. Along those lines, I found this interesting article in Marine Corps Times talking about improving ones fitness for their annual fitness test. It eludes to the fact that many people find it hard to improve on their fitness levels once they are in shape. Mixing it up and training hard is the only way to break thru. People that are using P90X will find a couple of familiar techniques below that we use in our workout routines.

Fitness fix-ups
Be better at every event
By Chris Lawson - Staff writer

Knowing your personal limits is a good thing. Self-awareness, after all, is a gift. But when it comes to fitness, confusing realistic limits with potential possibilities can lead to selling yourself short. Nowhere is that more treacherous than your annual fitness test, where an incremental improvement on your score can mean the difference between a promotion or a better performance evaluation.

If you’ve settled into a routine where you’re only pumping out so many push-ups, crunches or pull-ups, or just can’t seem to improve your run time no matter how hard you try, stop sweating it. Most likely it’s not a lack of effort that’s to blame — it’s probably a misguided approach to training.

We asked fitness experts to help us help you pump up your scores. And that doesn’t mean simply doing more reps and sets of the events on your test. In this case, harder doesn’t equal smarter — it means doing collaborative exercises designed to improve your performance on those events.

The result: You can do more pull-ups and push-ups than you do now. You can run faster. You can knock out more crunches, sit-ups or curl-ups. The best part: You don’t have to become a PT freak to make it happen.

Here’s how:

Sit-ups, curl-ups & crunches
The sit-up — and all its modern variations designed to minimize damage to one’s back and spine — is an age-old strength-training exercise designed to toughen your abdominal muscles. It’s the ultimate gut check on any military fitness test. But your abs are just part of the total equation.
“You use two muscle groups when you perform a crunch or a sit-up — your abs and your hip flexors,” says fitness policy expert Navy Cmdr. Jacqueline Pollock at the Navy Annex in Arlington, Va. “For a lot of people, it’s their hip flexors that fatigue out on a fitness test, not their abs.” And that’s where the limitations set in.

Pollock says research shows your abs do about 30 percent of the lift in a sit-up, and your hip flexors do the rest. So while your abs help lift your shoulders off the ground, stronger hip flexors are what will help drive you to a better score.

The solution: The V-up

This gut-buster gives added attention to the hip flexors in addition to strengthening the abs:
1. Lying flat on your back, stretch your arms overhead and keep your legs straight.
2. While inhaling deeply, raise your legs and arms together as high and as straight as you can, forming a “V” shape at the top. Come up like you’re doing a crunch.
3. Try to touch your hands to your feet.
4. Hold the position for as long as you can, at least for three counts.
5. Lower to the starting position. Repeat, doing a set of 10 to 25 V-ups.

Other options:
• The exercise ball crunch: While seated on a stable exercise ball, do three or four sets of 15 to 20 crunches/sit-ups, lifting your torso off the ball.

Pull-ups
Another good test of upper-body strength is the pull-up. The Marine Corps is the only service that uses the pull-up in fitness tests.
Like the push-up, taxing the muscles that do the heavy lifting is a surefire way to improve performance, says Bob Thomas, the lead fitness trainer for Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., and a former naval aviator. He also writes the Military Muscle column for OFFDuty.

His recommendation: Slow it down.

“Going super slow in training is a good way to see faster improvements,” Thomas says.

The solution: Super-slow pull-ups

Get in the pull-up position with your hands in a normal grip configuration and your body fully extended. Begin a slow, 10-second upward pull, keeping your body straight with little or no motion other than the vertical climb. Summit the bar with your chin and then begin a similar 10-second descent, returning to the starting position.

This slow-motion workout increases stress on your biceps, shoulders and triceps, Thomas says, boosting their endurance and capacity. It’s a slow burn with potentially big payoffs.
Female Marines do what’s called a flexed-arm hang, where they clutch the pull-up bar with both hands, placing their heads just above the bar. The longer they hold on, the higher their score. Thomas’ solution for improving that performance: “Drop the flex-armed hang in your training and do pull-ups — as many as you can.”

Other options:
• 7/21s: Do seven pull-ups from the full down position to halfway up. Then do seven pull-ups from halfway up to the full up position. Then do seven pull-ups from full down to full up.
• Change your grip: Go for wider grips to place extra stress on your muscles.

Timed run
If there’s one area that people need help, it’s here. But simply running longer distances when you train will not boost your speed. Instead, you need to train faster.
“We recommend doing sprints and going shorter distances,” says Stephen Van Camp, the assistant director and chief of doctrine at the U.S. Army Fitness School at Fort Jackson, S.C. “That will contribute more to overall speed than simply running longer distances.”
While longer distances will help improve overall endurance — and that’s important on these longer timed runs — it won’t shave time.
“You need to practice running faster to get faster,” Van Camp says.

The solution: 30-60 or 60-120 sprints
Sprint for 30 seconds, walk for 60 seconds — or, sprint for a minute and walk for two minutes. Repeat 10 times. Do this at least once a week.
Other options:
• Calculated training: Divide the length of your run into segments and have an elapsed time to hit each segment. Having such focus will allow you to target where you save time and boost speeds.
• Speed training: Run between 600 meters and a half-mile, but do it at a fast pace. You want to learn to develop “quick leg turnover,” Thomas says. Run that distance several times during your workout and equal or improve the time with each effort.
• Interval training: Run at a high intensity for two to three minutes, then cool down for one minute. Repeat. This can be done on a treadmill.