How to be fit
Dec. 8th, 2006 02:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rezendiI went to boxing tonight, and I'm out of shape, but not horrendously so.
Strenuous exercise has combined with insomnia to spark this post, which is kind of a compendium of what I've learned about physical conditioning from the last decade-plus-one, a period during which I went from "couch potato" to "exercise junkie."
I have a nasty suspicion this is going to be very, very long.
Good thing I can't sleep and I've already written my 11 GSPTS pages for the day.
1. The Why
When fully in my workout routine I probably average about an hour a day of exercise. I expect to a lot of people this sounds like a tedious, deeply unpleasant, and enormous waste of time. Why spend one-fifteenth of your waking hours straining to work up a sweat when you don't have to?
I mean, you already know about all the health reasons: fit people are at enormously less risk of basically every noninfectious disease known to mankind, especially as they get older. But unadorned that sounds like those crazy people who live on calorie-restricted diets to extend their lifespan: what the hell's the point of living in joyless misery so you can extend the misery even longer?
People will tell you that if you're really fit you'll have so much more energy. They'll tell you you'll sleep less, so you actually get more time out of it than you put in. These, based on my experience, are total lies. I remain a lazy bastard, and I still sleep a good 10 hours a night. (When I can sleep. Dammit. Fortunately these kinds of insomnia bouts hit me only maybe once a year.)
There are, however, plenty of very good reasons to get fit.
The first and often most compelling is probably the most basic. Lord knows it's what suckered me in. When I first started seriously exercising, I was 23, I had just moved to a new city, I was fat and unattractive, and I started working out mostly because I wanted to get laid. And you know what? It works. I mean, it's a long row to hoe, but take it from me, the overwhelming majority of women (at least, those in their 20s) treat trim and muscular men totally differently than they do those who are pudgy and slouched, and I expect the reverse is even moreso. (Well, maybe swap "fit" for "muscular," if we're going to stereotype.) And one can lose weight, too, although, well, see below.
But I sure wouldn't have stuck with it if that was the only reason. (And indeed you often see people coupling off and promptly falling out of shape, which I always think is kind of sad.) I discovered that being fit made life better. As in, like, every waking moment. The tangible things, like thinking nothing of going for an hour-long walk through the autumn; and the intangible things, like just generally being happier; the air being sweeter; my mind being clearer, more active, more alive. Yes I know I sound like a fucking hippie. But I really mean it. (And, going out on a limb here, I don't think it's necessarily coincidence that I wrote my first eventually-published novel the year I became a total exercise junkie.)
Then came the third reason. I started to actively enjoy the exercise itself. Oh, I'd never really minded it exactly - but I started to really look forward to it, and not just in a "because I'll feel so energized and my mind will feel so clear when it's over!" kind of way; I'd look forward to the workout itself. Other exercisers are probably looking at me now in a funny way, like 'of course you enjoy it, that's the point' - but remember when you had to talk yourself into going to the gym, or on that twenty-minute run, or into the pool, or the yoga center? Remember when it was a chore instead of a pleasure? Remember when you couldn't really imagine it being a pleasure? Well, it becomes one. Heck, I've learned how to enjoy pushing myself even when my muscles are groaning and my lungs are burning.
And then came the fourth reason, which is that I became outright addicted, but that's kind of a mixed boon, so if you don't mind I'm just gonna slide right past that and move on to
2. The How
OK. So maybe you actually do want to get in shape. Maybe you want something you can do that will clear your mind. Maybe you like the notion of some day enjoying exercise. Here's how.
2a. This Is A Long Freakin' Road. And people have a lot of trouble with that. Gyms sell a lot of memberships in January, thanks to New Year's resolutions. Gyms hard-sell one-year memberships. Why? Because it's free money for them - they know that most people who sign up in January will never be seen again after March.
Muscles grow slowly. Fat dissipates slowly. Joints and soft tissue grow limber even more slowly. Your cardiovascular system's a better bet - but it's the system that aches the most awfully at first, and it's limited by the other factors. It takes months to get real results from working out. It can take a good year of hard work to go from "unfit non-exerciser" to "in good shape." And you can only do this if -
2b. It Has To Be A Priority. Like, a serious priority. As in, you say things like, "I'm sorry, I can't go for a beer with you after work tonight, but maybe I'll join you after my run." As in, you wake up on a weekend morning and go work out. As in, one of the top few priorities in your life.
Oh, you can do a half-assed job if you want. And heck, half-assed is OK. Being a weekend warrior or going to the gym three times a week is a lot better than nothing. But if you're serious about getting into excellent physical condition, you should be doing at least three different kinds of exercise, totalling at least five sessions a week. Maybe more. In 2001, when I went from half-assed to serious, there was a period of several months where I was working out 12 sessions per week. OK, a) I had no day job, b) I was lucky to avoid injury, and c) even so that was kinda psychotic - but still.
Once you're in shape - I think maybe to some extent once you've ever been in shape - you can slack off for lengthy periods, months even, and come back to peak form in a relative hurry. But if it's the first time? No half measures. Half measures fail.
2c. Through The Nose. It's going to cost money. Yep. Gym memberships are like thirty bucks a month nowadays, minimum. You can get in shape from a gym membership alone - but it's much harder. Easier if you can spend the money on something else too. Yoga classes are pricey. Martial arts classes are pricey. All classes are pricey. Pools are pricey. Running itself is cheap, but good running shoes are expensive. A decent bicycle is at least a couple hundred bucks. You wanna get in shape, in today's world? Get ready to pay for it.
3. The When
Young is good. I'm super-glad I did it before I hit thirty; I expect I would have really felt all the pounding required for a first forging if I'd waited too much longer. The ability to recuperate doesn't exactly diminish, but it slows. It's worth noting, though, that the three fittest guys at my boxing gym are all over forty, and that professional athletes in all sports now routinely play into their mid-thirties.
Oh, you mean the when as in when in the week? I dunno. Whenever you got time. Some people swear by mornings. Me, I work out at night. Listen to what your body tells you. I'm probably going to say that a lot here. OK, sometimes you're going to go ahead and ignore it; and sometimes you're going to decide it's just your subconscious being bratty and lazy; but listen, at least, before you make those decisions.
4. The What
OK, the key thing here is: you have to do more than just one thing. Probably more than two. Those musclebound guys big as houses who live in the free-weights section? They're not fit. Those skin-and-bones distance runners? Those rubbery, muscle-free yoga girls who can bend themselves into pretzels? Them neither. They're the idiot savants of exercise.
There are basically four key components to fitness, of which the first three are strength, flexibility, and aerobic endurance. (I'll get to the fourth one later.) Ever play D&D? Sorta like Strength, Dexterity (not counting hand-eye) and Constitution (not counting disease resistance). You ask me, you kinda need all three to be reasonably considered fit.
This doesn't mean you have to get all crazy like I did and box and run and lift weights and do yoga 3 times each every week. Au contraire. Be flexible. Pick one thing, and do that three times a week; pick two other things, and do them once each; and when you get bored of the first - and you will get bored - mix it up. Go intense for a month, working out almost every day; then slack off to three days a week for a couple weeks. Not just to avoid boredom; because your body gets used to exercise just like your mind does, and if you mix up what you hit it with, it will become stronger and tougher faster. Not sure if this week should be hard or soft? Listen to what your body tells you.
Oh yeah. And before I start on details, one last generalization. It's all about the core muscles - the hips, the abs, the lower back, the pelvic floor. What's all about the core muscles? you ask. And I answer: Everything.
It's also all about the breath. What's all about the breath? Everything.
4a. Weight Training.
I am going to stereotype here. Most men, you take them into a gym, and immediately they wanna go do free-weight bench presses and bicep curls - oh, maybe not right away, but that's the goal. Most women stay away from the free-weight room as if it smells like skunk.
These stereotypical women might have the right idea. 'Cause honestly? Weight training builds muscle. (It does this very slowly - I've met women who claim they don't lift only because they don't want to be really muscular, which is a bit like saying you don't play tennis because you don't want to be as good as Roger Federer). Muscle is strength. Weight training makes you strong. Yep.
But that's all that weight training does. (People claim it helps you lose weight because muscle consumes energy. Horse puckey. I mean, it's technically true, but it's almost never a decisive factor. See part 6 below.) Lots of other things, such as certain forms of yoga, can also make you reasonably strong - if you do ashtanga yoga, bicep work is the only reason you have to go into the weight room. Serious boxing coaches often frown on weight training because they think the added muscle will slow their fighters down. (Although again I think this is horse puckey.) Muscle is heavy, and if you're a runner, every pound of muscle is another pound of weight slamming onto your fragile knee joints with every step.
Having said all that? I box, and I run, and I do ashtanga yoga, and that would make me reasonably strong - but I'm generally in the weight room lifting and bench-pressing twice a week, because I like lifting weights, and I like being more than just reasonably strong and muscled.
4b. Running / Swimming / Biking.
I'm glopping these together because these are the classic "aerobic fitness" exercises, and also, they combine into the triathlon, and also, they're all things that you should stretch after doing. (Yes, after. Never stretch before you've warmed up, you're just asking for trouble.)
4b1. Running. We were built to run. We really were. Distance running is one of the very few physical activities that humans do better than (AFAIK) any other species on the planet. A fit human can and will outrun a fit horse, or dog, or cheetah, over a fifty-kilometre distance. It's been theorized that that's how we killed prey, back when we just had spears and clubs; we just ran them down until they could run no further.
At the same time, I expect running causes more injuries than any other form of exercise. This probably has something to do with its popularity, but - well, let me put it this way. Next time you meet someone who believes in Intelligent Design, ask them to explain the knee joint. (And while you're at it, the lower back.)
That said, you should try it. Yes you should. Yes, even if you hated it in high school. Running is in many ways the purest form of exercise. It's the easiest - all you need is a pair of shoes. It's one of the most delightful, if you can run outside. It even burns the most calories per hour. Just be careful.
First of all, get good shoes from a running store. When I first took up running, I really thought expensive running shoes were a pay-for-the-brand ripoff, and I ran on PayLess Shoe Source shoes. Ow. Please. Learn from my mistakes. If you want to run - especially if you overpronate or supinate - especially if you don't know what these words mean - get good shoes from a running store that will examine your gait. It's not rocket science. But it's not something you want to screw up.
OK. Got your shoes? Great. Now find a place to run. Some people run on treadmills at the gym. I can handle that for about 20 minutes before I get so bored I start fantasizing about mass murder. Some people run in the streets, find their way around pedestrians, jog in place at traffic lights, etc. I can't stand that - once I've started, I hate to stop, the rhythm's all-important to me. Parks are great. Seashore or riverside running trails are even better. Beaches are awesome, if incredibly hard on the muscles. Rain sucks. I don't really run in the rain. My sister, a competitive marathoner, calls me a wimp. I do run up Mont-Royal, in Montreal, in winter. No, that's not crazy; I start layered in clothes, after five minutes I'm generating plenty of heat, and after ten I usually peel my hat off. I said it's not crazy. Anyway, find a park or something. Yes you can. I've ridden public transit for an hour to go for a half-hour run.
Oh - one more thing? You're going to hate it.
Running is the most loathsome form of exercise. For the first 2-3 months. Your muscles will wobble, your lungs will burn. Your mind will tell you, time and time again, to stop this torturous insanity. Maybe you will. Many people do. Maybe, however, you will get angry at yourself. I think that's the only secret; it's certainly the only reason I kept running after the first month. (OK, that and sibling rivalry.) Grimly force yourself to go and run two or three times a week. If you're anything like me, you'll hate it. For months.
And then one day, usually at about the time you can go half an hour nonstop, you'll look up and see the park around you, and feel the wind in your face, and realize that your lungs are not groaning for air, your legs are not moaning with weariness, and you'll think to yourself: hey, this is pretty cool. This will last about three minutes. But the next time, it will last about four, and more importantly, you'll start to realize, the part after that? The part that really sucks? It doesn't suck so much as it used to. In fact, you don't really want to stop, not when you're about to beat your personal best. Congratulations. You're a runner.
4b2. Swimming. Ah, my nemesis.
"Swimming is the best form of exercise," people will tell you. And they're not far wrong. Swimming works almost all the muscles in your body (especially if you vary your stroke), is no-impact (though certainly not injury-free!), builds aerobic fitness, and probably improves your flexibility and makes julienne fries while it's at it. And god knows it's hard work. The one time I swam the 1.5K Olympic-triathlon distance - 30 lengths of the 50-metre pool at Les Halles in France - I came out of the water so dazed with exhaustion that I walked straight into the womens' change room and looked wildly around for a good half-dozen breaths, gaping, knowing that something was wrong but not quite able to work out what. (Fortunately les Parisiennes were most forgiving.)
I took up swimming because I wanted to do an Olympic-distance triathlon. I have never done a triathlon. I don't expect I ever will. Why? Because I really, really hate swimming, and try as I did, over a period of a year, that hate did not go away. In fact it intensified.
Don't get me wrong; I love the water. I love frolicking in the water. I might even enjoy free-water distance swimming. But I hate pools. I hate the crowds in the lanes. I hate the transition from lukewarm air to lukewarm water. I hate the smell. I hate the bland, endless, mind-numbing repetition. It's also that I'm not naturally buoyant (too much muscle, not enough fat); it's also that I'm prone to swimming shoulder injuries - but even without that, I would hate it. I was a little dejected when I finally gave up the best form of exercise. But mostly I was relieved.
4b3. Biking. Now cycling is basically just pure fun.
There are a few problems with it. Bikes can be expensive (especially if you want to get competitive or start going long-distance.) Mountain biking can lead to very gory cases of road rash. Casual biking doesn't really count as exercise, and basically you have to cycle for 3 hours to get the same workout as running for 1. You only work a few muscles, and you run the risk of overworking them and leaving your body uneven and hence prone to injury. And it can be difficult to find good trails (again, I dislike cycling in traffic.) On the other hand spinning classes are great. And there's nothing to it, presuming you learned when you were younger.
Overall? Thumbs way up. I only go cycling every now and again, but if my knees ever make running untenable, I'll expect you'll soon find me out there on my bike several days a week.
4c. Yoga
Yoga is awesome. The very first yoga class I ever went to, it was one of those "try for $5" deals, and then as I was walking out they asked me if I might like a $120 ten-class card, and I was floating so high on bliss I was barely able to say "Where do I sign?" (In fact, come to think of it, I imprinted so strongly I wound up dating that yoga teacher for a few months.)
Yoga has a reputation of being kind of a hippy-dippy chanty-chakras-crystals New-Agey sort of thing. And, yep, it sure can be. I'm as Old-Age a kind of guy as you're likely to meet, but I do like the "Oms." I even like the chanting, though I always imagine that it's a soap commercial. Sometimes they lecture, which annoys me.
Yoga has a reputation of being all about flexibility. Only sorta. Yoga, more than anything else, is explicitly about the breath and the core muscles. You don't need to be bendy - trust me on this one; I'm as flexible as your average brick. Yoga is one of the rare things I do that I enjoy even though I'm not actually good at it and never will be, thanks to my tight back and nonexistent hamstrings.
Yoga also attracts a whole lot of very fit and flexible women, which, um, if I were the sort to notice such things, would not be a disincentive.
Yoga is also really, really hard.
At least the kind I do is. There are many varieties. Without going into too much detail: Hatha yoga is very laid-back and relaxing, and a great place to start. Bikram or "hot" yoga is a gimmicky thing done in a sauna. (As you can tell I'm not a fan.) I do ashtanga aka "vinyasa" aka "power" (retch) yoga. This is basically a fixed series of poses that you go through in the same order and the same way every class - all teachers throw in their own curves, but all follow the same general flow. Does that sound boring? It isn't. You know why? Because I'm working my body so damn hard my brain doesn't have enough oxygen to be bored. I finish dripping, sometimes soaked, with sweat. (Ashtanga is decent aerobic conditioning too.)
A good friend of mine, black belt in aikido, went to his first yoga class once. The teacher said, "This is a moderately advanced class." He said, "It's OK, I do martial arts." He couldn't walk right for three days.
OK, now I fear I'm intimidating you. That's only true of the tougher classes. But even when I can think - you know, it's utterly fascinating doing the same thing in the same way and the same order. Because you know what? I learn something new about some of the poses every single class. It's taught me more body awareness than anything else I do, by far. And the positions themselves are relentlessly tough, but soothing and - oh, hell, I'll say it - centering, at the same time.
I also love the naptime at the end.
4d. Boxing / Martial Arts
I've written at some considerable length about the joys of boxing before, so I'm just going to focus on the fitness benefits here.
I know a lot more about boxing than other martial arts, largely because I'm totally inflexible and thus unsuited to them. But I gather they're similar in some crucial ways. In particular -
You remember way up above I wrote there were four key components to fitness? I'm going to talk about the fourth now. Anaerobic fitness. "Anaerobic" means "without oxygen" - basically, he said unscientifically, when you're working so fast and hard that you can't breathe steadily. You remember how the other three components were like Strength, Dexterity and Constitution? Let's call this one All-Out. It's when you're giving it everything you've got for a short period of time.
There's bleedover between aerobic and anerobic fitness, helping one helps the other, there's a reason boxers do roadwork - but at the end of the fight, they're not the same thing at all. I remember reading about a fight a couple years ago, a commentator saying that one fighter had great stamina because he regularly ran half-marathons during training; I remember thinking "that dude doesn't know what he's talking about"; and I remember the guy fell apart and lost in the last few rounds. Distance running is the exertion of moderate energy over a long period of time. Boxing is working as hard as you can (don't believe me? Go spar a few rounds) for three minutes and then taking a mere 60 seconds to recover between rounds.
There's not much real-world benefit from All-Out. It's for professional athletes, soldiers, martial artists. But it is kind of the ne plus ultra of fitness. Things that give you All-Out fitness put you into insanely great shape. Boxers, muay thai fighters, other martial artists - people who do that kind of thing at all seriously generally have phenomenal conditioning. They have to. 'Cause if they don't, the other guy will. If there's a huge skill imbalance in a fight, that'll decide it; but if there's a fitness imbalance, that'll decide it almost as fast.
4e. Other
Of course there's lots of other ways to get fit. You can dance your ass off every night. You can go hiking. Rock climbing, definitely; I only ever took up rock climbing for six months, and that indoor, but I'd like to try it again despite my unsuited body type. Most climbers I've met were in awesomely good shape.
Whatever you do, the main points, to repeat: At least three different things. Mix it up. And always remember that it's all about the core muscles, and the breath.
5. The Where
Some people exercise at home. I can't even imagine doing that. I have run through quick yoga workouts in hotel rooms, when I was desperate and there seemed no other way to get the monkey off my back, but generally, I gotta go out to work out.
At the same time, you don't want to go too far. Commuting to work is bad enough; commuting to work out can be even worse. A decent nearby gym, one that offers not just machines but things like yoga and spinning classes, is great. That gets monotonous, though - so go for a run or bike ride, or drop in on a dedicated yoga centre, every now and again.
Eventually you'll basically start arranging your whole life around where you exercise, but, um, I'm trying to portray it as a positive innocuous thing for now, so I'll just mention that once and move on.
6. Weight Loss
A lot of people want to get fit to lose weight. This only sort of makes sense.
Before I go into detail, let me tell you about Phil and Caroline from boxing.
Caroline is one of the regulars. She's short, kind of stocky, not fat but not slender either, particularly by Montreal's willowy standards. She doesn't look particularly muscular. But she is in incredibly good shape - she's often the only one to actually finish Phil's freakishly gruelling exercises without collapsing moaning on the ground.
Phil's the boss. He's 40. Earlier this year, he was also about 40 pounds overweight. So he decided to lose weight. And he lost 40 pounds in like two months. Everyone will tell you that that's unhealthy - especially for a 40-year-old man - but they're talking about average physical specimens. Because, you see, Phil is the other person in that room who can finish his freakishly gruelling exercises; and he lost weight that fast because he was in such good shape that burning through an extra 2000 calories a day (which, incidentally, is like running nonstop for two hours) was no big deal.
My points? "Fit" and "fat" are two largely independent axes, until you get near the extreme end of either scale; but if you want to lose fat, it sure helps to be real fit.
There's apparently some evidence that men are more likely than women to lose weight from exercise; exercise helps women keep off weight they've lost from dieting, but isn't an effective direct cause. I'm deeply suspicious of this as a black-and-white claim, although I could buy it as different distributions on the same spectrum.
I also have this totally nonscientific theory that our metabolisms have momentum. Once your body starts gaining weight, it wants to keep doing that; once it starts losing weight, it keeps going. This is why losing weight is so hard at first - you don't want to lose it until you've gained it, but that recent gain means the momentum's against you. (Uh, again, I have no evidence for any of this except my belief that it's how my own body works.)
All that said: if you want to lose weight from exercise, you're going to have to exercise pretty damn hard. If you run nonstop for 30 minutes, you'll consume some 500 calories. You'd have to do that every day for a week to lose a pound. There's some evidence that exercise raises your general metabolic rate for some time thereafter so you'll burn more calories then too - but I doubt that effect is major. In short, you're going to have to be pretty fit to lose fat.
And you're going to have to do it gradually. Running is one of the fastest ways to burn energy - but if you suddenly start ramping up your running, you will almost certainly get injured, especially if you're already overweight. Vicious circle. Like fitness itself, weight loss is a matter of months, often many months, unless you're willing to go on some kind of crazy drastic diet - or unless you're very fit, and accustomed to pushing yourself physically.
7. Injuries
You will get injured. Oh yes you will. Unless you are my younger elder sister, who has run a bunch of marathons including one of the toughest in the world (Catalina Island), who finished top-ten in the first triathlon she ever did (and only; she then gave them up as too easy), and who started as my rock-climbing partner and had totally surpassed me like three days later, and who to the best of my recollection, has never been injured. The rest of you mere mortals, however, are gonna get hurt.
Listen to what your body tells you.
There are two types of sport injuries; acute and chronic. Acute ones really suck but whatcha gonna do. You're climbing over a fence, you pull a muscle. You're playing Ultimate, you change direction suddenly, you hear the dreaded 'pop', and your ACL's gone. Hello, surgery and six months of rehab and six more of getting back into shape. That's awful. Whatcha gonna do.
Listen to what your body tells you.
Most sport injuries are chronic overuse injuries, meaning "your fault." Runner's knee. Achilles tendinosis. Tennis elbow. Rotator cuff. Lower back. They ache and twinge. You rest up a little. They get a little better. You start to push them again. You get used to the aching and twinging. It's no big deal. Actually, it is a little weirder lately, but you'll rest them next month, when you're going to Florida. And then one day you're in the middle of something totally normal and you yelp Ow!
Listen to what your body tells you.
It's worst when you're first starting to get into shape. Especially if you're doing something high-impact like running or tennis. Because it takes six to eight weeks for your muscles to start getting used to this new impact, to start recovering faster, increasing their stamina: but it takes months for your bones and joints to get stronger - and that time in between is when you are most vulnerable.
Listen to what your body tells you.
If you have a cramp, suck it up. If a muscle is twinging or feels weak, suck it up. If something feels vaguely funny, suck it up. If something aches, pay careful attention to it, especially if it's soft tissue. If something hurts, stop immediately. If you have to change the form of what you're doing - your running gait, your swim stroke - stop immediately.
Listen to what your body tells you.
You'll get minor injuries that resolve by themselves in a few days. You'll go to sleep feeling fine and wake up with a leg that can hardly move, especially if you forgot to stretch. By then it's too late: never stretch an injury. You're supposed to use RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) although, you know what, I actually never do, in large part because I think the miracles of RICE are overstated; but at least keep a bag of frozen peas around to ice swollen joints. You'll get niggling little injuries that only start to come on after half an hour or so and don't go away for months.
Listen to what your body tells you.
I got patellar tendinosis four years and a month ago. I could run through it. I thought nothing of it. Four years ago, midway through Regent's Park, I suddenly went from "I can run through this" to "I can barely walk." It wasn't that big a deal. I never even saw a doctor. Maybe I should have - although, if I had, I sure would have made sure it was a doctor who runs. Six months later I was running again. Six months after that I was running for an hour. But this last month is the first time in four years I've been able to do leg extensions pain-free, the first time that knee hasn't ached for the first five minutes of and the day following every run.
Listen to what your body tells you.
8. Diet
Uh. I'm like the last guy you want to talk to about this. You should talk to my friend Cathy, who's an About.com editor and whose book THE INSIDE-OUT DIET is coming out in like six months. You should talk to my about-to-be brother-in-law Jeff, who introduced the phrase "Is it fat-free?" to our family. But me? I basically eat what I want, when I want; as far as I'm concerned, that's one of the nice bonuses of being a fitness nut.
That said, I do drink a lot of 'power' smoothies. In the periods when I'm working particularly hard, I do find myself craving fruits and vegetables (along with a lot of meat.) I understand diet is very important. I understand you should eat fish, brown rice and vegetables. And any year now, I'm going to start paying attention to these things that I understand. Until then, I'll be at Schwartz's eating medium smoked-meat sandwiches with fries and a Coke.
OK. That is my fitness infodump. I'm not even going to tell you what time it is. Nor am I going to count how many words I just wrote. I'm just going to hope that somebody somewhere gets something out of it, 'cause, dude, my fingers are aching, and that's not the kind of injury I thought I was going to risk today.
Oh, one last thing - feel free to link, if so inclined, but please don't copy this, OK? I may turn it into a for-pay article, and if so I'd rather not have other copies floating around out there.
Strenuous exercise has combined with insomnia to spark this post, which is kind of a compendium of what I've learned about physical conditioning from the last decade-plus-one, a period during which I went from "couch potato" to "exercise junkie."
I have a nasty suspicion this is going to be very, very long.
Good thing I can't sleep and I've already written my 11 GSPTS pages for the day.
1. The Why
When fully in my workout routine I probably average about an hour a day of exercise. I expect to a lot of people this sounds like a tedious, deeply unpleasant, and enormous waste of time. Why spend one-fifteenth of your waking hours straining to work up a sweat when you don't have to?
I mean, you already know about all the health reasons: fit people are at enormously less risk of basically every noninfectious disease known to mankind, especially as they get older. But unadorned that sounds like those crazy people who live on calorie-restricted diets to extend their lifespan: what the hell's the point of living in joyless misery so you can extend the misery even longer?
People will tell you that if you're really fit you'll have so much more energy. They'll tell you you'll sleep less, so you actually get more time out of it than you put in. These, based on my experience, are total lies. I remain a lazy bastard, and I still sleep a good 10 hours a night. (When I can sleep. Dammit. Fortunately these kinds of insomnia bouts hit me only maybe once a year.)
There are, however, plenty of very good reasons to get fit.
The first and often most compelling is probably the most basic. Lord knows it's what suckered me in. When I first started seriously exercising, I was 23, I had just moved to a new city, I was fat and unattractive, and I started working out mostly because I wanted to get laid. And you know what? It works. I mean, it's a long row to hoe, but take it from me, the overwhelming majority of women (at least, those in their 20s) treat trim and muscular men totally differently than they do those who are pudgy and slouched, and I expect the reverse is even moreso. (Well, maybe swap "fit" for "muscular," if we're going to stereotype.) And one can lose weight, too, although, well, see below.
But I sure wouldn't have stuck with it if that was the only reason. (And indeed you often see people coupling off and promptly falling out of shape, which I always think is kind of sad.) I discovered that being fit made life better. As in, like, every waking moment. The tangible things, like thinking nothing of going for an hour-long walk through the autumn; and the intangible things, like just generally being happier; the air being sweeter; my mind being clearer, more active, more alive. Yes I know I sound like a fucking hippie. But I really mean it. (And, going out on a limb here, I don't think it's necessarily coincidence that I wrote my first eventually-published novel the year I became a total exercise junkie.)
Then came the third reason. I started to actively enjoy the exercise itself. Oh, I'd never really minded it exactly - but I started to really look forward to it, and not just in a "because I'll feel so energized and my mind will feel so clear when it's over!" kind of way; I'd look forward to the workout itself. Other exercisers are probably looking at me now in a funny way, like 'of course you enjoy it, that's the point' - but remember when you had to talk yourself into going to the gym, or on that twenty-minute run, or into the pool, or the yoga center? Remember when it was a chore instead of a pleasure? Remember when you couldn't really imagine it being a pleasure? Well, it becomes one. Heck, I've learned how to enjoy pushing myself even when my muscles are groaning and my lungs are burning.
And then came the fourth reason, which is that I became outright addicted, but that's kind of a mixed boon, so if you don't mind I'm just gonna slide right past that and move on to
2. The How
OK. So maybe you actually do want to get in shape. Maybe you want something you can do that will clear your mind. Maybe you like the notion of some day enjoying exercise. Here's how.
2a. This Is A Long Freakin' Road. And people have a lot of trouble with that. Gyms sell a lot of memberships in January, thanks to New Year's resolutions. Gyms hard-sell one-year memberships. Why? Because it's free money for them - they know that most people who sign up in January will never be seen again after March.
Muscles grow slowly. Fat dissipates slowly. Joints and soft tissue grow limber even more slowly. Your cardiovascular system's a better bet - but it's the system that aches the most awfully at first, and it's limited by the other factors. It takes months to get real results from working out. It can take a good year of hard work to go from "unfit non-exerciser" to "in good shape." And you can only do this if -
2b. It Has To Be A Priority. Like, a serious priority. As in, you say things like, "I'm sorry, I can't go for a beer with you after work tonight, but maybe I'll join you after my run." As in, you wake up on a weekend morning and go work out. As in, one of the top few priorities in your life.
Oh, you can do a half-assed job if you want. And heck, half-assed is OK. Being a weekend warrior or going to the gym three times a week is a lot better than nothing. But if you're serious about getting into excellent physical condition, you should be doing at least three different kinds of exercise, totalling at least five sessions a week. Maybe more. In 2001, when I went from half-assed to serious, there was a period of several months where I was working out 12 sessions per week. OK, a) I had no day job, b) I was lucky to avoid injury, and c) even so that was kinda psychotic - but still.
Once you're in shape - I think maybe to some extent once you've ever been in shape - you can slack off for lengthy periods, months even, and come back to peak form in a relative hurry. But if it's the first time? No half measures. Half measures fail.
2c. Through The Nose. It's going to cost money. Yep. Gym memberships are like thirty bucks a month nowadays, minimum. You can get in shape from a gym membership alone - but it's much harder. Easier if you can spend the money on something else too. Yoga classes are pricey. Martial arts classes are pricey. All classes are pricey. Pools are pricey. Running itself is cheap, but good running shoes are expensive. A decent bicycle is at least a couple hundred bucks. You wanna get in shape, in today's world? Get ready to pay for it.
3. The When
Young is good. I'm super-glad I did it before I hit thirty; I expect I would have really felt all the pounding required for a first forging if I'd waited too much longer. The ability to recuperate doesn't exactly diminish, but it slows. It's worth noting, though, that the three fittest guys at my boxing gym are all over forty, and that professional athletes in all sports now routinely play into their mid-thirties.
Oh, you mean the when as in when in the week? I dunno. Whenever you got time. Some people swear by mornings. Me, I work out at night. Listen to what your body tells you. I'm probably going to say that a lot here. OK, sometimes you're going to go ahead and ignore it; and sometimes you're going to decide it's just your subconscious being bratty and lazy; but listen, at least, before you make those decisions.
4. The What
OK, the key thing here is: you have to do more than just one thing. Probably more than two. Those musclebound guys big as houses who live in the free-weights section? They're not fit. Those skin-and-bones distance runners? Those rubbery, muscle-free yoga girls who can bend themselves into pretzels? Them neither. They're the idiot savants of exercise.
There are basically four key components to fitness, of which the first three are strength, flexibility, and aerobic endurance. (I'll get to the fourth one later.) Ever play D&D? Sorta like Strength, Dexterity (not counting hand-eye) and Constitution (not counting disease resistance). You ask me, you kinda need all three to be reasonably considered fit.
This doesn't mean you have to get all crazy like I did and box and run and lift weights and do yoga 3 times each every week. Au contraire. Be flexible. Pick one thing, and do that three times a week; pick two other things, and do them once each; and when you get bored of the first - and you will get bored - mix it up. Go intense for a month, working out almost every day; then slack off to three days a week for a couple weeks. Not just to avoid boredom; because your body gets used to exercise just like your mind does, and if you mix up what you hit it with, it will become stronger and tougher faster. Not sure if this week should be hard or soft? Listen to what your body tells you.
Oh yeah. And before I start on details, one last generalization. It's all about the core muscles - the hips, the abs, the lower back, the pelvic floor. What's all about the core muscles? you ask. And I answer: Everything.
It's also all about the breath. What's all about the breath? Everything.
4a. Weight Training.
I am going to stereotype here. Most men, you take them into a gym, and immediately they wanna go do free-weight bench presses and bicep curls - oh, maybe not right away, but that's the goal. Most women stay away from the free-weight room as if it smells like skunk.
These stereotypical women might have the right idea. 'Cause honestly? Weight training builds muscle. (It does this very slowly - I've met women who claim they don't lift only because they don't want to be really muscular, which is a bit like saying you don't play tennis because you don't want to be as good as Roger Federer). Muscle is strength. Weight training makes you strong. Yep.
But that's all that weight training does. (People claim it helps you lose weight because muscle consumes energy. Horse puckey. I mean, it's technically true, but it's almost never a decisive factor. See part 6 below.) Lots of other things, such as certain forms of yoga, can also make you reasonably strong - if you do ashtanga yoga, bicep work is the only reason you have to go into the weight room. Serious boxing coaches often frown on weight training because they think the added muscle will slow their fighters down. (Although again I think this is horse puckey.) Muscle is heavy, and if you're a runner, every pound of muscle is another pound of weight slamming onto your fragile knee joints with every step.
Having said all that? I box, and I run, and I do ashtanga yoga, and that would make me reasonably strong - but I'm generally in the weight room lifting and bench-pressing twice a week, because I like lifting weights, and I like being more than just reasonably strong and muscled.
4b. Running / Swimming / Biking.
I'm glopping these together because these are the classic "aerobic fitness" exercises, and also, they combine into the triathlon, and also, they're all things that you should stretch after doing. (Yes, after. Never stretch before you've warmed up, you're just asking for trouble.)
4b1. Running. We were built to run. We really were. Distance running is one of the very few physical activities that humans do better than (AFAIK) any other species on the planet. A fit human can and will outrun a fit horse, or dog, or cheetah, over a fifty-kilometre distance. It's been theorized that that's how we killed prey, back when we just had spears and clubs; we just ran them down until they could run no further.
At the same time, I expect running causes more injuries than any other form of exercise. This probably has something to do with its popularity, but - well, let me put it this way. Next time you meet someone who believes in Intelligent Design, ask them to explain the knee joint. (And while you're at it, the lower back.)
That said, you should try it. Yes you should. Yes, even if you hated it in high school. Running is in many ways the purest form of exercise. It's the easiest - all you need is a pair of shoes. It's one of the most delightful, if you can run outside. It even burns the most calories per hour. Just be careful.
First of all, get good shoes from a running store. When I first took up running, I really thought expensive running shoes were a pay-for-the-brand ripoff, and I ran on PayLess Shoe Source shoes. Ow. Please. Learn from my mistakes. If you want to run - especially if you overpronate or supinate - especially if you don't know what these words mean - get good shoes from a running store that will examine your gait. It's not rocket science. But it's not something you want to screw up.
OK. Got your shoes? Great. Now find a place to run. Some people run on treadmills at the gym. I can handle that for about 20 minutes before I get so bored I start fantasizing about mass murder. Some people run in the streets, find their way around pedestrians, jog in place at traffic lights, etc. I can't stand that - once I've started, I hate to stop, the rhythm's all-important to me. Parks are great. Seashore or riverside running trails are even better. Beaches are awesome, if incredibly hard on the muscles. Rain sucks. I don't really run in the rain. My sister, a competitive marathoner, calls me a wimp. I do run up Mont-Royal, in Montreal, in winter. No, that's not crazy; I start layered in clothes, after five minutes I'm generating plenty of heat, and after ten I usually peel my hat off. I said it's not crazy. Anyway, find a park or something. Yes you can. I've ridden public transit for an hour to go for a half-hour run.
Oh - one more thing? You're going to hate it.
Running is the most loathsome form of exercise. For the first 2-3 months. Your muscles will wobble, your lungs will burn. Your mind will tell you, time and time again, to stop this torturous insanity. Maybe you will. Many people do. Maybe, however, you will get angry at yourself. I think that's the only secret; it's certainly the only reason I kept running after the first month. (OK, that and sibling rivalry.) Grimly force yourself to go and run two or three times a week. If you're anything like me, you'll hate it. For months.
And then one day, usually at about the time you can go half an hour nonstop, you'll look up and see the park around you, and feel the wind in your face, and realize that your lungs are not groaning for air, your legs are not moaning with weariness, and you'll think to yourself: hey, this is pretty cool. This will last about three minutes. But the next time, it will last about four, and more importantly, you'll start to realize, the part after that? The part that really sucks? It doesn't suck so much as it used to. In fact, you don't really want to stop, not when you're about to beat your personal best. Congratulations. You're a runner.
4b2. Swimming. Ah, my nemesis.
"Swimming is the best form of exercise," people will tell you. And they're not far wrong. Swimming works almost all the muscles in your body (especially if you vary your stroke), is no-impact (though certainly not injury-free!), builds aerobic fitness, and probably improves your flexibility and makes julienne fries while it's at it. And god knows it's hard work. The one time I swam the 1.5K Olympic-triathlon distance - 30 lengths of the 50-metre pool at Les Halles in France - I came out of the water so dazed with exhaustion that I walked straight into the womens' change room and looked wildly around for a good half-dozen breaths, gaping, knowing that something was wrong but not quite able to work out what. (Fortunately les Parisiennes were most forgiving.)
I took up swimming because I wanted to do an Olympic-distance triathlon. I have never done a triathlon. I don't expect I ever will. Why? Because I really, really hate swimming, and try as I did, over a period of a year, that hate did not go away. In fact it intensified.
Don't get me wrong; I love the water. I love frolicking in the water. I might even enjoy free-water distance swimming. But I hate pools. I hate the crowds in the lanes. I hate the transition from lukewarm air to lukewarm water. I hate the smell. I hate the bland, endless, mind-numbing repetition. It's also that I'm not naturally buoyant (too much muscle, not enough fat); it's also that I'm prone to swimming shoulder injuries - but even without that, I would hate it. I was a little dejected when I finally gave up the best form of exercise. But mostly I was relieved.
4b3. Biking. Now cycling is basically just pure fun.
There are a few problems with it. Bikes can be expensive (especially if you want to get competitive or start going long-distance.) Mountain biking can lead to very gory cases of road rash. Casual biking doesn't really count as exercise, and basically you have to cycle for 3 hours to get the same workout as running for 1. You only work a few muscles, and you run the risk of overworking them and leaving your body uneven and hence prone to injury. And it can be difficult to find good trails (again, I dislike cycling in traffic.) On the other hand spinning classes are great. And there's nothing to it, presuming you learned when you were younger.
Overall? Thumbs way up. I only go cycling every now and again, but if my knees ever make running untenable, I'll expect you'll soon find me out there on my bike several days a week.
4c. Yoga
Yoga is awesome. The very first yoga class I ever went to, it was one of those "try for $5" deals, and then as I was walking out they asked me if I might like a $120 ten-class card, and I was floating so high on bliss I was barely able to say "Where do I sign?" (In fact, come to think of it, I imprinted so strongly I wound up dating that yoga teacher for a few months.)
Yoga has a reputation of being kind of a hippy-dippy chanty-chakras-crystals New-Agey sort of thing. And, yep, it sure can be. I'm as Old-Age a kind of guy as you're likely to meet, but I do like the "Oms." I even like the chanting, though I always imagine that it's a soap commercial. Sometimes they lecture, which annoys me.
Yoga has a reputation of being all about flexibility. Only sorta. Yoga, more than anything else, is explicitly about the breath and the core muscles. You don't need to be bendy - trust me on this one; I'm as flexible as your average brick. Yoga is one of the rare things I do that I enjoy even though I'm not actually good at it and never will be, thanks to my tight back and nonexistent hamstrings.
Yoga also attracts a whole lot of very fit and flexible women, which, um, if I were the sort to notice such things, would not be a disincentive.
Yoga is also really, really hard.
At least the kind I do is. There are many varieties. Without going into too much detail: Hatha yoga is very laid-back and relaxing, and a great place to start. Bikram or "hot" yoga is a gimmicky thing done in a sauna. (As you can tell I'm not a fan.) I do ashtanga aka "vinyasa" aka "power" (retch) yoga. This is basically a fixed series of poses that you go through in the same order and the same way every class - all teachers throw in their own curves, but all follow the same general flow. Does that sound boring? It isn't. You know why? Because I'm working my body so damn hard my brain doesn't have enough oxygen to be bored. I finish dripping, sometimes soaked, with sweat. (Ashtanga is decent aerobic conditioning too.)
A good friend of mine, black belt in aikido, went to his first yoga class once. The teacher said, "This is a moderately advanced class." He said, "It's OK, I do martial arts." He couldn't walk right for three days.
OK, now I fear I'm intimidating you. That's only true of the tougher classes. But even when I can think - you know, it's utterly fascinating doing the same thing in the same way and the same order. Because you know what? I learn something new about some of the poses every single class. It's taught me more body awareness than anything else I do, by far. And the positions themselves are relentlessly tough, but soothing and - oh, hell, I'll say it - centering, at the same time.
I also love the naptime at the end.
4d. Boxing / Martial Arts
I've written at some considerable length about the joys of boxing before, so I'm just going to focus on the fitness benefits here.
I know a lot more about boxing than other martial arts, largely because I'm totally inflexible and thus unsuited to them. But I gather they're similar in some crucial ways. In particular -
You remember way up above I wrote there were four key components to fitness? I'm going to talk about the fourth now. Anaerobic fitness. "Anaerobic" means "without oxygen" - basically, he said unscientifically, when you're working so fast and hard that you can't breathe steadily. You remember how the other three components were like Strength, Dexterity and Constitution? Let's call this one All-Out. It's when you're giving it everything you've got for a short period of time.
There's bleedover between aerobic and anerobic fitness, helping one helps the other, there's a reason boxers do roadwork - but at the end of the fight, they're not the same thing at all. I remember reading about a fight a couple years ago, a commentator saying that one fighter had great stamina because he regularly ran half-marathons during training; I remember thinking "that dude doesn't know what he's talking about"; and I remember the guy fell apart and lost in the last few rounds. Distance running is the exertion of moderate energy over a long period of time. Boxing is working as hard as you can (don't believe me? Go spar a few rounds) for three minutes and then taking a mere 60 seconds to recover between rounds.
There's not much real-world benefit from All-Out. It's for professional athletes, soldiers, martial artists. But it is kind of the ne plus ultra of fitness. Things that give you All-Out fitness put you into insanely great shape. Boxers, muay thai fighters, other martial artists - people who do that kind of thing at all seriously generally have phenomenal conditioning. They have to. 'Cause if they don't, the other guy will. If there's a huge skill imbalance in a fight, that'll decide it; but if there's a fitness imbalance, that'll decide it almost as fast.
4e. Other
Of course there's lots of other ways to get fit. You can dance your ass off every night. You can go hiking. Rock climbing, definitely; I only ever took up rock climbing for six months, and that indoor, but I'd like to try it again despite my unsuited body type. Most climbers I've met were in awesomely good shape.
Whatever you do, the main points, to repeat: At least three different things. Mix it up. And always remember that it's all about the core muscles, and the breath.
5. The Where
Some people exercise at home. I can't even imagine doing that. I have run through quick yoga workouts in hotel rooms, when I was desperate and there seemed no other way to get the monkey off my back, but generally, I gotta go out to work out.
At the same time, you don't want to go too far. Commuting to work is bad enough; commuting to work out can be even worse. A decent nearby gym, one that offers not just machines but things like yoga and spinning classes, is great. That gets monotonous, though - so go for a run or bike ride, or drop in on a dedicated yoga centre, every now and again.
Eventually you'll basically start arranging your whole life around where you exercise, but, um, I'm trying to portray it as a positive innocuous thing for now, so I'll just mention that once and move on.
6. Weight Loss
A lot of people want to get fit to lose weight. This only sort of makes sense.
Before I go into detail, let me tell you about Phil and Caroline from boxing.
Caroline is one of the regulars. She's short, kind of stocky, not fat but not slender either, particularly by Montreal's willowy standards. She doesn't look particularly muscular. But she is in incredibly good shape - she's often the only one to actually finish Phil's freakishly gruelling exercises without collapsing moaning on the ground.
Phil's the boss. He's 40. Earlier this year, he was also about 40 pounds overweight. So he decided to lose weight. And he lost 40 pounds in like two months. Everyone will tell you that that's unhealthy - especially for a 40-year-old man - but they're talking about average physical specimens. Because, you see, Phil is the other person in that room who can finish his freakishly gruelling exercises; and he lost weight that fast because he was in such good shape that burning through an extra 2000 calories a day (which, incidentally, is like running nonstop for two hours) was no big deal.
My points? "Fit" and "fat" are two largely independent axes, until you get near the extreme end of either scale; but if you want to lose fat, it sure helps to be real fit.
There's apparently some evidence that men are more likely than women to lose weight from exercise; exercise helps women keep off weight they've lost from dieting, but isn't an effective direct cause. I'm deeply suspicious of this as a black-and-white claim, although I could buy it as different distributions on the same spectrum.
I also have this totally nonscientific theory that our metabolisms have momentum. Once your body starts gaining weight, it wants to keep doing that; once it starts losing weight, it keeps going. This is why losing weight is so hard at first - you don't want to lose it until you've gained it, but that recent gain means the momentum's against you. (Uh, again, I have no evidence for any of this except my belief that it's how my own body works.)
All that said: if you want to lose weight from exercise, you're going to have to exercise pretty damn hard. If you run nonstop for 30 minutes, you'll consume some 500 calories. You'd have to do that every day for a week to lose a pound. There's some evidence that exercise raises your general metabolic rate for some time thereafter so you'll burn more calories then too - but I doubt that effect is major. In short, you're going to have to be pretty fit to lose fat.
And you're going to have to do it gradually. Running is one of the fastest ways to burn energy - but if you suddenly start ramping up your running, you will almost certainly get injured, especially if you're already overweight. Vicious circle. Like fitness itself, weight loss is a matter of months, often many months, unless you're willing to go on some kind of crazy drastic diet - or unless you're very fit, and accustomed to pushing yourself physically.
7. Injuries
You will get injured. Oh yes you will. Unless you are my younger elder sister, who has run a bunch of marathons including one of the toughest in the world (Catalina Island), who finished top-ten in the first triathlon she ever did (and only; she then gave them up as too easy), and who started as my rock-climbing partner and had totally surpassed me like three days later, and who to the best of my recollection, has never been injured. The rest of you mere mortals, however, are gonna get hurt.
Listen to what your body tells you.
There are two types of sport injuries; acute and chronic. Acute ones really suck but whatcha gonna do. You're climbing over a fence, you pull a muscle. You're playing Ultimate, you change direction suddenly, you hear the dreaded 'pop', and your ACL's gone. Hello, surgery and six months of rehab and six more of getting back into shape. That's awful. Whatcha gonna do.
Listen to what your body tells you.
Most sport injuries are chronic overuse injuries, meaning "your fault." Runner's knee. Achilles tendinosis. Tennis elbow. Rotator cuff. Lower back. They ache and twinge. You rest up a little. They get a little better. You start to push them again. You get used to the aching and twinging. It's no big deal. Actually, it is a little weirder lately, but you'll rest them next month, when you're going to Florida. And then one day you're in the middle of something totally normal and you yelp Ow!
Listen to what your body tells you.
It's worst when you're first starting to get into shape. Especially if you're doing something high-impact like running or tennis. Because it takes six to eight weeks for your muscles to start getting used to this new impact, to start recovering faster, increasing their stamina: but it takes months for your bones and joints to get stronger - and that time in between is when you are most vulnerable.
Listen to what your body tells you.
If you have a cramp, suck it up. If a muscle is twinging or feels weak, suck it up. If something feels vaguely funny, suck it up. If something aches, pay careful attention to it, especially if it's soft tissue. If something hurts, stop immediately. If you have to change the form of what you're doing - your running gait, your swim stroke - stop immediately.
Listen to what your body tells you.
You'll get minor injuries that resolve by themselves in a few days. You'll go to sleep feeling fine and wake up with a leg that can hardly move, especially if you forgot to stretch. By then it's too late: never stretch an injury. You're supposed to use RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) although, you know what, I actually never do, in large part because I think the miracles of RICE are overstated; but at least keep a bag of frozen peas around to ice swollen joints. You'll get niggling little injuries that only start to come on after half an hour or so and don't go away for months.
Listen to what your body tells you.
I got patellar tendinosis four years and a month ago. I could run through it. I thought nothing of it. Four years ago, midway through Regent's Park, I suddenly went from "I can run through this" to "I can barely walk." It wasn't that big a deal. I never even saw a doctor. Maybe I should have - although, if I had, I sure would have made sure it was a doctor who runs. Six months later I was running again. Six months after that I was running for an hour. But this last month is the first time in four years I've been able to do leg extensions pain-free, the first time that knee hasn't ached for the first five minutes of and the day following every run.
Listen to what your body tells you.
8. Diet
Uh. I'm like the last guy you want to talk to about this. You should talk to my friend Cathy, who's an About.com editor and whose book THE INSIDE-OUT DIET is coming out in like six months. You should talk to my about-to-be brother-in-law Jeff, who introduced the phrase "Is it fat-free?" to our family. But me? I basically eat what I want, when I want; as far as I'm concerned, that's one of the nice bonuses of being a fitness nut.
That said, I do drink a lot of 'power' smoothies. In the periods when I'm working particularly hard, I do find myself craving fruits and vegetables (along with a lot of meat.) I understand diet is very important. I understand you should eat fish, brown rice and vegetables. And any year now, I'm going to start paying attention to these things that I understand. Until then, I'll be at Schwartz's eating medium smoked-meat sandwiches with fries and a Coke.
OK. That is my fitness infodump. I'm not even going to tell you what time it is. Nor am I going to count how many words I just wrote. I'm just going to hope that somebody somewhere gets something out of it, 'cause, dude, my fingers are aching, and that's not the kind of injury I thought I was going to risk today.
Oh, one last thing - feel free to link, if so inclined, but please don't copy this, OK? I may turn it into a for-pay article, and if so I'd rather not have other copies floating around out there.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 07:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 08:07 am (UTC)Any suggestions (including from other commenters) for things one can do if one can't really jog or ride a bike? Not anymore, anyway, because my ankles crack painfully on impact-or-rotation and I have weird forearm tendonitis. (I could probably manage easy tennis again after some careful PT and eventually weights, and if I found someone to play with.)
I can kind of answer this--Pilates, maybe, or forms of yoga that don't focus on pretzel-making because I'm more flexible than is useful to me--but I'm curious what people who know something about balanced training might think. I look forward to reading the post's section 4c, too....
no subject
Date: 2006-12-09 10:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-12-13 08:43 pm (UTC)I've found two "cardio" exercises that I can do however, as they are both low impact.
The first is (and please pardon my language here) the damn elliptical trainer. I hate that twisted and evil device with every fiber of my being. But I can climb up on it, push my heart rate, and reduce myself to a quivering twigging sweaty mass with hardly a twinge from my knees.
The second, almost hated as much as the "rejected by the Spanish inquisition as being too evil" device mentioned above are simple lunges. Step, bend, straighten, and repeat the width of a basketball court. Turn around and head back the other way.
It doesn't get me into an anaerobic zone (90% Max Heart Rate), but it keeps me comfortably in the aerobic zone (60 to 80% MHR) as long as I don't rest too long after each set.
Ankles are a different than knees though, so if you opt to try either of these, please as
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 09:44 am (UTC)I understand your focus on running, since it's what you do, but I have a few questions about cycling, maybe you could give a few pointers?
I'm curious about duration and intensity. I semi-bike for my commute (half-train, half-ride, when I have the time I'll come back home without the train), when the weather allows. I try not to push too hard on the way to work, using it more as a mean of locomotion than exercise (being all sweaty at work and such), but on the way back, I like it fast and hard. Now, that's not too long, and the frequency is variable: I biked to work yesterday, thanks to Southern France weather, but the thing they call "winter" still means rain three days out of four, as well as getting dark early, so riding the whole way would be dangerous, IMHO. A full ride home from work is about 15 km, which I can pull in 25 to 28 kph average (a hair over a half hour).
At the moment, if I do that, I'll be pretty much done in once I arrive, but I remember biking back home from work when I lived in Ville St-Laurent and worked downtown (meaning going up University, Pine, Cedar and Côte-des-Neiges, which I wouldn't put down as too casual!), having to stop many times on my first rides, then after a few weeks of doing that twice or thrice a week, noticing that, hey, I managed to get all the way up Cedar without stopping. So I can definitely feel that there's a gain to be made.
How can I make the best of what I'm able to do with that? Is 15 km too little at that frequency (let's assume summer and being able to do between two or four times a week)? Even if I do it hard?
And the last one: what sort of injury should I be on the lookout for as a cyclist? Knee? Other?
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Date: 2006-12-08 01:29 pm (UTC)It's totally not unreasonable to add 10-15 km/week to your maximum ride distance -- I know three or four people who've done it, including myself, up to the limit of "I don't have more than eight hours on a Saturday to go riding." I think that's what rezendi was getting at by "our cardiovascular system's a better bet". (The limiter on cycling endurance for a lot of people is not the legs or the cardio system, but the small stabilizer muscles in the lower back. They seem to train up pretty quickly.)
On the other hand, if it *feels* like you're working hard, you probably are. And that ought to be doing something for you. That cause-and-effect is pretty basic.
*Disclaimer* I'm just a weekend warrior of a cyclist, and I'm not at all up on the literature. So take me with a grain of salt.
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Date: 2006-12-08 01:35 pm (UTC)Taking exercise seriously leads rapidly to a bunch of anatomy lessons -- in this case, to the ITB, the iliotibial band.
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Date: 2006-12-08 05:53 pm (UTC)I'm tempted to say, "The ones you get from falling off your bike," but that's only because the most serious cyclist I know, my 66-year-old dad, took up cycling as a way of getting fit after he had knee surgery, because it was a lot less impactful on his knees than running or walking (and we lived in beautiful country where it's fun to cycle, if you at all like cycling -- I don't).
And secondly, it's because that's the only way he's been injured cycling so far. He fell off, didn't have the space to roll properly, and took the fall on his elbow. Shattered it, had it pinned back together, also injured his shoulder -- the doctor said, "We'll just let your shoulder be for the time being; most guys your age don't use it as much anyway." He was back a few months later going, "I'm not most guys; can you fix my shoulder now?" He's got 90% of the flexibility back in his elbow now and 100% back in his shoulder.
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Date: 2006-12-08 10:38 am (UTC)Unfortunately about six months ago I finally wised up that the series of nasty chest infections I was coming down with were related to exposure to hypochlorite bleach in the pools. So I've fallen off the exercise wagon completely.
Still, next week I'm moving house. And there's a health club at the top of the hill I'll be living on that boasts a 25 metre pool with UV-sterilization -- no chlorine. And you know what? One of those one year discount memberships is sounding attractive right now ... because with a pool five minutes' walk from my front door, I can be in there every day.
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Date: 2006-12-08 05:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-12-09 10:51 pm (UTC)I really wish I could enjoy swimming. Maybe one day I'll figure out a way.
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Date: 2006-12-08 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-09 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 12:58 pm (UTC)It's good. I really do feel better, and I enjoy some of it (cardio is boring but useful; I do an exercise bike in the gym partly because it's cardio I can read during). I can't speak to the "get laid" part: my partners like my muscles, but I don't think that's what attracted them to me in the first place.
And for anyone who's wondering, I was 36 when I started on this (always walked a bunch, comes with living in New York City, but that's barely maintenance-level stuff the way most of us do it).
Yes, listen to your body. In particular, listen to your joints: if your elbow says that a given exercise is a bad idea right now, listen. Do something else (the rowing machine hurts, bicep curls might or might not be okay, and you can almost certainly lie down on the mat and do crunches) or rest. Maybe even get an ice pack. If I'd listened better, and gotten it looked at sooner, I might have caught my rotator cuff problem before it meant serious pain, followed by months of physical therapy, specific exercises probably forever, and the injunction not to lift anything serious above shoulder height with that arm, ever. I cheat a little, if it's something like putting a bag in an overhead compartment, but there are standard weight exercises I should not and do not do.
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Date: 2006-12-11 08:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-10 01:51 am (UTC)Who me? Exercise?
Date: 2006-12-08 05:10 pm (UTC)Re: Who me? Exercise?
Date: 2006-12-08 05:31 pm (UTC)Re: Who me? Exercise?
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Date: 2006-12-08 06:03 pm (UTC)One of the sad aspects of thinking about having a baby is that I realistically would have to give up full kenjitsu practice for a while -- in the latter stages of pregnancy, none of my (fairly chivalrous) classmates is likely going to want to take a swing at a visibly-pregnant woman. I can do form work, but I am thinking I will need to do something else, like yoga, for that period so I can keep my muscles fit.
Like you said, fat and fit are sort of orthogonal. (And I'm so tired of men saying, "I like a woman who looks like she takes care of herself, exercises, keeps fit." Uh, what?) Even when my dad was cycling several hundred miles a week, even when my brother was cycling, practicing taiko drumming and going dancing a couple of times a week, both of them continued to have a big belly, as I also have (though I am the least fit of the three of us). That's the genetic reality, and it doesn't really matter to me, becase as I said before, I feel strong and light because, with the work I've done, I'm fitter than I've been since I was very young. I'm crazy and run up flights of stairs and up San Francisco hills (though admittedly not for very long... I should work on endurance), just because I like the feeling of being able to do it, to move myself quickly and with agility. It's delightful.
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Date: 2006-12-11 03:36 am (UTC)Okay, I can't speak for all guys. But it's possible that some of them really do mean what they say, that they can tell you're lighter on your feet now, and carry yourself with more ease, and/or have more energy. All of those things *are* attractive, for whatever that's worth.
Or do you mean something different by "uh, what"?
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Date: 2006-12-08 10:55 pm (UTC)As far as being hardcore goes, I am not particularly hardcore. I do 3-5 hours of exercise each week. I do subscribe to a "change one habit at a time" philosophy though, and going from 0 to swimming/running/walking/something twice a week is a good way to start and even if that's where you finish, 3x30 minutes of cardio per week is actually far from nothing in terms of health.
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Date: 2007-03-26 01:20 am (UTC)I found this; is it the same?
http://www.ruthkazez.com/SwimWorkouts/ZeroTo1mile.html
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Date: 2006-12-09 01:16 am (UTC)Speaking as someone with two bum knees, biking can also be very bad for your knees (it's how I screwed up mine a few months ago). Yes, walking is slower, but it CAN be an effective workout, and it's way easier on the knees.
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Date: 2006-12-09 01:49 pm (UTC)Now, this is my regular one-hour almost-every-day routine: go to gym, stretch immediately BEFORE warming up (like I was taught in tai chi) like the bejesus (so that I'm almost retching), then do the super-circuit (don't know if you have this: machine weights for one minute, one minute running up and down steps, 15 stations - about midway you start feeling like you want to vomit), then tummy / core exercises using a ball until I think my stomach will cramp. Go home and cry a bit.
When the weather's good, kayaking: PS assume this means you'll be fit enough for Vietnam?
I also feel that the payoff for exercising a lot is to eat whatever I like (which implies lots and lots of chocolate).
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Date: 2006-12-09 10:54 pm (UTC)Except for that whole prone-to-shoulder-injuries thing - but I'll make a point of working them up to speed for the couple months beforehand.
And chocolate is good for you! Especially the dark stuff.
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Date: 2006-12-11 09:12 am (UTC)Okay, maybe I will exercise?
Date: 2006-12-11 03:33 pm (UTC)And a BIG thank you to rezendi for getting the dialouge started in the first place!
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Date: 2006-12-12 06:27 am (UTC)1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance - The ability of body systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen.
2. Stamina - The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy.
3. Strength - The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.
4. Flexibility - the ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.
5. Power - The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.
6. Speed - The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.
7. Coordination - The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement.
8. Agility - The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another.
9. Balance - The ability to control the placement of the bodies center of gravity in relation to its support base.
10. Accuracy - The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity.
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Date: 2006-12-13 08:51 pm (UTC)I started in mid-September (after turning 33) to get back into shape. Since then I've lost 30 pounds, reduced my body fat percentage from 29% to 19 (still need to drop another 10 pounds and 5%) through diet and exersize.
Much like you, I can't swim for the life of me. Even as "fat" as I was I wasn't very floaty so my efforts have been focused on cardio (interval training), resistance training (weight lifting), and self defence (Haganah) but I'm starting to hit that "get bored" spot and may switch interval training out and give yoga a try.