Friday, May 27, 2011

Men, We Were Made to Move

I am forty years old and can easily do a dozen handstand pushups (BTW, handstand pushups against a wall is the absolute best upper body exercise for overall shoulder strength; not to mention that it also hits your triceps, upper back, and core). I also do dips, pullups, and hindu squats. All four bodyweight exercises are performed once a week in a high intensity 45 minute workout. I also run hard a couple of times a week in 10 minute bursts.

But. That is not enough to compensate for my sedentary work as I have learned recently. I need to diversify my physical activities as this article cogently demonstrates:

http://artofmanliness.com/2011/05/22/the-5-switches-of-manliness-physicality/

Disclaimer: I have the conviction that if someone performs more than one high intensity workout a week it is overtraining ("high intensity" properly defined by its original definition, e.g. Mike Mentzer). The point I am making is that the linked article above contends that we should be performing regular moving-activities throughout the day to break up the sedentary lifestyle that many of us bookworms possess.

10 comments:

  1. So how are your results on this training? I train about 2-3 times a week on weights and run about 2-3 times a week. I think I would be less tired if I worked out less but I want to know if I can still get fitness results (as in strength and health benefits) from this type of workout.

    ReplyDelete
  2. One easy way to do HIIT (high intensity interval training) is with a jump rope. I have read that a work to rest ratio of 2:1 is optimal. So start out with 45 seconds of jumping and 30 seconds of rest (total of 20 minutes). Slowly work up each week until you can do 1 minute of jumping with 30 seconds of rest (alternating for 20 minutes total).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Since May 21, I exercise spiritually.

    Now, where did I leave my spiritual cup cakes...

    ReplyDelete
  4. My fingers do hundreds of pushups a day on my laptop. I also wiggle my toes when I'm seated in front of the TV.

    That's followed by 10 sets of vigorous eyebrow raising/lowering, 5 sets of ear-twitching, and 2 sets of eyelash-batting.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Fat lethargic Christians: the sin that rarely makes it to the pulpit!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I experience considerable increased O2 consumption, increased CO2 production, increased ventilation rate, decreased arterial pH, increased venous PCO2, increased pulmonary blood flow, increased cardiac output, a more even ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) ratio distribution across my lungs, decreased physiological dead space in my lungs, and a right-shifted O2-hemoglobin dissociation curve when I run vigorously from my standing position at rest at the bus stop toward the bus pulling away from the curb. Also, panic.

    ReplyDelete
  7. If men were made to move, I suppose women were made to groove.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Will my exercising increase my carbon footprint?

    If so, then out of respect for Gaia and the danger of global warming, I shall have to restrict my exercise movements.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Disclaimer: I have the conviction that if someone performs more than one high intensity workout a week it is overtraining ("high intensity" properly defined by its original definition, e.g. Mike Mentzer)."

    It's about time a T-blogger started making sense. Amen and amen . . . or just "men".

    ReplyDelete