Just saying...

Always start with a warmup

Superman, Superwoman, Superdog...we all need to do them

 

Workout buddies make a difference

Excellent plank form is the foundation of a strong core

 Even bears do pikes

 

Sometimes a little friendly horseplay is good motivation

 

Somedays someone else has to make you do the workout (lazy human)

 

Pushups will always be the best exercise

 

Staying focused can yield amazing results

 

Some workouts have to be done inside

 

Now you know where donkey kicks came from

And if you believe that, I will tell you how to lose weight on the Twinkie Diet!

Jerry, in the interest of stalling for recovery time during Warrior Bootcamp, shared a joke with us a couple of weeks ago. As it turns out, it is relevant to today's blog. So a scientist wanted to see if a frog could jump without legs. He cut one leg off and yelled "Jump!". The frog jumped. Excited by the result, he cut the remaining three legs off the frog and yelled "Jump!". Disappointingly, the frog did not move. The scientist's obvious conclusion was that cutting off all the frog's legs rendered it deaf. 

With our ever-increasing access to technology at our fingertips it seems that we are continually bombarded with the latest and greatest health and fitness news, much of which is contradictory. So how do we know what to believe? The answer is very little. 

Dr. John Ioannidis, University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece, and Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies, Department of Medicine, Tufts-New England Medical Center published a paper in the online journal PLoS Medicine, which is committed to running any methodologically sound article without regard to how “interesting” the results may be.  David Freedman of The Atlantic summarized his paper as follows:  In the paper, Ioannidis laid out a detailed mathematical proof that, assuming modest levels of researcher bias, typically imperfect research techniques, and the well-known tendency to focus on exciting rather than highly plausible theories, researchers will come up with wrong findings most of the time. Simply put, if you’re attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you’re motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you’ll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right. His model predicted, in different fields of medical research, rates of wrongness roughly corresponding to the observed rates at which findings were later convincingly refuted: 80 percent of non-randomized studies (by far the most common type) turn out to be wrong, as do 25 percent of supposedly gold-standard randomized trials, and as much as 10 percent of the platinum-standard large randomized trials. The article spelled out his belief that researchers were frequently manipulating data analyses, chasing career-advancing findings rather than good science, and even using the peer-review process—in which journals ask researchers to help decide which studies to publish—to suppress opposing views. “You can question some of the details of John’s calculations, but it’s hard to argue that the essential ideas aren’t absolutely correct,” says Doug Altman, an Oxford University researcher who directs the Centre for Statistics in Medicine.

Following are a few examples of common misconceptions that originated from old wives tales or faulty studies, and have since been proven wrong.

You lose most of your body heat through your head.
False! The amount of heat released, or lost, by any part of the body is determined primarily by its surface area. You lose more heat through an exposed leg or arm than a bare head.

Perform static stretches before exercise to warm up and improve performance.
False! Studies now show that static stretching before a run can result in a 5 percent reduction of efficiency.  Research also shows that static stretching has an acute weakening effect on weight lifters.

Cholesterol in eggs is bad for the heart.
False! The perceived association between dietary cholesterol and risk for coronary heart disease stems from dietary recommendations proposed in the 1960s that had little scientific evidence, other than the known association between saturated fat and cholesterol and animal studies where cholesterol was fed in amounts far exceeding normal intakes. Since then, study after study has found that dietary cholesterol (the cholesterol found in food) does not negatively raise your body’s cholesterol.

Never let your knees go past your toes when you squat.
False!  This incorrect conclusion was drawn when a 1978 study at Duke University found that keeping the lower leg as vertical as possible during the squat reduced shearing forces on the knee.  However, in truth, leaning forward too much is more likely to cause injury. In 2003, University of Memphis researchers confirmed that knee stress was 28 percent higher when the knees were allowed to move past the toes during the squat. But the researchers also found a counter effect: Hip stress increased nearly 1,000 percent when forward movement of the knee was restricted. The reason: The squatters had to lean their torsos farther forward. And that's a problem, because forces that act on the hip are transferred to the lower back, a more frequent site of injury than the knees.

Thus the new recommendation is to focus more on your upper body and less on knee position.  Try to keep your torso as upright as possible as you perform squats (and lunges), and you'll reduce the stress on your hips and back (i.e. look at Katie).

Now for the million dollar question which I'm sure some of you have already asked yourselves as you are reading this, "Are any of the above studies going to be proven wrong in the future?".  Perhaps.  The one sure thing that we have learned in our years of training and reviewing research is that things are always changing and what we don't know far outweighs what we do know.  What we do like about one of our primary sources for information regarding metabolic training and fitness is that they don't jump at the latest fitness fad, but instead base their training methods on studies that are based on the most sound research and have been replicated a number of times.  They are also not afraid to change course based on newer findings.

Video How to do an amazing burpee

One more challenge and one more step forward

Half of 2015 has slipped away from us already and I think that both Katie and I agree that if at first glance we were to look at the past 6 months from a strictly pass or fail perspective for our running, neither one of us would score ourselves well.  But like life, running or fitness is not black or white, pass or fail.  Rather, it is a continuum of successes and "failures" that all provide learning experiences from which to draw and move forward.

As most of you know I have been dealing with a couple of injuries that have kept me from running for awhile (over 100 days now, but who's counting) and my running future is uncertain.  Most people might think, and I had hoped, that with each non-running day that passed, it would get easier to let go.  Not true.  Running has been the way I have started the majority of my days for the last 25 years.  It was auto-pilot.  Get up, drink coffee, feed Mango (the cat, or previous cats as Mango is not 25 years old), and run.  That has changed to get up, drink lots of coffee, feed Mango, brush Mango, tell Mango how much I don't want to get on my spin bike or my elliptical, procrastinate until I can't put it off any longer, and finally take the dreaded walk to the fitness room (sometimes I take Mango with me) and toss a coin to see which evil piece of cardio equipment I get to face for the day.

I know, for someone who doesn't like running, cardio is cardio.  So what difference does it make how you are moving?  Well, let's say you play golf and you are accustomed to playing the Sedona Golf Resort, or perhaps you have been fortunate enough to play St. Andrews, or Augusta National, or Pebble Beach.  You love the smell of the freshly cut grass as you get ready to tee off, you take in the beauty of your surroundings, and then you let go with what feels like the perfect swing and it is confirmed with the sound of hitting a sweet shot.  Now, imagine you are confined to an 8x10 room with a miniature golf putter and artificial turf.  Okay, maybe a little over-exaggeration but it's just not the same!  And while a spin bike and elliptical are fine choices as cross-training, it's like being a rat on a wheel in a cage when they are your only choices.

So one of my first thoughts when I couldn't run anymore was, "Then why bother to do anything?".  Well, that didn't last long as emotion started to take a back seat to rational thinking.  As a fitness trainer I can rattle of a dozen sound reasons to do cardio, but I am now faced with needing to find new reasons to keep up my fitness routine and some of them may be the same as yours.  Heart disease, stroke, cancer, and high blood pressure all run in my family.  I would rather spin like a rat and have a healthy heart so I can continue to hike and be active than suffer the debilitating effects of heart disease.  I also prefer to lead an independent life as long as possible rather than relying on others to take care of me.  And one of my primary goals as a trainer is to help others lead healthier, happier lives.  And who wants an out-of-shape, fat trainer?  One thing we can always be sure of is that life will continue to throw us curve balls and we just have to reassess and figure out how to adapt and move forward.

So, another life challenge thrown in my face and I will suck it up and do what I know I should do...   

   

 But I may rebel and borrow just a little bit of Katie's attitude and step outside of the box... or wheel!

So far one of my biggest challenges has been to find a way to combine intense cardio with being outdoors.  Running was simple.  Put on your running shoes and step out the door.  No fancy equipment or elaborate planning of where to go.  Biking requires extra equipment and planning and as some of you have mentioned, Sedona is not known for its bike-friendly roads.  And I have discovered some very annoying things about biking.  For Joe's sake I will leave out the chafing.  You have to bike almost twice as long to get an equivalent workout or calorie burn as you do with running.  It is also harder to maintain a steady effort on the bike.  Downhill on a bike is much easier than running, but you can actually run up a very steep hill faster than you can pedal up it in granny gear.  So my new mantra as I am puffing up steep hills is...

So over these past 100 days I have biked 1800 miles.  That's not real impressive by cycling standards but for a runner who has been forced to sit her butt on a bike against her will, and considering I am usually only biking 3 or 4 days per week,  I will count it as a significant personal accomplishment.  It is certainly something I never would have aspired to if not "forced" into the situation, and I keep telling myself (and Mango) that somehow I must be benefiting from it.

So while the long term drive and determination to stay on a healthy fitness path have to come from within, there are many external things that are inspiring and help each of us to keep moving forward.  Katie blogged about her marathon and expressed some of her feelings and thoughts about the race.  For me, being at the race with Katie was simultaneously one of the most exciting and difficult things I have done.  Exciting because Katie had made the decision to stay on track and proceed with the race when she lost her running partner early on in the training.  She was forced to do most of her runs and her speed work on her own which is not her inclination.  Yet she overcame those obstacles to proceed and excel with her training.  Difficult to be there because of my desire to be running the race, combined with an uncertain running future.  But I wouldn't have wanted to be any other place and her run was inspiring to me because even when she knew she would be short of her time goal she pushed on and finished the race.  Running a marathon is never easy and it takes every ounce of strength in your body and mind to push through those last difficult miles when you know the end result will be short of your goal.  But as they say, pain is temporary, finishing lasts forever.

As we have shared with you before, there are many things we see and hear at our trainings that inspire us to stay focused on our fitness and continue to take on new challenges.  We also hear you giving encouragement to each other and you often share positive comments with us about other Warriors.  We know that each of you are facing your own challenges with work, health, and family and that some days you can give 100% and other days may be 50%.  But remember that 50% is better than nothing and one thing that we are sure of from our own experience is that you can always count on your Metabolic Family to help carry you forward.  Never underestimate the strength you can draw from others, but more importantly know that each of you is an inspiration to us and your fellow Warriors!