What Works for Me in Fitness

I have been training recently for a 5K run in early May. I wanted to change things up a bit in my workout and a bit of running seemed just the thing.

What I'm discovering, though, is that I don't feel nearly as good when I run as I do when I just stick to my bodyweight exercises and sprinting work.

I woke up in the middle of the night a couple of nights ago with a mild migraine, and after lying in bed with it for a couple of hours after taking some Excedrin and feeling horrible, I finally got up and went down to the basement for a few minutes to take in an activity that I haven't done in a while - a wrestler's bridge (as presented by Matt Furey in his book Combat Conditioning).

For those of you who aren't familiar with this exercise, you lie on your back, then arch your back so that your feet and your head are supporting your weight, and you can use your hands for a bit of extra support if you need. You then slowly roll forward on your head until your forehead is on the ground (yes, I have a pretty soft exercise mat).

PLEASE DON'T DO THIS EXERCISE BASED ONLY ON MY DESCRIPTION! Get the above book and learn the proper way to do it.

It sounds painful. It feels great. I stayed in that position for a couple of minutes, rolling back and forth lightly on the top of my head, and belly-breathing as deeply as I could. My back stretched out, my neck loosened up, and my headache went away.

I then got up and did 50 free squats, just to work out some of the kinks. I went upstairs, read for a half hour or so, and went back to bed. I felt great all day Sunday after taking the five minutes to do this.

Today I got up and did my morning run of almost 3 miles. I took it nice and slow. And now I can't wait to get home and bridge again, to work out some of the kinks once more.

I have never felt better from top to bottom than I do when I am on a regular bodyweight exercise routine. Even when I was swimming, I had knee problems (I was a breaststroker and that whip kick was tough on the knees) to the extent where it hurt to go down the stairs.

I never feel bad when I'm doing the bridge, Hindu Pushups, or Hindu Squats regularly. It's strength, stability and stretching all in one. And I'm not selling anything here.

So ironically, I got this email today from the creator of Combat Conditioning, Matt Furey. It hit the nail right on the head again. And yes, a lot of it is a sales job. But it's sales for a product I already have... and I'll tell you right now that it works. I hope Matt makes a fortune selling this stuff be

BIG FAT FITNESS LIES

Hi James,

Hold it. You may be exercising and eating all wrong.

You may have been led to believe a lot of very stupid and untrue things about what
it takes to get fit.

Things like:

* Running several miles per day is the key to getting fit.

* Doing a ton of long, slow distance (LSD) is absolutely necessary.

* Lifting the heaviest weights you possibly can will turn you into a human fire plug.

* Eating five or six times per day will crank up your metabolism.

* Training one part of your body today and another part tomorrow will prevent overtraining.

* Only working out 2-3 times per week is the fastest way to make progress.

My friend, there are pieces of truth in all these lies.

For example:

Long-slow cardio may make you feel good - but if you want to "STEP UP" your metabolism, you're far better off doing a very hard, very vigorous workout that calls upon all your physical and mental reserves. You're better off with a short workout that will never get easy - no matter how often you do it.

Consider the sprinter. He does not do long distance cardio. Yet his body is lean, muscular and powerful.

It is rare to find a long distance cardio person who is well muscled.

He may be lean, but there's no power.

Not only that, but after a period of time - the long cardio workout person may end up suffering from hip, knee, ankle and lower back pain.

Why?

All the pounding on the joints. It takes a tremendous toll on the body.

Instead of the long, slow, dull approach to fitness, consider the following 5 ways to a Metabolism Makeover.

1. Begin doing vigorous full body body weight exercises that force you to lose control of your breathing. If you aren't getting out of breath when you train, your system is NOT being forced to adapt and change. The harder you are breathing, the more
shock to the system. The more "shock" there is - the greater the shake-up in your metabolism. The exercises in Combat Conditioning - http://mattfurey.com/conditioning_book.html cause this to happen and that is why they those who use
them fit FAST.

2. Instead of running or bicycling several miles per day for cardio exercise - train like a cheetah. Run as hard as you can, at full blast, for as long as you can. Run with all your might. When finished you'll be gasping for oxygen. And this gasping is
what turns on the fat burning furnace within.

In Combat Conditioning you'll find sprint workouts you can follow that will turn you into a lean, powerful prey-catching cheetah within 90 days.

3. Practice deep breathing. The deeper you breathe the more oxygen in your system. The more oxygen in your system, the faster your metabolism. Don't just get your deep breathing from vigorous exercise. Get if from the act of deep breathing itself -
done all day long.

4. Eat plenty of fiber rich, water-content foods while avoiding starchy foods most of time.

5. Change the mental picture you have of yourself. As you see yourself in your mind's eye - so you become.

Follow this approach to getting fit fast and you'll catch the eyes of everyone when you walk down the street. Others will instantly sense that something is different about you. And you'll know why.

Matt Furey

Thanks Matt.

Stop Drinking Bottled Water, Save Hundreds of Dollars

As is becoming very clear, bottled water is a total rip-off. It's more expensive than gasoline, it creates unnecessary waste, the plastic in the bottles permeates the water inside with phthalates and puts our health at risk, and it's not any safer to drink than normal tap water.

Yet somehow, the bottled water industry has created this impression that it's much better than tap water.

Let's see just how much money you can save per year by avoiding tap water by using the bottled water cost calculator at New American Dream:

Now let me preface this by saying I haven't been drinking bottled water for over a year, so this isn't actually money I'll be saving as I've already kicked the habit. I drink from a 40 ounce stainless steel bottle, at least one bottle full per day. Figuring that into bottled water terms, it's about 913 sixteen-ounce bottles per year.

According to the calculator, I save $1367 per year. Plus I'm not putting anything into landfills or poisoning myself. Plus, I have this impact:

Impact
Total Water Consumed:	143 gallons
Extra Water Required for Production and Purification:	285 gallons
Energy Required for Manufacturing:	92 megajoules
Oil Required to Produce the Plastic Bottle(s):	23 gallons
CO2e to Manufacture Plastic Bottle(s):	171 pounds

I got my bottle at Whole Foods, it's an Enviro Products bottle. It's sturdy and holds plenty of water, so I don't have to refill it all the time (which is good, as I sweat a lot and can put down a sixteen ounce bottle in two swigs most of the time). My wife and son use bottles from Sigg and they both love them. The necks are a bit smaller for Jenn's, which is 1 liter, and Duncan's is .4 liters and has a twist-top that allows him to drink more easily and close it more easily. Plus it's got glow-in-the-dark astronauts on the outside and he loves that. Moira will be getting hers as soon as she's out of sippy-cups.

We got ours at Clintonville Outfitters on High Street - support local business and get yours there!

Workout Tips!

Yeah, that's right, here I am to share with you a workout tip that I have been running with since the beginning of the year. It's really simple, but it's a tip that I've used to build an exercise habit that I actually feel the NEED to continue with.

Too often we take on exercise routines as a New Year's Resolution and it's too much to do all at once. We get sore, we take a day off, and then we lose the habit of exercise. This tip removes a lot of that.

What I did: on January 1st I did one pushup. I kid you not.

On January 2nd? 2 pushups.

January 3rd? You guessed it: 3 pushups.

And every day, I've added a pushup. So here it is, March 14, and last night before going to bed I did 73 pushups. I don't do them all at once, but I try to do them in no more than four sets. Usually I do them in three, right now.

If I miss a day? Yep, you guessed it. Make them up at some point. I missed a couple days somewhere in the 60s and did 100 a day for a few days to catch up. It wasn't easy, but I did it.

What are the benefits of this? Well, obviously, pushups are good for you. That's one. The gradual progression helped me not get sore and demoralized early on. That's two. And the consensus I've heard from many self-improvement experts is that it takes 21 days to make something a real habit. So without the soreness and need to rest a day early on to remove the habit, I've kept going almost nonstop for 2 1/2 months. It helped me create a habit, and now I get antsy if I don't do my pushups before going to bed.

It's worked so well that at the beginning of March I started doing Hindu Squats (adding two a day) and Situps (adding one a day) as well. That means that by the beginning of March, 2009, I'll be doing 730 Hindu Squats a day and 365 situps, as well as whatever number of pushups I'm up to by that point. My goal is to get to 500 pushups per day before I stop adding so much.

Next month I want to add pullups to the mix as well. As they're a little harder, my goal will be to add a pullup every week - doing one a day for the first week, two a day for the second week, etc. till I'm doing 52 a week.

And I mix up the types of pushups I do from day to day. Some days I do all Hindu Pushups. Some days I do a set of 20 narrow armed pushups, 20 wide-armed pushups, 20 diamond pushups, etc. Some days I just do regular drop-and-give-me-20 pushups! The variety is endless.

I've put together a spreadsheet for myself to keep track, too - keeping records of your workouts is another great motivational tool.

I list:

• the day
• the number of exercises I'm supposed to do that day
• the number that I should have done thus far for the year
• the number I've actually done per day
• the number I HAVE done thus far for the year
• the number I am behind (to remind me to keep going)
• Any notes I want to make (# of sets, how many per set, what kinds of pushups I've done, etc.)
  

It's a pretty easy spreadsheet to put together, but if you'd like a copy I've published it to Google Documents and you should be able to download a copy.

Let me know how this works for you! It's working great for me so far...

There's a High Rate of Exercise-Induced Asthma, Says Study. Jamie Says "Why?"

The results of a study was released recently by OSU's sports medicine department recently that speaks to the high rate of exercise-induced asthma in college varsity athletes. The department used a "eucapnic voluntary hyperpnea testing" procedure, where basically people hyperventilate themselves and then their lung function is measured. 42 of 107 athletes were diagnosed with the condition as a result. 39 of them had never had asthma diagnosed in them before.

Interesting study. It goes on to say that the rate of exercise-induced asthma (I'm just going to say asthma from now on, assume I mean this specific form of the condition) is probably higher than originally thought due to this test never having been used before.

But I think that what this test is failing to consider is that maybe the rate of asthma has actually increased, instead of just lying undiagnosed for all this time. This study could be a benchmark for a study of air quality in our city. All the athletes diagnosed were from OSU, and therefore are breathing Columbus air (which isn't the best in the world, by a long shot).

If they'd never been diagnosed before, it's possible that they come from a cleaner environment than Columbus and they didn't develop it until they got to OSU...

I'd like to see this study become a larger study - it really could be a great example of just how bad things are with air quality in the city (and around the country).

Daily Roundup: "Diet" Pop, Great Anti-Klan stuff, Miss Scarolina puts herself on the map

As I've been saying for a long time, diet pop doesn't do much for actual dieting. In fact, quite the reverse. See this article from WebMD. Drop the pop - drink water. Tap water will do just fine, too.

---

Possibly the greatest anti-Klan/Nazi/Ignorant bastard rally I've ever heard of.

---

Miss Teen Scarolina redeems herself in a big way. Sure, she looked silly here, but you have to give her props for learning from her gaffe. I consider myself knowledgeable about Geography, but I only got 6 out of 7 right on this quiz (which gave me the ranking of "Crown Cartographer!").

---

Bush Administration Wants To Let Beef Kill You

According to the International Herald Tribune, the Bush Administration is fighting to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for Mad Cow Disease, which has killed 150 people worldwide (3 in the US thus far).

Read the article, but apparently Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a Kansas company, wants to test all their cows regularly for the disease, a move that larger companies say will force them to do the same. So the Bush Administration appealed a federal court decision that denied the larger companies attempts to stop Creekstone from carrying out its new policy.

So let's sort this out: Creekstone wants to do the right thing and ensure that its product is fit to eat and won't kill the consumers. Larger companies want to stop Creekstone from doing this because they don't want to have to do it themselves. And the Bush Administration is helping the big companies get their way.

So, in essence, the Bush Administration wants to let the bigger companies kill their customers.

Nice, eh?

American Poultry Literally Swimming in Feces

Did you know that most of the so-called "First World" will not buy poultry from the U.S. because it is literally swimming in feces, pus, and other waste products? This is the state of the U.S. poultry industry, particularly the factory farms and such.

More reason to buy organic meats...

Finally, a Serious Look at Caffeine

US News and World Report is running an article this week on the health risks of caffeine and other uppers, an addiction that is afflicting our nation at an alarming rate.

And thank goodness. It's been apparent to me from the beginning that those things are bad news.

Remember Jolt Cola? When that stuff came out in the 80s, I was amused by the ads for it: "All the sugar, twice the caffeine." Then, I tried it - and my heart started palpitating. I never tried it again. I didn't see the point.

I tried a Red Bull once before I realized what it was... the stuff tasted like crap and made me feel about the same... it was hard to tell because I had it with vodka. I never tried that again, either. Then I actually looked at the label... and I figured why I felt the same. And there's another reason to question MLS's "family-friendly" ideals when they accept money from Red Bull to change a team name to that of their drug drink.

Those so-called "energy drinks" are nothing of the sort. They're uppers, plain and simple. They disrupt sleep, cause heart problems, increase stress, and basically wreck your life.

I have a cup of coffee now and then, and I take Excedrin Migraine for my migraines. And that's about it. I rarely drink caffeinated pop, and I get my "upper" from exercise and deep breathing. That's all you really need. There's no better upper than a vigorous round of good exercise - like my daily bike ride into work.

And as for all those drug drink "energy drinks," they need to have warnings on them like cigarettes and alcohol. Because there's really very little difference.

I'll Take Potpourri For $1000, Alex

Just a little bit of catch-up to cover the holiday happenings here, before I go off tomorrow on whatever the result of the Sugar Bowl is.

• Christmas was great. I got to spend some quality family time at home with Jenn and Duncan and he really had a good time (though I'm getting a little weary of his Wiggles piano). Duncan also got a pair of padded (of course) hockey sticks and a ball. He's happy as a clam - the kid has picked up on hockey as his favorite sport, for whatever reason, and he runs around the house with one of the sticks, not flailing it around as much as I'd feared, and having a great time trying to hit the ball.
  
  For myself, I got a lot of James Bond stuff from my wonderful family; a pair of bike tights, some gloves, and a pump/repair kit from my folks; a beautiful Irish sweater from Jenn; and some other fun trinkets from various other folks. The tights are going to work out nicely, I think, plus they show off my sexy legs really well. ;)
  
  The one disappointment - our global-warming-addled climate not having enough snow for me to take Duncan sledding on the sled I restored for him for his gift. Hopefully we'll get some of Denver's weather.
  
  
• The best bowl game I've seen so far is the Fiesta Bowl and the upset win by the Boise State Broncos. Despite my disappointment that the Glendale staff didn't paint half the field blue for the visitors from the potato state, the game was the most fun to watch of all of them. Normally I hate the NCAA's overtime structure, but darn it if that wasn't a great one. To watch a team actually go for a two point conversion instead of playing it safe and taking the one-pointer to force a second overtime period was a joy. And I always (with one notable exception, Jenn) enjoy watching Big 12 teams look like a bunch of over-hyped jokers.
  
  And the incurable romantic in my heart appreciated Fox covering the post-game proposal by Broncos star running back Ian Johnson to his cheerleader girlfriend... true Americana there!
  
  
• I started a new twist on my workout routine - instead of saying "I'm gonna work out every day" or something like that, I am going for numbers this year: I set a goal for the year of 100,000 Hindu squats and 30,000 Hindu push ups from the Matt Furey Combat Conditioning workout. And keeping track of those reps all year long will hopefully help me to have something to really strive for. We'll see... check out my other blog if you're curious about how that's working out (no pun intended).
  
  
• The Sugar Bowl has me a bit scared. LSU is gonna be tough, and we've not played up to our potential in a lot of games this season (with the exception of the Penn State game). Hopefully Weis has the boys ready. And hopefully we'll be surprised as we were back in the Cheerios Bowl a decade ago.
  
  
• I watched a great documentary from Discovery Times that I'd Tivoed a couple months ago (finally) called Addicted To Oil. Created by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas L. Friedman, it goes into the damage that oil does to our national security and to our climate, really breaking it down and showing the effects on both our security and the world's weather. He also goes into oil alternatives for both vehicles and general consumption, pointing out the good and bad of the various ideas. Very cool - check it out if you have the chance.
  
  And yes, I still need to see An Inconvenient Truth though I know most of what he's talking about already.
  
  
• On a similar train of thought, I watched Syriana over the holidays. This movie was outstanding though very disturbing at parts. Theatrically, it was a bit confusing, though that's part of its charm - you never are quite sure what's going on any more than the characters themselves are. It's definitely a movie you can see over and over and make new connections all the time.
  
  But the more important thing to take from it is the hypocrisy of the oil industry and its proponents in the government. The part that got me the most is when the eldest son of the emir, Nasir, is talking about how the US wants his brother to be the new emir because they consider him a Communist, simply because he decided to sell the country's oil to China as they offered him the best price (a very capitalist idea, wouldn't you think?).
  
  Go see this one if you haven't already. Though, if you're looking for a typically buff and sexy George Clooney in it, you're going to be watching the wrong movie because he reportedly put on 30 pounds for the role.
  
  
• There are still a couple things I want to get for my biking experience - a set of bike lights for the dark days and for my own safety, and some panniers so I don't have to use a backpack (and hopefully are a little more waterproof than the backpack I'm currently using. A set of fenders would also be nice - so I don't have to keep putting on rain pants.
  

I think that's everything.

Ohio Lawmakers Still Can't Get It Right

I'm not sure if I've gone off about the lack of good physical education in today's schools as much as I have other topics, but I'm going to do it now. First, the article (since it may disappear from the Dispatch after a week):

Ohio Core bill lets athletes skip gym

Senator hates idea, hopes to change provision next year

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Dan Weist

OHIO NEWS NETWORK

Gov. Bob Taft has yet to sign the Ohio Core high-school curriculum overhaul, but the legislation’s primary sponsor already is planning to seek the reversal of one provision.

Sen. Randall Gardner, a Republican from Bowling Green, said the provision, added late in the lame-duck session, would dramatically weaken physical education in Ohio’s high schools by changing gym-class requirements.

Gardner said the amendment offered by Rep. John Schlichter, allows school districts to excuse from gym class any students involved in sports, cheerleading or the marching band.

Gardner said that although the provision didn’t get much attention during last week’s floor debates, it prompted an intraparty dispute that slowed passage of the Ohio Core legislative package.

The curriculum plan, which Taft proposed in January in his final State of the State address, has been touted as a way to prepare young Ohioans for success in college. The legislation mandates tougher high school course work, including an additional year of math instruction and at least three lab-based science classes.

Students may opt out of the plan under certain conditions, at least initially, but doing so will make them ineligible to attend most of Ohio’s four-year public universities without first taking additional college-level courses.

"I didn’t want to hold up the bill for just this," Gardner said of the physical-education amendment. "But I do plan to try and change it in the next session."

Schlichter, of Washington Court House, defends the idea of letting student-athletes bypass traditional gym classes.

"To me, it’s just the right thing to do, to be able to allow kids to expand their course work when they have already done physical activity," said Schlichter.

Now, high-school students in Ohio must earn a half-credit in physical education to graduate.

Because of Schlichter’s amendment, the Ohio Core legislation on Taft’s desk gives school districts the option of maintaining that requirement or allowing students to receive the half-credit through participation, for a minimum of two seasons, in a designated extracurricular activity.

The change is likely to appeal to student-athletes, who will be able to graduate without taking a gym class.

"I think that since band is a period and a half long, we should have that count as a credit for gym," said Katie Lewis, a member of the color guard at Pickerington Central High School.

One of the school’s band teachers, Dan Joy, also likes the idea. Not having to take a gym class might enable students to concentrate on other subjects and perhaps take more math and science courses, he said.

"I think that is an excellent option for students," he said.

Not everyone at Pickerington Central, however, supports the change. Principal Chuck Kemper, a former coach and physical-education teacher, said he worries about the long-term ramifications for today’s young people.

"If we allow children to be excluded from physical education and these activities, later in life what are they going to do to be active? " Kemper asked.

I have to agree with Kemper. Gym class should be a daily class with an emphasis on lifetime sports and personal fitness. I'm partially in favor of exempting student-athletes from it, and heck, I'll even throw in the cheerleaders for programs that do lots of tumbling/pyramid/dance stuff. That sort of exercise is great for all-over fitness and flexibility, and despite the cheesiness of their performances and their instistence that cheerleading is a sport, it's hard work and they are definitely have the tools for keeping in shape.

On the other hand, many of these student-athletes could use instruction on health and fitness outside of their sport. Hence my reluctance to completely agree with this move.

However, the concept of exempting band members is the wrong path. At the risk of sounding elitist and steretyping band members, I think band members who are not athletes should not be exempt because they need the health and fitness instruction as much as anyone else in the school who is not an athlete.

It used to be that fitness and health were considered just as important in education as knowledge. Schools in the renaissance and even earlier are well-documented as finding such activities as fencing, wrestling, etc. just as important for developing a complete individual as their academic studies.

And with today's culture of video games, television and touchy-feely school administrators who don't wish to hurt anyone's feelings in school, kids aren't learning the benefits of being in shape and how to get that way. Obviously, I could go into how the pharmaceutical market loves this situation as they can market more drugs to people who don't know how to be healthy, but that's a topic for another time. Suffice to say that our legislators have an opportunity here to make a statement about the state of health in this State, but instead they're exempting kids from Phys Ed so they can make time for other pursuits. And my response: if these kids aren't healthy when they get out of school, what good are they going to be to anyone?

More Than Just Face Chap

In my first big discovery with the biking to work thing (which I've had plenty of time to practice this weekend, unfortunately) is that I am going to need something to cover my headphones on my telephone (Motorola SLVR, so it has iTunes) while I'm listening to podcasts on the way to work. All the wind rushing past them is making it impossible to hear anything! Also, the ears are getting frostbit.

I've ordered a balaclava to try to alleviate the problem... we'll see how it does (BTW - if you're looking at getting me bike stuff for Christmas.... don't get me a balaclava now).

Bike Commuter Guy

Yeah, that's me. I'm bike commuter guy now. Since I got a lock for my new bike (thanks Jenn, Mom and Dad!) I've been doing the bike commuting thing. First it was to our old office down on West Campus at OSU (The Martha Moorhouse Medical Plaza, for those of you keeping track at home), which allowed me to take the Olentangy bike trail for the major portion of it. I LOVED that route - it allowed me to stay out of traffic and enjoy the wetlands and river while I was riding to and from work.

Now, my office has moved to 650 Ackerman - which is even closer to my house (by a mile or so - nothing in Columbus is too far away, of course). Takes me about ten minutes to get to work, and on the way to work it's almost all downhill so I don't have to worry about being too sweaty when I get to the office. I have to deal with a little more traffic, but for the most part cars don't give me any problem. Either they're too nervous around a cyclist to get near me, or they appreciate my efforts and give me room (I think it's probably the former). Luckily I'm a pretty big guy and sort of hard to miss on the road...

The only tricky part has been weather. The days when it's not wet out there are no problems - just dress in a couple layers and I'm good to go. But on wet days... there's another issue. I have a full rainsuit that I wear (it's yellow, which is good for visibility), but the water runs down the legs of it and into my shoes. So I probably need to either bring dry socks and shoes and wear other shoes while on my commute, or get some gaiters of some kind to let the water run past the openings of my shoes. I've been looking around a bit to see how other folks work around this problem. There are a few websites out there for bike commuting and I've been slowly checking them out as I have time.

The other tricky thing, I think, is going to be the cold. I'm not a person who gets real cold in winter, but I'm probably going to need some sort of balaclava to wear on the bike so I don't get face chap. Plus I'll look like Snake Eyes from GI Joe while I'm riding. Sweet. I just need to carry my sword on my back to complete the image. And perhaps not wear it with a bright yellow rainsuit. :)

Beer Saves the Planet and Curry is Good for the Noggin

This is great news for those of us who appreciate a pint every once in a while. And the curry news is interesting, too...

Fitting Fitness Into Your Life

On a message board that I frequent, one of the contributors brought up a very interesting point: the people who talk about wanting to get fit but "not having time for it," or "not being able to fit it into their busy schedule" are going about this all wrong.

Fitness is not just a process of trying to look good and lose weight. It is a process of life improvement. To truly get fit is not just hitting the weights once in a while or going to the gym to stare blindly at the TV screens while trudging on a treadmill, but actually taking steps to make yourself healthy inside and out. It includes lifestyle changes like diet improvements, regular full-body exercise, and goal-setting.

By full-body exercise, I don't just mean making sure you hit all your major muscle groups with weight routines, or doing the Nordic Trak because it hits all your muscle groups at once. I mean getting down and doing some very basic bodyweight exercises - nothing that isolates a muscle group, but rather working your body as a system from top to bottom. And I also mean exercises that hit not only your muscles, but those that massage the organs and increase the flow of oxygen into and out of the body. And most importantly, exercise that makes you wake up and take notice of what your body's real condition is.

People who listen to music or watch TV while exercising are on the wrong track. You don't want to try to distract yourself from your body while exercising, you want to pay MORE attention to it. You should be feeling every single breath that comes into your lungs, and feel every single muscle that expands or contracts as you go through the motions of the routine. If something doesn't feel right, work it till it does. Or go to the doctor to find out why it feels wrong if it's REALLY wrong.

I see infomercials with those silly ab exercisers that isolate your abs so that you don't hurt your neck while doing situps, and think "that's ridiculous. If your neck is sore from doing situps, then your neck is weak and you need to exercise that part of your body too."

But I'm getting off an a bad tangent here. The most important thing of all to keep in mind about exercise is that you shouldn't be trying to fit it into your life. You should be trying to fit the rest of your life around your health. If you aren't healthy, then the rest of your life doesn't mean jack. If I'm not healthy, I'm no good to my family, no good to my employer, no good to my friends.

And most importantly I'm no good to myself.

So the next time you think "I don't have time to exercise," turn that around and think "how can I fit my life around my health?"

Best Morning Pick-Me-Up

At the risk of sounding like some sort of health nut (as well as seeming a bit blog-happy today, this being my fourth post), I thought I'd share what is one of my absolute favorite morning rituals: and that's the downing of at least a full liter of cold water. I guess you can call it ice water, since we keep our Brita pitcher in the fridge all the time and drink our water out of that.

It wakes you up and gets your body moving better than just about any sort of coffee or drug-drink can, and it flushes your system and gets you feeling good right away. Plus, if you're one of those folks who believe in the eight glasses of water a day theory, you're already over halfway there by drinking a liter (which, for those metric-challenged individuals, is a little over a quart).

Give it a try for a week. Buy yourself a liter bottle and fill it with water each night, then drink it as fast as you can as soon as you wake up. I guarantee you'll feel better throughout the day!

More Laziness

Another sign that America is getting too lazy: They actually make briefcases with rollers now - in case your BRIEFCASE is too heavy.

Ladies and gentlemen, the day your briefcase is too heavy is the day you need to head back into the gym or at least do some pushups.

I'll get you started. Order the book "Combat Conditioning" from this guy: Matt Furey. For those of you who want to get REALLY fit, and I'm not just talking lifting weights and getting big, cosmetic muscles, but actually STRONGER, buy this guy's stuff. And follow his program. I'm doing it and I've never felt better.