The webcycle – Good idea for forcing people to work out
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Even though I rarely use the internet for surfing, I know for a fact that it is very easy to waste time on internet and television. As mentioned in some of my earlier posts I find motivation to be the number one key to getting fit. So why not join the activities that are time wasters and you find fun with activities that are not that motivational like exercise bikes fitness or jogging on a treadmill?
A simple way to spice up your exercise is to put the television in front of your exercise bike and watch your favourite sports or series while working out. Two makers, Matt Gray and Tom Scott, have brought the idea of bringing fun and dull together by conneting a computer to a microcontroller that monitors your workout. If you are pedaling slowly, the internet will also run slowly, so you better keep up the pace.
Even though the “webcycle” prototype is pretty basic, it is a good idea. You could see the webcycle in action on Matt’s homepage.
Please post me a comment if you find similar crazy suggestions for spicing up your exercise.
Is today a good day to work out?
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I came across this nice article on eliteFTS describing a simple test that anyone can use to determine whether a day is good for working out or not. Basically you are testing your central nervous systems (CNS) responsiveness by tapping as fast as possible and recording the number of taps within a given time.
A google search suggests that 10 seconds is a good starting point. By recording the number of taps over time and checking wheter your tap rate is slower or faster than the average you should be able to find out wheter you have a fresh and ready CNS for training. The test is supposed to be a good starting point to plan your training. I will definitely check it out.
Please leave a comment if you have experiences with the finger tap test. I’m interested in learning about user experiences.
How fit are you? Find out right now
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There are at least three important reasons for finding out how fit you are:
- For measurement of progress
- For making programs based on your fitness level
- To compare yourself with others
Measurements of progress is, as mentioned several times earlier, very important as a motivational tool and for making you stick to a goal. You only need to set a new goal, find a method that can measure your progress and stick with that method until your goal is met. When you are done you basically need to switch both goals and methods for measuring the progress.
When you have decided to start doing some kind of cardio fitness, for example exercise bikes fitness, you want to set a target heart rate to lose weight or get better stamina. Many programs are designed around using your oxygen uptake for setting your target heart rate. This was mentioned in my previous article “Find Your Fat Burning Sweet Spot”
Oxygen uptake is a good indicator of your current fitness level. The most common way of measuring your oxygen uptake is to put you on a treadmill, strap on a oxygen measurement mask and have you run. The equipment will measure your oxygen uptake in VO2 max, a measurement of how quick your body can use the oxygen from the air.
Having a lab at home would be very practical, but not very economic. You probably would need to share off half of your living room just to get space for a VO2 lab, too. Not to mention the medic that you would need to have an extra bed room for in order to monitor your health.
A more practical way of doing oxygen uptake takes at home is doing a simple step test. One such test is test is the Åstrand step test. Here is what you need to do:
- Find a suitable box/chair etc that have the height of 40cm if you are male, and 33cm if you are female.
- Bring a stop watch and (if available) a heart rate monitor. The HR monitor is not necessary.
- Try stepping up and down the box for some times to find your balance.
- Start stepping up and down the box at a pace of 1 second up, 1 second down.
- Repete the stepping for a total time of 5 minutes and finish stepping.
- Measure your heart rate within 30 seconds after finishing the stepping. You can do this by pressing your index and middle finger lightly to your neck artery and count the heart beats for 30 seconds. Multiply that number by 2 to find your heart rate. If using a heart rate monitor you get the result out directly.
- Insert the data that you got into the calculator below to find your current VO2 max and fitness level.
You now have no excuse for not measuring your fitness level on a regular basis. So bring your stop watch now and start stepping!
Sources:
The Åstrand-Ryhming test/method under the magnifying glass
Optimized training with negatives and rest pause
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In my previous article “Getting buff in a hurry” I mentioned some principles that make your workout more effective, that means less work and effort with better results.
In principle 4 i mention working your muscles until you slow down and then take a short break of about 15 seconds, or 5-7 deep breaths, before continuing. This principle is called “rest pause” and will effectively work your muscles and give you what is known as “the pump”.
In principle 5 i mention working your negative (eccentric) part of the exercise, typically the lowering part, with higher tension or longer time than the pulling (concentric) part. Since you are stronger in the negative phase of the lift you are able to stress the muscle more. The slow negative phase can be used in combination with a fast positive phase to give an even harder workout.
It is possible to combine the two principles into one exercise. To stress the muscle more in the negative part you could go slower or have a helper on the positive part. If you are alone you could use two hands or feet on the positive part and only one on the negative part.
For chinups negatives is very simple: Just start at a bench or a chair. You could add weights to a waist belt if the exercise gets to easy.
I made a video showing the two techniques in combination for chinups. I start with a warm up set of 12, then continue with 3 sets of 3 followed by 3 sets of two. The whole exercise takes about 5 minutes to do.
Now you have everything you need to get a super optimized workout.
Trans fats and Plutonium
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Have you ever eaten plutonium? Me neither. But I know for sure that if I ate it my body would have difficulties digesting it and I probably would have severe health problems afterwards. The same thing goes with trans fats. Even though trans fatty acids are far from being plutonium they still cause health problems for people eating them.
Doctors, nutritionists and researchers are all agreeing that trans fats are bad for you. They are researched and linked to coronary heart disease and numerous other severe diseases as well. In 1994 it was estimated that as much as 30 000 people in the US died from heart disease related to trans fats.
Trans fats are mostly artificial fats created by bubbling hydrogen through vegetable oil. The chemical reaction causes the oil to harden and is called hydrogenation. If you hydrogenate vegetable oils completely you transform the fats from being unsaturated to being saturated, changing the chemical structure of the fatty acids. If you only hydrogenate the oil partially, creating a softer fat, you are left with large amounts of trans fatty acids.
The soft fat that you have after partially hydrogenating are attractive for the food industry as they are cheaper than butter, have increased shelf life, decreased need of refrigeration and decreased rancidity for long term use as frying oils. This in combination with the anti saturated fat craze of the nineties have made them popular substitutes in cookies, cakes, popcorn and deep fried products like potato chips and french fries.
I have made a list with data from USDA of the products with the highest amounts of trans fats:
Trans monoenoic:
- Shortening, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated ) for baking and confections (40%)
- USDA Commodity Food, shortening, all purpose, soybean (partially hydrogenated) and cottonseed (31%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy ( partially hydrogenated), all purpose(30%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated ), palm, principal uses icings and fillings (28%)
- Oil, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated) and cottonseed, principal use as a tortilla shortening (27%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, canola (partially hydrogenated) oil for deep fat frying (23%)
- Margarine, industrial, non-dairy, cottonseed, soy oil (partially hydrogenated ), for flaky pastries (22%)
- Margarine, industrial, soy and partially hydrogenated soy oil, use for baking, sauces and candy (19%)
- Margarine-like shortening, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated), cottonseed, and soy, principal use flaky pastries(18%)
- Margarine-butter blend, soybean oil and butter (14%)
Trans polyenoic:
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy ( partially hydrogenated), all purpose (5%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, canola (partially hydrogenated) oil for deep fat frying (4%)
- Shortening, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated ) and corn for frying (4%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated), principal uses popcorn and flavoring vegetables (4%)
- Oil, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated) and cottonseed, principal use as a tortilla shortening (4%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated), multiuse for non-dairy butter flavor (3%)
- Shortening, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated), pourable liquid fry shortening (3%)
- Margarine, industrial, non-dairy, cottonseed, soy oil (partially hydrogenated ), for flaky pastries (3%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated ), palm, principal uses icings and fillings (3%)
- USDA Commodity Food, shortening, type III, creamy liquid, soybean and soybean (partially hydrogenated) (3%)
I don’t know which ones are the worst of the two kinds of trans fats, but I know for sure that I will really stay away from shortenings, margarines and frying oils. This is the easy part. What is difficult are when these products are added to other products. You can not, even when reading on shortening and margarine food labels, find the amount of trans fats in the products. You think that the product is healthy as it contains plenty of mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids that you were taught were healthy.
The take home message would be – stay away from processed food at all costs and live a healthy life.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortening