Friday, September 3, 2010

Fat Cells Working Together Against YOU!

Your fat cells are doing much more than just sitting there, keeping your vertical jump below 12" and looking nasty--they're actively killing you.

Story

Think about this picture and this story next time you want to feed your kids McDonald's or a frozen dinner because you're feeling lazy.  Nothing wrong with junk food now and then, but is your kid going to work his butt off on the playground and burn the worthless Calories you're feeding him, and turn the protein into muscle?

Or by overfeeding him, are you forcing his body to send hormone signals that will eventually kill him?  Sort of  takes you out of the running for "Parent of the Year."  If your kid is an active Huckleberry Finn type, it's less of a worry.  The problem is, the typical 1950s kid is an atypical 2010 kid.  Today's kids have lazy parents who allow their kids to balloon to obese levels before they even hit puberty.

Here's the take-home paragraph:

Scientists are reporting new evidence that the fat tissue in those spare tires and lower belly pooches — far from being a dormant storage depot for surplus calories — is an active organ that sends chemical signals to other parts of the body, perhaps increasing the risk of heart attacks, cancer, and other diseases. They are reporting discovery of 20 new hormones and other substances not previously known to be secreted into the blood by human fat cells...

Monday, August 23, 2010

Okay, 1 or 2 Kids, but 19?

The McMinnville, Oregon high school football team had 19 of its members in the hospital with super-elevated creatine kinase in ther systems.  So much, in fact, that their triceps were at risk of rupturing.

Most gym rats nowdays swear by creatine kinase, an enzyme that helps you more quickly replace a phosphate onto ADP, returning it to its highest energy state, ATP.  I can see one or two kids having a creatine OD, but 19?

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Puberty Arrives Early for the Heavy Kids

This NBC "revelation" reveals something we've known for decades--fatter children, especially girls, hit puberty early.  These stories that purport to bring us new info drive me crazy.  This was considered common knowledge when I was getting my undergrad in Sport Science at the University of Idaho:  More body fat = more estrogen = faster onset of puberty.

Very simply, if you allow your daughter to get fat, she will not only grow up believing it's a suitable way to exist, she'll have a higher risk of everything bad.  Diabetes, heart disease, asthma, every cancer known to man, etc.  Further, you're denying her the pleasure of competing in sports, overcoming physical challenges, and learning self discipline.

Bottom line: if you let your kids get fat, you're dooming them to all sorts of problems they shouldn't have to deal with.  Be a real parent, not an emotional wimp, and make your kids do things that your grandmother made your mom do:  eat their veggies, turn off the TV, get to bed on time, and go do some physically-challenging chores.  And as for you?  Drop and give me 30.



Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Bellybutton is Key to Speed on Land, Sloth in Water

You know why yogis always stare at their bellybuttons? I think we finally figured it out. They're trying to move it upward, in an attempt to become faster.

Story

Monday, June 7, 2010

Free training session...

...to anyone who can ride this bike up the Lewiston Spiral Highway in under 6 hours.

And then you have to sell me the bike for $100, because I really do want it.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Wait, Lose How Many Pounds in 34 Minutes?

This is the 2nd part of the testing I did with the Nike+ iTunes link.

It gave my Calories burned as 373 for the 2.37 miles I allegedly ran.  For the purposes of this blog, and in reality, it was closer to 2.5 miles.  That's only half the story, though.

My first mile was a steady, cardio pace. I burned about 155 Calories.  Easy peasy.

My next half mile was chopped up with stop-and-go plyometrics, seriously pushing my anaerobic threshhold and then backing way off, and then repeating.  It also included pushups, hanging leg raises, and 3/4 speed sprints.

The next mile consisted of sprinting about 50 meters, and then walking 30 to 50 meters.  That totally confuses the body, and causes all your systems to fire up and burn Calories.  It also makes you consume O2 likes it's going out of style, and pump out the CO2  (If he weren't such a fat liar, I'd apologize to Gore).

The advantage to the latter two-point-five miles is that while doing it, I may have burned just over 220 Calories, but it's going to keep burning for the next day.  The first mile won't have much effect past bedtime, but the sprinting and plyometrics will keep burning into Tuesday.

Long story short--don't just run.  Throw in sprints, pushups, and skipping.  Your butt will thank you for it.