Great link, Michael. All of these were tested on me by the trainer who worked on my wonky knee. 
These are awesome exercises to add to anyone’s routine.
I tried springing up a few steps today at work since I had on low comfortable cowboy boots. I was able to do it a little bit, so maybe I’m not hopeless! It wasn’t pretty.
It hit 90 degrees here in my neck of the woods last night! I was covered with sweat while doing my free weights. Did the exercises in Michael’s link, too.
Gave in to temptation. I had to be at work early this morning for a meeting and by 9:30 I was hungry. I was looking at Twitter and one of our IT VPs tweeted a picture of an entire break room filled with Dunkin Donut boxes for IT administrators day or something like that. I figured out what break room it must be and made a beeline for it! SCORE! I only ate 1. The power of social media!
Social media 1, MOWC 0.
I would actually be happy with a cloudy, rainy day if it would just cool down a bit.
Need to get back to my push up routine.
MOfWC, pat yourself on the back! There was an ENTIRE break room full of donuts, and you ate only one.
Ok guys, I geeked out and did the DexaFit/VO2/RMR things (with a groupon) and thought I’d report back in. It was fascinating!
You had to refrain from eating, so I scheduled my test for 8 am. (You could drink water, but not too much, and you couldn’t have exercised beforehand.)
The first test - the DexaFit - you simply lay down and a machine passed over your body, kind of like an MRI.
The second test was a VO2 max test, whereby you sat quietly for 10 minutes with your nose clipped, breathing through your mouth into a tube. Honestly that was the hardest test - it is kind of freaky to have your nose clipped like that, and there are momentary panic moments when you think “I can’t breathe.” But all in all, not a huge deal.
The third test was one in which I had a contraption over my nose / mouth (but I could breath through both of them) and did a run / walk sequence lasting 10 minutes on a treadmill, during which they took me from slow walk to fast walk to slow jog to fast jog with incline and then recovery. It got me up to a 169 heart rate but they didn’t let me sustain it for very long (maybe 30 seconds) before dropping me back down and watching my recovery.
I wouldn’t want to bore you with my body fat % and BMI, ha ha. But I did find out some useful things:
- It confirmed what I kind of already knew, that my weight is distributed pretty evenly with a bit more around the trunk - that is, I’m more apple-y versus pear-y (thanks, hormones), but not extremely so.
- The Visceral Adipose Tissue (the tissue around my organs) was still at a decent level (2.1 - they said it should stay under 3 - that is what can lead to diabetes and other conditions.
- My bone density is awesome - yay for weight-bearing exercise!
- They actually measure body fat and muscle for right side vs left side. I have always noticed my right leg is much stronger than my left - it’s noticeable in things like yoga when I am doing balancing poses. Indeed, they were able to tell me that I had comparatively more muscle in my right leg.
- I am in good (though not excellent) shape in the cardio portion. My aerobic threshold is 122 bpm and my anaerobic is 167 bpm.
- My metabolism is a bit above normal.
- My RMR (if I were just to sit all day and do nothing) is 1498 cals. That struck me as kind of high and the trainer felt it was because I had a good amount of muscle.
- From all this, it’s a real clear roadmap that if I want to lose X amount of weight, I could lose it without exercise at Y calories, and with exercise at Z calories over a given period of time.
- I said - given all of this, what’s a good weight for me? And she gave me a weight that I was actually at 3 years ago, and thought I looked pretty good. She said I’m always going to have a high number because I have a lot of muscle. I kind of always felt that, but it was good to have a neutral person say that.
So, lots of interesting dynamics.
Awesome report, Pizzagirl! Now I want to do this stuff.
Very interesting PG - so nice of you to share all that detail.
Who is it (someone in what profession) interprets the results of this test?
Sounds like you got a lot of positive feedback. And as we’ve always said, number on the scale means nothing - compare a 150 pound fit woman to a 150 pound unfit woman and you see two different body types!
It’s been a busy week. I’m planning on a 14 mile run tomorrow morning before H’s family arrives for their annual visit. Hosting 10 extra people for the weekend will keep me busy. I am really hoping for good weather because it’s a lot easier when we can be outside doing stuff. They are pretty slug-like but I can get them in the pool so that will be good if the thunderstorms hold off.
FallGirl - I sure hope you are feeling better today.
PG - fascinating information from your tests. It’s great that all the data and information corroborated what you already believed. You’ve got me curious now!
PG - never heard of a VO2 Max nose test! Mine have always been treadmill with a mask.
My Garmin VO2 Max declined a whopping 3 points yesterday based on my slow hill trail run. Obviously Garmin doesn’t take into account elevation and just looks at pace. Need one of those runner watt meters Michael mentioned to measure true effort.
Got a trainer workout in today followed by 45 minutes on the Cybex arc.
That’s interesting, pizzagirl. Sounds like a great groupon value! Terrific results, too! Although- I would tend to attribute your good bones to genetics more than weight-bearing exercise. My docs are adamant that genetics (and meds, calcium early in life, smoking history etc)tend to be bigger factors than exercise. Weight-bearing can help, of course. I couldn’t do a whole lot more weight bearing exercise and I am not doing well with bones…
I also have never seen a VO2 max test where you were sitting with your nose clipped! I haven’t had mine tested in ages.
It’s very possible I’m mixing up what the last 2 tests were! The RMR must have been the test where I sat quietly with my nose clipped breathing into a tube, and the VO2 max was the one where I ran on the treadmill with the nose/mouth contraption. Sorry if I screwed up!
abasket - to be honest, I don’t really know what her background was. The DexaFit location was actually a room that appeared to be subletted from a gym - a very old-school, no-frills, bodybuilding-focus type of gym. In fact, I didn’t see any other women in the gym aside from the woman running the DexaFit test.
The sitting quiet and breathing into a tube is the RMR test.
@ohiopublic – I’ve noticed the same thing about the Garmin’s measurement of the VO2 max. It’s dismaying to finish a hard run with a lot of climbing and be told your VO2 max is now down, isn’t it? I’ve also noticed that the Garmin’s GPS accuracy on trials–especially wooded, hilly ones–is off by about ten percent, as opposed to the more usual 2-3% that I see in other environments. My recent trail series in Portland’s Forest Park is on VERY accurately measured trails (the man who measured them did repeated wheel measurements) and my Garmin 235 is consistently 10% low, as is true for the other runners I’ve spoken with.
Yes I think the Garmin VO2 Max is a little screwy. I can max it out at 53 at a track meet doing a mile or a 1/2 mile and only getting a Max HR of 175. But it will decline from 51 to 48 on a hilly 5 mile run at 183 Max HR and 172 avg. that takes 2-3x the effort?
Bouts of rain this afternoon and evening. Got my D to head out for a nice, steamy evening walk with 85% humidity and dewpoint of 71 - “lovely” 45 minute walk , so about 3 miles.
It is almost midnight, and it is still 75 degrees outside! Yikes, please remind me - how did I train for that stupid race in that stupid heat last year? I feel your pain, everyone suffering from the heat!
Eating like an Olympian is a challenge…
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympic-weightlifter-is-fed-up-with-eating-so-much-food-232805519.html