Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I absolutely adore this animated GIF from i’ve got miles to bike.

The next time I’m reluctant to do my cardio, just a couple of seconds watching this girl run will get me going.

Via: work sweat achieve

I found some spinning workouts on YouTube that I can watch while I’m exercising and I thought I would share them with you. I created a playlist of all of them here:

This workout is almost an hour long, which is more than I do in one day right now, so I’ve been watching a couple of them and then fast forwarding to Part 9 for the cool down. Someday, I’ll be able to do the entire workout all at once, but until then, I’m happy with doing as much as I can.

No matter how bad your day was,

it always feels better after a workout!

I always tend to forget this when I’m lying in bed first thing in the morning. I think about the effort of a workout and how hard it is. I think about whether or not to put on my gym clothes or just stumble downstairs in my pajamas instead. On days when the workout clothes win, I ALWAYS feel better. Choosing to start my day with a workout gives me a better day. And when I have a bad day, adding a quick workout can make it suck a tiny bit less. It’s as if putting forth the effort of working out makes anything bad that happened in my day fade in comparison.

This morning, while I was on the exercise bike, I wanted to watch a video that would keep me going. My goal was to do the interval workout for 20 minutes and keep my RPMs at 50 for the whole workout, especially when the resistance went up on the intervals.

I was watching this video during my workout and I looked up at the readout for the exercise bike. My RPMs were hovering around 63, WAY faster than my goal, and I was on the hardest interval of the workout. The music and the pictures really helped keep me working out at an even higher level than I hoped.

I really liked this saying from the video:

Potential means nothing if you do nothing with it.

It’s so true. I just wish this video lasted twenty minutes long to hold me through my entire workout!

I was reading Retrospace and it showed me something I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. It was the Total Body Shaper and my parents had one in the Seventies.

It hung on the door to the crawl space and furnace room for YEARS. My parents used it sometimes, but mostly, it was just an irritating pile of strings on a door handle.

Now, it’s all well and good to laugh at that old exercise product. Weren’t my parents funny back in the Seventies? They didn’t realize how silly that thing was.

Sadly, they STILL sell exercise equipment like this today. This is the Body Exerciser at Amazon.com

Just in case you thought it was a fluke, there are LOTS of these products available. Even Bally Total Fitness makes one: Bally Fitness Pilates Door Knob Rope Excerciser

They cost about the same money as they did back in the Seventies, but I don’t think they will give a better workout to you than they did to my poor mom and dad. Don’t let companies take your money with promises. Sure, they’ve changed the name from Total Body Shaper to Pilates Workout, but in the end, they’re still selling the same thing: empty promises.

Beautiful Women posted this little info graphic that gives you a bunch of reasons to pick up a jump rope and use it for your next workout.

It reads:

The Benefits of Jumping Rope

In just 15 to 20 minutes, it will give you an unparalleled total body workout.

A lot of muscles are being worked at the same time. This can create muscle tone and definition.

To make workouts more challenging and intense, you can use a weighted jump rope.

It enhances performance in any sport.

It’s also great for eye-hand coordination, lateral movement, foot and hand speed and agility.

It can be used at the beginning of workouts for a warm-up.

Passive rest breaks in between lifts can be substituted with rope-jumping sessions. This can keep your heart rate up and promote more weight loss.

Jump rope workouts can be effective in helping you lose weight and reduce your disease risk.

Via: Healthy is Classy

I love this photo from Melissa’s Running Inspiration Pinterest Page.

It reads:

Yesterday, you said tomorrow.

It’s an advertisement for a hated brand of shoes and clothing, so I won’t mention it here, but the sentiment is so motivating that I just HAD to post it here.

The next time you think, “I’ll start my diet and exercise tomorrow,” STOP yourself! Stop right there and start NOW. Do a quick twenty-minute workout. Plan your meals for the next day and even prepare your lunch so you won’t have an excuse later. You can always do something NOW, so quit putting your life on hold until tomorrow.

When Mike and I were visiting Little Rock, Arkansas, last month, we had a chance to ride bikes across the Big Dam Bridge.

The bridge rose 90 feet up into the air, spanning across the Arkansas River and I REALLY wanted to make it across the whole thing. When I arrived there, however, I realized that this was a bigger feat than I thought it would be.

90 feet is just a number in my head. It wasn’t until I actually SAW how tall that bridge was that I fully understood how big of a job this ride would be. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to get across it, but I did. I got across and back and the view was totally worth it!

I’m pretty sure that if the bridge had been at 4,200 feet (like back home in SLC, UT), I wouldn’t have been able to do the whole ride, but being at such a low elevation (335 feet), I felt like superhero! I was so proud of being able to get across the bridge, I bought myself a t-shirt commemorating it!

Whenever I’m exercising at home, I need to remember that THIS is why I’m doing it: so I can see great things like the Big Dam Bridge when I’m traveling.

For more information:

• Big Dam Bridge on Google Maps

• Big Dam Bridge website

Seeing this quote from Shoebox yesterday made me laugh.

It reads:

If you could see the insides of bowling ball holes, nobody would ever bowl again.

Bowling isn’t really a cardio sport, but I have had sore muscles after a bowling party many times. I call it Bowling Butt and sore muscles means I must have been working SOMETHING, so don’t let bowling fears stop you from getting a fun workout.

Fear 1: Germs

If thoughts of germs in the bowling ball holes or wearing shoes that have been worn by hundreds of other people bother you, here are some ideas to get past them.

• Clean them yourself: Bring some Lysol or your favorite antibiotic cleaner and clean the bowling balls yourself. You can also spray the insides of the shoes with Lysol.

• Wear disposable socks: Wear an old pair of socks to the bowling alley and bring a new pair with you. After you bowl, throw away the old pair of socks and put on the fresh pair.

• Invest in your own: Bringing your own bowling ball and shoes to the alley not only saves you a bit of money on shoe rental, but it’s better for you. The ball has been drilled specifically for your hand and the shoes fit you better than any rentals could.

Fear 2: I’ll Look Dumb

I was completely surprised by some of the responses when I said that I was enjoying bowling.

Aren’t you afraid of looking stupid?

Aren’t you bothered when your score is so low and posted on those TVs for everyone to see?

I’d play, but I get so many gutter balls, it’s embarrassing!

Since Mike and I went bowling just to have some fun and maybe get a little exercise, it never occurred to me to be embarrassed by it. I don’t get great scores. I throw gutter balls and air balls all the time. I have even fallen on my butt a couple of times with those slippery bowling shoes. I have never felt embarrassed.

Why? Because I look at the end product. The most perfect bowlers look just as silly as I do when they bowl. Take this video for example. Brian Voss does an AMAZING job of picking up a 7-10 split, which is the hardest thing to do while bowling.

In all honesty, he looks a little dorky out there bowling, even though he did something amazing. If the best bowler looks a little dorky, then I don’t need to worry about being embarrassed. I’ll just go out there and have some fun.

Fear #3: I Don’t Know How To Keep Score

This was a big fear for me. When I was a kid, my dad kept score, but I never learned how to do it. By the time Mike and I went bowling, the entire bowling industry had changed. Now, there is automatic scoring at almost every bowling alley. The most archaic of bowling alleys in Salt Lake City uses this system from the early 80’s.

The automatic scoring systems take care of all that stuff for you so you can just get a fun workout and have an idea of who is winning. The more you play, the more you’ll learn about bowling and how to score your games, so you don’t need to worry about this at all.

If you REALLY want to know, however, you can find out everything about how to score bowling here: Wikipedia Bowling Scoring

Fear #4: The People Are Distracting

This has been my own biggest deterrent to going bowling over the last few months. Whether it’s the screaming kids, the dating teenagers or the drunk league players, there are times when it’s downright UNPLEASANT to go bowling.

The key to getting past this fear is knowing the bowling alleys in your area and knowing their schedules. I’ll gladly bowl next to drunk league players because they know the rules of the game and do their sloppy best to be polite. But the birthday party of screeching five year olds? I’d rather avoid them. The teenagers more interested in making out during Cosmic Bowling are basically harmless, but the family of idiots who allow their kids to overrun not only their own lane, but mine as well are infuriating.

I avoid the bowling alley that is connected to the arcade and pizza parlor because that one tends to attract the screeching parties and idiot families. I bowl late on the weekends because the loud music and dark atmosphere of Cosmic Bowling tends to drown out the teenagers in the next lane. I bowl right before the leagues start because I’m more likely to encounter someone who knows the rules and is warming up for their games.

I know my limitations, so I avoid the bowling alleys and times that are irritating to me. All you need to do is do the same. Maybe the sound of children’s voices is like music to your ears. If so, you’ll bowl at a very different bowling alley and at different times than I would.

No Excuses

No matter what fears you can pluck out of the ether to avoid going bowling, in the end, they’re all just excuses. Don’t let excuses get in the way of a fun workout for you and your family. Don’t let bowling fears stop you from getting your own case of the Bowling Butt!

I found this story of a disabled veteran of the Gulf War, Arthur Boorman, who transformed himself using yoga to be very inspiring.

After watching the video, I found myself wondering what DDP Yoga was. Apparently, it’s a DVD yoga program offered by Diamond Dallas Page, a former professional wrestler. The program seemed really expensive at $105 for the complete set. At my Five Buck Workout calculation, you would have to workout with those DVDs three times a week for almost seven weeks to make it worthwhile. It’s hard to justify spending that much on yoga DVDs when you can buy so many different boxed set of yoga videos from Amazon for under $40.

• Yoga for Weight Loss (Deluxe 3 DVD set with over 30 routines) at Amazon.com
• Yoga for Beginners Boxed Set (Yoga for Stress Relief / AM-PM Yoga for Beginners / Essential Yoga for Inflexible People) at Amazon.com
• Ultimate Yoga Makeover, 5 Volume Set at Amazon.com

Heck, you can even find full-length yoga workouts for FREE on YouTube. Here are a couple that might be good if you are just getting started out:

It’s possible to transform your life, just as Arthur did, but you don’t need to shell out over a hundred bucks to do it. Borrow yoga videos from the library, buy cheap yoga videos from Amazon, or even find free yoga videos on the Internet. Just like Arthur says, “Do not waste any time thinking you are stuck – you can take control over your life, and change it faster than you might think.”

Via: Boing Boing: Disabled vet transforms himself though yoga