Random Fitness Tip # 3

So, yes, I really do love exercising at home on my stationary bike rather than having to pack up water, Ipod, gym Id, etc, slog through the snow, drive a few miles, slog through the snow, and go into a humid gym where the bikes and other equipment sweats other people’s sweat. I really do use the stationary exercise bike more often because of the easier access.

But, I can’t say that I’m all that fond of the bike’s seat. Wasn’t fond of it at the gym, either, which was one reason I preferred the recumbent, but my husband won out on the upright, and that’s a whole different story.

The seat is too hard, even though it has gel padding. I tried to find an extra seat cover for it, but no luck. But a little ingenuity, and I’m feeling fine.

What I did was drive to the upholstery store which isn’t far from home. (Closer than the gym, in fact.) I bought a 2” piece of foam, 14” by 14”. At home I placed it on the seat and from below the seat I traced the shape of the seat with a black magic marker.

Now, here’s the learning curve that I’m passing on. Don’t try to cut 2” foam with scissors. It ain’t easy. My hand cramped up long before I was done. Then I switched to a serrated knife and cut right through it! Who knew? Well, now I do. And I have a very comfortable seat cover I can plop right on before I sit down. The foam doesn’t slip. My butt doesn’t hurt. Good, huh?

So, just in case your exercise bike is becoming a storage place for coats because you don’t like sitting on it so much, try this piece of advice, and get that heart rate back up!

Random Fitness tip #2

I’m learning to change my ways. Like getting the exercise bike, not wearing slippers in the house. It’s time to understanding that at some point old age will be a pain in the butt—literally, and in the bones. I worry that just walking up the stairs could be painful if I don’t get my act together now. So I look for ways to up the ante, to add a little bounce to my step.

I have to clean house every week. Someone’s got to do it, right? And for years I’ve put on my favorite albums when I cleaned. Linda Rhonstadt’s Lush Life. Anything by Eva Casiddy (have you heard Song Bird???) Sometimes Vavaldi’s Four Seasons. Maybe you already get where I’m going with this. I like female singers with slow sad songs, or classical. But the other day my husband put on Bruce Springsteen and I forgot it was in there, and boy, did I get some cleaning done. I even added a few dance steps in-between the vacuuming and the mopping. Not as up-tempo as using an elliptical or treadmill, but gets my heart rate up nonetheless!

And I kept cleaning until the music stopped.

I looked on-line for calories burned and dancing. You know, they have all those sites now that can tell you how many calories you burn doing almost anything, from brushing your teeth to running a marathon. Anyway, slow dancing burned around 80 calories a half hour. Faster dancing burned about 145. So no more Vavaldi for a while.

Sure, I’m going to miss my slippers and slow music, and there’s a time and place for everything, but do remember that as we get older, we tend to like the music a little more quiet, a little softer, maybe. My son always says, “If the music’s too loud, you’re too old,” and maybe he’s got a point. I’m not saying that you need to blast Rap music so loudly that the neighbors complain, but just remember what it felt like to dance around the house with a mop. Don’t give that up. It’s good for your health, and your heart.

Years ago, after having my first child, I bought a rowing machine and woke up early every morning, hoping out of bed and straight onto the rower. I needed to lose weight and tone up, but oddly what I found I liked best about rowing is that Zen like state you get from the motions, which is unlike any other exercise machine. It takes a few minutes, but when it comes, you know it. You’re rowing, your whole body undulating, and with my eyes closed, I could see the river ahead I was traveling on, the imaginary river of my own making—sometimes a slim, peaceful waterway, sometimes a wide more vigorous river like the Mississippi, or maybe even across a lake somewhere. But I also could imagine myself rowing through my day, my path in life—waking my baby, making breakfast, reading him books, playing This-Little-Piggy with his toes, even changing his diapers. This was my peaceful time alone when I could imagine the perfect day. Then when things went astray, I was okay. I was peaceful enough to handle them.

I suppose other people can find this Zen like place with cross-country machines, or exercise bikes, imagining themselves bicycling along a road or cross-country skiing in the snow, but there is something about a rower that does this so perfectly.

In my quest to buy my husband and myself an exercise machine (the rower long gone), I’ve been trying out a machine each trip to the gym we joined for his rehab from open heart surgery. I didn’t go directly to the rower, thinking that I knew I liked it already, and I was so new to a gym environment that I never thought I’d be able to close my eyes there, with so many people around. But I started noticing that no one was using the two rowers they have there, and I wondered if I liked it just because it was the easiest to use, or because it’s what I did those early mornings at home. So I went over to it, got myself adjusted, and found out why no one was using it. It’s broken! Both of them! The digital stuff doesn’t work, so you can’t see what calories you burn, etc, which anyone going to a gym will want. Still, it is a great machine, and I worked out fifteen minutes, finding that zone again, feeling all the muscles in my body working out, getting that burn. But closing my eyes in the gym is still too awkward.

So, there is a very good reason to have this piece of equipment at home, or any other cardiovascular fitness equipment at home, because you can close your eyes! Go for the Zen moment. And exercise equipment at a gym is not always working, or up to date, or clean, and the good ones are often being used. Why wait in line to exercise? That doesn’t make a bit of sense, does it? And why have to look at all the other people, when you can exercise and know you are either all alone, or your baby is peacefully asleep in the next room.

Cardiovascular fitness training is necessary for optimal health. Our bodies benefit from running but running on hard surfaces can do more harm than good to our body. For example, many runners have beat up their knees, ankles, hips, back and other body parts from indiscriminately running outside on rough, hard, pavement. Treadmills can be the source for bodily aches and pains as well. Frequent running on a treadmill can become stressful on your body and even worse, the pressure applied to your joints can build up and cause severe pain, strictly limiting your ability to run for long distances. Stair climbers can put an enormous amount of pressure on your joints too. Running outdoors on anything other than grass can cause significant damage to our body, just as climbing stairs, or running on a treadmill can. Elliptical trainers provide similar cardio results as other aerobic exercises such as climbing stairs and running on the treadmill, however, working out on elliptical’s and cross-trainers significantly reduce the pressure one applies to their joints while trying to lose weight. Elliptical trainers allow its users to exercise while putting almost no pressure on their knees whatsoever. Through providing an impact free, cardiovascular workout, with a wide range of resistance levels, millions of Americans use elliptical machines at home and at the gym.

Impact injuries plague athletes around the world daily. Cross-trainers and elliptical machines became popular in the 1990s as the public needed a way to get a total body workout inside their home without having to bang their knees, hips and ankles up. No matter how sophisticated the suspension system on a treadmill is, runners who like to exercise for long periods of time will eventually due damage to their body from an extended amount of time of applying pressure to their joints. Reducing the amount of injuries caused by in home aerobic activity such as running on treadmills and climbing stairs, elliptical trainers entered the market approximately 20 years ago and have become more and more popular since their inception.

Although some elliptical’s only works out the lower body, the majority of elliptical’s and cross-trainers provide their users with total body workouts, making time spent on the elliptical more efficient and effective than time spent on a stair climber or stationary bike. Calories burn at a much faster rate if you exercise your entire body on an elliptical, versus sitting down in a recumbent bike and cycling for several miles. More muscle groups are targeted simultaneously from working out on an elliptical than almost any other piece of fitness equipment.

Cross-trainers will not only help people decrease their body fat, build lean muscle and have fun doing it, but exercising on cross-trainers also increases motor fitness skills and balance. Developing stronger motor fitness abilities and improving your balance can both be worked on while using the lower body workout on an elliptical, while not holding on to the upper-arms, rails, or whatever else your cross-trainer has to hold on to. Although it will be difficult at first and you may even fall (be careful, have friend with you), once you get the hang of walking/jogging/running on your trainer without holding onto anything, you will be on your way to better balance and stronger coordination skills.

Pricing on ellipticals and cross-trainers can range from $100 to $10,000.00.

In the next installment of Outside the Box – we use 5 basic exercises with an elliptical trainer.  The 5 exercises are push ups, squats, crunches, burpees and parachute jumpers.

The workout will consist of 3 minutes of elliptical trainer in the following sequence 1 min slow 1 min fast 1 min slow coupled with 4 simple body weight exercises to be performed in a circuit fashion.

Warm up:  Get on the elliptical trainer for 3-4 minutes, then get off and do some light stretching.  Warm up with 15 jumping jacks 20 body weight squats and 10 push ups.  Then get ready, the workout is about to begin.

First Circuit:

Push Up 20 reps, Parachute Jumpers 20 reps, and 25 squats, followed by the 3 min sequence on the elliptical trainer and 1 min rest

Second Circuit

20 squats, 10 burpees, 15 push ups, 25 crunches,  3 min Elliptical sequence and one minute of rest

Third Circuit

10 push up 10 burpees 15 parachute jumpers 30 squats then the 3 min circuit on the elliptical and one minute of rest

Last Circuit

25 crunch 10 push up 25 crunch 10 burpees 25 crunch 25 squat followed by 3 min elliptical sequence

Bonus Circuit (if you want to get crazy!)

10 Burpees 15 Parachute Jumpers 15 Push Ups 30 squats followed by the elliptical sequence

Try this workout on days you need to do resistance training workouts and want to fit in some time for cardio – you will do a total of 12-16 minutes on the elliptical in 1 minute intervals of low/high/low intensity and the resistance part should take 12-20 minutes also.

This workout can be fit very easily in a morning or evening 30 minute workout session!  Make sure to cool down after you finish with some stretching after a short easy ride on the elliptical.

Equipment Recommendation: Any elliptical trainer will be good for this workout!

email me if you need more details on any of the exercises!

Andrew J.
Founder
South Beach Boot Camp
www.southbeachbootcamp.net