July Babies Excercise Challenge

My fellow July Babies I see that you have been faithful in planning and posting your meal plans. Join me in an excercise challege from now to March 1st to see how we can increase the spark and become lean burning machines. Each evening I will post daily excercise tips and let you know what I have been doing to get my furnace fired up. "Aerobic" and "Anaerobic" Strictly speaking, the terms "aerobic" and "anaerobic" refer to the presence and absence of oxygen, respectively. Most cells of our body prefer to get the energy they need by using oxygen to fuel metabolism. During exercise with adequate fuel and oxygen (i.e., aerobic), muscle cells can contract repeatedly without fatigue. During anaerobic or non-oxygen conditions (higher intensity exercise), muscle cells must rely on other reactions that do not require oxygen to fuel muscle contraction. This anaerobic cell metabolism produces waste molecules that can impair repeated muscle contractions. We call this deterioration in performance fatigue. Fatigue causes you to experience added discomfort and weakening muscles. Eventually you will need to slow down and lower your exercise intensity. Slowing down allows the muscles to once again rely solely on aerobic metabolism and support the removal or chemical conversion of waste molecules. The problem with the terms "aerobic" and "anaerobic" when applied to exercise is that we actually never switch from total aerobic to total anaerobic metabolic conditions. In reality, the more intensely we exercise, the greater the need for anaerobic energy production to supplement aerobic energy production. Consequently, it is best to view the terms aerobic and anaerobic as transitions in metabolism, where the proportion between aerobic and anaerobic metabolism changes with changes in exercise intensity. For example, while at rest, we rely totally on aerobic metabolism to fuel almost all our body's needs for energy. As we start to exercise, such as progressing from sitting to a slow walk, the increased energy needs of muscle contraction require that we increase our breathing and oxygen intake. So long as we increase our exercise intensity slowly, we can maintain our muscles' dependence on aerobic metabolism, and we don't experience symptoms of fatigue. However, as exercise intensity increases, the need for energy release eventually exceeds that which can be supplied by aerobic metabolism. Our muscles simply need more reactions to support the energy demand. Therefore, anaerobic contribution to metabolism increases. When this happens, we refer to this change in metabolism as a metabolic threshold. This metabolic threshold represents the exercise intensity where we start to produce those waste products of anaerobic metabolism that can eventually lead to fatigue. You see this all the time when watching endurance Olympic events, such as a long distance running race. The athletes run at a pace that hovers around their metabolic threshold, and they can only afford to run faster than this pace near the end of the race. If they increase their pace too early in the race, then they fatigue too early and need to slow down to below their metabolic threshold to recover from the fatigue inducing waste products. This would result in poor performance. So how do these terms relate to you? Well, it depends on your cir****tance and goals. Most of us are non-competitive or non-elite active individuals, who just want to exercise to gain health benefits, feel good and possibly lose weight. Aerobic exercise conditions enable you to exercise for long periods of time, potentially benefiting from the sustained energy expenditure (i.e., calories burned). Aerobic exercise tends to be less stressful to muscles, joints, and your heart, which may be important for individuals with arthritis, heart disease, or high blood pressure. However, to more rapidly improve your exercise capacities, tolerance, and performance, some anaerobic exercise training is a necessity. Therefore, performing anaerobic exercise is typically more important for competitive athletes. When starting a training program, most trainers like to have their clients/athletes start with lower intensity exercise (i.e., aerobic exercise). However, a high reliance on anaerobic metabolism is unavoidable for some types of exercise or activities. For instance, lifting weights is anaerobic. That is why muscles fatigue so rapidly with this type of training. Other types of activities, such as walking up stairs, can also be anaerobic - especially if you are unfit or climb too fast. Fortunately, we do not need sophisticated equipment to detect when we transition from aerobic to anaerobic exercise. As we approach and pass our metabolic threshold intensity, we start to breath harder, we are forced to really concentration on the exercise/activity, and exercise simply becomes uncomfortable. However, if you simply love gadgets, you can use a heart rate monitor to record the heart rate at which you sense these symptoms of developing over-exertion. You then know that heart rates below this value occur when you're in your aerobic zone, and heart rates above this value reflect an increasing anaerobic contribution to your exercise bout. So waht have you done today? Mary In the words of Bill Phillips': "Exercise is the spark. Nutrition is the fuel. Without both, there can be no flame -- no results."

Okay this is what I have beendoing lately. Yesterdays workout consisted: 2.5 mile walk - wearing my heart monitor to stay within my target zone. 1 hr Salsa class 1 hr Pilates In addition, I have been standing on one leg while washing dishes and cooking to help strengthen my core. Todays workout: 30 minutes eliptical machine - interval training avg hr rate 143 Upper and lower strength training I continue to stand on one leg while washing dishes and cooking to help strengthen my core. Mary

Mary - Can you tell me a little more about standing on one leg and how it benefits you? How exactly do you stand on one leg - what I mean is what do you do with the other one so it's not too stressful on the lower back? Thanks for the article, it's very interesting. Hugs, Nancy 280/174/155

Nancy, By using only one foot, you force the core to stabilize and balance the body. This can be done without stress to the back as you can control how far you lift your foot and how long you can comfortably stand on one leg. Mary

Mary, Thank you for the very informative post. I envy you your exercise schedule. I, too, have been trying to strengthen my core by standing on one leg (alternating) while brushing my teeth and doing my morning bathroom ritual--amounts to about 2 minutes on each leg each day. I did only 45 minutes on the Gazelle. My monitor is broken so I can't be sure about distance as the monitor calculates, but I am trying to move my legs faster. I got very tired--fighting off a cold. Hope to be back to my hour tomorrow. It is snowing again tonight so there will be no outside walking for a while. Monna -160 glorious lbs.

Monna, Great job getting back into the swing of things. I still have problems balancing...especially when I do not concentrate....I feel like I am intoxicated. It is hard when you're trying to fight off a cold, that in and of itself can be hard on a body. I have confidence that you'll be back to your hour workout tomorrow! Keep up the good work. Mary -240 lbs, 5 lbs below docs goal, 28 lbs to personal goal.