<p>I’m not aware of efit30. I couldn’t find it on amazon, what is it? We try everything, so we would love to know.</p>
<p>I would put Insanity at the top of impossible haha. It’s very intense jumping, pushups, lunges, no rest repeat. It’s fast and great if you are young and don’t have heart problems haha. Actually, we know folks who love it, so give it a try, but it wasn’t for us.</p>
<p>We have really gotten into the 30 minute workouts so we are still trying the new P90X3 workouts. Will give a review soon.</p>
<p>We love Jillian Michaels Hard Body. It’s a 45 minute workout and it’s intense but it’s varied and that makes it interesting. We have not measured the caloric burn because we burned out our HR monitor a long time ago, but it feels like a 1000 cal per hour burn to us, so if you do 30 mins, that’s 500 cals.</p>
<p>Jillian has a bunch of DVDs, and they’re all good for “normal” people. Not impossible (like insanity) but challenging.</p>
<p>Bob’s DVDs are tough, unless you do 30 minutes instead of an hour, then it’s a good workout that’s not too crazy.</p>
<p>We started this whole journey with Yoga for Athletes with Kimberly Fowler. It’s too easy for us now, but it was fricking hard two years ago and changed the way we worked out.</p>
<p>On the steps study, I just read a book all about the problems with interpreting medical research. This one seems to be reporting relative risk, as Idad was getting at in his description. Eg an 18% differential of a 5% risk sounds different than an 18% differential in absolute risk :)</p>
<p>However, the actual results do jibe with a lot of the research discussed in this book.For example, the author says that getting at least 30 min of activity daily dramatically reduces risk of heart disease…and in relative terms, reduces the risk more than fourfold over taking statin drugs to treat high cholesterol. In fact, in women under 70, taking a statin drug at all increases risk of heart disease (Yes, you read that right. The book is worth a read…that is the Overdosed America book I linked to a little while ago.)</p>
<p>So a half hour of activity would look like 3000 steps walking at about 3 mph depending on your steps. Now in terms of “burn” that might be 150 cal. If a person wanted to up the burn in that half hour, adding Nordic ski poles engages the upper body and dramatically increases the burn. Add snowshoes and a hill and you’ll outright double the burn.</p>
<p>At any rate, anyone on this thread who is generally eating clean and moving their bodies every day for a set period of “exertion”, whether its steps or miles or routines or intervals etc. is dramatically reducing their risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. So I’m glad that study is getting publicity because unlike most research, it’s true :)</p>
<p>In metabolic terms, some things do extend a heightened metabolic burn rate for the ensuing 24 hrs, including intervals and I think programs designed to “act” like interval work…eg the DVD programs that combine strength and cardio in a way that at critical points get you anabolic and then backs you down Just a hunch.</p>
<p>Teri, I’m glad to hear your weaning from the Celebrex. I was on naprosyne and robaxin for 1.5 years a decade ago with my facet joint syndrome and I was very glad to get off it. That was when I first started walking a mile a day, taking magnesium and drinking extra water (and hottubing daily.) Fortunately,I had a surgeon who felt these things were better than drugs Gotta love a guy who writes you a script for a hottub!</p>
<p>Very interesting discussion folks. :). Appreciate the conversation. </p>
<p>I just know I’m thankful for every calorie that gets burned off but I also want to “enjoy” the event that burns it off!!! And with that, looking forward to a 3 mile run later today. :)</p>
<p>Michael- that formula of 210- half age is pretty close for me, too. Comes out to 180 max and I’m at 185ish. Better than the other formulas, for sure.</p>
<p>The calorie burn issue. Like MOWC, I take running as my guide, right or wrong, and estimate burning 100 calories per mile. I compare every thing else to running. If the activity is as hard as running, I treat the calorie burn like running, if it is less, I treat it as less. Not very scientific, but works for estimation. </p>
<p>I love p90x. Never did the whole plan, but have doNe various DVDs ala carte. I have taken it on trips to have something to do, and have used portions of it to supplement my normal workout. </p>
<p>Did spin and will swim. Would love to run,but the air is crappy right now.</p>
<p>Thanks, mrscollege for posting your calorie burns for those workouts. Interesting! DH and I were hardcore runners for 30 years before I got into DVDs and I always wondered how the calorie burn compared to the 100 calories/mile figure. I’m not interested in losing weight; I just workout to be fit and eat well. And yes, Insanity is a tough program. Just the warm-up kicked my butt in the beginning, but it was sort of the “gate-way” workout that got me into a more well rounded fitness routine. I agree with you that Jillian DVDs are good solid workouts for “normal” people. Bob Harper’s are somewhat more difficult, but could be adapted, I would think. I keep trying to convince DH to join me and Bob and just don’t use any hand weights.</p>
<p>How do you measure after burn? Keep your HRM monitor on after you’ve finished exercise and compare results from various workouts? Probably a dumb question.</p>
<p>MichaelNKat, your formula is pretty accurate for me too.</p>
<p>You guys made me curious about the calorie burn, so I went back and looked at my past runs. I don’t burn 100 calories per mile :(. But I also see that every mile doesn’t burn the same amount.</p>
<p>Teri- Congratulations on your exercise progress and the elimination of your med! Your hard-work and commitment are really paying off!!! Keep up the great work!!!</p>
<p>I LOVE the fitbit! 8:15am walk with a friend: 4.41 miles, 11 floors, 8,566 steps and 57 active minutes and it’s only 10:26am. Woohoo-- I exercised before getting hijacked!</p>
<p>Cardio + weights + #plankaday. Back to the basement again today – I hope to about finish. The crawling around on my knees on the cement floor in the crawl space part is killing my knees, and the low overhead practically requires a contortionist. But, when it’s all over, things will be packed, stored and organized.</p>
<p>Mrscollege, in answer to your question, eFit30 workout videos are found on YouTube. They’ve been mentioned on this thread in the past. Thanks for giving a summary of programs you’ve used. If I didn’t have my own core/strength routine I might check out one of those to see if I’d like it, but I’m happy with what I’ve got going currently. :-)</p>
<p>iDad and KMC, thanks for posting your thoughts on the study.</p>
<p>Yea!! And now the rest of the day is yours!</p>
<p>Today’s bonus for going to the gym for water aerobics was… taking a shower at the gym and coming home to find there was a ‘big’ main water line break about a half mile from our house - so I got the shower in and am done. Have a twice-monthly massage scheduled in a half hour. MUST tell her to go easy on the ITB, TFL and adductors; last time she sort of set me back by using too much pressure. Looks like dinner might be out tonight due to the water issue.</p>
<p>Not one friggin’ song in that class motivated me today, although Bad, Bad Leroy Brown did play - it’s sort of special since that’s what my dad’s name was! Might go back to the gym later today to do my PT exercises; they have equipment there that makes it easier to get some of them in.</p>
<p>Such great information, thanks for answering my questions. I like the comment ‘eating clean’ and will keep that in mind when I get ready to consume something. A favorite of mine and really ‘dirty’ is pepsi.</p>
<p>A young very buff co-worker told me that everytime he sits down to eat he asks himself if this is healthy and good for his body, and if not, he passes.</p>
<p>I think I have the heart rate reserve formula correct. If max HR=181 and resting HR =60 then 90% max would be [(181-60) (.9)] + 60=167 </p>
<p>Guess I need to spend time reflecting on my workout goals.</p>
<p>On heart rate reserve: It is a more accurate way to quantify training. However, it is also more confusing when you are a hot sweaty mess trying to figure out how heart rate corresponds to your exercise. It is especially confusing for someone starting from the couch, because the resting heart rate is likely to fall pretty significantly with improved fitness, which changes all the zones.</p>
<p>In practice, I think that either approach works for casual fitness. After all, it’s just a matter of correlating your response to exercise to a particular scale and then using that scale. For example, I arrived at using 70% of my max (simple scale) as the recovery point for Airdyne intervals by actual experience. Using 75%, I was still huffing and puffing and not really ready to face another interval. At 65%, I was fully recovered, twiddling my thumbs waiting, and having to almost stop pedalling to get my heart rate to fall the last little bit. So, if I used the same approach with a different scale, I would end up at the same place physically, it would just be a different “number” on the watch (57% of my heart rate reserve). Depending on the exercise, I might use a different recovery point. For example, in weight lifting, I usually recover to 60% of my max before starting the next exercise. For walk/jog intervals, I use 75% because between running and walking up hills, I would never fall to 70% of my max on parts of my route. I would prefer to use 70%, but as a practical matter it just doesn’t work in that case.</p>
<p>For hiking, I’m pretty steady in the 65% to 70% range downhill. Uphill, I try to stay in the 75% to 85% range. When I hit 85%, I stop and my heart rate quickly drops to below 60% of my max. When, I first starting hiking in the mountains, I’d go like a bat out of hell and drive my heart rate up to 90%+ of my max and end up bent over panting. I’ve learned that is not a very fun way to hike for several hours!</p>
<p>For a scientific training program based on heart rate reserve, you’ve obviously got to use the heart rate reserve scale or the thresholds in the program won’t make any sense.</p>
<p>I can get my Garmin to display either scale.</p>
<p>The big problem I have with studies like this is shown in this paragraph from the article:</p>
<p>
There is so much room in here for manipulating the results. For example, diet was almost certainly self-reported, which is very unreliable.</p>
<p>They only wore the pedometers for a week at the beginning and at the end. What happened the other 50 weeks? What assumptions did they make?</p>
<p>The NAVIGATOR study itself was comprised of people who were pre-diabetic and already had CV disease or CV risk factors. This is a group one would expect to benefit greatly from any form of increased exercise. In a normal population I would bet the overall improvement in relative risk would be much less than the “9% per 2000 steps” number. Since only a small %age of the population as a whole has CV (2.1% for men age 55 and less for women according to [url=<a href=“http://www.scai.org/SecondsCount/Heart/WhoIsAffectedByCardiovascularDisease.aspx]this[/url”>http://www.scai.org/SecondsCount/Heart/WhoIsAffectedByCardiovascularDisease.aspx]this[/url</a>], this study has little value for most people.</p>
<p>The study, btw, was a test of drugs aimed at preventing diabetes and heart disease, and was largely a bust.</p>
<p>Yes, my DH wore a heart rate monitor that linked to a watch thingie that computed calories. After a slow jog, the caloric burn basically ended as soon as we stopped, but after a sprint or a Bob Harper DVD we found we burned another 100 calories in the next 30 minutes.</p>
<p>Well, not the workout I would have chosen today but I did shovel the driveway & sidewalks while the guys were at work. I figured by the time S came home it would be a harder-to-shovel icy mess, and dark.</p>
<p>Looking forward to lots of walking (ok, and eating) in NOLA this weekend! I haven’t had a beignet in 40 years so I guess it’s time. :)</p>
(Yes, you read that right. The book is worth a read…that is the Overdosed America book I linked to a little while ago.)</p>