<p>I don’t see why this is a gender-specific issue.</p>
<p>Men and women are overweight today.</p>
<p>Ran 2.75 miles today and did my weights at the office. Bumped up on the bench press another five pounds to 125. I have the feeling that I can do quite a bit more as the 125 was quite a bit easier than doing the military press at 70. At any rate, no hurry to find out what the limit is.</p>
<p>I also determined that my right arm is quite a bit better now. Very close to 100%. I sometimes get pain when lifting but it goes away quickly. What happened today is that I could do more reps with the right hand than I could do with the left on curls. In the past, my right arm would give out before my left arm, simply because I wasn’t exercising the right arm that much because it would end in pain.</p>
<p>I’m probably going to do some stretching and floor work later tonight at home. Unless there’s a few inches of ice on the driveway - I’ll have to chip away at that if there is. I don’t have enough salt to melt that much ice.</p>
<p>I went out and did my squats today. 9 reps @185#, 7 reps @195#, 5 reps @205#, 3 reps @235#, 1 rep @255#, and 1 rep @260#. New 1RM record tonight. </p>
<p>I’m headed back out there in about an hour or so to do a CrossFit workout. One of my co-workers wants me to workout with her and she has clients until 8 or so…</p>
<p>I kinda feel like I’m coming down with a bug, so I took it easy today. Little interval workout on the Airdyne. 20 seconds fast & 40 seconds rest. 8 reps. Then a 2 minute rest. Then 8 more reps. 24 minutes start to finish.</p>
<p>Instead of music, I listened to a podcast interview with Valerie Waters (celebrity fitness trainer and ValSlides inventor):</p>
<p>If you want to mix it up sometime, check out CrossFit.com. They post a new workout every day and then they have some guys that will scale it down so anybody can do it…</p>
<p>I’m not very good at math, but that sounds like she plans to run 24 marathons in 24 states over the next 24 months. Ouch. And I thought Airdyne intervals a couple times a week is hardcore!</p>
<p>I like the general idea of CrossFit workouts, but the specifics are sometimes a bit short on safety and proper technique. It’s a frequent topic of discussion at the StrengthCoach blog and the concensus seems to be that they often have people doing stuff that they have no business doing. For example, the guy in Tuesday’s workout video is doing those godawful ugly kipping pull-ups that are a shoulder surgery waiting to happen. Plus the workout has 135 pullups or muscle ups and nothing for the lower body as all except three 800 meter runs. It just isn’t a well-designed workout.</p>
<p>I try to do workouts that have some core, a pull, a push, and something for the legs (ideally one knee dominant and one hip dominant). At my age, I feel like I’ve got to err on the side of not injuring myself exercising.</p>
<p>I understand that a lot of CrossFit franchises go their own way and put together much better workouts. The basic idea of functional training with barebones equipment is something I obviously am down with.</p>
<p>That looks fairly sane. Maybe a bit too much arm/shoulder. Substitute some kind of glute exercise (hip lifts, step ups, single leg deadlift) for the dips and you’d have a really well balanced four exericise circuit (the burpees being a combo push up and jump squat).</p>
<p>I’m spoiled because the workouts I have done and the ones I’m looking at that Boyle puts together always cover all the bases – core, push, pull, hip, knee. They are intelligent combinations of exercises that make sense as a whole workout as as superset pairings, especially considering the dynamic warmups.</p>
<p>Ugh. I don’t like the term “overweight” when used to describe mild obesity. Arnold Schwartzenegger weighed 240 pounds as a body builder, but he certainly was not obese or fat.</p>
<p>Most people’s goal should be to reduce fat rather than weight, since indiscriminate weight loss could result in muscle loss, possibly causing body fat percentage to increase, which is unhealthy.</p>
<p>No question. Juiced up athletes subject their bodies to a tremendous amount of stress, often beyond what the joints can support. In any case, I don’t think we should use bodybuilders on steroids as any kind of example of weight or fitness or fat loss. Frankly, bodybuilders and weight lifters, even in the rare case when they are using steroids, do things from a training and nutrition standpoint that wouldn’t be a great idea for most of us. </p>
<p>For example, the most popular beginner power lifting book recommends drinking one gallon of whole milk every day to build muscle mass. Now, I don’t know about ya’ll, but if I added 2400 calories a day of whole milk to my diet, the term “bulk up” would take on a whole new dimension! :)</p>
<p>I’ve looked at studies commenting on getting too skinny and I think that various studies posited smoking as a factor for skinnier people having higher mortality rates.</p>
<p>The study in question (“Weight loss increases and fat loss decreases…”) was making a distinction between (muscle) weight loss and fat loss. Losing muscle is a bad idea, but many people who “lose weight” (especially those who do it mainly by dieting with little or no exercise) lose a lot of muscle.</p>
<p>In any case, it is certainly possible (without anabolic steroids) to be heavy and muscular, with low body fat and no additional health risks of obesity (consider athletes). On the other hand, it is possible to be within the usual normal weight range, but have high body fat and extra risks of obesity; this is called [normal</a> weight obesity](<a href=“http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2008-rst/4738.html]normal”>http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2008-rst/4738.html).</p>
<p>The key statistic: 40% of the estimated 86 million Americans age 50 to 84 have knee osteoarthritis, are obese or both, the study found. Neatly enough, that equates to 86 million quality-adjusted life-years lost in that age group, a measure that factors in disability, pain, coexisting illnesses and other deterrents to leading a full life.</p>
<p>Whew! Braved the below zero temps and went to the gym. Biked, weight machines, pushups and coreball swings. Was excited to see new kettlebells there today! Will do some research today and find a little workout for me. Just what I need to shake things up!</p>
<p>My point is that less weight is generally better than more weight. Yes, body composition does matter but I think that overall weight matters more.</p>
<p>Do the football players and weightlifters maintain their muscle-mass into their 50s, 60s, and 70s? Arnold took a job as Governor - a job that can require a ton of hours of work taking away time from the gym. Have you seen him without his shirt lately?</p>
<p>In other words, weight or BMI does not tell all – you can be within the normal weight range but still be at additional risk of obesity-related problems due to high body fat.</p>
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<p>Fitness and health is a lifetime project. Joe Rollino maintained his health and fitness throughout his life and lived to 104, dying only because he got hit by a van while walking across a street. He was reportedly bending quarters at his 103rd birthday party. On the other hand, athletes and bodybuilders who stop maintaining their fitness and health tend to become like any other person, often becoming obese with the additional health risks of obesity.</p>
<p>If you take a group with BMI of 40 and compare mortality to a group with BMI of 20, which result will be better. Sure, there are some in the 40 group that will do better than some in the 20 group.</p>
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<p>As a gross measure in our population weight is more important than composition.</p>
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<p>Well, it’s nice to have anecdotal evidence but I see far more people that were thin
when young that aren’t thin today. It can be very hard keeping up fitness over a
lifetime. We’re headed in the wrong direction as a country.</p>
<p>The thing about athletes is that they get used to a caloric intake when they are training
and maintaining that caloric intake when they stop training can result in big problems.</p>