This morning my wife bought my daughter and son a couple of jump ropes, the problem was they were really long ones that are to be held by two people.

It is a snowy day today in Calgary and so of course the kids wanted to jump rope so we pushed the table aside in the living room and the kids learned to jump rope. It was tons of fun and of course pretty good exercise.

Did you know that a 160 pound person would burn 760 calories in an hour jumping rope? This is the same exercise output of running 6 miles in an hour. I am not sure how good a shape you would have to be in to do this and the coordination that you would need to jump rope for an hour but jumping rope is the speed secret for boxers and other athletes.

Jumping rope is not only good for your coordiantion but it uses the muscles in your arms, shoulders, legs and glutes and is great also for improving your balance. Another great thing about jumping rope is how easy it is to do. Nowadays with 10 foot ceilings in houses it is easy enough to jump rope indoors all winter.

Try jumping rope and see how exhausting but fun it can be as an alternative exercise for you.

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: calgary, calories, exercise, jumping rope

Moderately strenuous exercise, about 30 minutes a day, can lead to enormous benefits in terms of your mood, health, weight and the ability to live an independent and fulfilling life. The exercise doesn’t need to be athletic or difficult. Studies have shown that simply walking at a brisk pace for 30 minutes or more on most days can lead to significant health improvements. Add simple strengthening exercises two or three times a week and the benefits are even greater.

The January issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter lists some of the benefits of 30 minutes of exercise a day:

Lower blood pressure: A reduction of 5 to 10 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) is possible. In some cases, that’s enough to prevent or reduce the need for blood pressure medications.

Improve cholesterol: Exercise often increases the concentration of high-density lipoprotein (HDL or “good” cholesterol in the blood), especially when accompanied by weight loss. Exercise also helps reduce triglyceride levels.

Prevent or manage type 2 diabetes: Exercise helps insulin work better, lowering blood sugar.

Manage weight: Coupling exercise with a healthy diet is the best way to shed fat and maintain a healthier body composition.

Prevent osteoporosis: Exercise may increase bone density and protect against bone mass decline, especially if weight-bearing activities are involved.

Prevent cancer: Exercise has been shown to strengthen the immune system, improve circulation, reduce body fat and speed digestion. Each has a role in preventing cancer, particularly cancers of the colon, prostate, uterine lining and breast.

Maintain mental well-being: Exercise may help reduce stress, improve mild-to-moderate depression and anxiety, improve sleep and boost moods.

Increase energy and stamina: A lack of energy often results from inactivity, not age.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/

Tags: bone density, cancer, cancers, depression, diabetes, energy, good cholesterol, health improvements, healthier body, Increase energy, lower blood pressure, Mayo Clinic, osteoporosis, strengthening exercises, strenuous exercise, weight loss exercise

eDiets has an article telling us what fit people do. It is right on the mark

1. Sleep well and wake up naturally. Many fit people arise without an alarm clock feeling energized, rested and hungry. They have set fitness goals and a plan to achieve them. People who are fit fall asleep easier, have more quality sleep and require less sleep than someone who is unfit. Lack of sleep is strongly associated with obesity. Sleeping helps the body repair, rebuild and recover.

2. Get prepared. Fit people pack their gym bags the night before, have clothes laid out for exercise, toiletries packed for a shower, clothes for work and an appointment in their planner for physical activity. They regard their workout appointments as highly as any other business or social commitment. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: breast cancer, cycling, fitness goals, food, food choices, fund raiser, healthy meals, Leukemia, morning exercise, obesity, physical activity, plan meals, planner for physical activity, self-help snake oil, stress management, workout, workouts

I never did post about our new Wii and the relationship that we are beginning to have with the box of plastic and silicon chips.

It has been a great time and all the family seems to be enjoying the Wii. On Christmas day we unpacked the box and hooked it up and just played a bit and then were out doing family stuff all day and into the night. On Boxing day (December 26th) we finally got to play the Wii lots and had a  great time taking turns with the sports games of the Wii Sports disk.

In Wii Sports there are Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Baseball and Boxing as well as a Wii Training, which is practicing for any of those sports and Wii Fitness which is a test that the Wii puts you through to see how good you are at using the controllers and your coordination. The games on the disk were easy enough to use with the two controllers. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: baseball, bowling, Boxing, boxing day, christmas day, Golf, pain, silicon chips, sports games, super mario galaxy, Tennis, wii, wii sports

I got an email from Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training and today he dropped an article that he said I could reprint to my blog so here it is. The article is about all the ways that you can make sure that you do not gain any weight this holiday season. I hope you learn some tips from it.

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

I was at a big event last week and was reminded how important it is to have strategies for this season of high-calorie parties and busy schedules. But I get ticked off by the tired old suggestions you find on the Internet or in magazines like Woman’s World.

Often the suggestions are lack any substance, because the writers don’t want to imply you actually have to make a sacrifice to succeed. They make fat loss sound easy, as if all you had to do was park at the far end of the parking lot and you’d burn all the calories from 5 shortbread cookies. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: calories, christmas, Christmas party, craig ballantyne, CSCS, Holly Rigsby, MS Author, shortbread cookies, success stories, Turbulence, turbulence training, weight gain, worse dancer, www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Since at least the 80s people have been listening to music during their workouts while running and in gyms around the country hard rock music is always being played. If you are a runner I have just run across a piece of free software that will help you to choose music better for your workouts. The software is called Beat Scanner.

The idea behind Beat Scanner is that when you are running the music that you listen to may motivate you but also there is a switch in the pace of the songs and the pace of your running. Beat Scanner will analyze the beats per minute of the music that you have in MP3s on your computer so that you can make up a better playlist to listen yo on your ipod when you are out running. As I am not much of a runner i have nottried this software before but i would love to get some input as to how good people find Beat Scanner and whether it works well for them

Tags: beats per minute, free software, ipod, listening to music, runner, runnning

As you can imagine top athletes are very particular with what they eat and when. I was over at a running blog today when I ran across the following article about Carb cycling.

Crib Sheet on Carbohydrate Cycling at Her Active Life

The basic idea behind carb cycling is that you eat every day based on the next day workouts. Some top athletes will build their eating around bog events as well as seasonal patterns of training and working out output.

Even if you are not really at the level of fitness and athleticism to take advantage of a concept like carb cycling this is a nice peek at what the real elite athletes think about when it comes to diet.

Tags: carbohydrate, cycling, elite athletes, fitness, workouts

How long should you exercise? Experts say that you should exercise for at least 20 minutes a day. I don’t know about you but 20 minutes is not a long time to exercise. If you get up just 10minutes early and get 20 minutes of exercise the you will have to rush around and still get to work on time.

20 minutes for exercise is easy to find.

If you have dinner a few minutes early and then do the cleaning up and have your workout before starting your evening routine you will never miss the time. If you are really ambitious you can wolf down lunch and go for a walk or some other exercise at lunch.

20 minutes exercise twice a day for the extra ambitious

How about getting some exercise on the way to work. I feel blessed that I can ride my bike to work but soon the weather will turn too cold aqnd I will need to drive. But you can just park a few blocks from work and walk to work. After work you get that time to unwind walking back to the car or the bus or train.

Try to be creative. There are many ways to get exercise every day and if it is important you will find the way.

Tags: exercise, ride my bike, workout

I have written quite a bit over the last week about what you need as far as home fitness equipment goes but thought I would just round out this week with an overview of what you should have for equipment. So here is what I think that you should try to accumulate over the next while.

Mats – The most basic piece of fitness equipment is an exercise mat. You need an exercise mat for doing stretching as well as for doing abs and an exercise mat is always good for lying on when you are tired from a tough set or some cardio

Dumbells – Dumbells are those short bars with the weights on them. Who cares about them all matching but you want to probably have pairs of 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 pounds and sometimes even a pair of 3 pound weights are good to carry while you are running or doing other cardio. These all come in handy for lots of your weight exercises

Barbell – This is just a big long bar. The barbell bar weighs I believe 20 pounds although ones at the gym will weight 45 pounds. Then of course you need weights to put on this bar. Remember that anytime that you are using a barbell you are lifting more weight and in the case of bench presses or even military presses you can get yourself into real trouble if you do not have a spotter. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: cardio equipment, elliptical trainer, Fitness Equipment, home fitness equipment, paul plakas, rowing, weight exercises, X

I was in the midst of writing an article about losing belly fat and how spot reducing does not work for losing belly fat when this email from the creator of turbulence training came to me. It seems that he has evidence that belly fat can be reduced through weights and circuit training but not strictly fromn cardio and situps

But did you know the best way to burn belly fat is a shock to most men and women?

Even most personal trainers usually guess, “Crunches”, “Situps”, or “aerobic cardio” as the best way to lose stomach fat.  But none of those work best, or even work at all!

In fact, I often get asked, What’s the best way to burn fat and lose my belly? Do aerobics work better than interval Iraining? Does resistance training help at all? What should I eat to lose stomach fat? All of those are common questions.

But here’s the truth. Cardio is not the best way to burn fat.

In fact, I’ve met very few people who have successfully used cardio to lose stomach fat. And most of those people were young men, and anything works for them when they want to burn fat.

If you want to lose stomach fat fast, you need to increase the intensity of your workout by using both resistance training and interval training to lose stomach fat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: best way to burn fat, Cardio Workouts, fat burning, interval training, professor, Steve Boucher, turbulence training, Workout Plan