Category: Exercise

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Yoga in the morning

I really like yoga a lot. Makes me feel good. Increases my strength, flexibility, and balance. What’s not to like?

So far, though, my only real exposure to yoga has been with Tony Horton’s P90X and One-On-One. That’s all good, but Tony is a bodybuilder and fitness expert, not a yoga guru. So I thought I’d branch out.

I’m still doing Insanity, but the workouts are shorter than what I’m used to, so I thought I’d add in some yoga from … someone else.

Hmmmmm…. Whose workout should I choose?

After scouring my favorite online retailer, I finally settled on Ultimate Power Yoga from Rodney Yee. It looked like a decent set of routines and was well-reviewed at Amazon. Plus, it seemed like a great value for the money.

This morning I woke up early, so that gave me a chance to do some yoga first thing. I did the Power Foundation routine, which was a series of moves focusing on legs and core. Wow, very nice!

It was cool to wake up and go into a short yoga workout to start the day. The routine was not too strenuous, but definitely got the blood flowing and I know I worked those abs over a bit.

I hope to do yoga like this — first thing in the morning — more often, maybe two or three days a week. There are five routines on the DVD, none is longer than 20 minutes, so there’s really no valid reason why I can’t make that happen. Plenty of invalid reasons, though, so we’ll see what happens.

Meanwhile, Insanity looms large for later today!

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So, I started Insanity the other day

I started Insanity on Sunday, so Day Four was today.

Wow.

If you’ve been following my posts, you may remember that I had planned to start the program earlier this year, but I was concerned about my arthritic left knee. Well, I finally got to the point where my knee was feeling pretty good, and I figured that if it got feeling good once, it can get feeling good again, if Insanity messes it up.

So, onward I pressed into Insanity.

The first day was the Fit Test. The program is set up so that the Fit Test is incorporated into it every two weeks. That is, instead of a workout, you do the Fit Test. This is so you can track improvement.

Don’t think that just because you are doing the Fit Test you are not getting a workout. You are. It’s tough. I have to admit, I did better than I thought I would on some, worse than I thought on others.

Switch Kicks : 55 (2 kicks = 1 rep)
Power Jacks : 38
Power Knees : 78
Power Jumps : 23
Globe Jumps : 7 (4 jumps = 1 rep)
Suicide Jumps : 14
Pushup Jacks: 28
Low Plank Obliques: 36

These numbers don’t mean much outside the context of Insanity but feel free to compare mine with yours if/when you start the program.

Days 2 and 3 are pretty heavy cardio days, and day 4 — today — was a cardio rest day, so we focused on strengthening and stretching. And, yes, it was still challenging.

So far, so good, with my knee. It feels great, actually.

The workouts to this point are no longer than 45 minutes, which is nice for people with little time. The program lasts only 60 days (as opposed to 90 days for Tony Horton’s P90X, so that’s cool, too.

Having done three of the workouts plus the Fit Test, I have to say that I really like the format. We go through a series of moves, slower, then faster, then faster, so we get a chance to learn the moves and to improve with each set. There are several cycles of moves for each workout. There’s also a good long warmup — which is challenging in itself — then a nice stretch for the cool down.

As I said, so far, so good. I’ll reassess after a couple weeks.

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The single best exercise

I read this article the other day at NYTimes.com about “The Single Best Exercise”.

Well, really, that’s just an eye-catching headline, because there is no one “single best exercise”. Or, rather, for my money, the single best exercise is the one you do! Just do something, ya know?

The article did get me to thinking, though. What if I could only do one thing, one exercise — well, let’s make it a group of exercises — the rest of my life. What would it be?

I know it would come down to either weight training or yoga. But how to decide?

Weight training definitely burns a lot of calories. It also makes me stronger, so it improves my aerobic fitness, too.

Yoga probably doesn’t burn as many calories, but it’s easy to make it a total body workout.

I’m going with yoga.

As I perused the yoga titles at Netflix and Amazon, I was amazed by how many people use yoga as a relaxer. There are yoga workouts on DVD, designed to make you sweat, and these people were complaining that it’s not what they wanted. Yoga is supposed to be relaxing, they said.

Okay, I guess so. It’s really all what you’re used to.

I was introduced to yoga by Tony Horton’s P90X, so to me it’s a workout. And I love it as such!

In fact, that’s why I was looking through Amazon and Netflix for yoga videos. I want more!

How about you? Which exercise would you do, if you could only do one? Running? Martial Arts? For me, it’s yoga.

HAH! I was looking for a video to put with this post and found this one from Tony Horton. I had not seen it before, but he came to exactly the same conclusion as I did about yoga.

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How many reps should you do in P90X?

When I started Tony Horton’s P90X, one of the first decisions to make was whether to go for larger muscles or simply toned muscles. Tony would repeat over and over: 8-10 reps for mass or 12-15 reps for lean.

I have no desire to look like Tony Horton. He’s very muscular, has a bodybuilder’s body, and that’s just not me. But, hell, I could stand for my muscles to be a bit larger, so I decided to go the route most men take through P90X and shoot for 8 to 10 reps of each move.

To explain a bit more, the idea is to adjust the weight you use to work properly for the number of reps. That is, regardless of how many reps you do, the last two or three should be difficult. So if you’re shooting for 8-10 reps, you should be struggling on reps 7, 8, and 9. If you are not, you need to increase the weight.

Tony never gets into the lower rep side of things, probably because he is a bodybuilder, not a powerlifter, but you should know that HEAVY WEIGHT + LOW REPS = STRENGTH! You won’t necessarily get the muscle size, but your strength will increase dramatically with this approach.

Here, then, is a quick rundown on the whole number of reps concept. Tom Venuto includes this information in his article on his website.

  • If you are trying to improve strength, then most of your weight training will be in the 3 to 5 rep range. You may even do some 1 and 2 rep moves. This will make you stronger and faster without bulking you up.
  • Bodybuilders work on muscle mass, so most of your training will be in the 8 to 10 rep range. Doing some heavier weight training at lower reps makes sense, too, because you may not want to simply look strong.
  • To tone up, you should work in the 12-15 rep range. This is also useful for bodybuilders, to smooth things out.

I spend most of my time doing 8-10 reps. When doing body weight exercises, like pushups, I do as many as possible, so I have the high-rep end covered.

I have not, however, done anything in the lower rep range, and it seems to me I need to do that, so I’m going to try to work that into my workouts starting after this current recovery week.

Remember that fitness is not just finding one thing and doing that. That’s a good start, but fitness is really a lifelong commitment that involves reading and learning and implementing new techniques to stay as fit as possible.

So be sure to determine your fitness goals and then make an informed decision about how many reps to do based on those goals.

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The most important meal of the day

My brother posted a question on Facebook the other day. He often posts questions to spark discussion, and they often do just that. The question he posted the other day was “Trick Question: What is the most important meal of the day?”

Of course, people chimed in with “Breakfast.” WRONG! (Should have known that from the “trick question” hint.)

Without going any further into the wrong answers, let’s get to the right answer. The most important meal of the day is the one right after you work out.

(Yes, this does assume that you work out. If you don’t work out, I dunno, maybe breakfast is right ;=)

What is so important about the post-workout meal? For about 45 minutes after your workout, your body is primed to start repairing itself, building muscle.

Do not waste that opportunity!

What should the post-workout meal consist of? Lots of carbs and some protein. I’ve read 3:1 ratio of carbs to protein. I usually go with about a 2:1 ratio, with 60 grams of carbs and 30 grams of protein. Specifically, my meal is a protein shake composed of

  • 8-12 ounces of unsweetened almond milk (I prefer Blue Diamond brand)
  • 4 dates or an equivalent carbload of organic honey or dried figs, and
  • a heaping scoop of a vanilla-flavored low carb whey protein powder (Optimum Nutrition makes my favorite).

I gotta tell ya, when I put the dates in there, wow, that is seriously one of my favorite things to eat/drink. Delicious.

You could eat a meal of lean meat or fish and pasta. I am personally not in the mood to do a lot of cooking right after I workout, but if you are, go for it! A protein shake does the trick for me, and every once in a while, I’ll have some fat-free Greek yogurt with honey in it. Tasty.

So, that’s the upshot. If you work out, the most important meal of the day is the meal right after you exercise, so, if you have to skip one, don’t skip that one!