Fitness, Training, Health & Conditioning

We are very excited to announce the arrival of our newest blog, Runwithpower.com. We have been working on it for the last month or so. During the summer we noticed that many of you really liked the many posts we were doing about running training and Josh’s Quest to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

We decided that it would be worth taking what is one of our biggest passions and create a separate blog just for those of you who love running as much as we do. This blog will be focused on one main area, education. We want to share what over twenty years of combined training in all forms of running has taught us with all of you.

There are going to be some fun events happening in 2010 that we also want to allow you to be a part of. Loren will be blogging about his Quest to run a 400 meter dash in under 50 seconds is going. It has been a goal of his for a long time and he is excited to fill all of you in on what he has learned to do and more importantly what not to do when it comes to training for speed and speed endurance.

Josh did Qualify for Boston at the Portland Marathon this year and he will begin his training this month. He once again will keep you up to dat with how that is going and then he and Loren will be sending constant pictures and video from the event itself. This should be a great chance to see for yourself why Boston is considered the King of all Marathons.

Finally Runwithpower was accepted into the 2010 Hood to Coast Relay in Oregon. Our team of twelve is ready to take you through the process of what has become one of the most prolific races in the country. With 1000 teams and 12,000 runners we leave from the Peak of Mount Hood and Travel Through Portland all the Way to the Beach in Seaside Oregon. 197 miles of awesome running. There will be many more details to come on this great event as we get started in January.

Go now to check out the new site. We hope you like it and more importantly are able to become a better runner by being a part of it with us. Make sure to sign up for the newsletter to get your free gift!

I read a statistic that said most Americans can’t do a complete, correct pull-up. Maybe you are one of those people, and if you are, it’s ok. A correct, fully unassisted pull-up takes a lot of strength. It is a great move that all strength training routines should take advantage of. But, if you can’t even do a pull-up, or can only get maybe one or two, what should you do? Many people don’t know where to begin when training for pull-ups. Well, here are several different techniques that you can implement into your strength training routines that will begin to develop the strength and power needed to do pull-ups.

First, try doing them feet assisted. The best way to do this is to go to a gym and place a barbell on a squat rack, then hold onto the bar while in a squat position with your feet flat on the ground, directly under you hips. Now perform a pull-up, pressing with your feet to help you up, but using as much of your arms in the move as you can. Try to get up to 20 repetitions. The good thing about doing this is anyone with the ability to stand up can do it. You can use as much assistance from your feet as you need, and you can vary how hard you make the pull-up by using more upper body and less lower. If you have a person you are working out with, you can have your partner help you by holding onto your feet, or by pressing up on your back. The partner pull-ups will be a little harder than the feet assisted pull-ups.

The next one is to do a negative pull-up. This would be the next step up from feet or partner assisted. The emphasis of the negative pull-up is not so much the pulling up, but rather the lowering down. Use a bench to help you jump up to a pull-up position, then lower yourself down as slow as you can and repeat.

If you are someone who struggles with doing pull-ups or cannot do a pull-up, use these variations on the pull-up to help gain strength in your upper body. Even if you can do a significant number of pull-ups, it is still a good idea to use the negative pull-up and the assisted pull-up in your routines.

Loren Sheets

EXERCISE OF THE WEEK #42

HOW TO USE A BENCH TO TEACH STRENGTH TO KIDS

The final video for this short series on strength training for kids is how to incorporate a simple bench into the strength development of kids. We feel the best strength training we ever get in our lives is the strength we gain on the playground. I want to meet someone who is 40 years old who continued to play on the playground for 2-3 hours a day like when we were kids. Trust me they would be a physically fit to say the least.

Take the time out of your day to allow your kids to play on the playground. If you do not have time to go out to the park try doing little things like in this video to encourage them to use their bodies in a way that will help to make them strong.

We are going to close out the latest poll with what became the closest one we have to date. To review, the options were, which of the following would you choose if you could possess one of these attributes. First was the ability to run without ever getting tired. Second was Being able to eat whatever you wanted for the rest of your life without any negative side effects to your health. The final choice was the ability to lift extreme amounts of weights.

The final results came out like this:

Ability to Run without Getting Tired – 9 Votes, 47%

Ability to Eat Anything Without Side effects – 8 Votes, 42%

Ability to Lift Extreme Amounts  of Weights – 2 Votes, 11%

Working with the guys at train2move is always interesting when the new polls come out since I am in my mid 30′s and most of the other guys are around 20. They of course would have either voted to lift heavy weights or run without getting tired, so would I have when I was that age. However, now that I am older I can much more appreciate how important eating right is. Gone are the days of being able to work out for 4-6 hours a day like I did in High School only to stop for lunch and get my 2 Big Mac’s for 2 Bucks deal at McDonalds.

Nutrition is getting more and more difficult. Thanks to some changes I have made over the years I have been able to stay more or less healthy from the standpoint of weight, cholesterol, and other health factors that can relate to our eating habits. The ability to eat whatever we want without needing to worry about how it is going to impact our bodies is by far the most obvious choice of the 3.

I look at how easy it is to pack on ten pounds or how drastically we can impact every system in our bodies with poor eating choices and I wish it was just easier. It used to be. Think of how we ate 200 years ago. Lack of options for sure but at least most of them were not causing many of the health issues we face today.

So the choice was easy for me but I would love to be able to run without ever getting tired. Check out our new poll and let us know your thoughts.

Holiday Survival Tip – treadmill supplement exercises

It’s getting to be the time for the Holidays again. And that means parties, presents, family, and food. Lots of food. And little time for exercise. That can only mean one thing: weight gain. Yes, there are worse things that can happen, but who wants to go into a New Year discouraged about the couple extra pounds they put on over 2 weeks? Also, it can be too cold outside to get in a good run, or the ground might be icy and unsafe to run on.
Instead, what you might need to do is an old-fashioned treadmill run. Treadmills are safer than icy roads, and more enjoyable than freezing temperatures, if you happen to live in the Pacific Northwest. One thing you should be sure to do though when using a treadmill is to stop every ten minutes or so a do a couple quick moves to help out the efficiency of your hips. On a treadmill, your body is not actually moving forward, as opposed to running. Therefore, the impact on your legs can increase significantly. Stopping to do a couple different exercises every few minutes can drastically help out your lower legs as well as your upper body. Try doing these 5 moves at least every 10 minutes you run on a treadmill this winter.

Twisting Lunge Walk 20 steps – standing, place hands behind head and step one leg far out in front of body, dropping back knee to the floor and keeping chest up tall. Now twist entire torso so shoulders are parallel the side of the body of the front leg. Then continue stepping forward, bringing back leg through, and continue on other leg.

Lateral Lunge Walk 20 steps each direction – standing, drop hips into a squatting position, now take a long step to the side, keeping back flat and toes pointed forward. Bring other foot back under hips, keeping hips low through the entire range of motion.

Bear Crawl 20 steps – on hands and knees, keep back flat and alternate stepping forward with opposite hand and foot. Keep the knees close to the ground through the entire move.

Rotation High Knee Walk Forward and Backward 20 steps – standing, lift right leg out to the side and bring knee up, like stepping over a trashcan. Rotate entire leg around to front, keeping knee as high as possible through the entire move. Continue on other leg, then repeat going backwards.

Inchworm 5x – standing, reach hands down to ground, keeping legs straight. Now walk hands as far out as possible while keeing thighs flexed and back straight. Once in an extended position, begin walking feet back up towards hands. Remember to not leg the knees bend. Repeat.

Also, check out the store for several complete cardio programs with additional moves to incorporate muscular efficiency into your workout.

Loren Sheets

Here is the second guest post from Paul at Pacificpedaling.com. In this one he details how he was able to take a former love of his (cycling) and use it again to help him lose over 50 pounds! If you have not had a chance to do so, check out his blog. It is loaded with great cycling info and there are some cool pictures from local races his team has been competing in.

How Cycling Helped Me Lose 50 Pounds
Paul Lopez
pacificpedaling.com

In 1990, the year I got married, I was somewhere just over 190 lbs, which was a few pounds up from my high school days. Fast forward to the year 2007, 16 years later I was tipping the scales at just a pound or two under 260. I’d gained nearly 70 pounds in just under two decades. It was finally time for a change.

Like most people wanting to lose weight, I’ve been on the roller coaster ride of losing a few, and gaining them back, with no real plan of attack besides eating better and trying to get more exercise. The problem with telling yourself that you’ll eat better, is that can be a floating curve. The same is true about simply telling yourself to get a little more exercise. On top of that, I hate exercise, so that plan is bound to fail! But something needed to be done, so I started doing a little research.

I know that counting calories is not the end all, be all solution to losing weight and getting healthy, but for me, it was at least the start of some tangible measurement. When I stopped to add up what my day looked like, it was pretty frightening. Couple bowls of cereal in the morning, latte mid morning, (sometimes with a scone to go with it, ‘regular’ lunch out just about anywhere, and I could easily be pushing 2000 calories only halfway through the day. With another coffee drink, a big dinner, and a snack in the evening, I was regularly having 3000-4000 calorie days.

I set out to make a daily goal of eating less than 2000 calories each day, with the basic knowledge that any calories I didn’t burn, or expel some other way, would transform into additional pounds of fat on my body. Within the first couple weeks I dropped over 10 pounds and was excited about the realization that I could, in fact, control my weight if I simply made a plan and stayed with it.

However, I knew I would need to incorporate other elements into my plan. I started not only counting calories, but evaluating the types of calories I was taking in. I started drinking way more water than I normally did, which had previously been very little. I tried to eat more often during the day, in smaller meals, and I tried to stop eating altogether by 7 pm. To cap it off, I decided it was time to exercise.

As a kid I loved riding bikes, so I purchased a cheap WalMart bike and started getting out around the neighborhood, and immediately discovered that I still loved riding. Within a month or so, the bike started falling apart, so I upgraded to a Trek Navigator comfort bike and started adding in more miles.

Within the first month or so, I had been regularly doing a 12 mile loop near my home, riding in baggy sweats, garden gloves, and tennis shoes. Happily pedaling along on my comfort bike, dressing up in tight, bright clothes and locking my feet down to the pedals were the furthest things from my mind. I would never become one of THOSE cyclists, I was more of the fuddy duddy dad, happy to be on my comfort bike. Then I had a massive paradigm shift.

My younger brother left for two weeks on vacation. Before he left, he suggested I babysit his steel, Italian road bike and see if I like it. It was very much UNlike my comfort bike. It had dropbars instead of a nice upright wide handlebar. Super narrow tires compared to my big wide knobby balloon tires. Zero suspension as opposed to the fork and seat suspension of the Trek. And a seat that looked like it wouldn’t be comfortable to anyone at all, let alone a guy with a big backend, who’d be used to a wider, cushier saddle as he rode. “Looks can be deceiving,” my brother insisted.

The first time I took out the road bike, a hot looking, fire engine red Torelli, it felt foreign and unstable to me. The front end was squirrely, and I didn’t like leaning over the bike rather than sitting upright. Additionally, my butt and the tiny saddle didn’t agree. However, I noticed one thing that I did really like. The bike really responded to my pedaling. I felt like every ounce of energy I put into a pedal stroke, I was immediately getting back in performance of the bike. I began to realize that the big tires, both shocks, and the extra weight of my comfort bike were sucking up some of my energy. The trade off for a less comfortable ride, was a gain in performance….very much like a sports car vs a luxury sedan. I could get used to this.

The next day I took it out for a 20 mile ride. I had never been 20 miles, but figured I’d give it a shot since I had a ‘real’ bike to do it on. I was still in a funky, mismatched sweats and windbreaker outfit, but the bike looked good. I flew. Ok, in all actuality, I probably was doing 15 miles an hour or under the whole way, but to me, compared to my 10 mile an hour riding on the comfort bike, I was moving like the wind! And by the end of the ride, I was instantly addicted. I went out several days that week, and over the two weeks my brother was gone, logged 200 miles on his bike. After the first week I went to the local shop in town that had put his together for him, and asked him to build me it’s twin, and as quickly as possible!

As I said earlier in my post, I don’t enjoy exercise. I still hold true to that statement, with one exception, I love cycling. I started riding that comfort bike in early spring, and by late September I rode the 70 mile Livestrong Challenge, in a monsoon-like conditions. Additionally, along the way, with keeping an eye on my caloric intake, drinking water, making smarter food and meal choices and spending time on the bike 2-4 times a week, I had managed to lose 50 lbs, and felt TONS better. In a 6 month period of time, I had managed to turn my health completely around.

Fast forward two years and I still love cycling. I run a cycling blog, sponsor a cycling team, and even competed in multiple race series for the first time ever. My weight has waffled a little here and there, but I’ve managed to keep off 40-50 lbs over the past couple years. I won’t be going back to that crazy place I was at 2 years ago. Finding time to ride can be tricky, but I know how to eat smarter, and work in a couple workouts a week. I love helping other people discover the joy of cycling as well, and love to answer any questions about bikes or riding that I can.

Get out there and ride!

EXERCISE OF THE WEEK #41

LUNGES FOR KIDS

We now move to a lower body move for the kids. Lunges are in our opinion the best choice for lower body strength. For kids especially it has some many beneficial components such as balance, flexibility, power, and of course strength. Try different variations of the lunge such as side lunges or walking lunges. Next week will will show you how to incorporate some basic equipment to help improve the overall strength of your young athlete.

We have asked Paul, the Author of pacificpedaling.com to do a few guest posts for us. You will instantly see why. Paul is as passionate about his cycling as we are about our training. His blog is excellent and if you are at all interested in cycling, you need to take some time to go check it out. Here is the first of a few posts he will be doing for us. Please when you are done reading it, go check out what else he has done on his site. The pictures alone are worth a look.

The History and Evolution of A Cycling Blog
Paul Lopez
pacificpedaling.com

In the Spring of 2007, I set out on a serious effort to lose some weight. I had gained nearly 70 pounds over the 16 years I’d been married, and all my previous attempts at getting healthy ended like most folks experiences–either shortlived, or in rollercoaster fashion at best. I would need something to help me get out of that rut, and the internet proved to be an invaluable tool in doing just that.

I read an article about a very tangible way to lose weight by watching closely what you eat, counting the calories, and understanding how many a typical person needs for each day. The article made sense to me, and resonated with me as well, so I set out to give it a try, not really knowing what to expect. Surprisingly, it worked. I started dropping weight and was very excited about it, but I’d been there before and didn’t want to fail after just a few days, so I set up a sort of accountability for my efforts — I started blogging about it.

I launched a personal weightloss journal at http://weightlossgrace.blogspot.com/, and kept track of all the things I was doing to get healthy and lose weight. Additionally, I told all my friends about it, so they could keep checking in on me as well. If EVERYONE knew I was trying to do this, I’d be more inclined to succeed and not give up.

Over the course of the year and a half that I was journaling there, I realized that my posts had slowing started turning from meal plans and daily weigh-ins to stories about bikes, cycling and anything else having to do with two wheels. This change in postings reflected my thought process in life too. I had gone from thinking everyday about how to lose weight, to thinking “how can I get out on my bike today?”

In October of 2008 I launched PacificPedaling.com, a blog about cycling, bikes, and riding in this Pacific Northwest area we live in. Our goal was to not only write about what was going on, but also be a part of the cycling community in very real ways.

In April, we sponsored, and helped pull off the Union Street Bridge grand opening event in downtown Salem.

In September, the Pacific Pedaling sponsored cycling team began racing in the MTB Short Track races  and in October we began racing in two different Cyclocross Series.

As we end 2009 and look forward to 2010, the PacificPedaling blog is a sponsor of the Boys and Girls Club Junior Cycling squad, and team members have become part of the team of mentors and coaches that will help train the kids to ride a 100 Mile century ride this coming summer.

We’re looking forward to 2010 at PacificPedaling.com!

Here are some great pictures we wanted to share showing off the awesomeness of the Pacificpedaling.com Team.

One of our readers, Duane, sent in this great article from the New York Times regarding activity and our sleep patterns. This is a topic that everyone always assumed to be the case. I am one of those who realize that the harder my body works during the day, the quicker I will fall asleep and the better sleep I will get.

The article begins with some information on research done with kids but there is also this link to a study down on adults.

The article on the kids was interesting. They noticed a major correlation between the activity and how quickly the children fell asleep. The more activity they received, the quicker they fell asleep. The quicker we get to sleep the more likely we are able to get through our natural sleep cycles that allow for a true and complete rest at night.

Take a minute to check out the article. If you are not able to fall asleep quickly at night we have several recommendations for you. One is of course higher levels of activity during the day. Next is to do some exercise to unwind in the evening. We built our Am/Pm program for this very reason. Loren also posted on this Yesterday. Also just like everything else we talk about in regards to something not being right with your body, ask why. Why are you not falling asleep. Are you lying there thinking about the laundry list of things that you will need to do at work the next day? Try getting a pad and paper and just make a list.

Try to establish why you are not able to fall asleep and do your best to make the changes to allow for a great, restful night sleep. The health benefits are numerous and your family and co-workers will thank you for it!