The stomach crunches on the angled board I think are reverse - I hold on (lightly) above my head and lift my legs and bottom up. The board is higher at my head than my feet so it’s harder than if it were flat. Sometimes I do forward crunches on an exercise ball with my feet on the wall. Oh I forgot - sometimes also tricep pull downs. I have super developed upper trapezoids and deltoids already and I have to work to make sure I keep my shoulders down and not let my neck take over.
I bet you would approve of the DaVinci board. I’m taking a class next week and hope to do 2x/ week. Resistance bands and body weight.
3 miles track/treadmill at the gym - temp got up to high 30’s, but not QUITE enough to clear out ice - rain tomorrow so maybe we will have a clean slate.
Interesting that this thread has been talking FItbit today. I was chasing down of the docs I work with to have her sign something. She teased me that i just wanted to chase her to get another flight up the stairs on my Fitbit. (MAYBE, true…) Anyway she started telling me that her son who is in 2nd grade has the Fitbit Charge and LOVES it. He loves beating his mom (her) each day in steps and finds it a challenge to see how many steps he racks a day - of course it’s motivating - kids love games and number stuff right?! She said that most of the kids in his class have Fitbits and that they sometimes talk about them in class and the teacher has used some of their stats to do math lessons - what a fantastic idea! And, what an interesting concept for children’s obesity in our country - not putting the pressure on kids to “meet” 10,000 steps, but to have a cool watch, watch the numbers AND a way for parents to see how physically active their kids are. I mean, parents have been known to reward with cookies, candy, toys, etc. - the FItbit can be a visual motivator - opinions or thoughts?
Doc told me that she also likes it because she can go online and see if he is getting enough sleep - wow, really this struck me - such an interesting tool for both a parent and child if used well! BTW, she said that he ALWAYS beats her in steps.
I think a FitBit would be a great motivator for a kid! I would worry about them losing it, though.
There are a number of corporations that are giving all employees FitBits and having contests. I know Target does it! I believe for both store employees and corporate office staff.
"And, what an interesting concept for children’s obesity in our country - not putting the pressure on kids to “meet” 10,000 steps, but to have a cool watch, watch the numbers AND a way for parents to see how physically active their kids are. "
As the proverbial last-kid-picked-in-gym-class who learned, from gym class, to hate physical activity with a passion, I think this is spot-on. So much of our childhood gym classes were competitive - beating one another in stupid games where those of us who were naturally unathletic had no clue what the rules were and didn’t have the coordination to play anyway. (And as if it was meaningful to beat Johnny and Susie from math class on the playing field when I already knew I whupped their butts in the classroom!) You could get that 10,000 steps however you liked. Walk the dog, run, stroll the mall, run around the house - whatever. It would have inculcated healthy habits. I think it’s a very intriguing idea!
PE class has (mercifully) changed. They are teaching yoga in one of the middle school PE classes here. I would have loved that, especially with the flexibility I had back then.
My PE nightmare (and I was pretty athletic) was swimming. My main issue was my hair, which would turn into a curly frizzy mess after swimming, even though it was short. The bigger issue was that we had to wear the school’s swimsuits and they were color-coded by chest size. I was OK since I was small, but the larger girls had increasingly horrid colors, with the 38s and 40s being neon orange and green. The boys figured out the sizing system and it was not a good system. Girls would claim to have their periods for weeks on end.
I was a real monkey on the rope, but ball sports instilled sheer fear in me. Parallel bars were ok. And so was our 40 pushups in a minute test for girls.
There have been some reports that the next generation of the Apple Watch will include enhanced sensors and software to enable it to transmit health data to physicians. Additional speculation is that within a couple of years, subcutaneous sensors will be on the market that will read a host of medical and health metrics, send them to a wrist device which will both store them and transmit them to healthcare providers. All of this personal wearable technology has a load of interesting potentials
Running at the gym track this morning–4 miles and SKIING this afternoon for at least an hour and a half. I didn’t realize cross country skis had become shorter and slightly parabolic. They were certainly a lot easier to maneuver, a good thing since I haven’t done it for about 15 years! The terrain was pretty flat, the snow a warmed up light powder, and I only tipped over once.
I felt really good after today’s exercising, but apparently I overdid something because in the middle of dinner I got a charley horse in the back of my thigh, something that’s never happened to me before. I suspect the cause is very likely the result of kicking my leg back in the x-country skiing. I’ve also felt really dehydrated in this cold, dry weather. Weekend warrior syndrome with skis: guilty.
This morning was a one hour circuit training class, and as I predicted, I was most improved! I had a late dinner last night of Thai food - spicy rice noodles with veggies and chicken so am feeling really dehydrated this morning - and of course my weight is up. Still - it’s Friday!
Popping in to say hi. Where are you skiing, PlantMom? I expect to be on the slopes Sunday. Have one last day to hit the gym. Dropped 7 lbs before the trip. Pretty pleased with that.
I’ll be the bearer of either good or bad news, depending on the condition of your pocketbook - Athleta has an extra 20% off sale items, code: EXTRA20. I picked up a dress, capris and a top for $83 between the sale, extra sale and a little bit of credit I had - I mean, you can’t be that, right?!
Tomorrow is my big shopping day - I need new running shoes -so I’d better stay away from Athleta. I like the men’s Kayanos I am wearing now except for the heel. I am lacing them to hold the heel snugger (is that a word?) and they are still getting way too loose. I had the same problem with women’s shoes, but it’s a bigger issue with the men’s version. These have a lot of miles on them, though, so that could be part of the problem. Sigh.
“Additional speculation is that within a couple of years, subcutaneous sensors will be on the market that will read a host of medical and health metrics, send them to a wrist device which will both store them and transmit them to healthcare providers.”
I am not so optimistic about the projected timelines based on some experience with a research group working in this area (even if a techie or a VC tells you some optimistic story, a life science researcher will usually have a more realistic opinion). Our bodies developed a way to neutralize foreign objects by surrounding them with a “scar” layer that isolates the objects from the living tissues. Fouling of sensors is a big issue, because to function properly, the sensor needs to be exposed to the tissue all the time; otherwise, the signal will change with time. One solution is to keep injecting new sensors every few days and to let the old ones dissolve - but just ask MOfWC about how she likes needles, and you will quickly realize that this is not a good route. Unless someone solves the problem of fouling of sensing implants within the next year or so, the multi-analyte sub-q sensors will not get on the market within 2 years. There is another reason: anything that gets implanted into a human body is a medical device or a combination device/drug, so the FDA will have to review the clinical data and give its OK. The sensing chemistries need to be robust and selective and be able to survive in a hostile environment full of oxidizers for a long time…
There is also an issue of data overload - sure, it is great to monitor things in real time, but whether the doctors would want to be bothered with this constant stream of data is a different story… Just my 2 cents.
I did a tough circuit workout with my trainer last night, it left me with a good feeling of accomplishment. This morning was a fast very early morning 3.4 mile run. With the weather this week, I am behind in my weekly mileage for my marathon training plan so I’ll be doing plenty of running this weekend.
I love the idea of Fitbits for kids! Besides being able to see how active they are, I also like the idea of being able to check on their sleep. I think the whole field of wearables is going to explode in the coming years.
jym - congrats on the weightloss! You did well before your ski trip. Stick with us after your trip to keep up the good work!
PlantMom-it would be very easy to get dehydrated with the exercising you have been doing. Cross country skiing is really hard work but it’s not something you think about needing to hydrate for - sorry about the charley horse, that can be so painful! I hope there are no repeat occurrences.
PizzaGirl-I am enjoying reading about all the classes you are doing and your whole exercise/training regimen. Partial retirement sounds wonderful with all the things you’re able to do for yourself now.
I was thinking I should get a fitbit or some other device after reading all the posts here, but then I thought it was just one more thing to track. I’m already logging all of my workouts, tracking my running mileage, monitoring my weight …don’t know that I want to start counting steps as well. I saw an article recently that I can’t find now (of course) that basically stated phone apps were as accurate as a wrist tracker type of device. I bought Mr. Sabaray a fitbit for Christmas last year and of course he’s already abandoned it. He basically used it as an excuse - “Oh, I’ve got my 10k steps in…no need to get any cardio in!”
Edited to add: I found the article I was looking for!
You should give his a try for a couple weeks Sabaray as a trial run - if you have any interest. The thing with the phone apps is that I at least, don’t often have my phone on me.
For the average person who walks from their house to their car to their desk at work and then reverses, they would probably be surprised how few steps they get in a day.
Lunchtime spin class! The only one offered for the week. I got the last bike - they definitely need more - turned away probably 8 people due to not enough bikes - gotta love January!
I’m having fun with my new Jawbone Up2 today. I chose this one mainly because of the way it looks (and much cheaper than some others) - it just looks like a bracelet & it’s very comfortable so I won’t mind wearing it pretty much all the time, including at night. It got chosen as “best basic tracker” or something by CNET. To see my data, I have to pull up the app on my phone & wait a couple seconds for it to sync with the wrist band. The sleep data is interesting - i don’t know how useful it will really be, but kind of cool anyway. No heart rate feature. It’s really just a glorified step-counter, but you can set it up to work with RunKeeper & MyFitnessPal & some others to get a full picture.
