Exercise – Page 6

I went mountain biking today!

When I got home from work tonight I decided to do something I haven’t done for quite a long time. I decided to go for a ride on my mountain bike.

Once I got on all my riding gear (special pants with cushy rear, bike shoes, helmet), I went to grab my bike. I quickly found that since I hadn’t ridden my bike basically all year, both tires were flat.

photo credit: Arria Belli

I got out my little pump to put some air in the tires. Little did I know when I decided to go biking that I was going to get an entire workout before I even got on the bike! I started pumping, and pumping and pumping. About 10-15 minutes later the tires were full of air – finally! My arms were quite tired.

After the tires were fully inflated i threw the bike in the car and headed down to the mountain bike trails on the Minnesota River a couple miles from where I live.

I jumped on the bike, and headed down the trail. And then I noticed it. My back wheel was wobbling. Not good. I decided to continue riding anyway. I made it to the dirt trail, and headed down it at full speed. There’s nothing quite like heading down a dirt trail with trees on either side of you, inches from stopping you dead in your tracks. It’s quite a thrill, and I never get tired of it. Actually I do remember one time when I caught my handlebars on a tree branch and went flying. That wasn’t fun – so actually – its a thrill when you don’t crash.

I continued on down the trail weaving in and out of the trees, through tall grasses and over little wooden bridges. It’s been a while since I’ve been biking, but since I’ve been running so much lately I wasn’t as out of breath as I expected to be.

photo credit: andy_c

The sun was nearing the horizon at this point, so I started heading back. I made it back to my car just as the sun set in front of me. Not a bad ride – and a good workout. I probably biked about 10 miles in all, going hard the whole time. Now I just have to get that back wheel checked out.

I have got to ride my bike more!

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Exercise in a pill?

By Peter 3 Comments

When I read the headline this morning, I did a double take:

Exercise in a pill? Drugs show promise in mice

Say what?

Exercise in a pill, could this be the next big thing that all of us lazy people have been waiting so long for? You just pop a pill and it’s instant exercise? Here’s what the article on MSNBC.com said:

Here’s a couch potato’s dream: What if a drug could help you gain some of the benefits of exercise without working up a sweat?
Scientists reported Thursday that there is such a drug — if you happen to be a mouse.
Sedentary mice that took the drug for four weeks burned more calories and had less fat than untreated mice. And when tested on a treadmill, they could run about 44 percent farther and 23 percent longer than untreated mice.

Ok, take a step back. It’s only been tested in mice so far.

Just how well those results might translate to people is an open question. But someday, researchers say, such a drug might help treat obesity, diabetes and people with medical conditions that keep them from exercising.

Ok, so this hasn’t been proven in people yet, but it could be some day soon.

Can you imagine the harm this could do to the health and fitness industry? No more need for exercise, just pop a pill and you’re physically fit!

Ok, honestly, this will never happen. They’ll find out some horrible side effect like the drug causes you to grow a third leg out of the side of your head, or something along those lines, and we’ll all have to resort to ACTUAL exercise again. The article ends with a cautionary note:

But Eric Hoffman of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., noted that AICAR mimics only aerobic exercise, not the strength training that might be more useful to bedridden people or the elderly, for example. He also cautioned that it’s not clear whether the new mouse results can be reproduced in people.
Goodyear said exercise has such widespread benefits in the body that she doubts any one pill will ever be able to supply all of them. “For the majority of people,” she said, “it would be better to do exercise than to take a pill.”

Ok, well I guess that means I better go get my exercise clothes on. It was nice while it lasted.

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 5, Day 1

By Peter 4 Comments

Week 5 looks tough!

Well last night was day one of week 5 in my 100 pushup challenge. How did it go?

FAIL!

Ok, it wasn’t all that bad. It was a pretty tough week and I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to make it through the first 2 or 3 sets. After day one it gets even worse where instead of having just 5 levels, it has 8!

Week 5 day 1

So last night I started doing my pushups with the set of 30. I made it through that without too much difficulty (which even a couple of weeks ago would have been a huge struggle). The second set of 24, was quite a bit harder. They were asking me to do a lot more reps than I’ve been doing this whole time, and it is H-A-R-D, hard!

The third set of 22 was a struggle. Around 16 or so I was straining mightily to push myself up. I made it through.

The fourth set of 20 was tough going. I pushed as hard as I could, really struggling after 14 or so. But once again I made it. But at this point, I knew I was not going to be able to finish that last set. I thought maybe I could make 20 – but 30? No chance.

photo credit: bitmask

The last set I started pumping out pushups, and around ten I started to hit the wall. At 13 I could barely get up. And by 15 I knew I was done.

At that point I got on my knees and finished the pushups from my knees, but still I had stopped 15 short of my goal of 30. Bummer.

While it’s disappointing to have had a fail on the first day of week 5, I knew this may happen and it wasn’t a total surprise. I had looked at week 5 and realized that like week 3 they had really bumped up the level of pushups a notch.

Even though I failed, I did over 100 pushups today before I failed. Not too shabby for someone who struggled to push out 10 on the initial test!

So where to go from here?

So from here I think I’m going to take the weekend off, and then restart on monday on week 3, day 1, column 2. I’ll re-do weeks 3 and 4 using column two, and hopefully next time I reach week 5 I’ll be ready!

100 pushup challenge for Ipod

If you haven’t downloaded the 100 pushup challenge for your Ipod (or other portable device) yet, you can still do so by subscribing to our RSS feed. The download link will appear in the RSS feed. If you have trouble finding it, please email me through our contact page, and I’ll be happy to help.

If you have already downloaded the file you may want to re-download it as I have corrected some mistakes, and made some updates. Thanks!

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Pushups are not happening this week apparently

By Peter 1 Comment

Well, I was planning on doing week 5 of the 100 pushups challenge this week, but every day something just seems to come up and get in the way. Yesterday we didn’t get home from a gathering at a friend’s house until late, and I was too tired to do any pushups. Tonight I had softball practice for a company softball grudge match on Friday. And tonight I am exhausted – I forgot how much work playing softball can be!

As of right now I plan on trying to get started up again on the pushups tomorrow evening. Hopefully I’ll have the motivation!

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 4 Exhaustion Test

By Peter 3 Comments

Week 4 – what column will I be doing in week 5?

This morning I was waiting around for some workers to finish fixing a crack in my foundation. While I waited around I decided to do my exhaustion test for week 4.

If you perform 30 or less pushups you go back to week 3 and 4. I was thinking that was the way I might be headed. Up until now I haven’t been able to do more than 25 pushups at a time (which in itself was an improvement).

I got down on the floor this morning and started pushing out pushups at a pretty good pace. I made it to 10, then 20. Then I passed my previous high and kept going. I made it to 30 then 35. I eeked out one more to stop at 36. That’s quite an improvement over week one’s initial test!

Looking at the workout plan for week 5, I think I may be in for a rude awakening. Column 2 (which I’m supposedly supposed to be using) starts out with 35 pushups, and pretty much stays hard the entire time. Wow, this is going to be interesting.

In the interest of having a better chance of finishing week 5, I think I’m going to do column one for week 5. Let’s just all pretend I didn’t eek out that last pushup :).

So starting tomorrow, week 5 of the 100 pushups challenge!

Here’s my progress so far:

100 pushup challenge for Ipod

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 4, Day 3

By Peter 3 Comments

Week 4 – will I have to repeat it like week 3?

Today was day 3 of week 4 on my 100 pushup challenge.

Once again it looked tough, so I wasn’t sure if I could do all the pushups. Every time that I surprise myself and complete a set my confidence climbs though.

I was a bit stiff this morning so I did some jumping jacks and running in place before attempting any pushups. Didn’t want to hurt myself just jumping right in!

Today the sets were supposed to be 20, 15, 15, 15, 18.

I made it through the first set of 20 without too much problem at all. Two 15s were tough again. The third 15 was beginning to get pretty tough – and I powered through the last pushup with a small struggle.

Finally, the last set of 18 I went through at a brisk pace, starting to struggle at 15, but finally pushing all the way through to 20.

So today I did 20, 15, 15, 15, and 20. That brings it to a grand total of 85 pushups! Not bad, I’m getting better!

100 pushup challenge for Ipod

Wii Fit – Good fitness tool, or just a fad?

By Peter 4 Comments

photo credit: austinANOMIC

I was over at a friend’s house the other night, and noticed that they had purchased the Wii Fit exercise program.

I’m naturally a bit of a skeptic, so I tend to think that the exercise benefits you would get from working out with a video game would be minimal, but I was willing to look into it further.

I asked my friends for their opinion, and asked how much they liked it. They said that Wii Fit was a lot of fun, and that certain parts of the game did give you a decent workout. But they said that Wii Fit probably would only have a great effect when used in combination with other external exercise programs.

An article on MSNBC.com described the Wii Fit this way:

Wii Fit offers up more than 40 different exercises and activities that are supposed to help those who play it not only get into shape but actually have fun while getting into shape. Fat chance, you say? Well, to spice things up a bit, Nintendo has packaged “Wii Fit” with the Wii Balance Board, which is essentially what you’d get if a bathroom scale and a video game controller shacked up and had a baby together.

The Fit comes with a balance board which helps you to interact with the game. It takes your weight, is involved in the “40 different exercises” and probably helps justify charging an arm and a leg for the game.

The game will walk you through various exercises in Wii Fit program – anything from yoga led by an instructor to running around a track and strength exercises like pushups and squats. Probably one of the more popular ones you’ve seen is the hula hoop exercise game.

While acknowledging that the game does seem to give you some good benefits in the way of getting you up off the couch, and getting you moving, the reviewer on MSNBC wasn’t convinced that the Wii Fit was in and of itself the answer:

I’m not convinced that much of the experience was compelling enough to make me more inclined to work out than I was before. After all, if I thought real-world gyms were skull-crushingly boring environments, they seem downright titillating when compared to the sterile digital gym you’ll find yourself working out in during a round of “Wii Fit” yoga. Meanwhile, the jogging mini-game — which had me jogging in place in my living room as I watched my Mii run through tranquil animated scenery – was so tedious I nearly jammed my fist in the garbage disposal just to liven things up a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, the way I figure it, anything that gets people (and by “people,” I mean “me”) up off their couches and moving is probably a good thing. And “Wii Fit” does a really nice job making both a bit of exercise and a bit of gaming accessible to even those folks who’ve never executed a half-moon pose or laid hands on a gaming controller in their life.

I’d be willing to give the Wii Fit a try, but I have a problem. I don’t have a Wii, or a Fit! So if you’d be willing to give me your copy, drop me a line!

Do you have the fit? If so, what is your opinion?

Lazy Man and Health talks about his Wii!

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 4, Day 2

By Peter 2 Comments

Week 4 resumes!

Here we are on week 4, day two. Pretty similar to day one of week 4, but slightly more pushups.

I took the day off yesterday because I had such a hard day having to put my dog to sleep at the vet. Not something I ever want to go through again. (But I’m sure I’ll have to, we have another dog)

The first set was rough today, I didn’t really warm up beforehand, and i was pretty stiff. The second two sets of 14 were better, but still tough. The set of 12 was beginning to show signs of a struggle. And the last set of 15 was tough- but I eeked out 16 pushups. So on Saturday I’ll be attempting to finish out week 4. We’ll see if I make it. There is a bump up of 12 pushups in those sets, and that’s a lot of extra pushups!

100 pushup challenge for Ipod

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 4, Day 1

By Peter 9 Comments

Week 4 of the challenge is here!

Here we are on week 4, finally!

At the end of week 3 I was able to power out 25 pushups in my final set, which was my new high. Today I am starting week 4 in column one:

That means I’ll be doing 16, 13, 13, 11, 16. After doing day 3 of week 3 this actually sounds do-able!

The first four sets were pretty easy today. I powered right through them without too much problem. I definitely feel like I’m getting stronger. The last set I was able to get all the way to 22 pushups. Not too shabby! Day two looks to be similar to day three of week 3, so we’ll see how that goes. As time goes on, my confidence is rising though!

100 pushup challenge for Ipod

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 3, Day 3 (again)

By Peter 1 Comment

Week three of the 100 pushup challenge… again

This morning was day 3 of week 3 of the 100 pushups challenge. I did the same week last week, and I failed on my day 3 pushups in the last set of 16. I made it to 12, and then had to finish from my knees.

This week was a little bit different. I could definitely feel myself getting stronger, and even though my gains were small, I was able to do more pushups in the final set each day, than last week.

I started out today with the set of 20 . I was pushing myself and powering through the pushups today, something I haven’t done as much before. The pace was just a little bit faster. I then made it through two sets of 15, and the 12. At this point in the sets last week I was really struggling. This week I was feeling a bit stronger.

After resting between my sets (another thing I didn’t do as well last week), I powered through my last set. I made it to the required 16, and kept going. I made it to 20, and kept going. I finally maxed out at 25 pushups! That’s quite an improvement over last week’s 12, and a new pushup high for me!

Next week I’ll finally be moving on to week 4, and once again, column one. Once again, here is the chart of my progress: