Beginner's Fitness Programs

Archive for the ‘Best Cardio Workout’ Category

Benefits of a workout on the brain functions are well known. Since the exercises create the oxygen rich blood flow to the brain, you can keep the brain at the optimum level of the oxygen and increase the cognitive capacity. That blood flow also flushes out cell damaging waste matters from the brain. Of course, you cannot forget that exercises clean up your arteries and prevent stroke from happening. Here are a few more new findings about the effects of the workout on the brain.

A research done on mice at University of South Carolina shows that workouts increase mitochondria not only in the muscles, but also in the brain cells. As a consequence, the brain gets much more resilient to fatigue. If this is also true for people (and it seems so), if you are physically fit, you can think clearly much longer than those who are not.

In another study done at Columbia University it shows that moderate to intense exercises protects the brain from developing the small lesion which is sometime called “silent strokes” among older people. They found that people who are engaging in moderate to intense workouts regularly get 40% fewer brain lesions compared to those who don’t.

Further, researchers at National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences show that regular exercising may prevent the brain damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease. This is because physical exercises create chemicals that prevent the brain tissues from inflammation.

It seems that aerobic exercises are the most effective to the brain’s health, especially if it is sustained for a long time. In general, the interval type of workout is more effective for the cardio vascular system, but you may want to add a slightly lower intensity but longer cardio work out in your exercise plan to get the maximum benefit for your brain.

For example, if you do the cardio work out three times a week (which is recommended,) two of them could be the interval training for 30 min (or less), but another one should be the longer cardio workout (say one hour.) The days you do the interval training, you may want to add 30 minutes of weight training. If you cannot spend one hour for the exercises, however, I recommend sticking to the interval training. You will still get the great benefits for the body and the brain.

Sources:
Exercise Training Increases Mitochondrial Biogenesis in the Brain. American Journal of Physiology — Regulatory, Integrative, and Comparative Physiology, 2011
Lower prevalence of silent brain infarcts in the physically active: The Northern Manhattan Study. Neurology, 2011;
Voluntary exercise protects hippocampal neurons from trimethyltin injury: Possible role of interleukin-6 to modulate tumor necrosis factor receptor-mediated neurotoxicity. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 2011

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In one of the previous articles, I mentioned that a  shorter interval training was much more effective for improving your cardio capacity than the conventional steady cardio workout. Well, now another evidence tells us that the interval training is also good for weight loss. 

A new study conducted at Montreal Hearth Institute, a program which combined interval training and healthy eating is significantly better than a traditional steady pace cardio workout plus dieting. After 9 months of program, 60 minutes three times a week, on average, the participants lost 5.5% of body fat, 5.15% waist circumference, and increased workout capacity of 15%. They also saw 7% decrease in bad cholesterol. 

Since interval training gives you greater benefit in shorter time, it should be a part of everyone’s workout program.

If you have not done any interval training, it is advisable to work with a trainer or attend a circuit training class at a gym, but if you don’t have either choices, here are some suggestions.

First of all, don’t push too hard at the beginning of the program. Since your body is not used to the interval training, you must increase the intensity gradually. It is also advisable to see your doctor and talk about it. Since you need to bring up your heart rate significantly higher than the normal cardio workout, if you have any heart problems, it may cause the heart troubles, rather than improving it. 

You can find your cardio workout target heart rate from the previous article. During the interval training, you need to bring up your heart rate above the cardio workout range, closer to the maximum heart rate, but at the beginning, just try to bring your heart rate above the cardio range. 

There is no single consensus about which exercise is the best (see New York Times article about What’s the Single Best Exercise?), but, in general, hill running up is thought to be the best among the interval trainings. Since it is quite hard, if you have not done much before, you may want to avoid this first (see below for an alternative).

If you have an access to a spinning bike, I recommend to start with that. It gives you a great interval training without much of the impact on your knees and other joints. You can substitute the spinning bike with a regular workout bike, but it is less efficient. After a short warming ride, pedal the bike as fast as you can at moderate resistance for one minute, then take easy for two minutes. Repeat the pattern for at least 10 minutes. Eventually, you want to repeat this pattern for 20 minutes. If you can workout for the 20 minutes easily, your resistance level is too low; so increase the resistance. 

If you don’t have an access to a bike, I recommend to do a “hill” walking instead of running. If you live a hilly neighborhood, find the steepest hill. If you live in a flat area, find a building or any other structures with stairs, at least, 3 street high. Walk up the hill or the stairs as fast as you can to the top, then slowly walk down. If you use the stairs, hold on to the rail when you come down. This prevents from an accidental fall and minimizes the impacts on the knees. Again, try this for 10 minutes at the beginning, and want to increase to 20 minutes. 

You can do the similar workout in the pool, with a jump rope, or even jogging at a spot in front of a TV. What you want to do is to bring up your heart rate as high as you can during the “hard” part. Check your heart rate when you are in the slow part.

Why 20 minutes? If you do the training correctly, you should be able to get all the benefit you need in the 20 minutes. Since we don’t have much time, why we should spend more time than we need. If you have an extra time, do weight training or starching. 

I need to repeat, however, the caution: Be safe. You want to be fit and healthy, not broken down and unhealthy. Know your body and always consult your doctor. If you can, use a trainer, especially at the beginning.

Source:
Interval training and healthy eating is solution to obesity, study shows Montreal Heart Institute (2011, April presented at the National Obesity Summit).

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In one of my previous blogs, I presented evidence that high-intensity interval training is much better than a longer moderate workout, since you get the same cardiovascular benefit in a much shorter time. A recent study published in the American Journal of Human Biology presented much more solid results.

Researchers at the University of the West of Scotland recruited schoolchildren and assigned them to either moderate- or high-intensity exercise groups. The first group did 20 minutes of moderate running and the latter group did 20 meter sprints over 30 seconds. With 3 workout sessions per week over 7 weeks, the former group ran a total of 420 minutes and burned 4410 kilocalories, but the latter group spent only 63 minutes and burned 907 kilocalories. Even though the latter group spent only 15% of the time as the former group, cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure and fat level in the blood decreased just as much.

This is great news for most of us who do not have much time for working out. It means that you can literally go to a gym at lunch time, complete your cardio-workout, and be back at the office in an hour (including time for a shower). There is no more excuse for not working out! If you are interested, go back and read the previous blog for more details about how you can incorporate this interval training into your daily workout.

Note that I don’t recommend intensive interval training if you have not been exercising much previously, especially if your aim is to lose weight. Although it is well known that your body keeps burning body fat long after the intensive workout has finished contrasted with a moderate cardio workout which stops burning body fat much quicker, it is much safer to do a moderate but longer cardio workout which burns body fat steadily throughout the workout.

After reaching or close to reaching your ideal weight, you may want to change to intensive interval training. By then your body, including your muscles, bones, joints, and heart, will be ready to assume the intensive workout.

Another note: If you are a long-time runner, and want to increase your speed, you really want to include interval training. One study done at the University of Copenhagen showed that by adding intensive speed training (and reducing 25% of workout time), some runners reduced 2 minutes of their overall time for a 10-kilometer run after only 9 weeks of training. This is quite impressive! Anyway, work smart and you will get the results you want!

Source:
The effects of time and intensity of exercise on novel and established markers of CVD in adolescent youth. American Journal of Human Biology, 2011 Reduced volume and increased training intensity elevate muscle Na /K pump {alpha}2-subunit expression as well as short- and long-term work capacity in humans. Journal of Applied Physiology, Oct 1, 2009

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Have you ever wondered why some famous African marathon runners run barefoot without getting injured, but we can’t even run a block without thickly padded $100 running shoes? In fact, people were running without “proper” running shoes until the 1970s when modern running shoes were invented and, even now, many people around the world are still running with minimally-padded footwear such as sandals.

Shoes Heel Strike Running with Force

Barefoot Forefoot Strike Running with Force

As you can see from the videos, the heel-striking running impacts suddenly when the heel strikes the running surface, but the forefoot-striking running does not. The researchers reported that forefoot-striking running can tolerate several times one’s body weight without much damage to leg joints.

We actually know this. When you jump off a chair, do you try to land on your heels or toes? We instinctively land on our toes and then flex our knees to absorb the impact. This is normal, and probably when your grandparents were kids, they were running with the forefoot striking! Yes, our running methods changed significantly after the invention of running shoes. Some people know this fact and there are groups of people who have been running barefoot for a long time, with more and more people joining the trend.

They believe potential benefits of barefoot running include:

• less impact on joints
• strengthens muscles of the feet
• cost-effective
• develops more sensory sensitivity in the feet
• prevents deformations of the feet, such as bunions

Of course, there are some negative sides, too:

• potential injuries to soles of the feet by stepping on glass and other sharp objects
• may cause metatarsal stress fractures (see below)
• takes time to develop a new way of running
• may develop achilles tendonitis if you do not train properly

Should you try barefoot running? If you are totally new to running, it is a good option. If you have been running for a while, and if you do not have any problems with that, it is probably not worth changing your form, since it takes time to change and in the meantime your workout efficiency would suffer. However, if you have had knee injuries or problems, you may want to consider barefoot running.

Although you may not get the full benefit of running, you can also try barefoot walking, especially if you regularly wear high heels. Some research indicates that high-heeled shoes cause degeneration of knee joints and also cause shortening of achilles tendons. To counter these problems, you may want to walk around barefoot at home, and in totally flat shoes outside.

Either running or walking, it is probably a good idea to wear some sort of protective footwear so that we don’t injure the soles of our feet. Several companies offer shoes suitable for this purpose. These shoes are very flexible with no arch support, and minimum cushioning in the heel area. Some of them may even be fashionable enough to wear for daily work or play. There are even shoes with separated toes that were originally developed for surfers and rock climbers, but more and more barefoot runners are using them. There are, however, some indications that running barefoot with separated toes shoes may increase the chance of metatarsal stress fractures. We should probably stick with more of the “traditional” simple flat bottom types of barefoot shoes.

If you really want to start barefoot running, I strongly recommend that you consult with an experienced barefoot runner. You may want to contact a local barefoot running group like New England Barefoot Runners.

Sources:

Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners: Nature 2010
Biomechanics of Foot Strikes & Applications to Running Barefoot or in Minimal Foot We are: http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu
Foot Pain: Is Current or Past Shoewear a Factor? Arthritis Care & Research, 2009
High heels may lead to joint degeneration and knee osteoarthritis, study finds: Iowa State University (2010, August)
On muscle, tendon and high heels. Journal of Experimental Biology, 2010; 213: 2582-2588

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Many of us work in front of a computer all day long, 8 to 10 hours a day. After that we are too tired to exercise. We wish we could work out while at work…

Everyone thinks about that, even scientists. A group of British scientists decided to study whether it was possible to work out while doing desk work without losing productivity. They gave portable pedaling machines to sedentary overweight people who sit in front of a computer at least 75% of work hours.

Researchers did not give any specific instructions, such as how to or how long to use the pedaling machines. They just monitored the use of these machines, and how many calories were spent. People in this study used the machines on average 23 minutes a day – with some participants up to 70 minutes a day – and used upwards of 500 calories. Productivity did not suffer either. Although after a few weeks the novelty of the machines diminished slightly, people participating in this study said that they were easy to use, and if they were actually given to them, they would continue using them.

Of course, the use of a pedaling machine is not limited to an office environment. You can use one at home while watching TV or using a computer. If you can talk on a phone while walking you should not have any problem doing so while pedaling.

I admit that pedaling alone probably does not give the best of health benefits. It is, however, a great start for many sedentary people who have never worked out regularly. The machines are cheap, easy to set up, and easy to use. Once you start feeling the benefits, you can graduate to a machine at a gym or an outdoor workout.

There are a couple more benefits to pedaling with these portable machines. First of all, since it stimulates blood flow to the legs, it reduces leg-swelling from prolonged sitting (a sort of economy-class syndrome). Second, it also brings more blood to the brain, and, hence oxygen, which stimulates brain cells, and you can concentrate better and think more clearly.

Should you invest money in this machine? If you are already a gym member or following some sort of workout routine, the answer is probably not. However, if you have not done any regular workout before or you have not worked out for a long time (say a couple of years) and want to start a new workout program, I think this is a good investment. You don’t need an expensive one – it just has extra bells and whistles. A cheap one will work just as well as the most expensive ones. By the time it breaks down, I hope you graduate to a real workout!

Source:
Feasibility of a portable pedal exercise machine for reducing sedentary time in the workplace. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2011

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