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

I just got a CycleOps Bike Trainer so I could exercise inside this winter. It was pretty easy to setup and you can see my review of it on the Gadgets Page:

• The Gadgets Page » First Glance: CycleOps Mag Indoor Bike Trainer

The bike trainer came with a Train Right DVD that you can exercise with. The particular DVD that came with my trainer was called Train Right: Time Trial, which I can’t find on Amazon.com, but they offer Train Right: Climbing. This video is exactly what I need in an exercise video.

Too many workout videos spend too much time talking. There is plenty of talking from the coach, Chris Carmichael, but he isn’t irritating or perky. He sounds like he’s just coaching me through a tough workout. Chris Carmichael was the US Olympic Committee Coach of the Year, so he really knows what he’s talking about.

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This is a story from Associated Press about how Minnesota State University is encouraging fitness on their campus.

• Happy News – Exercise goes high-tech on Minnesota campus – Associated Press

The university has outifitted their exercise gear with computer/entertainment systems where the students can do homework, surf the web or watch television while on the exercise machines. It looks like a little awkward setup based on the picture, but having to stretch a little to reach the keyboard is better than boredom.

Speaking from experience, it’s much easier for me to finish my workout when I can watch a movie, television or listen to music. The time seems to fly by quickly compared to those times when all I am left with are my own thoughts.

This is a Salon.com article about a teen training camp called Wellspring. Five years ago, it would have been called a fat camp, but Wellspring wants the emphasis to be on the training aspect. They imagine that they are training these teenagers to have a “healthy obsession” with food.

• Salon.com Life | Gut check – By Katharine Mieszkowski

As an overweight child and teen, I’m pretty bugged by Katharine’s attitude toward overweight teenagers:

“I did meet shy kids, who seemed as if they’d be a lot more comfortable alone in front of a computer screen than with their peers. But I also met major social alphas and super-extroverted comedians, who sang and rapped and joked. It may be time for the stereotype of the overweight social outcast to get a big fat makeover.”

She was amazed that teenagers could be overweight and popular. She was amazed that one of the campers was a cheerleader back home. She was amazed that these kids didn’t fit her narrow stereotype of what overweight means. Most importantly, she couldn’t resist saying the phrase “big fat makeover.”

Since I was an overweight teenager, I look at the entire experience differently. Take Lily, the only camper there with the “kahunas” to tell the truth about her situation:

“My mom is embarrassed about the way I look,” says Lily, who weighed 170 pounds when she came to camp and at five feet, five inches is supposed to weigh between 119 and 149 pounds according to the BMI. “She’s afraid I’ll keep gaining weight. She doesn’t want an obese kid, because no one will be my friend and no one will talk to me, and I’ll be really unhappy.”

The truth of the matter is I bet most of those kids are there against their will. They are fantasizing about Pringles and milk and beef and chicken because this is an externally instituted change. The only lasting change must come from within. Unless those kids want to get thin and healthy, throwing money at an “adventure” camp won’t do a thing for them.

Every summer when I came out from under the strict regime of my grandparents and went back home to my parents, I binged. I ate things just because I had been denied them for so long. I binged during those summers, too. I saved up all my allowance money and spent it on the highest calorie food I could. I don’t think these fat camps are helpful to teenagers who are sent to them, only teenagers who beg to go.

Western Wellspring Adventure Weight Loss Camp for Teens in California

Via: Boing Boing: Weight-loss camp demands obsessive measurement

Last week, I went to the gym for my workout. I’ve been using the treadmill pretty heavily, so I wanted a workout that worked some different muscles. I chose the upright exercise bikes. My gym owns the Life Fitness exercise bikes, which have a workout called “Random.” I chose that workout and set the bike to my usual level.

I really wanted a hard workout, though, so I decided to kick it up a notch. Every time the random line of dots was seven dots or higher, I would stand up in the saddle. The Life Fitness bikes aren’t like the spinning class bikes. It’s VERY difficult to stand up in the saddle because the pedals won’t support your weight. I needed to concentrate very carefully to keep my movements from being jerky.

While I was standing up in the saddle, I repeated the word “Smooth” to myself over and over so that I would keep good form during this difficult time. I would also keep my eye on the clock and count down the last five seconds.

The standing up sessions were as short as 10 seconds, but never longer than 50 seconds. My heart rate got higher than I should have let it, but it kept my interest on the workout. I had already chosen a level that was difficult for me. Standing up in the saddle made it the major workout of my week.

Try this workout and see how it feels to you. It made my 40 minutes fly by and I felt so energized after it.

I have free weights and a stability ball in my house, but I rarely use them. When I do Yourself! Fitness, Maya will tell me when to use these things, but most of the time, they sit by the television unused. I just don’t really know how to use them like I can with the machines at the gym.

GetFitSource.com has an animated example of one exercise you can use with the ball and weights. It’s a simple press, but because it’s on the stability ball, it strengthens your ab muscles also.

• Health and Fitness Blog :: New Animated Functional Fitness Routine

This is a great way to demonstrate exercises. Still pictures are helpful, but a simple animation like this makes all the difference in the world.

Yesterday I decided to go for a run outside. I ran to Liberty Park, around the track twice and back. I learned an important lesson:

The treadmill is great, but nothing can replace a run outside.

I have been running on the treadmill for a few months now. When the weather got unbearably hot, I started using the treadmill and I didn’t try running outside again until yesterday. I forgot how much the wind blowing in my face can affect my run. I forgot how bad it feels when someone passes me on the track. I forgot how good it feels to finally pass someone else.

It’s getting cold here in Salt Lake City, but I think I need to add an outside workout at least once a week. The treadmill has made me a little soft, I think.

I hear a lot of negative press about swimming. Bob Greene, Oprah’s Trainer, believes that swimming isn’t as good as running or even riding a stationary bicycle. Abi decided to diversify her training and her experience was the opposite.

• dreaming stream: a way to kick your own butt

The last time I tried to swim laps, we were staying at the Luxor Hotel. I didn’t want to pay the high fee to use the hotel gym, so I decided to do laps in the pool. I had been running 2-3 miles a day, so I thought swimming laps would be a relaxing “easy” day. I went out there early and found myself gasping for breath. None of the strokes were relaxing or easy, not even the breast stroke, which had been the stroke that I always used when I was just floating along. I haven’t tried since.

My gym has a pool. Maybe I’ll add one day of swimming laps into my routine and mix my workout a little bit.

We’ve written quite a bit here about how games like Dance Dance Revolution are good for exercise. Now one California school district is testing a pilot program that adds “exertainment” to their PE curriculum with Playstation games like DDR.

• Wired News: Now That’s Exertainment!

I’m not sure I would have appreciated being forced to “dance” in public in elementary school, but if things like this were done right they’d be a great way of making exercise fun for kids. I hope this idea catches on in other schools.

I have a collection of exercise bands in my basement. They are so light and small that they have survived several purges of the basement. They don’t take up much space, so they haven’t gone to Good Will like the Bosu Ball did.

The reason they are in the basement instead of being used each day is I don’t really know how to use them. I don’t know how to do the exercises that I was taught in that Weight Training class I took in high school. This workout shows the ingenious ways to use resistance bands for a wide variety of exercises:

• About.com – Upper Body Mixed Resistance Workout – by Paige Waehner

She is also holding dumbells in some of these pictures, but it is very clear how to place the resistance band in order to get the workout you need. If you’re a power user, then you might need dumbells in addition to the bands, but for a lot of us, just getting started is the hard part.

When I started exercising, I was walking and running outdoors on sidewalks and roads. I had incredible pain in my shins (the muscle on the lower front of my leg). I also had pain under my feet in the arch. I actually went to a podiatrist, who wrapped my foot and told me to ice it regularly. It didn’t help.

The pain would go away when I stopped exercising for a week or so, but would come back every time I’d start again. I was really frustrated because the doctor wasn’t any help and every article that I read about this kind of pain gave me the following useless advice:

• Stretch: They’d tell me to stretch, but didn’t tell me how.
• Ice: Ice helps reduce the swelling when you’re injured, but what I really needed was to learn how not to get injured in the first place.
• Change the Type of Exercise: I was really poor and the only options available to me at the time were walking and running. Both hurt me.
• Wrap It: The doctor showed me how to wrap my foot, but it didn’t prevent me from injuring myself.
• Rest: Yeah, rest works, but EVERY time I started up again, the pain came back.
• Lose Weight: A lot of the articles told me to lose weight because extra poundage caused problems. I remember reading that thinking, “No kidding? Why do you think I’m running and walking in the first place!”

Finally, Runner’s World had a small, tiny article that was an “Ask the Doctor” type of thing. It was so small I could have missed it, but luckily, I found it. The space was limited, so the doctor answered the shin splint question with ONE stretch that I could do to solve the problem. That and a recommendation to see a doctor was all the article contained. Not even a picture.

After following the directions for a week, I noticed a definite improvement in that foot and my shins. Now, I swear by this stretch. I do it before and after every run, walk and especially if I’m playing Dance Dance Revolution. This website has a description of the stretch:

• Exercise & Muscle Directory – Step Straight Leg Calf Stretch

My additional thoughts:

• Lower your heel over the edge of a step and lift your toes.
• Make sure you hold onto something so that you don’t slip and hurt yourself.
• Lowering your foot stretches your calf muscle and lifting your toe stretches your shin.
• You can bend the knee of the stretching leg and it will deepen the stretch.
• Hold the stretch for 20 seconds on each leg.
• Be careful. DO NOT bounce! It’s really easy to lose your balance on the step and REALLY hurt yourself.