Athlete In The City

I’ve been working on the arm-bar and planche exercises for a long time.  I talk about them on this blog quite a bit.  My strength at the planche has been slowly improving, so I’m confident enough with it now to post a video.  Basically I go into an elbow planche, and then slide forward and off the elbows, holding fulling extended with straight legs for about five seconds.

People often ask me about exercise without using weights and weight machines.  What exactly is weight bearing exercise?

The bones in the human body are as alive as any other tissues.  Bone is laid down in the same direction as mechanical stress.  In other words, as you use your body, your skeletal frame, your bones build, and become more dense.  Just like muscles, if you don’t use them, they will weaken.

In fact, interestingly enough, this is a big problem for astronauts.  When they are exposed to the weightless environment of outer space, their bones actually shrink up to 2% per month, and they return brittle and weak.  They actually develop Osteoporosis over a very short period of time.

Why do I mention astronauts?  Well because people that are bedridden because of an injury, or just people who don’t exercise much, tending more towards the sedentary lifestyle, exhibit these same symptoms of Osteoporosis, albeit over many years.

So weight bearing exercise, opposing the force of gravity, is an important part of your fitness routine, be it running, rowing, or lifting some weights.   My personal favorites are body weight exercises, that use only the weight of the body to stimulate and build muscle and bone.

In researching for this article, I found a very good piece on the subject What’s G Got To Do With It?  You can all search google for terms like “astronaut osteoperosis”, “astronaut bone mass”, “exercise bone density”, etc.

 People have asked me about supplements.  First, a caveat, I’m not a nutritionist, so ultimately you should consult one, or your doctor, for proper recommendations.

Second, let me throw my bias on the table.  I prefer to avoid the chemicals and supplements if at all possible.  My take is that ultimately good nutrition, and a balanced diet are in the end the best ways to achieve your training goals.

Creatine is a hot supplement among fitness folks.  I confess to having little experience with it personally, so I’ll just quote from ACE (American Council on Exercise):

“Several studies suggest that ingestion of 20 to 25 grams of creatine monohydrate per day for five to six days improves muscular performance during activities that require short periods of high-intensity poer and strength…”

They also note however some possible side effects like liver + kidney damage if you consume a lot, stomach cramps + diarrhea, and weight gain.  They specifically don’t recommend it for those doing endurance exercises as the weight would hurt your overall performance.

And on to the Protein question.  Protein, protein, protein.  Everyone’s obsessed with it, yet we only need 12% of our diet as protein.  And there are all sorts of plant + carb combinations that make a good protein for us.  So why all the worry.  Well you can read Michael Pollan’s book, or just go by his simplified motto: “eat food, mostly plants, not too much”.  What he’s distilling into this little sound bite is the fact that many of the diseases we face are caused by not doing one of those.  Instead of food, eating processed food.  Instead of mostly plants we eat sugary stuff, and too much protein.  And instead of not too much, we eat much too much.  That’s not to say that we should eat a little more protein if we’re training, ACE recommends increasing that 12% to 18%.

But vis-a-vis the protein supplements, be aware that too much protein can be a problem.

“Consuming too much protein can be physically harmful.  Extra protein must be broken down metabolically, and the waste products must be excreted from the body, placing additional strain on the kidneys.”

“Protein consumption in and of itself does not increase muscle size.  After the growth years, muscles must be stimulated by progressive resistance exercise to increase their size and strength.  In fact, even though American adults ingest plenty of protein, they lose more than one-half pound of muscle every year unless they perform regular strength training”.

Do some reading folks, there are a lot of myths out there…

The “hollow body hold” is a really easy exercise for anyone to do. Easy as in simplicity, but it will work your abs like crazy. I would start with 30 second sets.  Please beware to *NOT* arch your back, keep it flat against the floor at all times.

What also makes this a great exercise is it doesn’t take up much space, you can do it while watching tv, in a hotel room, or pretty much anywhere…

You’ve probably heard it, you’ve probably had a conversation about it, or maybe you asked the question… How do I keep my butt firm, or the back of my arms? The ladies ask, how do I keep my tummy firm, or my boobs?

Or maybe you’ve wondered, is there a certain diet or exercise regimen that is good for my skin?

There are a couple of points to keep in mind here. First off, the good news. Cardiovascular exercise is great for your circulation, and as such is great for your skin. Think: it removes toxins & improves blood flow, etc. Also, if you’re smoking, this is bad news for your skin, so stop, or at least cut down. And here’s another little gem, drink lots of water! Dehydration is bad for your skin. Don’t know if you’re dehydrated, well if you’re thirsty, you’re more than likely long since dehydrated. Better yet check the color of your pee. That’s right, yellow means your dehydrated, clear means you have plenty of fluids.

What else? How do I lose fat in this one location? Unfortunately it doesn’t really work that way. Your body distributes your fat exactly how it sees fit to. It does this by concentrating fat around your center of gravity. That is slightly different in men than women, but on the whole, what you need to keep in mind is that exercise overall reduces your overall bodyfat content, which reduces it everywhere at once. That’s right ladies, as you probably already know, when you lose weight, your breasts get smaller too. Less fat means firmer. One caveat to all of this though, as you gain muscle mass, the fat you do have sits better on your body too, so that is a small added benefit. In general try to do a combination of cardiovascular training such as running or other sport that gets your heart rate up, and on alternate days resistance training, which builds muscle mass. These two in combination will increase your metabolism, improve your overall body composition (or body density) so that your burn calories more efficiently.

Last but not least, don’t forget your diet. As my favorite write/speaker on nutrition Michael Pollan says “Eat food, mostly plants, not too much”. Check out his video below.

Well, this video looked a lot better before youtube got ahold of it!  Moral of the story, always use normal portrait view of your camera, don’t try to do tall sideways shots.  Anyway, I do six here.  They’re not the cleanest, but getting there. 

Nike is revamping it’s ipod add-on to add quite a few new bells and whistles. Additions include temperature + hydration monitors. Our past complaint about it being primarily a pedometer, missing a heart rate monitor as a very basic requirement, seems to be addressed here as well.

There is also some talk of GPS. We’re already enamored of Garmin’s Forerunner watch, which is a phenomenal training device, all around. I’d like to see how these hydration and temperature sensors work, and keep an eye on Garmin’s additions as well.

I’ve had people ask me about target heart rate before. In one case a person said, my trainer suggests I use 128bpm as my target heart rate. In another case someone said, I heard my target heart rate should be 135bpm.

As with everything the truth is always a bit less black and white. The American Council on Exercise says “research shows that optimum exercise intensity for fitness improvement is in the range of about 50 to 85% of maximum oxygen consumption. This corresponds to about 60-90% of maximum heart rate. The ranges are broad because of the effects of the level of fitness, as well as genetic factors. The higher a client’s level of fitness, the higher the appropriate exercise intensity.”

There are a few different methods to calculate all of this, with fancy scientific names, but for simplicities sake we’ll call it percentage of heart-rate reserve method:

rhr - resting heart rate (hr first thing in the morning)

mhr - maximum heart rate (220 - age)

(mhr - rhr) x intensity + rhr

For me, my resting heart rate is 50bpm because I run alot. My mhr is 180.

(180-50) x 0.75 + 50 = 130 x 0.75 + 50 = 98 + 50 = 148.

So if I want to shoot for 75% I’d go with 148bpm. Given the above 60-90%, that means 128bpm at the low end, and 167bpm at the high end.

As anecdotal evidence, I can tell you the best average I’ve hit for one hour of running, really going all out is 147bpm, maxing out at 155bpm. If I do an all-out sprint, a barely push above 160, and how long can a person sprint for?

There is also something called the talk test, which says if you’re at the intensity which is low to moderate, especially for beginners, if you can still carry on a conversation, and breathe comfortably. People with higher fitness levels, and pushing for higher functional capacity may find this method conservative.

In the end a lot of these measures depend on variables such as any smoking history, current weight and percent body fat, and so on. There really is no magic number. Keep in mind that the higher heart rate you exercise at, the greater benefit you will see overall, but to a point. In the beginning especially, don’t over do it. And as always, increase gradually.

What about monitoring your heart rate, what’s the best method?  I recommend a heart rate monitor from the likes of Polar or Garmin.  Polar has some as inexpensive as $60 and at the higher end, Garmin has some $299 models which have GPS, and can give you a lot of data that sync up to your computer.  But primarily what you want is to know what your min, max, and average were for your workout.  You can always write that information down.

As always consult with your physician if you are beginning an exercise program for the first time, especially if you have a pre-existing condition, injury, are a smoker, are overweight, or are an older individual.

This has to be the number one universal question I hear people ask. When I start working out, do I need to eat a lot of protein??There are so many myths around diet, it’s hard to know where to start.

So instead I’ll cut right to the chase. These are the basic recommendations from American Council on Exercise:

Protein: 12-20% caloric intake

Carbohydrate: 55-65% caloric intake

Fat: 25-30% caloric intake

Vitamins: see RDA

Minerals: see RDA

Water: 2-3 quarts per day

Increasing the protein intake from 12% to 18% when doing resistance training, is recommended.

Note that the former “meat” group on the food guide pyramid is now called the meat and beans group. For 2200 calorie diet:

2 cups fruits

3 cups veggies

7 oz grains

6 oz meat or beans

3 cups milk/dairy

6 tsp oils

Here’s some more good news. Even if you don’t think about protein, there are lots of ways to get it. Not eating a lot of meat or fish? No problem, our omnivorian bodies can make it. Here are a few ways:

rice + sesame seeds = complete protein

sunflower seeds + peanuts = complete protein

milk + legume soups = complete protein

macaroni + cheese = complete protein

cereal + milk = complete protein

peanut butter sandwich = complete protein

rice + bean casserole = complete protein

My conclusions (note these are mine only, for official word on the topic, please talk to a registered dietician): 12% of protein is so low as to not even have to think about it. Most americans eat a huge amount of protein, and many have to worry about REDUCING their protein intake. Too much protein actually taxes the body, as the liver has to convert it to carbohydrate energy. So what most people really have to concentrate on, and worry about is eating enough fruits and vegetables.

I finally aced this yoga pigeon position.  Of course there are plenty of ways to go deeper into this.  I’ve seen dancers grab the ankle above the head.  That would be a good 8 to 12 inches deeper into this.  But I’m happy, as I was able to switch hands!!