Sugar for Intense Exercise
The best time to take sugar to help you prolong your intense exercise is 30 minutes or less before you start. Researchers in Scotland showed that taking a sugared drink 30 minutes before exercise allowed the subjects to exercise at 90 percent of their maximum capacity for 12 percent longer than when they took the same sugared drink two hours before exercise.
Calculate Your Fitness Age
VO2max can be used to predict a person’s risk of premature death from a heart attack. Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology have developed a simple way to estimate a person’s VO2max, his maximal ability to take in and use oxygen.
Try a Trike
If you're 60, 70, 80 or any age and want a really fun way to exercise, try a Trike! You have no problem with balance, no risk of falling, and you can move as fast (or slow) as you like. Climbing hills is no problem because the gears go down really low, you won't fall over no matter how slow you are, and you can stop right in the middle of the hill if you get tired.
How To Run Faster
If you don't run very fast in practice, you won't be able to run very fast in races.
Piriformis Syndrome
If it hurts to touch a point that's in the middle of one side of your buttocks, you probably have piriformis syndrome. This chronic condition is very difficult to diagnose, because other injuries may produce exactly the same symptoms.
Plantar Fasciitis
One of the most common injuries in tennis and jogging is plantar fasciitis, pain on the bottom of the heel. A band of tissue called the plantar fascia extends from your five toes, along the bottom of your foot to attach on the bottom of your heel. When you run, you land on your heel and raise yourself on your toes as you shift your weight to your other foot, causing all your weight to be held up by your plantar fascia.
Exercising in Air Pollution
It's healthy to exercise and harmful to breathe polluted air. Many people wonder if they will do more harm than good by exercising on...
Tennis Elbow: A Home Treatment that Works
You don't have to play tennis to develop tennis elbow. It can be due to any movement that puts excessive force on the wrist muscles. Tennis elbow refers to elbow pain as the result of an injury to the elbow tendons that bend and straighten the wrist. Hold your hand down with your thumb on the outside (lateral to your hand) and your elbow straight. Pain on the lateral (outside) part of your elbow is called backhand tennis elbow. Pain on the medial (inside) part is called forehand tennis elbow.
Achilles Tendinitis
Achilles tendinitis means you feel pain in the large tendon that extends from in the back of your heel to your calf muscle. It hurts most when you get up in the morning and when you start to walk or run. It will heal only if you stop running and find another sport that doesn't hurt when you do it, such as cycling, swimming, or pulling on a rowing machine.
How to Jump Higher
When Kent Benson, the former National Basketball Association player, came to the University of Indiana he could jump only 9 inches off the...
Hypothermia
In 1812, Napoleon attacked Russia with 453,000 men, but after he withdrew from Moscow, the harsh cold winter reduced his "Grande Armee" to...
Helmets Save Lives
A study from Imperial College in London shows that increased use of helmets by bicycle riders has markedly reduced head injuries (1).
Do you...
How Many Miles Cycling Equal Miles Running?
During the cold winter months when snow and ice are on the ground, it's too dangerous to ride a bike, so many cyclists run instead. The standard comparison is that one mile of running equals four miles of cycling, but that's lousy science. Although running requires the same amount of energy per mile at any speed (110 calories per mile) , riding is affected by wind resistance so the faster you ride, the more energy you use. So you have to compare running and cycling at different cycling speeds.
How to Become Strong
Would you like to become stronger? Pick six to ten weight-machine exercises and do them in three sessions a week. In each exercise, try to lift the heaviest weight that you can lift comfortably ten times in a row without hurting yourself.
How to Walk Faster
To become fit you need to exercise vigorously enough to increase your heart rate by at least 20 beats a minute. Walking slowly doesn't make you fit.
Ankle Weights Won’t Help You to Run Faster
Ankle weights do not help you run faster or jump higher. To run fast in competition, you have to run fast in practice....
Temperature During Exercise
You sweat more after you finish exercising than you do while you exercise. More than 70 percent of the energy that powers your muscles is lost as heat, causing your body temperature to rise during exercise. To keep your body temperature from rising too high, your heart pumps the heat in your blood from your muscles to your skin
Preparing for Baseball
Parents often ask me what their children can do to prepare for their baseball season. Because training is specific, they should be training...
Slow Lifting
If you want to become very strong, you have to lift weights heavy enough to make your muscles burn. It doesn't make any difference whether you move the weights slowly or rapidly. Just exercise intensely enough so your muscles feel sore the next day.
Maximum Heart Rate Formula
Many exercise programs and tests used to measure heart function are based on an unreliable MAXIMUM HEART RATE formula that predicts the fastest your heart can beat and still pump blood through your body. Although this formula is the golden standard used today, it is not based on science.
Isometric Exercise
Can you become very strong by doing isometric exercises in which you push against something that doesn't move, such as a wall?
The single...
Sit Ups for Belly Strength
Sit ups strengthen your belly muscles, provided that you know how to do them. Lie on your back with your knees bent with...
Orthotics
Orthotics are special custom arch supports that help to absorb shock and prevent foot pain. To see if orthotics are likely to help you, ask your podiatrist to strap your foot with a special taping procedure called a low-dye strap. If this reduces the pain, you probably will benefit from custom orthotics.
Lifting Weights Won’t Make You Musclebound
Training for strength improves coordination. Your brain is a master switchboard that coordinates your muscles. Lifting weights does not interfere with brain function; it improves coordination in events that require strength, such as playing sports, working as a carpenter, opening a stuck door or beating a drum.
Super Slow Training
Moving a weight very slowly in sets of ten causes the same amount of damage as moving a much heavier weight rapidly, and causes the same type of muscle damage. Lifting lighter weights slowly is far less likely to cause injuries than heavy lifting.
Muscle Stimulating Machines
Advertisements on television claim that you can wrap a special belt around your belly, plug it into an electric outlet, turn on the electricity,...
Spot Reduction Doesn’t Work
You'll see lots of exercise programs, devices and machines in television commercials that claim to get rid of fat from your belly. While...
Build Muscle and Improve Balance with T’ai Chi
T'ai Chi can help older people improve balance, which can protect them from falling and breaking their bones. It is also a safe...
Electronic Ab Machines
Your brain does send an electrical impulse along nerves that enter muscles to cause them to contract. The electrical impulses generated by ab machines are so weak that they can't possibly cause contractions that strengthen muscles significantly. If they did give you enough electricity to strengthen your muscles, they would give you a very painful shock.
Mamo Wolde, Olympian
Mamo Wolde died recently at age 71. At 36, He won the 1968 Olympic marathon and the 10,000-meter silver medal in Mexico City....
