Fitness Update
1. Weight/Resistance Training:
Once a month they have an exercise guru available at the center to review exercise equipment (electronic, free weights/weight equipment, resistance equipment, etc.) and I went, just to see if I was using the equipment efficiently. Turns out I wasn't.
The equipment area at the center has three rooms - electronic (treadmills, recumbent bikes, ellipticals), weight (both free weights and hard-weight equipment for specific muscle areas), and the resistance circuit (weight-training via pneumatic resistance). My favorite of these is the resistance circuit, because a) hard-weights are more work than I need right now, and b) I own a recumbent exercise bike.
The resistance circuit is a circle of equipment that operates on air pneumatic resistance, and works specific muscle groups (abs, triceps, biceps, obliques, etc.). You move around the circle giving each muscle group a work-out. I didn't realize that this equipment works on both the press-in and press-out, and had simply been letting the air release on its own after the press-in. So if I were doing a machine that works the inner thighs during the press-in, doing a resistance press-out will work the outer thighs. Huh, go figure.
I also thought that the slower the press-in/press-out, the more the muscle was worked. Wrong. This is true for free weights and hard-weight machines, but not for pneumatic resistance. Turns out the faster you do your reps, the more resistance you get.
2. Swimming as a fat-burning aerobic exercise:
The other thing I learned was about swimming and fat-burning. We had a long discussion about it because as the only one there during this session I got the instructor's full attention. I told her I had been working hard, but hadn't had much to show for it on the scale. She agreed that a) I'm probably trading off fat for muscle right now, b) it takes a while to get your brain to reverse the metabolic system that is its default setting, and c) swimming is a fantastic work-out over-all, but specifically where low-impact on joints is concerned. But strangely enough, she told me it's a little harder to burn fat swimming than with weight-bearing aerobic exercise.
There are two reasons for this. The more buoyant a body is, the less work a swimmer has to do. So even though stroking through water provides about 10x the resistance of air, the more fat you are, the more buoyant you are, the less resistance you get per stroke. The second reason has to do with the temperature of the water vs normal body temperature. Pools are always cooler than body temperature (except for hot-tubs), and good lap swimming pools are often set even lower than recreational pools. The brains automatic defense mechanism for lower external temperatures is to hold on to fat, not burn it. This is why some really long-distance swimmers, like those who swim the English Channel, often seem a bit pudgy. Some of these athletes swim 100 miles a week to train, but they're often in cold water, and an extra layer of fat adds a layer of protection/insulation against hypothermia. Damn it.
Okay, so she said I shouldn't really worry, because I'm not swimming the Channel (or anything like it!), but I've still decided to try to better balance the lap swimming with the weight-bearing aerobic exercises. Right now I'm about 4:1 swimming:recumbent bike, and I'm going to try to shift this ratio to 4:3 or 1:1 if possible. It's a good new/bad news thing; I really love to swim, but I don't have to go to the center to do the bike. Six of one, half a dozen of another, I guess.
3. Water
I talked about water a couple of days ago, and thought I'd elaborate the formula given to me by my docs, using an example:
A man weights 200 lbs. He drinks 2 cups of coffee every morning (16 oz.) and one can of caffeinated soda every afternoon (10 oz.).
Initial water consumption in ounces = 200/2 = 100 ounces/daily
Caffeine-replacement water = (16 + 10) x 2 = 52 ounces/daily
Total desired water consumption = 152 ounces/daily
You need to drink twice as many ounces of pure water for ounce of caffeinated beverage consumed, in order to flush the caffeine out of your system.
And remember:
32 oz. = 1 quart (and close to 1 liter)
64 oz. = 1/2 gallon
128 oz. = 1 gallon
So you can see that the guy in this example should ideally be drinking more than a gallon of water a day (~ 5 liters). If he filled a liter water bottle five times, he'd know he'd hit his approximate target. Of course it's a good idea to finish consuming most of your water a few hours before bedtime. I get dry-mouth a bit without water now, so I always keep a baby's sippy-cup of water by my bed for small sips when I need it (it won't spill if you knock it over).
You can avoid extra water by cutting down on caffeinated beverages, of course. I pretty much quit drinking soft drinks completely a year ago. And recently I started using a blend of regular and decaf. coffee grounds in a 2:1 ratio. My plan is to get to a 1:1 ratio eventually.
Okay, that's it for today. My next blog entry will be about Nordic Walking (something you Europeans know all about, but Americans, not so much).
No comments:
Post a Comment