Reader Q&A: Should Kids Workout?

This question comes from Sarita:

I have an 8 year old and a 4 year old.  They eat healthy and are very active but I was wondering if they should be working out like I do at a gym.  Would it help them?

This question is better asked of a pediatrician.  However, I will give you my opinion.  You describe your kids as eating healthy and being very active.  That should be enough.  Kids are kids, they run around, they climb trees, they play games and that’s more than enough physical activity.  Regular gym workouts are important only to adults, like me, who spend most of their day sitting in an office.  If your kids are already active, then let them enjoy that and don’t drag them into a gym.

By the way, that applies to adults too.  If you lead an active lifestyle where you’re running, climbing, biking, lifting and doing other physical things all the time, you probably don’t need a regular gym workout as much as I do.  Might it help to have a more structured exercise routine?  Possibly, but the benefit you get is probably small for the time you need to invest.

Boxing Workout

As owner and author of 60 in 3, I tend to get various offers for free stuff.  Most of the time they’re for things I’m not interested in.  Things like diet pills, weird workout gadgets, energy bars and so on.  On rare occasions though, someone comes through with an offer that’s interesting enough for me to look at.  That’s what happened to me last week with LA Boxing.

LA Boxing is a string of gyms spread all around the US which specialize in boxing and boxing related workouts.  Their PR rep made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse.  “Come down to one of our gyms and try out a boxing workout.  Then tell us what you think.”  This came at a perfect time for me since I’ve been thinking about buying a punching bag for my house and I’ve been wanting to try out boxing for a while.  So last Saturday morning I went the local LA Boxing gym in San Jose and spent an hour training.  Note that this was not some special class that they set up for me.  This was their normal Saturday morning class with their regular customers.

First Impressions

My first thoughts as I entered the gym were “huh, this is not what I was expecting.”  Maybe I’ve seen too many boxing movies, but I was expecting a run down gym filled with men hitting one another.  Instead, LA boxing has just one ring, a few exercise machines and class workout area filled with punching bags.  Everything was clean and well maintained.  Also, the customer base included a lot of women and children.  The ratio of women to men was actually a lot higher than any other gym I’ve been to.

Equipment

Each participant picked a punching bag and had boxing gloves.  That was all the equipment necessary.  Gloves were provided by the gym if you didn’t have any.  I would also recommend hand wraps since without them, you’re going to scrape some skin off your knuckles.

The Workout

I’m not sure what I expected from a boxing workout.  A lot of punching a bag I suppose.  What I got was very different.  We started out with the gloves off doing a bit of calisthenics to warm up.  Jumping jacks, push ups, crunches, lunges, jumping squats and so on.  Fast sets with the instructor urging us on.  After 5 or so minutes, we stretched for 5 more minutes and then the workout began in earnest.

The workout alternated boxing combos with calisthenics.  For example, the instructor would show us a 6 or 8 move combo and have us repeat it multiple times using either speed or power.  Speed means you punch fast, power means you punch hard.  Either way, the workout was very fast paced and much more demanding than I expected.  After each 5 minute punching set, Tony (the instructor) had us do 5 minutes of other exercises like crunches, leg lifts and lunges.  These sets worked out muscles that the boxing parts of the workout did not.

The combination of boxing and calisthenics had me sweating in no time.  Now I’m in pretty good shape but I have to say that I found the workout very challenging.  I got caught up in the boxing parts and was enjoying them so much that I didn’t notice how much energy I was pouring out into that bag.  By the end, I was sore and covered in sweat.  Still, it was a good kind of sore, that kind you get from a great workout.

Notes

Dexterity - This is one of the few workouts that I felt worked on dexterity as well as physical conditioning.  The various combos and moves you work on will improve your hand eye coordination as well as your overall agility.  That’s a benefit I have not seen in any other workout.

Full Body - I expected a boxing workout to only work out my upper body, but the combination of boxing and other exercises made sure that my whole body participated.

Boxing High - A few weeks ago I spoke about a runner’s high and mentioned that it’s something you can only get when running.  Well, now I’ve experienced something new, a boxing high.  It’s not the same as a runner’s high but there’s just something about punching that bag.  Maybe it’s a guy thing, I have no clue, but wow.  I wasn’t just physically tired at the end of that workout, I was emotionally spent as well.  Any aggression, hostility or other kind of negative emotion, it all went into that bag.  It felt good.

Recommendation

Would I go back?  Definitely!  LA Boxing is a bit far away from my house but still.  I enjoyed that workout so much that the trip back would be worth it.  In the meantime, I’m definitely thinking of installing a punching bag in my garage and doing some boxing workouts of my own.  If you have a boxing gym anywhere near you, sign up for a class and see if you like it.  I think you will.

Thank You

Thank you to Monica and LA boxing for giving me the chance to attend a class.  Thank you to LA Boxing San Jose for being my hosts.  And thank you to Tony Johnson, my instructor, for an incredible workout.  If you’re in the San Jose area, you can contact Tony and LA Boxing at (408)729-5269.

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And thank you to Me-Ander for including a 60 in 3 article in their debut weight loss carnival.

24 Hour Fitness and Me

I’ve gotten a few questions from readers on where I work out. For the most part, I work out at a small private gym which is part of my office complex. I plan to go into more detail on this gym on Friday. However, on the occasional day when I work from home or work out on the weekend, I typically go to 24 hours Fitness, a chain of fitness clubs mostly located on the west coast (although there are east coast clubs as well).  Why did I pick 24 Hour Fitness?  Read on and find out.  Then think about your own gym choice.

Convenient Locations

The nice thing about belonging to a chain of clubs is multiple locations.  I have one near my office and one near my house.  Of course, I don’t really use the one near my office.  Actually, I don’t ever use any other club than the one near my home.  So is this really an advantage?  Yes, I travel a lot but in all my travels I have NEVER gotten a chance to use another 24 hour fitness club.  Either the hotel had a good fitness room or there was no 24 Hour Club within range.

So before you get all excited about joining a chain with hundreds of clubs, think to yourself, am I really going to use all of those?  Is there a reason why having gyms I can go to in another state is going to help me?

Convenient Hours

Like the name says, 24 Hour fitness is open 24 hours a day.  Sounds great, right?  I can work out in the morning, in the evening, even at night if I really feel like it.  However, let’s analyze this.  90% of the time, I work out at the office, which means I work out during the day.  Even when I don’t work out at the office, I work out during the afternoon.  If I couldn’t workout during the workday, I would workout either early in the morning (around 6am) or late in the evening (around 7pm).  Most gyms, even non 24 hour ones, are open at those hours.  So am I really going to use those “convenient hours”?

Price

Ok, 24 Hour Fitness does have a real advantage here.  It costs me about $30 a month and there was no sign up fee.  the gym at work is cheaper but that’s because work pays for it, so that’s not a fair comparison.  I could get access to a free gym via my school, but that’s up in Berkeley, which is about an hour away.  Not very convenient.  So yes, cost does matter and 24 Hour is pretty cost effective for me.

Free Weights

24 Hour Fitness does have good selection of free weights.  Lots of dumbbells, barbells and plates with plenty of equipment to use them on.  This is great and I really enjoy this.  There are plenty of sets of the more popular weights and I’ve never needed to wait more than a minute or two before getting the weights I needed.  Score one for 24 Hour Fitness.

Exercise Equipment

Most 24 Hour clubs also have a very large selection of weight machines.  Sounds good, right?  However, when I really look at my workout, I notice that most of the things I use are dumbbells.  Sure, I use a couple of machines, but even those can be replaced by barbells.  So am I really benefiting from the large selection of weight machines?  Seems like I could have done just as well at a gym with not much more than free weights.  So for me, this is not an advantage of 24 Hour Fitness.

Cardio Equipment

Again, great selection.  However, I don’t use stair masters or stationary bikes or rowing machines.  Do I really need all this selection?  In fact, the treadmills and ellipticals that 24 Hour has are rather old and not well maintained.  So when it comes to this crucial part of my workout, 24 Hour is at a disadvantage compared to most other gyms.

Classes

Strong selection of class, but like the weight equipment, I don’t really use classes, so why do I care?

Do you see where this is going?

Why 24 Hour Fitness?

In the end, I go to 24 Hour Fitness because it’s located close to my house, it’s cheap and it has plenty of free weights.  I really wish they would improve their cardio equipment but I can make do for now.  Note that many of the so called advantages of 24 Hour Fitness (classes, multiple locations, long hours and so on) are not really advantages for me.  That’s an important fact to remember.  A lot of people choose their gym based on things that don’t really matter.

It’s great that the gym has a sauna but are you really going to use it that frequently?  It’s great that the gym has jazzercise classes, but are you going to go to them?  Don’t pick your gym based on what the sales person tells you it has, pick it based on what you need.  In my case, I was looking for a cheap gym with plenty of weights that was near my house.  That’s exactly what I got.

What are you looking for?  Are you looking for classes?  Good trainers?  Cardio equipment?  Make a list of the things that are important to you BEFORE you get to the gym and then ignore everything else.  I don’t care how shiny and pretty those machines are that you see.  If you’re not going to use them then they may as well be junk.  Pick your gym based on what it has that is applicable to you, not what it has that looks pretty.

Most of all, make sure that the gym has a location and hours that are convenient for you.  The best gym with the best trainers and gear is useless if it’s too far away.  Distance means lack of convenience and that will make you not go.

Summary

24 Hour Fitness has A LOT of features.  I don’t use most of them so they’re not really applicable to me as decision criteria.  However, they do have what I was looking for at a gym and they have it close by and at a reasonable price.  That’s enough for me to make a decision.  Just don’t make a mistake of deciding on a gym for the wrong reasons.

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Why did you choose your gym?  Does it have everything you need?  Are you paying for things that you’re not using?

Cheap Workout Gear

One of the nice things our new house came with is garage which included a fully carpeted and lit room which the former owners used as an office. Now that we’ve cleaned up the garage a bit, I’m thinking of turning this space into a gym for those days when I work from home. At the same time, we’re still looking to minimize expenses which means I’ve been trying to think of cheap ways with which to furnish a home gym. Here’s what I did:

What Workouts Are You Planning To Do?

This is the first thing you need to consider when creating a home gym, what workouts are you planning to do there?  For example, if I’m never going to do cardio at home then why do I need a stationary bike?  If I plan on doing cardio but there’s a really nice running track close by then maybe I could use that instead.  In other words, don’t just go shopping for equipment based on “oooh, that looks neat!”  Actually figure out what kind of exercise you’re going to do first.

My list of home exercise was:

• Body weight exercises like pushups
• Resistence training
• Light cardio
• Stretching

Make A List, Check It Twice

Once you know what sort of exercise you’re going to do, the next logical thing is a list of the gear you’ll need.  Keep it simple, that makes it more reliable and cheaper.  You don’t need a $600 bowflex when a pair of $20 weights will do.  The weights are far more versatile and they won’t break as fast as that overly complex bowflex.  Based on the exercise list I wrote up, I made up the following gear list:

• Dumbbells that can go up to 80lbs on each side.
• Jump rope
• Weight bench
• Punching bag (just because I’ve always wanted to try this workout)
• Running shoes for home (my usual pair stays at work)
• Exercise mat

Go Cheap Where You Can

Now if I was going to buy all that at retail, I would probably end up spending about $600 to $700 dollars.  Not too bad but considerably more than what I wanted to spend.  So now I needed to get creative.

• A trip to goodwill netted me a really nice exercise mat for $5.  This thing was in almost new shape.
• I already had dumbbells, I just needed some extra weight plates for them.  I managed to get those from Freecycle.  There’s nothing special about weight plates, they’re just metal disks with a hole in the middle so I wasn’t really concerned with their condition.  Still, the ones I got are great.
• Weight bench I also found on freecycle.  The one I got is in good shape and looks brand new.
• Jump rope came from our swap meet over the weekend.  My wife and I had a lot of extra stuff after our move so we came up with the idea of a swap meet party.  We put all the extra stuff on the drive way and then invited neighbors and friends over to bring their own unneeded things and take away anything they wanted for free.  We got rid of a lot of our stuff and I ended up with a new jump rope.
• Punching bag I’m still looking for.  I saw one on Craig’s list but it was snagged before I could get it.
• Running shoes I ended up buying.  This is the one area that I don’t want to skimp on so I went to the store and bought a pair of good running shoes for $70.

Total cost for my new home gym is under $100 (I’m including some money for gas to go and pick up the freecycle items).

Resources

• Craig’s List - Plenty of free and cheap stuff here if you know where to look
• Freecycle - Rather than throw stuff away, list it on freecycle and see if anyone wants it
• Goodwill - You buy cheap (gently used) stuff and your money goes towards a good cause
• Swap meet - Setup your own just like we did

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A home gym doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.  In fact, I would argue that the expensive home gyms are usually the ones that end up collecting dust or being used as expensive storage racks.

How To Setup A Company Fitness Challenge

I work out at an office gym. It’s a small place which is shared by multiple office buildings around it. That means most of the people I work out with are high tech professionals taking time out of their day to get in a workout. Most people at this gym workout alone. It’s rare to see people working out together since most of the gym goers here lead pretty busy lives and it’s hard to coordinate with friends or coworkers. So I was a bit surprised to see a personal trainer at this gym leading a group of about 5 people through a pretty challenging workout. Even more surprising, an hour after this group started, another group of 5 showed up and took their places. Ever the curious one, I asked them what was going on.

A Company Challenge

They explained to me that this was a company sponsored event.  The company they worked for hired a personal trainer and was encouraging people to go to the gym with this trainer 3 to 4 times a week.  I thought this was a great idea and asked them who had come up with it and how they managed to convince the company to go with it.  Here’s what they said.

First, The Idea

The person who originally came up with this idea was an engineer.  He used to be an athlete in college but had done very little physical exercise since then.  Because he spent such long hours at work, he decided that the work day was the best time for him to work out.  However, he needed two things.  First, he wanted to make sure his boss was ok with him taking off an hour every day.  Second, he needed motivation.  He had tried working out on his own before but never stuck with it.  He decided that the best way to accomplish both goals would be some kind of company project.  Working out with other people would provide him with motivation and making it an official company project would make it easier to get permission.

Second, The Plan

In order to accomplish his goals, our engineer came up with a project plan.  He outlined what he wanted to do and then presented it to his boss.  His idea was simple.  The company would provide a sign up sheet where groups of employees would sign up together to work out.  These groups or teams would work out together 3 times a week.

He justified his idea in multiple ways.  First, it would be a good team building exercise.  Working out together builds strong bonds as people support each other.  That’s good for overall company productivity.  Second, this would help build cross departmental ties and communication.  The teams would consist of people from multiple departments and, as people do, they would keep talking about work even as they worked out.  So engineers would talk to sales, marketing would talk to support and IT would finally talk to something other than computers.  Finally, he showed his boss multiple studies about lower health care costs and higher productivity from people who worked out and were in good shape.

Step 3, Good Response

His boss was impressed.  The plan was well thought out and the benefits seemed clear.  He agreed to a short trial but he actually added one more thing, a personal trainer.  The company found a trainer who would come to the office gym and lead the employee groups through their workouts.  They thought this would make the workouts more structured and productive.

Step 4, Turnout

Out of a company of 100 people, 20 signed up.  That meant 4 groups of 5 each.  The program had an 80% turnout rate.  That means that, on average, 4 people would show up for each session.

Step 5, Costs

The company, which now has 150 people, currently has 30 people participating in the program.  The trainer costs $50 per hour.  There are 18 sessions a week for a total of $3600 a month.  Total annual costs for the company are $45,000, not including work time lost, which I will discuss in a second.

Step 6, Results

On average, the 30 participants have lost 8lbs.  They’ve also increased their muscle tone, lowered their blood pressure and their cholesterol plus they’ve decreased their body fat.  All in all, great progress for 6 months of work.  The company itself says that, while the program has not run long enough to really measure, they’ve already seen increased morale, better communication and higher productivity from the people participating in the program.  On a related note, the company says the people who participate in the program are taking less sick days than their coworkers.  Overall, the company believes they are getting more out of the program than they are putting in and they’re planning to keep the program going indefinitely.

Recommendations

Some tips for those looking to start programs like this at their own offices:

• Have a plan - Don’t just walk up to your boss and say “can you give me time off to go work out?”  Have an idea of what you’re trying to implement with enough details to make it seem real.
• Show the benefits - Tell your employers WHY they should do this, not just why you want it.  There has to be something in it for them.
• Show proof - Bring in articles discussing health care costs.  Show studies on productivity.  Whatever you have, use it to make your points real.
• Put it in terms they understand - Companies care about their bottom line, not your waistline.  So if you’re going to convince them, make sure you’re talking about things they care about.  How will this increase productivity?  How much will it cost?  What will we save? and so on.

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One guy with a good idea managed to get time off from work and a personal trainer.  He got his motivation and the company got a happier, healthier and more productive workforce.  Sounds like a win / win all around.

Help! I’m Stuck!

When I first started working out, I could barely lift the bar with no weight on it.  Yep, I was that out of shape.  However, like most guys (do women have these issues too?) I felt a little embarrassed about this, especially when the folks around me at the gym were bench pressing entire cars (or at least it seemed like it at the time).  So my second week at the gym, I loaded up the bar with 20lbs on each side, lay down on the bench, picked that bar up, lowered it down to my chest and… nothing!

I’m sorry, were you thinking that this post was going to be some inspirational story where I tell you how I overcame my fear of weights by trying something I thought was impossible?  Oh no, this is the post where I tell you about how I spend 10 minutes with a bar across my chest because I was an idiot.

10 Minutes!

Yep, I lay there for 10 minutes trying to hoist that bar of my chest and nothing.  I couldn’t lift it.  I couldn’t even get it moving, much less lift it back up and onto the supports.  Of course, being a guy, I didn’t ask anyone for help.  Oh no, I just lay there hoping that somehow I would develop the strength to get this weight off my chest before I died of dehydration.  10 minutes of pure shame and desperation.  Finally, a fellow gym goer came by and said “need a spot with that?”  Now that’s kindness right there folks.  He didn’t say “hey dummy, need me to lift that light weight off your chest because you obviously can’t?”  Nope, instead he let me keep the tattered shreds of my dignity by asking if I needed a spot, as though this was a common every day occurrence.  I said “I suppose so, if you got the time” although I probably should have said “oh god yes, get this thing off of me!” and the kindly man lifted that bar up, releasing me from my predicament.

Oh The Shame!

I didn’t go back to the gym for a week.  I figured I was now known as “that idiot who tried to lift too much and got stuck”.  People would surely point and laugh when I walked in.  Little girls would walk up to me and say “Hey mister, need a spot?” and then they would giggle and walk away.  How could I return to this place where I had made a complete fool of myself?

You Know What?

Actually, it wasn’t so bad.  No one remembered or at least no one said anything, and I went back to lifting just the bar with no weights no it.  Slowly and gradually, I added a bit more weight and then a bit more and a bit more and so on.

So What?

So why am I telling you this?  Because I was talking to a friend the other day who said she was embarassed to go to the gym.  She felt fat and out of shape and thought people would make fun of her.  It was difficult for her to expose herself to that kind of potential embarassment and so she simply didn’t go.  So I told her that today, I would tell the whole world the most embarassing things that have ever happened to me at the gym.  Because you know what?  It’s really not that bad.  Everyone is a beginner at some point.  Everyone is out of shape when they start.  Heck, if you were in shape, you wouldn’t be thinking of starting to work out, right?

Believe me, we’ve all been there.  We’ve all been embarrassed and we’ve all felt like the whole world was making fun of us.  It gets better folks, it really does.  One day you find yourself not being afraid anymore.  So please, don’t use your fear as an excuse to not work out.  No one at the gym is out to judge you (and if they are, change gyms).  They’re there to help, support and encourage you.  We’re all rooting for you, so why not come out and join us?  I’ll be waiting by the bench press, just in case you need a spot

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And in case you’re curious, the second most embarassing thing I’ve ever done at the gym was fall of the treadmill while walking at 3mph and the third most embarassing thing was dropping a weight on my head because I was laughing too hard.  The fourth involved locker rooms, showers and missing clothes and no, I will not go into details.

A Day At The Gym

I worked out at the big gym close to my house this weekend. It’s a 24 hour fitness and I think I got there at peak time because the place was packed. I used to work out at this gym a couple of years ago but I would usually get there much later when the place was less occupied. Since those times, I’ve been working out at a small gym in my office complex.

I have to admit that my first idea for this post was a little bit of a rant against the people at the gym who made my workout a less than stellar experience.  You know who I’m talking about, the people who don’t put equipment back, the people who won’t let you work in and so on.  However, on second thought I realized this was a bad idea.  Ultimately, I got a good workout at this gym and I did enjoy my time there.  So rather than being negative about my experience, how about a little thank you to all the folks there who helped me enjoy my time?

Thank You

Thank you to the gym employee at the front desk who greeted me with a smile and then looked me up in the computer when I realized I forgot my wallet in the car.  I know you didn’t have to do this and you didn’t have to be so cheerful about it, but you did and that made me feel better.

Thank you to the gentleman who saw me looking for that other 45lb dumbbell.  He not only told me where he saw the other one, he also went over there and got it for me.  He even apologized along the way, telling me it was him who forgot it there.  You know what?  That’s ok, we all make mistakes and forget things, but you owned up to it and helped fix things, which really saved me a lot of time.

Thank you to the couple working out on the weight bench who saw me standing around and told me they’d be done in just one more set each.  I didn’t even have to ask.  They told me it would be a couple of more minutes which is fine, it let me do another set of another exercise while I waited.  When I came back they were wiping down the bench and getting it ready for me.  That’s great and it makes my experience much better.

Thank you to the personal trainer who agreed to spot for me even though I wasn’t his customer.  His customer and I were alternating bench press sets on the same bench.  Both the customer and the trainer were nice and considerate.  The client was pretty new but she seemed like she was enjoying herself, which is always nice to see.  I remember when I was that new.

Thank you to the pregnant woman on the elliptical machine next to me.  She chatted with me for 30 minutes as we both exercised on the machines.  It was a good change from listening to my iPod or watching the news while I workout and it made the time go by faster.  Before I knew it I was done with my workout.  I think we both kept going for a few extra minutes just to keep chatting.

It All Counts

All of these people made a difference.  It may have been a small difference but it matters.  It made my day better and it sure made my workout more enjoyable.  Sure, I would have gotten a good workout even without them and I would have kept working out even after one bad experience, but that’s not true for everyone.  There are many people who go to the gym once and then never return because of a bad experience.  So please, take note of what these people do and if you’re at the gym, try to be more like them.  The gym doesn’t have to belong to over muscled men and women in too much makeup and too little clothing.  It can belong to us, people who want to enjoy a good workout with good company.  All it takes is a little bit of friendly attitude.

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This post started out as a rant but I’m glad it didn’t end up that way.  Thank you to everyone who has made a difference, at the gym and in the rest of my life.

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