fitness tip – Betsy Schow

Fitness Tip: Cross Training

Having a sport or activity that you like to do is good. But it’s important to branch out and cross train too. Think about it. If all I ever did for exercise was run, my running muscles would get over worked, while my non running muscles would atrophy. So runners should cycle, and vice versa.

Cross training is an excellent chance to give your primary working muscles a break, but still make sure you meet you caloric burn goal for the day. My favorites are the classes at the gym. Like Zumba or insanity. Maybe pick up a tennis racket or go for a swim. You might feel like the literal or proverbial fish out of water when you do something different for a change. But that’s okay. Your body will thank you and become more evenly ‘un-rounded’ as a result.

Fitness Tips: Marathon Training Tips

Sometimes the best thing I can do is point you to some super info that someone else has posted.
Here’s a great article run by Shape magazine last week. 25 Marathon tips to get you across the finish line.
http://www.shape.com/fitness/training-plans/top-25-marathon-training-tips
Preparing for a Marathon

Fitness Tip: Don’t Overlook Yoga

In an effort to burn the most calories in our workouts, yoga and other stretching often gets overlooked. It’s true, that unless you do hot yoga, or power yoga, you won’t burn a lot of calories in an hour. But physical fitness needs to go beyond the calorie count. Yoga is great for body and mind. It improves flexibility and aids in injury prevention.

One thing I hear a lot of is, “I can’t do yoga. I’m just not very flexible.” Well, duh. That’s why you go to yoga. It’s not about putting your feet behind your ears. It’s about being in tune with your muscles and making progress. Egos get left at the door. I teach yoga and I can’t reach my toes in forward fold with a flat back. It’s all about the process.

So keep in mind that while yoga is low calorie burn, it creates those long and lean beautiful muscles we all want.

Fitness Tip: Breaking it up

Is your morning workout the only time you are active during the day? Do you feel like you are stuck in a rut? Trying breaking your workout in two. Do half in the morning and half in the evening. Give your body two chances to rev your metabolic engine. You’ll also get that nice flood of endorphins twice too. If nothing else, try adding a light walk in the evening. Great for stress relief and a great way to keep your body moving and burning.

walking dog by johnny_automatic - cartoon of a girl walking a dog from http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/KidsPyra/ National Agricultural Library, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture

Fitness Tip: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

You work out, you’re eating better. But the scale isn’t budging. A lot of times, it could be because you have a liar in your midst. The fitness equipment.

Often times the elliptical, treadmill, or cycle can overestimate the calories burned by 30-50%! Well, if you use that number to calculate you net calories, you might be blowing your budget without meaning too. Example: You are trying to budget for 1500 calories. If your elliptical says you burned 1000, then that means you have earned the additional 1000 calories. So you eat a total of 2500 calories for the day. And you are gaining weight. Because in reality you only burned 500 calories. And if this pattern keeps up everyday, the 500 calories over budget per day would make you gain one lb per week.

Fitness equipment is notorious for lying to make you feel good and get back to the gym. Here is a link that I like to use to calculate how many calories I’m REALLY burning.
http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthtool-fitness-calorie-counter

So if the scale is stuck, maybe you need to block out the info panel on the treadmill and recalculate your budget.

Fitness Tip: Coming back from an injury

One month ago I was running 26 miles. This week I’m topping out at 6. And even then I’m going slower than molasses.

But that is the point. After an injury, it’s tempting to try and make up lost time. I know that’s what I’m itching to do. I’ve just had 3 weeks of low impact exercising which means that I have burned about a 1/4 of the calories per week than I normally do. My weight loss is slow and I can see my calves turning to jello.

But if I tried to pick up where I left off, I would injure the healing muscles and be out for even longer. So when coming back from an injury, take your time. Literally. Make each mile a minute or two slower than pre injury. If you were at 60 minute sessions on the elliptical, try 30 minutes with stretching before and after.

Most importantly, listen to your body. If you feel sharp pain… STOP. Right then. Not after you’re done with your workout. Sore is ok. Pain is not.

Injuries happen to athletes at every level. Stretching and slow increases in intensity will not only help your recovery, but help prevent injuries in the first place.

Fitness Tip… Weight for it

Pride can really bite you in the butt…
…and the hamstrings…
…and the biceps…
…and the chest…

Last week I went back to weight training after 2 months away while I was finishing the marathon training. So I foolishly tried to pick up exactly where I had left off.

And I paid for it everytime I moved for the rest of the week.

I didn’t want to use a lower weight because, in my head, it would mean I was weaker. Well I would much rather the slight sting to my pride than the big pain in my …

So when choosing your weights for lifting, choose wisely. Don’t pick the the same ones as your neighbor just to keep up. Don’t pick the weights based on what you used to be able to handle.

Choose your weights based solely on your fitness level THAT day. Than increase or decrease depending how that made you feel.

Your muscles will thank you.

Fitness Tip: R&R – rest and rumba

Two days after the marathon and I’m still doing what a friend calls the old lady hobble.

My right leg in particular feels like its been beat up with a meat tenderizer. It’s really tight and difficult to move.

Sometimes the best recovery is active recovery. This morning I had my morning Zumba class. I toyed with not going. No one could blame me, but I needed to get out of my bed.

An hour later, my leg feels much better. Dancing has helped work out some of the lactic acid and made the muscles longer and bendier. I didn’t dance at 100% more like 50%. My knee still won’t allow twists and jumps. But I still grapevined and step touched my way through the songs. My 5 and 2 year old were next to me copying my every move. They probably out danced me.

It’s important to rest and not stress or further injure muscles. But it’s also important to not let them rust. Think physical therapy.

Fitness Tip: Go outside

Hopefully it’s starting to get warm wherever you are. Unless you’re my friend Bindi from Australia. In which case you should pull out the ski poles.

For everybody else, it’s time to start skipping the gym and start skipping outside. Switch up your normal workouts with frisbee and touch football

Once you remember to put on the sunscreen, the sun can be beneficial Not only does tan fat look better than white fish skin, but people have been using light therapy to treat mood disorders for years.

So shake off the last bits of the summer blues. Be like Sheryl Crow. Go soak up the sun.

Long Run and Fitness Tip: Cheerleaders

This weekend I did my longest run before the marathon in 3 weeks. 20 freaking miles. I ran around my neighborhood, but I’m pretty sure if I’d been smart I could have run to the ice cream shop and back. Anyway, afterwards I had the energy of a slug so the weekend post never happened. So here’s the weekend post with the fitness tip folded in. Like a candy with a gooey center.

I’ve decided that the biggest run before a marathon is just bad juju. Last year it was just after my longest run that I injured my hamstring, making my first marathon a speed walkathon. Two weeks ago I had a great 19 mile run. I wasn’t tired or sore or anything. I could’ve run the marathon that day for sure. This 20 miles kicked my butt. It wasn’t the extra mile that pushed me over, I hit the wall all the way back at mile 5.

It started in the ball of my foot then shot up the shin, through the knee and then up the hamstring finally zapping my lower back. My right leg was stiff and tight and begging to be amputated. So choices. Run through it or go home. I’m too darn stubborn to go home, so I ran through it. Then next 10 miles sucked. Really bad. I wasn’t in extreme pain, maybe a 5 on the pain scale. I had to pull through all my bags of tricks to get through it. Music, singing, visualizing the finish line, self talk… everything. I finally went with “This sucks” over and over to the beat of my feet. Then changed it to “Just one more lap until Chrisy comes”. Yep, I had reinforcements coming.

The last five miles of my long runs, my friend Chrisy Ross joins me. If I could just make it long enough for her to come, then I knew she’d drag my butt those last five miles. Sure enough, rounding the park I saw my salvation. I nearly started crying. My knee by this point felt completely rusted over. She started running in step with me encouraging me, “You’re running strong. Good girl.” I stood a little taller, my stride a little more confident.

For the next fifty minutes or so we kept the pace and she kept my mind off how much I wanted to be home, in bed, with the biggest bag of ice I could find. The last five miles ended up just as easy as the first five. My knee still killed me by the end, but I had made it. And I’m not sure I would have without my friend being my cheerleader.

Everybody needs a cheerleader in life. They don’t need to have pom poms or wear a short skirt, but they do need to push you back onto the field even when your down by five goals. When you have a workout buddy, you seem to stand a little taller, push a little harder, and stay a little longer. I’m not sure if it’s the mechanics of healthy competition, or pride, or the warm fuzzy feeling of encouragement- but I always do better with a friend at my side.

So that’s the fitness tip, get a cheerleader. Somebody that holds you accountable for your progress and pushes you to go even though you feel like giving up.