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Laying The Foundation To A Healthy Life

October 11, 2010 By 1 Comment

IMG_8787In the past month or so I’ve been taking you all through a bit of a reboot here at 60 in 3.  We’ve talked about making plans, health toolkits, healthy eating, living active, pushing some weights and getting the heart moving.  These are the essentials of a healthy life.  However, there is also one more aspect and that’s the foundation we’re going to build this whole thing on.

What Does That Even Mean?

Well, before you become healthy physically, you must also become healthy mentally.  Yes, the two go hand in hand.  You may in fact find that one is improving at the same time as the other but you have to commit to both.  You cannot expect yourself to become healthy through diet and exercise when you’re also placing an incredible amount of strain on yourself through issues related to work, money, family and life in general.

Now I have a whole blog devoted to changing your life so I’ll try to keep this brief, but I would like to emphasize this:

If you want to be healthy, you need to reduce your stress level.

Believe me, I know this lesson first hand.  I went through a period of my life that was incredibly stressful.  It involved a series of bad personal events and had nothing to do with my health.  In fact, I kept exercising through it and tried to watch what I eat.  However, no amount of exercise or healthy eating could compensate for the stress I was going through.  My blood pressure shot up, my weight fluctuated by more than 20lbs up and down, my energy level went from manic to depressive and my doctor was considering putting me on some medications to deal with various chronic conditions.  When I finally came out of that dark time, I found a new  strength, both mental and physical.

Now you may not be going through a crisis of the same level, but I bet a lot of you are under a tremendous amount of stress anyway.  Like me, you probably have a day job which keeps you busy, friends and family that keep you busier, finances to deal with, projects to complete and dogs to walk.  Well, all of this means stress and if you don’t deal with it this stress is going to undo any amount of healthy living you can think of.  Stress will cause you to eat too much, drink too much and not exercise.  It will cause your blood pressure to rise and your energy to drop.  It will slowly wear your down and leave you a broken wreck.  Before it gets to that point, try out some of the following pieces of advice:

Sleep - Most of us don’t get enough sleep.  7 to 9 hours a day is recommended and is wonderful for reducing stress.

Meditation - No, it’s not just for new age hippies.  Meditation is a wonderful way to center yourself and reduce your stress.  There are numerous resources on this great tool online.  Why not give them a shot?

Take a walk – Not just good for your body, it’s good for your soul.  A quiet walk on a quiet evening is extremely relaxing.  Take a friend with you for some quality conversation and you have a good stress reliever.

Read a book – A good fiction book will engage your imagination and remove you from day to day stress.  Heck, pick up the latest chapter in the Twilight series if you must. :)

Hug someone – Yes, I’m a hippie at heart.  Hugging has been proven to reduce stress levels and lower blood pressure.  How about finding your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, child, parent or dog and giving them a good hug?

Yoga - Another exercise that’s good for both the body and the soul.  Yoga is essentially a series of stretches that will make you more limber and loosen your mind (in a good way).

I know you came here for fitness advice but I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t talk at least a little bit about your mental health.  I want you to succeed.  I want you to live a long and healthy AND HAPPY life.  You matter to me, all of you, and for your own sakes I urge you to lay a solid mental foundation for that healthy life you are about to start.

As for me, I’m off to walk my dog.  That’s her in the picture at the top of this post.  She may no longer be a puppy, but she’s still my little baby and walking her is an incredibly effective way to reduce stress :)

Filed Under: Self Improvement, Stress Tagged With: , , ,

Great Abs Workout

April 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Disclaimer

  • This abs workout is NOT guaranteed to get you six pack abs.
  • This abs workout is NOT guaranteed to trim inches off your waistline.
  • This abs workout is NOT guaranteed to take two sizes off your jeans within the next week

All of these things have more to do with weight loss than they do with an abs workout.  If you want to lose weight, lose inches and show more muscle definition, you need to lose weight, and that’s all about eating right and being more physically active.

What this workout is designed to do is to strengthen 50% of your core, by which I mean your abdominal muscles.  The other 50% is your back muscles and I’ll deal with those at a later date.

Why?

So if this workout doesn’t give you six pack abs, why do you care?  Well, first of all, that’s a bit misleading.  This workout does help tone the muscles that show up as part of your six pack.  However, they won’t show up until you lose weight, hence the disclaimer above.  More importantly, this workout does strengthen your core, which is a part of your body that you rely on for almost every movement.  Take a moment to really notice what muscles your body uses.

Are you breathing?  Well, you’re using your core muscles.  Walking?  You’re using your core muscles to stabalize your upper body.  Doing push ups?  You’re using your core muscles to keep your body rigid.  Running?  You’re using your core muscles to stay upright and balanced.  There’s almost no complex movement that your body does which does not use the core muscles, which is probably why they’re called your core.  That means that you need to strengthen these muscles or else suffer poor performance in pretty much every thing else you do.

Sounds like an exxageration?  It really isn’t.  Your abs and lower back are your foundation.  They are quite literally the core of every complex movement your body makes.  It all starts right there at the center of your body and you need to pay a bit more attention to it than just doing some crunches.

Let’s Start

Start with the basics.

This is called a V up.  It can be done with an exercise ball, with weights on either legs and / or arms or with just body weight.  Either way, you need good form.  Look at how this woman does her V ups.  She’s really controlled in her motion and takes her time.  She pauses all the way at the top to allow some strain to build and then slowly releases it as she moves back down to the resting position.  Excellent form all the way around.

Work the Sides

We’ve worked the center, now we work the sides with some trunk twists.  Again, check out the form.  This guy is doing them a bit faster than I would recommend but notice how controlled he is.  Also note the slight pause at the end of each movement.  Great way of working out the obliques and staying in that crunched position means your whole abs muscle group is being worked out.

Let’s Get Creative

Why stick with regular crunches when you can do reverse ones?

You can do this one with straight legs too if you want, but it’s slightly easier on the joints to do it this way, with legs folding as you raise them.  I like this one a lot better than regular crunches since it puts less strain on my neck and works out more of my abs.

Yoga Finish

And finally, if you have a bit of time, yoga can be a great way to finish out an abs workout with a bit of stretching.  This video is umm… slightly more artistic than your usual workout videos, but it’s a great example of a yoga abs workout.  Note that this workout can actually be quite challenging if you do it slowly.  Also, this is a great example of amazing form and muscle control.  Even if you’re not interested in the spiritual aspects of yoga, this is a great example of abs in action.

Filed Under: Building Muscles, Exercise, Work Out Tagged With: , , , ,

Trying Out Bikram Yoga

March 18, 2009 By 4 Comments

I’ve been wanting to try out yoga for a while now. I’ve always heard that it’s a great combination of workout and stretching with some meditation elements thrown in. So when a friend invited me to try Bikram yoga, I jumped at the opportunity. Of course, I did run away from the first class I was supposed to attend with her, but that’s another story. This morning, at 5:30am, I showed up for my lesson of Bikram Yoga.

For those who are not aware of it, Bikram Yoga is similar to other yoga in that practicioners go through a variety of poses.  Some of these poses resemble stretching while others are pretty intense resistence bearing exercises that come very close to being a weight workout.  The only differences with Bikram style yoga is that it’s done in a room heated to 105f degrees.  That’s slightly lower than sauna temperature if you’re trying to do the math.  According to the originator of this style, the heat is conducive to both the physical and mental aspects of the exercise.  I’m not so sure about the mental part but the heat definitely had me straining physically.

The Poses

I’m not going to go through a description of all the poses but I will give a few examples.  About half the poses fell into a category I would define as intense stretching.  Things like standing straight up with your hands reaching above your head and then bending to the right at the hips.  Many of these poses were quite difficult and required much more flexibility than I have.  However, I can see how, with time, I could achieve the same level of flexibility a few of the other students had and that’s encouraging.  The second category of poses were what I would define as load bearing exercises.  For example.  Stand up straight, reach your hand forward and then slowly bend at the knees.  When you are in a position resembling a seated one only with no chair beneath you, hold that position for ten second.  Essentially this is a slow motion squat with the hardest part held for a lengthy period of time.  Doesn’t sound like much compared to my usual dumbbell squats but believe me, it’s challenging.  Especially when you have to do these things on one leg.  Post workout, my body felt like I had just gone through a moderate weights workout.

The Heat

This aspect is unique to Bikram Yoga and is not shared by other yoga styles as far as I know.  For me, it was a bit difficult to stay focused on the poses because of the heat.  I sweat a lot and the heat combined with the exercising had me dripping sweat by the 10 minute mark.  The last 30 minutes were uncomfortable for me as I stood there dripping sweat but trying to focus on my breathing.  However, the first 60 minutes did feel good, possibly due to the intensity of the heat.   I’m not sure to be honest, but it was a very different feeling to work out in this intense dry heat and, until I got to the point where I was totally soaked, I was enjoying it.

Is It Worth It?

For me, the answer is no.  The cost of a yoga class is around $10 to $20 and I can get the same benefits at the gym or on the track.  Still, I’m glad I tried this class.  It was an interesting experience and taught me some good lessons about my body and stretching.  For someone with less inhibitions about spending money or for someone looking to work on flexibility, this class would be very valuable.  Also, if money is an issue, you can find a variety of yoga instructions online or in book format.  All you need to practice them at home is a mat and some patience.

If you’re in the South Bay, this is the yoga studio that I took the class at:  Bikram Yoga San Jose

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Next up on my list of workouts to try?  Spinning!


Filed Under: Alternative Workouts, Work Out Tagged With: , , ,