Rhode to Fitness

It's time for a timeout

2010-03-05T06:00:00.003-05:00

I will probably not be posting here for a while. I have come to realize that blogging is consuming too much of my limited time, and there are other things in my life right now that are priorities.

For those of you who have visited regularly and left comments, thank you so much. I have appreciated your interest and your feedback.

I wish all of you peace, happiness and good health.

Of relationships, rivalries and respect

2010-03-03T06:00:00.011-05:00

Much was made in the media during the Winter Olympics over the friendship — and rivalry — between skiers Lindsey Vonn of the United States and Maria Riesch of Germany. I wondered how hard it is for the two women to remain close when they are swapping places on the podium or, even worse, when one is dominating the podium.

And then I remembered that I personally know something about the subject of love and competition, because I introduced my soulmate and skimate, Marge Carl, to racing and she's been hot on the tails of my skis ever since! Marge has something I don't have — a national title in what has been billed as the world's largest recreational ski race.

In March 2007, just four years after taking to the gates for the first time, Marge was standing atop the podium at the NASTAR National Championships in Steamboat Springs, Colo., having the gold medal in her division placed around her neck by U.S. ski team member Steven Nyman (at left in photo, with former Olympian Doug Lewis crossing the stage).

It was a dream come true for the then-43-year-old resident of Richmond, R.I., who excitedly shared the news by cell phone with her parents as they sat poolside in Stuart, Fla.

Although she grew up in a skiing family and started skiing at age 8, Marge didn't get into racing at an early age, she said, because her father didn't want to waste the ski day waiting in line to race. The closest she came was a faux downhill race at age 12 at The Balsams resort in New Hampshire in which participants guessed how long it would take to ski straight to the bottom and whoever was closest to their prediction won. Her prediction was way off, she said, but her father won a pin and gave it to her, perhaps whetting her appetite for the hardware that was to come.

It would be nearly three decades before Marge would take on her first gate, in February 2003 on a cold and icy day at Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire, when she decided to try a coin-operated giant slalom course, hoping to catch me. Marge finished about 6 seconds behind me on that first run — an absurd margin for such a short course — but she was ready to go back up and try it again.

"I think I got the race bug that day," she said.

By the next year, Marge began participating in NASTAR, a recreational racing program offered at ski areas throughout the United States that allows participants to compare their times in a giant slalom course, at least theoretically, with those of the national pacesetter, who is usually a U.S. ski team member. Marge was by then thoroughly addicted to gates.

NASTAR participants are divided into categories — bronze, silver, gold, platinum — based on how close they come to the "par time," or the national pacesetter's time. Marge lingered in the bronze division for only a few races, then moved into silver.

She qualified for the National Championships at Steamboat by placing first in the 40-44 silver division at Wachusett Mountain in Princeton, Mass. Since I had qualified, too, at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, we decided to make the trip to Colorado for what we figured would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The championships would be a four-day affair of parties, concerts, ski movies, race clinics and, of course, racing. It was a chance for us mere mortals to hobnob with the likes of Phil Mahre, Diane Roffe (shown at left autographing Marge's race bib), Daron Rahlves, A.J. Kitt, Kaylin Richardson and other former and current U.S. ski team members. It was also an opportunity to meet fun people from all over North America who shared our love of skiing and ski racing.

"The qualification for nationals happened at a perfect time for me," Marge said. "At that time, I was transitioning from the silver to gold group."

Marge said that during the flight to Colorado, she was feeling pretty confident about her chances. "My goal was to get in the top three. I would have been thrilled with the third spot."

But racing at Steamboat would prove to be a far bigger challenge than at Wachusett or Bretton Woods or anywhere else that we had raced up to that point.

"Yikes," Marge said, recalling her thoughts upon first seeing the trail where our respective races would take place (at right, the second trail from left in foreground). It was not the steepest trail we had ever skied on, but was most definitely the steepest trail we would ever race on.

Marge admits that her confidence dipped just a bit, but come race day, she said, "I was pretty focused. I felt like I really wanted it." And, thinking about her parents in Florida, "I wanted to make them proud."

As for me on race day? Well, never mind, this story isn't about me. We'll just leave it that I finished dead last in my division (45-49 gold).

Marge, however, took on a tough course — on which Daron Rahlves had set a blistering pace — with, if not exactly full-blown confidence, the knowledge that she could handle it. The steepness and spring-like conditions that day made the racing more like survival skiing, and Marge (on course, below) survived better than the 12 others in her group. The event consisted of two days of racing, two runs each day, with the best run from each day counting toward the final result.

Marge looked at the leader board after the first day to find that she had the lead by .58 seconds. The next day, she topped her closest challenger by a whopping 1.55 seconds, sealing her championship victory.

That night at the medals ceremony, we waited in the cold and rain for three hours until Marge's division was finally called. She took her place atop the podium to receive her gold medal, a nice Descente jacket, some new ski poles, and the admiration of other skiers, most of all me. She had come a long way since that day at Cannon Mountain just four years earlier, and I couldn't have been prouder.

You're a true champ, Marge, and I'll always welcome the competition you bring to our racing.

The biggest names you've never heard

2010-02-27T06:00:00.014-05:00

I don't know about you, but I'm suffering from a bad case of Olympics fatigue. I can't take any more tiaras, tears, shin-anigans, pouty Russians, lascivious snowboarders or cigar-puffing women. I was beginning to think maybe I had missed the addition of boorish behavior as a medal sport.

So I thought today might be a good time to take a look at a couple of athletes who embody the Olympic spirit perhaps more than those who have been training their whole lives for it. I remember watching the opening ceremonies two weeks ago as an alpine skier from Ghana proudly entered BC Place stadium. Ghana in the Winter Games? Skiing? Well, why not.

Here's Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, who is expected to take part in today's slalom, making a pretty compelling argument for why he has as much right to ski in the Olympics as Bode Miller, Carlo Janka or Didier Defago.

And then there's Marjan Kalhor, the first female athlete from Iran to compete in the Winter Olympics. She was last among the finishers in the giant slalom on Thursday and in yesterday's slalom, but was happy and proud to be representing her country at the Games. Now that's class.

Words to live by

2010-02-20T06:00:00.003-05:00

American figure skater Johnny Weir clearly marches to the proverbial beat of a different drummer.

He has been a polarizing figure in the world of figure skating, raising eyebrows with some of his unconventional costumes and his outspokenness. When he finished sixth Thursday night in the men's competition, the crowd audibly registered its displeasure with the judges.

But Weir seems comfortable in his own skin, something for which no medals are awarded.

"You must always be yourself and always enjoy what you are doing ... You can't care what anyone else thinks because really there is no basis for that in your life. You have to live your life for yourself. So even when I was little I was playing on a soccer team and running the complete opposite way pretending to be a zebra, an ostrich or something. So I have always been like this."

— Johnny Weir

Fit to be the best

2010-02-18T07:18:00.012-05:00

A big congratulations to American skier Lindsey Vonn, who yesterday won gold in the women's downhill, beating the competition by an impressive margin and outskiing the weight of the expectations heaped on her by the U.S. media before the start of the Winter Games.

It's worth noting here that Vonn owes much of her success on the mountain these past few years to her training off of it. She is widely considered the fittest woman on the World Cup circuit, spending countless hours at the gym working on her strength, endurance and balance.

You can find a look at Lindsey in the gym here.

Let the Games begin!

2010-02-13T06:00:00.002-05:00

There was a time when I loved watching the Olympics, but not so much anymore. I realized this last night when just 28 minutes into the opening coverage of the Winter Games in Vancouver, I found myself thoroughly bored. Granted, I was perhaps rushing to judgment, since last night's broadcast had very little to do with sport and much to do with pomp and circumstance, which I've never been terribly fond of.

Less than an hour into the broadcast, there had already enough faux intrigue and drama to make me turn my attention to other matters. Whatever happened to just covering sport for sport's sake?

Instead, the network parcels out its coverage in small doses of feel-good narratives, interspersed between monstrously expensive commercials.

It was hard last night to watch athletes from country after country come parading into BC Place stadium, all smiles and waving flags and bright colors, just hours after luger Nodar Kumaritashvili of Georgia had lost his life in an Olympic training accident that was sickening in its suddenness and violence.

Life does not always lend itself to tidy narratives.

Saints kick it up a notch

2010-02-08T09:03:00.012-05:00

I've always liked that saying "without risk, there can be no reward."

Well if ever there were a perfect real-life illustration of that principle, it was last-night's gutsy Super Bowl win by the New Orleans Saints.

The onside kick by the Saints to open the second half was sheer brilliance. They could have kicked deep, as nearly any other team would have, and then most likely would have watched the Indianapolis Colts march methodically down the field for a score, as only the Colts can do.

But no, the Saints took a risk — a huge risk — and it payed off, big-time.

The Saints showed that they are the best, and they did it in truly super fashion.

Words to live by

2010-02-06T06:00:00.001-05:00

There have been times in my life when I have been so afraid of failure, or injury, or some other negative outcome that hasn't yet happened — and probably won't — that I have decided against participation in an event. And then I was left to wonder what could have been, if only I had trusted in myself more.

Retired hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky didn't become known as "The Great One" by not taking chances.

"You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take."

— Wayne Gretzky

This ice rink is anything but cold

2010-02-03T06:00:00.006-05:00

One of the many things I like about being physically active is that it gives me an opportunity to meet interesting people. I think someone who is active, who regularly gets out of the house and engages with the world, who physically challenges himself or herself, is more likely to be happy and interesting than someone who doesn't.

One place where such active and interesting people can be found is the University of Rhode Island's Bradford R. Boss Arena, which offers a variety of public skating programs on weekdays. Skating at the arena on a weekday morning, as Marge and I were fortunate enough to be able to do last Friday, is nothing like skating there on weekends, when skate-clad tots supported by milk crates present some serious challenges, and teenagers playing tag terrorize almost all of us.

But on weekday mornings, the arena is a frozen oasis occupied by only a handful of people — people like Martha Simoneau, 58, at left, a former roller dancer (I didn't even know there was such a thing!) who said she traded her wheels for blades five years ago after the roller rinks in Rhode Island closed.

Simoneau can usually be found at the Boss Arena a couple of times a week, or "when work permits," meticulously practicing the figure skating routines she learned during two years of lessons.

Or people like Ray Cox, 69, of Hopkinton, at right with yours truly, who said he took up skating nine years ago and now goes to the rink four or five times a week.

With his wide-brimmed hat and equally wide smile, Cox is a focal point as he carves figures at the center of the ice with a boyish enthusiasm.

"Age is just a number," he says. "Just get out there and do it."

Yeah, I like that motto. I might not be out there doing triple axels, but I'm out there doing it, and meeting some fun people along the way.

So you want to be a downhill racer?

2010-01-30T09:01:00.012-05:00

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to ski faster than most people drive?

Well thanks to former Austrian ski racer Hans Knauss, we can get a sense of what it would be like, as he streaks down the Streif course in Kitzbühel, Austria, before the famed Hahnenkamm downhill race last week with a camera in hand.

The Hahnenkamm is easily the most difficult — and dangerous — course on the World Cup circuit. Racers hit speeds of up to 90 mph, and crashes there have nearly claimed the lives of a few men and ended the careers of many more.

Keep in mind as you watch that Knauss is not going nearly as fast as the racers would be, because he's not in a full aerodynamic tuck and is carrying a camera, which he deftly swings backward a few times to give us an interesting perspective.

His trip does not start until about 53 seconds into this video, and his narration is in German. But the adrenaline rush will be universally understood.

The power of tunes

2010-01-28T00:15:00.000-05:00

Those who know me are well aware that I'm not an early adopter of technology or trends. Still, it might surprise even some of them to hear that I only recently discovered the joys of working out while connected to an iPod.

I was probably so late to the party because I don't like to be plugged in and tuned out; in other words, I like to be fully aware of my surroundings at all times. I'll never understand why people think it's OK to ski or ride a bike, for example, while listening to an iPod. It's simply not safe, in my opinion.

But at the gym, what harm could come of it? Besides, I was tired of listening to some of the drama being played out there, as well as the obnoxious grunts and the sound of dumbbells slamming to the floor. (Note to dumbbell-tossers: If you have to throw them to the floor when you're done with your set, they're probably too heavy for you.)

So last week I finally plugged myself in and was amazed at the difference it made in my gym experience. Not only could I no longer hear the aforementioned annoyances, but I felt stronger. I was lifting more, and tiring less quickly. It was like an auditory injection of steroids. (Note to the metaphor-impaired: Let me state for the record that I am unequivocally opposed to the use of performance-enhancing substances, including all those dubious over-the-counter supplements that so many gyms hawk.)

Afterward, I decided to put together a playlist of "power tunes," favorite songs that I thought might give me a boost while working out. I'll share my list here, and feel free to share yours, too, if you have one. Or, you can register your opinion on the subject of music-enhanced workouts with the new poll you'll find at left.

My list is admittedly a bit dated, because my favorite genre is classic rock. And I should note that there is one favorite song missing from my list, AC/DC's "Who Made Who." That's because AC/DC is not available on iTunes, and I lost my AC/DC "Live" CD to a rental car in Las Vegas a few years ago. (Note to rental car guys: I've had your stupid car for a week. Do you think you could spare more than 30 seconds to allow me to retrieve my belongings from it before you shove me aside and drive off?)

Without further ado, here's my power playlist:

"The Rising," Bruce Springsteen
"Houses of the Holy," Led Zeppelin
"Lessons," Rush
"I'm the Only One," Melissa Etheridge
"Lawyers, Guns and Money," Warren Zevon
"Back in the Saddle," Aerosmith
"Cream," Prince
"Jealous Again," The Black Crowes
"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," Iron Butterfly
"Until it Sleeps," Metallica
"Pretend We're Dead," L7
"Beast of Burden," The Rolling Stones
"Won't Get Fooled Again," The Who
"It Can Happen," Yes
"Sweet Child O' Mine," Guns N' Roses

This story shouldn't stay in Vegas

2010-01-25T06:00:00.002-05:00

I don't normally channel-surf, but fortunately yesterday was one of those rare exceptions, because I stumbled upon an amazing bit of history being made. It was ESPN's live broadcast from Las Vegas of the Professional Bowlers Association Tournament of Champions, in which Kelly Kulick became the first woman to win a PBA title.

Kulick was already something of PBA trailblazer, having become the first woman to qualify to compete on the men's tour, back in 2006. She went into the record books in resounding fashion yesterday with a 265-195 victory over Chris Barnes that included 10 strikes. Even Barnes looked choked up by what he was witnessing, and not because he was watching $40,000 and a prestigious title slip from his grasp.

Kulick's feat should bode well for the future of women's bowling, which has struggled since the Professional Women's Bowling Association folded in 2003 due to a lack of sponsorship.

Bowling is a sport in which the best women should be able to compete well against the best men. It is, after all, a sport that rewards focus, accuracy and consistency over power. Still, it would be nice if there were enough interest and sponsorship to support a women's tour again.

Kulick's win yesterday should go a long way toward ratcheting up the interest.

Words to live by

2010-01-23T07:44:00.011-05:00

Inertia can be a powerful force. Have you ever been in a job or a relationship or some other situation that wasn't making you happy, but yet found it hard to leave, if for no other reason than things had "always been that way"?

If not, consider yourself lucky. But I've been there, done that, so maybe that's why I found myself chuckling at the following comment from Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, as quoted in the Jan. 18 issue of Newsweek, explaining why has was leaving the Senate after four decades in politics.

"I don't want to be here at 80 sucking Cream of Wheat through a straw."

— Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.

The tarnished gold standard

2010-01-22T06:00:00.007-05:00

This was pretty predictable, given the great American obsession with success in the Olympics, but I saw a story the other day with the headline "Will 2010 Games become the Vonncouver Olympics?" The play on words was a reference to Lindsey Vonn, the talented American skier who is currently battling it out with her close friend Maria Riesch of Germany for the lead in the overall World Cup standings.

"The what standings?" you ask. Don't worry, you're not alone. Even if you're a skier, if you're not a fan of ski racing, you probably have no idea that there are a whole host of races and events every year, and not just every four years when the Winter Olympic Games come around.

This is especially true in the United States, where it's almost as if ski racing didn't exist, except for the Olympics. That's one reason why that headline bothered me, because we've gone this route before, mostly notably in 2006, when Bode Miller arrived in Turin, Italy, as a favorite — at least as far as the American press was concerned — to sweep all five Olympic skiing events, but left without a single medal.

So was Bode a failure? There's no point in delving into that question, particularly since all things Bode can get a bit complicated. But I do know that were I to ask any male racer on the World Cup circuit which prize in skiing he covets the most, he might just as readily answer the Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbühel, Austria, as any Olympic gold medal. Female racers would probably say it was the overall world cup title, something Lindsey Vonn has won the last two years.

If Vonn doesn't win a single medal in the mountains near Vancouver next month, she will still rank as the most successful female ski racer in U.S. history to date.

So if you're not a skier, you're probably saying, "Who cares?" Well, like most of my seemingly obscure posts here, I see a parallel to our everyday lives. This occurred to me a couple of nights ago when my partner's niece called to tell us that she had made the dean's list at the University of Vermont. While I was genuinely happy for Chrissy, I said to her, "Congratulations, but we were very proud of you already."

Chrissy reminds me of my own niece, Stephanie, who recently completed graduate school and embarked on a career as a physical therapist. They are both highly intelligent, talented, genuine and compassionate young women whom I admire — the sort of people who make you think, "If only there were more like them in this world, the world would be a better place."

My point is, I think we focus too much on outcomes, the "gold medals" in our own lives — the high test score or job promotion or whatever marker of success we happen to be striving for — and not enough on the process, the small accomplishments that make us who we truly are. Gold medals are perhaps overrated.

Lindsey Vonn is a ski hero no matter what happens in the upcoming Winter Games. And my nieces Chrissy and Stephanie are everyday heroes, dean's list or not.

Some thought for food

2010-01-19T20:21:00.038-05:00

The New York Times recently resurrected a post that had originally appeared in 2008 called "The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating." The headline might have overstated the case a bit, because as it turned out, I regularly eat 6 of the 11 foods.

The ones on the list that don't at least occasionally make it to my plate were beets, cinnamon, prunes, turmeric and canned pumpkin. Of those that I do eat, Swiss chard happens to be my favorite vegetable and typically accompanies my meals once or twice a week. The other foods on the list that I enjoy were cabbage, pomegranate juice, pumpkin seeds, sardines, and frozen blueberries.

As I read the list, it occurred to me how easy it is to incorporate most of these foods into our diets, with very little effort and expense.

I started thinking about convenience foods, and how we so often turn to them because they seem easy. But really, how hard would it be to open a can of sardines and steam some Swiss chard, and then serve up a dish of frozen blueberries for dessert? It would provide a quick meal with far more nutritional value than that frozen dinner loaded with sodium.

Of course in order to do such a thing, you would have to have sardines in the cupboard, Swiss chard in the refrigerator and blueberries in the freezer. Healthy eating is in many ways about preparedness. When we're caught with our guard down, it's too easy to make bad choices.

Take those late-afternoon cravings for sweets at work, for instance. If we're not prepared, they too often end up in a trip to the vending machine or the nearby doughnut shop. But make sure you don't leave home without some sweet raisins, or a juicy piece of fresh fruit, and those other options no longer seem as tempting.

Healthy eating doesn't require a lot of work, just a little thought.

Whatever happened to Vinko Bogataj?

2010-01-16T08:26:00.014-05:00

"Who?" you ask. OK, what if I said the "agony of defeat" guy? "Oh right, him," you're probably nodding — the unfortunate ski jumper who became the iconic figure of failure in the opening footage of ABC's Wide World of Sports for many years.

Vinko Bogataj never came back after his 1970 crash to achieve success as a ski jumper, but he is apparently still alive and well, living in his native Slovenia and enjoying a tamer pursuit — painting.

Soaring with the men

2010-01-14T06:00:00.038-05:00

With the 21st Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, less than a month away, it will soon be time to showcase some of the world's best athletes, right? Well, not exactly, because there's one group of highly skilled athletes who you won't be seeing in these games: female ski jumpers.

A group of female ski jumpers filed suit in 2008 to be allowed to participate in the Vancouver games after the International Olympic Committee voted not to include women's ski jumping in 2010. The women pursued redress in the Canadian courts based on the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which, among other things, bans discrimination based on gender. In the end, they were denied when Canada's Supreme Court declined, without comment, to hear appeals of lower-court rulings that the charter does not apply to the selection of Olympic events.

The International Olympic Committee based its decision not to include women's ski jumping in Vancouver on what it said were technical criteria, in that there were two few elite competitors and too few countries that would compete to justify its inclusion. The committee left the door open to including women's ski jumping in the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

Let's face it, ski jumping is a pretty obscure sport, at least in North America. If they were asked to name a jumper, most people, including myself, would probably be hard-pressed to name anyone other than perhaps Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, the British jumper who made a name for himself in the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary by being endearingly bad.

Ski jumping has been, since its first inclusion in the Olympics in 1924, largely a sport of European men.

Among the other compelling theories that have been advanced about why the women were not allowed to compete in Vancouver is that there would be no money to be gained from it. The Olympic Games are a big source of advertising dollars, and those dollars usually chase the biggest events and the biggest names in sport.

But when all is said and done, I have to wonder, too, whether the women were not included because they pose a threat to the good-old-boys network. In most sports, were the best women allowed to compete against the best men, in almost all instances the women would lose — and lose in a pretty sound manner.

Ski jumping could have a very different outcome, however. Lindsey Van (shown above), an American jumper and one of the plaintiffs in the Canadian court case, holds the North American distance record — 171 meters, or 563 feet — and also has jumped farther than anyone — man or woman — on the 90-meter jump built for the Vancouver games.

Is it just coincidence that the IOC denied her bid to compete on the very hill on which she holds the record? We probably will never know. Van is now 25 years old, and it is doubtful that she would be a participant in the 2014 Games, should women be included by then.

Time travels

2010-01-12T06:00:00.021-05:00

As I have previously mentioned, I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, but I have to admit, there is something about a new calendar year that triggers some innate desire in me to become more organized.

This annual ritual manifested itself this past week in my going through old photo albums, weeding out photos that had become so faded as to be unrecognizable, those that were redundant, and even a few that reminded me of times I'd rather forget. I had long been concerned about the strain that this ever-growing collection was placing on the closet shelves.

As I sorted through my photos, something became immediately apparent: I have traveled a lot over the years. This started early in life, when I was a mere passenger on my parents' journeys, but continued throughout my adulthood, when I was the one charting and steering the course.

I still travel as often as I can, now with my partner, but in looking at my old photos, I found a special satisfaction in recalling the trips I took by myself. Maybe this is nothing more than a bit of smugness, since so many of my friends have lamented that they'd like to travel, but have no one with whom to go. But I think it's more than that.

I have always had a case of wanderlust, that delightful word of German origin that means a strong desire to travel. I am often thinking about, and planning for, that next trip, even if it's years away.

There was a brief time when I became concerned that I was using travel to escape something, but I soon realized that was not the case. Escape is wanting to know less, not more. Travel allows us to learn — about other people and places, and if we permit it, ourselves. There is so much to learn, and I want to learn more.

My period of solo travel took me to some places that would be at home on any list of tourist destinations: Toronto, Ontario; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and the stunning national parks of Utah.

But there were a few trips that raised some eyebrows, such as that week in October when I rented a cabin in the woods in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, or the year I flew out to Winnipeg, Manitoba for a week of exploration (I was told more than once that even Canadians wouldn't think of vacationing in Winnipeg!).

A lot of my friends didn't understand why I wanted to go to some of these places, or why I wanted to go anyplace by myself. They would utter that word — "You're going alone?" — as if it was some sort of medical condition to be avoided.

But what I found over the years was that if you want to truly get to know yourself, it's best accomplished without the company of others.

Along the way, I met some wonderful people, learned about different places, and saw many beautiful sights. Others may have scoffed at some of my choices of destinations, but I will never forget the simple beauty of the Manitoba prairie as seen from a train, endlessly reaching toward the equally expansive sky.

Nor will I forget the mournful sound of the wind whistling through Frijoles Canyon in New Mexico, as storm clouds gathered on the horizon and I sat alone, feeling so insignificant and so powerful at the same time.

And then there was my stay in a tiny cabin alongside the Spanish River in northern Ontario, where I had gone for a retreat. I had the privilege of seeing the aurora borealis light up the night sky and the next morning was awakened by the sharp crack of a beaver's tail slapping the water just a few feet from the cabin's door. I looked out into into the early-morning fog, feeling utterly content in the solitude of the moment.

I am enjoying travel now from a different perspective, with my partner, and I hope we will be fortunate enough to continue to travel together throughout our remaining years.

Travel is exercise for the soul.

'Hey Jude' makes it better in Newark

2010-01-09T06:00:00.002-05:00

I love those feel-good moments when adversity brings out the best in people. It seems like such moments don't happen often enough, or maybe we're just more likely to hear about the bad than the good.

So when a Transportation Security Administration officer let his guard down at Newark Liberty International Airport last Sunday and some jerk decided to duck a rope and enter a secured gate area through an exit, things could have ended very badly. As it was, passengers in Terminal C were forced to leave and be re-screened, prompting a seven-hour debacle in which police hunted in vain for the man, flights were canceled, and strangers were jammed together in some pretty uncomfortable places. It's the stuff of travel nightmares.

But instead of the usual fistfights or shouting matches one might expect to break out, some passengers broke instead into song. This video gives me hope for humanity.

Tired of just sitting around

2010-01-07T06:00:00.005-05:00

Unfortunately I saw the old year out and welcomed in the new one with a case of bronchitis that has sidelined me from work and play, and, of course, working out.

Day Ten of doing absolutely nothing finally got to me. I could almost feel my muscles withering away, so I wanted to do something, anything, for exercise that wouldn't cause my lungs to explode or my heart to feel like it wanted to leap out of my chest. Just something to get me up off the sofa or out of bed and moving again.

So I was mentally going through all of the exercises I could think of it when it hit me: wall sits. What better exercise for someone who's supposed to be recuperating than sitting, only without a chair!

I remember first hearing about this exercise many years ago, while reading about how some of the U.S. ski team members would have wall-sit contests to see who could endure the longest. I was impressed at the time that some of them could go for as long as 45 minutes or an hour. I had tried it myself and was lucky to last a minute.

Well it turns out that while 45 minutes might be quite impressive for the average person, or even the typical world-class ski racer, it's nothing compared with what the world-record-holder accomplished. That would be Dr. Thienna Ho, who managed to perform a wall sit for 11 hours, 51 minutes and 14 seconds in San Francisco in 2008. The mere thought of that makes my quads scream.

Here are some photos of her as she sat for the record and visitors stopped by to wish her well and pose with her.

Dr. Thienna went for the record to honor her late mother, who spent the last three years of her life confined to bed because of an autoimmune disorder. Dr. Thienna, incidentally, also holds the record for the most sumo squats performed in an hour — 5,135.

It you want to learn more about how to do a proper wall-sit, take a look here. It's not as easy as it looks, so take it easy at first while building up endurance.

Are you an apple or a pear?

2010-01-05T06:00:00.003-05:00

I suppose immediately after the holiday season isn't the best time to bring up the subject of waist and hip measurements.

Or maybe it's the ideal time, as those who have overindulged over the last month or so head to the gym in droves, at least until February or March. Most are probably going to be watching the numbers on a scale, but there are a couple of other numbers that are even more important to pay attention to.

You've probably heard that old saying that it's better to be pear-shaped than apple-shaped, but what does it really mean? It refers to the fact that excess body fat around the abdominal area has been shown to be a greater health risk than fat around the hips.

Studies have shown that people who carry a lot of excess abdominal fat (the apples) are at much greater risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other serious health problems than those who carry excess fat around the hips (the pears).

To perform a little reality check of your own, all you need is a tape measure, a mirror or an assistant to help you place the tape measure in the right places, and an online calculator, such as this one (it introduces yet another fruit analogy, the avocado, which is somewhere between pear and apple).

So go ahead, and don't be afraid. Calculating your waist-to-hip ratio is a useful tool to help you assess potential risks to your future health. There's no better time to do that than the present.

Happy New Year — every day!

2010-01-01T10:44:00.002-05:00

I've never been a big fan of New Year's resolutions, although I have dabbled in them. I eventually swore them off after noticing an unsettling pattern involving both my resolutions and those of my friends.

Our resolutions always started off positively enough — we were going to get in better shape, eat better, do a better job of staying in touch with family and friends, etc. — and we for some reason saw the new year as the perfect time to commit ourselves to changing our ways.

Now don't get me wrong: I applaud anyone who is aware enough to realize that their life could probably be improved in some way. My problem with New Year's resolutions is not with the resolutions themselves, but with their timing.

I can remember sitting around in mid-December, contemplating the arrival of another new year, thinking about what I would like to change, starting when the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31. Why was I waiting? I could have just as easily started working on my resolutions on December 15 or 19, or even August 15. But I didn't. I waited for the new year.

Another thing I noticed was that once the new year had begun, should the effort to change whatever it was that I or my friends were working on falter, the resolution would be completely tossed aside. "Oh well, there's always next year," seemed to be the unspoken sentiment.

When it comes to bettering our lives, I don't see the relevance of the Gregorian calendar. If we instead regard a year as a period of 365 days, then every day is a new year, and a chance to accomplish our goals and realize our dreams.

So happy new year — today, tomorrow, and every day.

Trampling their fans' hopes

2009-12-29T08:36:00.002-05:00

It's hard, as a New England Patriots fan, to express sympathy for Indianapolis Colts fans. After all, we haven't liked each other much over the years.

But after the Colts lost to the New York Jets on Sunday, I could understand the venom being spewed on the various Colts forums, although much of it was over the top, as it often is in such places.

The Colts were looking like they had a very good chance at tying the Patriots' record for an undefeated regular season (16-0) and then going on to win the Super Bowl, which the Patriots were unable to do after their stellar 2007 season.

Instead, on Sunday the Colts chose to pull some of their starters, including quarterback Peyton Manning, with 5:36 left to go in the third quarter, in what was up until then a close game. The Jets ended up winning, 29-15.

The coach's rationale was that he didn't want his key players to get injured before the playoffs in what was essentially a meaningless regular-season game. Try telling the Colts fans who had paid good money to watch a piece of history being made, or at least to watch a shot at history in the making, that the game was meaningless. I don't blame them for being angry. Now they are left to wonder what might have been, had Manning and the others who have made so many improbable comebacks before been left in the game.

At any elite level of sport, games and events should be played to win. Holding back goes against the spirit of sport.

Words to live by

2009-12-26T06:00:00.003-05:00

Now that the gifts are opened and the stampede of store returns begins, perhaps it's time to put things in perspective.

I've always loved stories about people who triumph over the most impossible of odds, so the story of Helen Keller was one that always moved me. Sometimes the pressures and commercialism of this season overshadow the things that truly matter, like good health, family, friendships and love.

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."

Helen Keller

It's time to drink up!

2009-12-23T07:00:00.004-05:00

No, I don't mean alcohol, even though it does seem to be the season for that sort of thing.

It's also the season for a friendly reminder about the importance of staying hydrated during winter activities.

Not surprisingly, it's much easier to keep proper hydration in mind when it's 90 degrees and we're sweating up a storm while playing tennis or going for a run than when we're skiing or snowshoeing in the subfreezing cold.

But body fluids can be lost during exercise in the cold just as easily as in the heat. You know those vaporous exhalations that are a trademark of winter breathing? That's water being lost. Cold weather also makes us urinate more frequently, promoting dehydration.

It's always a good idea to drink plenty of fluids, preferably water, before and during any vigorous cold-weather activity. Remember, if you wait until you feel thirsty to start drinking, it's too late — you're already dehydrated.

Cheers, and have a merry Christmas.

This snowwoman is not abominable

2009-12-19T06:00:00.002-05:00

I know this puts me at odds with most of my friends and acquaintances, but I love snow. So I'm pretty excited that the National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for southern Rhode Island for late this afternoon and tonight.

Call me overly optimistic, but I'm dreaming of going out tomorrow and playing in the snow like a child again.

Now if I could just round up a few hundred friends, borrow some heavy equipment, and take a few days off from work, I might have a shot at challenging the residents of Bethel, Maine, who in 2008 built the world's tallest snowwoman. Olympia, as she was named, stood 122 feet, 1 inch tall and weighed an estimated 13 million pounds. She melted in July 2008, but her legacy lives on.

A treadmill tip

2009-12-17T06:00:00.005-05:00

Now that the weather has turned cold, some of you regular walkers have probably resorted to using a treadmill, either at the gym or in your home.

That's all well and good, and you probably think it's pretty much the same thing as walking outdoors, minus the good scenery, right? But if that's the case, why do I see so many people at my gym grasping the bar at the front while walking on the treadmill?

When you walk naturally, your arms swing freely, right? And that's how it should be on the treadmill as well. Holding onto the bar at the front puts the body in a forward-leaning position that compromises proper body mechanics for walking.

Good posture and spinal alignment are important when walking, whether outdoors or on a treadmill. If you find you do not have the balance to walk on a treadmill without holding onto the bar, you might want to consider another vehicle for your aerobic exercise, such as a stationary bicycle.

As with all activities in the gym, good form is everything.

Words to live by

2009-12-12T06:00:00.007-05:00

I'll be the first to admit that I can be a little too competitive for my own good, sometimes even making a contest out of something that has no rightful place in competition. So I had to laugh when I came across this quote from one of my sports idols, tennis great Martina Navratilova.

It's funny because it's so true. Who doesn't want to be a winner?

"Whoever said, 'It's not whether you win or lose that counts,' probably lost."

— Martina Navratilova

My head trumps the heart-rate monitor

2009-12-11T06:00:00.001-05:00

I've long wondered about the accuracy of those heart-rate monitors on treadmills, elliptical trainers and stationary bicycles — you know, the kind where you wrap your hands around a metal bar and a few seconds later your heart rate is displayed.

This past weekend, while doing a blast of cardio on one of the Expresso bicycles at my gym, the bicycle showed my heart rate to be 181 at one point, as I navigated a rather difficult video course. Now this might have been a cause for concern, seeing as how a heart rate of 181 is 12 beats above what my maximum heart rate should be if I follow the standard formula (220 minus age). But I wasn't concerned at all, because I've gotten into the habit of monitoring my intensity during aerobic activity by using something known as the Borg Scale.

The Borg Scale enables you to rate your level of exercise intensity based on your perception of how hard you're working.

The original Borg scale goes from 6 to 20, with 7 representing "very, very light" intensity, 13 being "somewhat hard," 15 being "hard" and 19 being "very, very hard." A revised Borg Scale with ratings from 1 to 10 was also developed, but I prefer the original because it roughly corresponds to heart rate when multiplied by 10. In other words, a rating of 13 on the original Borg scale would correspond to a heart rate of 130 beats per minute, a rating of 15 would represent a heart rate of about 150, and so on.

For the average person engaging in aerobic activity, a range of 12 to 16 on the original Borg Scale represents an appropriate exercise intensity, according to the American Council on Exercise.

During my aforementioned ride, when the bike put my heart rate at 181, I would have rated my level of exertion on the original Borg scale at 15, which is why I wasn't concerned about the heart-rate information displayed on the bike. Conversely, there have been times when I've been on the treadmill or elliptical trainer and it's displayed a low heart rate, about 115 or so, even though I was sweating and feeling like I was working pretty hard. Given a choice, I'll listen to what my head has to say over the heart-rate monitors on such machines.

Now I'm not recommending that anyone disregard the information displayed by any heart-rate monitor. I'm just saying that it's often helpful to supplement that information with a reality check of your own. Using the Borg Scale is an easy way to do that. And if you're still concerned that your heart rate might be too high, I would recommend simply stopping your activity briefly and checking your heart rate by palpating the pulse at your neck or at your wrist.

The more information you have, the better the decision you will be able to make. That's true of many of life's situations, both inside and outside the gym.

Looking for some weighty advice?

2009-12-08T06:00:00.005-05:00

Sorry, but you won't find any here, at least not today. But I did do a little guest blogging over the weekend at projo.com, where I wrote about how fitting resistance training into our lives becomes even more important as we reach midlife and beyond. You can read all about it here.

So what are you waiting for? Please move along folks, there's nothing to see here.

Holding the line against conformity

2009-12-05T08:11:00.009-05:00

A game between Florida State University and the University of Florida last week produced one of the more bizarre moments I've even seen in football. Maybe Florida State right tackle Zebrie Sanders has been flagged a few too many times for false starts, or maybe he's catching up on that sleep he missed while studying for exams. In any case, he seems momentarily oblivious to the world around him.

When dreams and reality collide

2009-12-04T06:00:00.011-05:00

Back here I promised that I'd someday tell the story of what happened on a ski trip to Lake Louise, in Alberta, Canada. I figured what better time to do it than today, as the resort prepares to host two women's World Cup downhills and a Super G this weekend.

Like other trip-down-memory-lane posts that I've done, I suppose you could say this one has a moral, of sorts. For now let's just file it under the heading of "be careful what you wish for."

For years, Lake Louise had been my dream ski destination, in large part because of its reputation for having the most beautiful lift-served scenery in North America. In those reader polls that ski magazines like to run every year, Lake Louise was rated number one for scenery almost without fail. One reader even went so far as to describe Lake Louise as "burst-into-tears beautiful." I liked that description.

As it would turn out, I did burst into tears during my trip there, but my outburst was triggered not by the rugged beauty of the Canadian Rockies, but rather by an overwhelming sense of fear, failure and disappointment. This is an embarrassing story for me to tell, so maybe it should be cross-referenced under "the ability to laugh at oneself is healthy."

Marge and I traveled to Banff, Alberta, in February 2005 with nearly her entire family — parents, sisters and their husbands, and their children — hard-core skiers all of them. Though I had been skiing for 21 years, I had never skied outside of New England. I was primed for my first taste of powder, above-treeline skiing and wide open spaces.

We stayed at the Banff Springs Hotel, where we would have our choice of three nearby ski areas: Sunshine Village, Lake Louise and Mt. Norquay. I was a little disappointed on that first ski day when almost everyone except me voted to go to Sunshine. I was so close to my dream, but it would have to wait another day.

On Day Two we headed to Louise. I was so excited as the shuttle bus neared the resort and the ski trails came into view. This was it, the place I had dreamed of, the very place where some of my skiing heroes — Picabo Street of the U.S., Pernilla Wiberg of Sweden and Katja Seizinger of Germany — had raced. It was almost as if I could feel their energy.

Unfortunately, the day got off to a bad start when a member of our party (who shall remain nameless to avoid embarrassment) had an accident involving a chairlift. Things didn't improve much as the morning wore on, for reasons that I needn't go into here. In any case, I was enjoying the scenery, which was every bit as beautiful as the magazines had promised.

After lunch Marge and I split off from the rest of the group. Lake Louise is pretty vast, and late in the afternoon we found ourselves somewhere that we couldn't locate on the trail map. We were, in a word, lost. We're both good skiers, so we weren't too worried, and we soon found a trail that looked promising. But what started out as a wide, groomed trail soon became wild and narrow and dropped us into a steep gladed area from which there was no escape.

Up until this point, because the Canadian Rockies had been experiencing a lean snow year, the conditions had been about what we would have expected back home — hard and icy. But deep among the trees, protected from the wind, it's a different story, as I found out the hard way.

Having found myself in a situation that I wasn't at all comfortable skiing in, I made the ill-fated decision to take my skis off and try walking a bit. I took my right ski off first, and my right leg immediately plunged through the top crust and into the snow, which was quite deep. I was now twisted around in an awkward position, and the ski I had just removed slid away from my reach. I felt helpless and afraid, and the panic set in much earlier than I'd like to admit.

Marge had had the good sense to stick it out with her skis on, and she was now pretty far ahead of me. I yelled down to her. She tried to coax me into getting up and putting my other ski back on, but every time I tried to stand up, I slid a little more toward a steep drop-off into a tight grouping of trees. I was in full-blown panic mode now, envisioning myself in a free fall, bouncing off trees like a pinball.

Marge patiently sidestepped her way back up to where I was, helped me get back into my ski, and then we continued on our way, slowly and sloppily picking our way down through the trees. By the time we made it out of the trees and onto a tamer part of the mountain, I was exhausted and my feet were in pain. We made our way over to a mid-mountain lodge that wasn't even open and sat on a picnic table to regroup. It was there that the tears started flowing, first a trickle, then a river. I was upset with myself for having been so afraid, upset with myself for not having had more confidence in myself, and most of all, upset that my dream had turned into a nightmare.

That's sometimes the problem with dreams — reality gets in the way.

On the last day of our ski week, Marge told me I could pick the area that we would go to. It would be just the two of us, because once again everyone else wanted to go back to Sunshine. She was certain, knowing how stubborn I can be at times, that I would pick Louise, if for no other reason than to try to salvage my dream. She was shocked when I whispered in her ear "Norquay," the area everyone else had derided as too small and too easy, the area that I had never even heard of before our trip.

Maybe another cross-referencing is in order here: "bigger is not necessarily better." Marge and I ended up having a glorious day at Norquay. It was sunny and mild there — while the others reported clouds and chill at Sunshine — and, perhaps because so many other skiers were chasing their big-time dreams, we had the mountain to ourselves:

It was the best ski day of my life.

Midweek odds and ends

2009-12-02T08:45:00.028-05:00

Who's afraid of the big, bad gym?

Well you've weighed in on another poll question — five of you did, anyway — and here's the news: three out of the five said they feel comfortable in a gym.

Not that it's a good sample on which to base any kind of conclusion, but I'm glad to hear that more of you felt comfortable than not. People already manage to come up with enough reasons to skip exercise, and feeling intimidated or alienated at a gym should not be among them. There are plenty of gyms out there. If you're thinking about joining one, see if you can get a week's trial before signing any papers. Talk to other members. If you don't like what you see or feel, move on.

Thanksgiving update

My better half wasn't especially pleased with what I wrote here. It was my first post that she hasn't liked. Marge likes holidays a little better than I do, and she also thought I was being unfair to those who work hard to make a nice dinner for everyone else. That certainly wasn't my intention.

So, I just wanted to say thanks to my wonderful sister-in-law Mary. I really do appreciate all that you do. Your home is lovely and welcoming, and I'm thankful that there's a place for me at your table.

I had a good time this year, and for once I left the table feeling satisfied, but not stuffed.

The things women do

Another model has joined the long and sad list of casualties of the pursuit of physical "perfection." Solange Magnano, 38, a former Miss Argentina, died Sunday from complications experienced while she was undergoing elective cosmetic surgery to make her buttocks firmer. She leaves behind 7-year-old twins.

"A woman who had everything lost her life to have a slightly firmer behind," a friend, Roberto Piazza, told the Associated Press.

How sad indeed.

Who says holidays are hard to swallow?

2009-11-28T06:00:00.006-05:00

What better way to wrap up a week in which I railed about the excesses of the holidays than by celebrating that most underrated of "sports," competitive eating. Until I went searching for a wacky video for today, I had never heard of Sonya Thomas, who according to Wikipedia is currently ranked sixth in the world in competitive eating. Who knew there were even world rankings in this event?

Much as I find the whole idea of competitive eating a bit distasteful, after listening to what Thomas had to say about competing against men who are many times her size, I have to admit, I think she's pretty cool.

Just remember, don't try this at home!

Why the helmet debate? Just put a lid on it!

2009-11-27T06:00:00.002-05:00

It's getting to be that time of year when I eagerly await the start of ski season, devouring each new issue of Ski magazine and fantasizing about making those first turns on the snow. Unfortunately for you non-skiers, that means I'll be writing more about skiing for the next five months or so. You see, skiing is my sports passion, so I can't help myself. But I hope you'll stay with me, because I like to think that many of the lessons learned on the mountain can apply to off-piste situations as well.

Anyway, the November issue of Ski arrived in our mailbox a few days ago, and I was happy to see an article about the use of helmets on the slopes and the debate over whether they should be mandatory. As the author pointed out, this is an issue that comes to the fore every so often, usually as a result of a high-profile skiing death, such as that last year of actress Natasha Richardson. Richardson, who was not wearing a helmet, died the day after striking her head in what seemed to be a mild fall at Mont Tremblant Ski Resort in Quebec, Canada.

The article went on to assert that the debate over mandating helmets has become the skiing equivalent of the debate over seat-belt laws. I think all skiers should wear helmets, as a matter of common sense, but rather than wade into the debate over personal choice versus safety here, I'm going to simply offer my own cautionary tale, for whatever it's worth.

I have been happily wearing a ski helmet for 13 seasons now. It did not take a law or resort rule for me to realize the value of a helmet, it took a concussion.

In what was one of the most bizarre days of my life, I found myself getting a ski patrol-assisted toboggan ride down Stratton Mountain, Vermont. I will never forget the date — April 11, 1995 — even though I am unable to recall the events that made it so memorable.

I was skiing at Stratton on a Tuesday just days before the mountain was scheduled to close for the season and although it was a beautiful day and the snow still abundant, there were very few skiers. I was skiing alone — a classic no-no, but it was either that or not ski at all, and I've never been one to shy away from doing things because I lack a companion.

I'm a very good skier, and I like to ski fast, but always in control. On that day, because I had the trails practically to myself, I was perhaps opening up the throttle a little more than usual. In any case, I was having a great time, enjoying sport, nature and life to its fullest.

The last thing I remembered was riding up on a chairlift, thinking about which trail I was going to take next. The next thing I remembered was looking up into the concerned faces of several men who were clad in bright red parkas. One of them was asking me if I knew which month it was. He put an emphasis on the word that made it all too clear that I had just flunked the quiz about which day it was. I was confused and terrified.

I then zoned out for a few minutes more, and my next memory was of looking up at the bright blue sky as I lay tucked into a toboggan, some of those same men I had seen earlier steering it gingerly down the mountain while occasionally asking me how I was doing.

If there was any fortune to be found in my misfortune, it was that the medical services available at Stratton are top-notch. It is one of the few ski areas that has a fully equipped medical clinic at its base. Within minutes of being brought down the mountain and into the Carlos Otis Clinic, I was being examined by a doctor and a nurse.

I was diagnosed with a mild concussion, and was kept at the clinic for three hours for observation. One of the ski patrollers involved stopped by later to check on my condition. He told me that he had found me lying face-down, my equipment scattered about. He said I was able to tell patrollers my name, and nothing more.

They had found no witnesses to my accident, but surmised that I had struck no object, just the snow. The back of my head was sore and tender, and my face, where I had eventually come to rest, was scraped from the abrasive spring snow.

I will never forget the professionalism and genuine concern of the ski patrol and clinic staff.

By the start of the next season, I had bought a helmet and hit the slopes confident that my strange day would not be repeated. I was a bit self-conscious at first, because back then helmets were still a rarity among adult skiers, though common among children. My helmet was a great conversation piece that season, and every time I got on a chairlift or stepped into the gondola, someone would invariably ask me why I wore it. I would tell them my story, and almost without fail they would listen raptly, shake their heads and say that maybe they ought to look into buying one, too. No skier ever wants to find himself or herself in a horizontal position, looking up at this:

I'd like to think that my story persuaded at least a few more adults to wear ski helmets. Clearly, there has been a shift in thinking over the past decade. According to the Ski magazine article, nearly half of all adult skiers and riders in the U.S. wore helmets last season.

But wearing a helmet does not make one immune to serious injury or death. As the article noted, while the use of helmets has increased about 5 percent each year over the last 10 years, the number of skiing fatalities — about 40 a year in the U.S. — has remained unchanged.

I have always recognized that a helmet will not help me much should I slam into a tree at 30 or 40 mph. But it most likely will help prevent a recurrence of the type of confusion and fear that I experienced on that bizarre day — April 11, 1995 — at Stratton Mountain, Vermont.

Besides, helmets are a lot warmer than hats.

Happy Thanksgiving, but don't be a turkey

2009-11-25T06:00:00.006-05:00

The holiday season is not my favorite time. There, I've said it. While those words will border on the blasphemous to some, others will no doubt nod in familiar agreement. Maybe I just approach the holidays the wrong way, but for me they have come to represent excess and stress. Much of the stress, I think, comes from the excess: too much eating and drinking, too many parties, too many worries about gifts, and too many Christmas songs played in public places.

But yesterday, as I thought about tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws, I had an epiphany, at least as far as the excessive eating is concerned. I DON'T HAVE TO eat so much that I just want to curl up on the sofa after dinner and take a nap. I CAN SAY NO to that giant helping of something-or-other that some well-meaning person is trying to drop onto my plate. I DON'T NEED dessert.

It struck me as almost funny when I thought about this annual ritual of giving thanks for our good fortunes by gorging ourselves on turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and green beans and buttered rolls and pumpkin pie. Obesity is a real problem in this country, with nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults considered overweight or obese. It seems to me that we do a pretty good job of giving thanks throughout the year.

This yearly license we seem to give ourselves to ratchet up our already poor habits a notch or two can outlast the holidays. While the typical holiday weight gain is not as high as you might think, about a pound, the problem is that the extra weight tends to stay on. Add that up over the course of a lifetime of Thanksgivings and Christmases and it's not a pretty picture.

I don't mean to be a killjoy, I just think maybe it's time to "lighten up" on the holidays. I hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow spent in the company of the people or activities with whom you find the greatest joy.

Could this be the next fitness fad?

2009-11-21T06:50:00.001-05:00

I've always been fascinated with people because humans are such amazing and contradictory creatures. We have the potential to do so much good for our world and others, yet often inflict so much harm. We are capable of great intelligence, but can act so stupidly. We can, as the following video clip illustrates, be just plain bizarre.

According to a Reuters story this week, a hotel has opened in France in which guests can live like hamsters for a night (the hamster hats are optional), sleeping on hay, eating seeds and running in a giant wheel. Now I'm not sure who might want to pay the equivalent of $148 to do this sort of thing, but who am I to judge?

My biggest fear is that the hamster wheel will someday find a place in the gym alongside the treadmills and elliptical trainers.

Fear factor: The culture of gyms

2009-11-16T06:00:00.004-05:00

It's time for another Rhode to Fitness poll because I'd like to hear what you think about gyms.

I have been a member of several different gyms for the better part of the last 20 years. For the most part, I have enjoyed my experiences at them. They have given me access to equipment that I don't have at home, their collective energy has been a great motivator, they have allowed me to learn from others, and I have met some truly nice and interesting people at them.

But there have also been times when I've found the whole gym culture a bit alienating. They can be cliquish places, and the rampant narcissism within them is maddening at times.

I started wondering about others' experiences in gyms a few days ago when I found myself lifting weights amid a group of bulky men who would finish their sets by dropping their 80- or 100-pound dumbbells to the floor with a loud grunt and a resounding thud. I wasn't the least bit intimidated to work out among them, but I wondered whether maybe other women, or even men, might have been.

Or what about someone who is trying to lose weight and has some body-image issues. How might he or she feel walking into a place where rippling muscles and low body fat are the predominant bodily features?

These questions were going through my mind as I contemplated the type of personal trainer I want to be, and the type of clients I think I can best serve.

So, my question is: In general, do you feel comfortable in a gym?

Words to live by

2009-11-14T06:00:00.007-05:00

With all the boorish behavior among athletes these days, like that exhibited by the subject of my post earlier this week, it's sometimes easy to forget that there have been, and still are, some real class acts in the world of sports. One such gentleman was the late tennis great Arthur Ashe, who gracefully won battles both on and off the court.

I think what he had to say here speaks to the noblest aspects of competition.

"You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy."

— Arthur Ashe

Field of screams

2009-11-10T08:00:00.003-05:00

This video showing University of New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert flinging an opponent to the ground by her ponytail has been getting a lot of exposure since Thursday's Mountain West Conference semifinal playoff game, in which Lambert's team lost to Brigham Young University.

Lambert has since been suspended from the team indefinitely and has apologized for her actions. What has been intriguing is the amount of attention this video has received, as if we are still capable of being shocked that women can behave every bit as badly as men at times. We've seen plenty of cheap shots bordering on the felonious in the NFL and NHL, but those don't usually involve ponytails.

I have to believe it's an almost prurient interest in watching a "cat fight" that has garnered the Lambert video so much attention. Some newscasters I saw even used that term, giggling as they introduced it. Would they have laughed had Lambert's victim suffered a spinal injury? I see no humor in the situation, neither for those directly involved, nor for those who watched it.

Unbelievably, reaction on the Internet to the video has been mixed. Many of those commenting on Web sites that posted it have been supportive of Lambert, saying that she only retaliated after a Brigham Young player threw an elbow into her chest. Apparently they didn't see some of the other footage from the game, in which Lambert blatantly tripped, kicked and struck opponents with impunity.

I don't know whether Lambert will, or even should, be allowed to play again. While it might be tempting to forgive such behavior as a momentary lapse of judgment during an emotionally charged situation, this was not merely an overzealous act by Lambert in the course of play — it was a vicious assault.

We need only take notice of the frequent overlap between the sports and police news in our newspapers to realize that our sports-culture worship of "the big hit," our celebration of aggression on the field, sometimes comes with a hefty price off it. A thug in a uniform is still a thug.

Trash talk and table tennis

2009-11-07T06:00:00.004-05:00

One of my friends and fellow league bowler likes to trash-talk me on the lanes (hi Cindy!), usually with little effect. Of course it's all done with humor, and since I like competition as much as she does, I welcome the challenge to rise above it all.

Lately the talk turned to table tennis, a sport she claims she's very good at. Well I'm not too shabby myself, so the gauntlet was thrown down. Now all we need to do is find a table. How about this one at Mohegan Sun, Cindy? Think we're good enough? I know I'm ready!

Media myths, muscles and men

2009-11-05T08:00:00.004-05:00

I have complained before, in posts such as this one and this one, about the images of women in advertising and popular culture and the harmful effects they can have on the self-esteem and body image of girls and women. I hadn't really given much thought to what men experience as a result of the Madison Avenue portrayal of their gender until this past week, when I watched the film "Bigger, Stronger, Faster*."

"Bigger, Stronger, Faster*" is an intriguing documentary in which director Christopher Bell turns the camera on himself and his two brothers, who used anabolic steroids in an attempt to look more like their childhood heroes — Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Hulk Hogan. The asterisk in the title refers to the sports records that have come under suspicion as a result of the use of anabolic steroids by athletes.

The film, which premiered last year, drags on a bit too long and almost self-consciously strives too hard to appear balanced in its look at the use of steroids in sports, but it does offer a thought-provoking look at the dissatisfaction that many men have with their bodies and the frightening ends to which they'll go to change their appearance.

While women have bought into the notion that to be smaller is to be sexier and more attractive, men have become convinced that they must become bigger. Taken to extremes, the results are the same: an unhealthy obsession with becoming what is essentially a caricature.

There really isn't a world of difference between her:

and him:

This is Gregg Valentino, who appeared in "Bigger, Stronger, Faster*" and whose claim to fame is having the world's biggest biceps. At 28 inches, they are one inch larger than my waist. Valentino admitted in the film that women do not find this attractive, but it seems he just couldn't stop himself once he started using anabolic steroids.

I was surprised to learn from the film that just as Barbie has become impossibly thinner and more voluptuous over the years, G.I. Joe has undergone a transformation, becoming much more muscular than when the action figure debuted in 1964. I have to wonder if G.I. Joe hasn't secretly been waging war on boys' healthy attitudes about their own bodies.

Clearly, most people do not go to the extremes of the fashion models who live on salads and diet sodas or the bodybuilders and other competitive athletes who use anabolic steroids and lift massive amounts of weight. So why do we continue to regard their images in advertising, films and TV shows as the norm?

The purpose of advertising, of course, is to sell us things — things that we think we need to correct some perceived deficiency in our bodies or in our lives. But before we can be sold on that notion, advertisers first have to sell us self-loathing and discontent.

I think it's time we as consumers take back our lives, our bodies and our health.

Poll: Fitness satisfaction lacking

2009-11-03T06:00:00.004-05:00

Another Rhode to Fitness poll has concluded, and with 13 people responding, here's the verdict: 9 of you, or 69 percent, said that overall, you are not satisfied with your current level of fitness. The rest of you said you are satisfied.

When I first posted this poll, I mentioned that self-assessment can be a tricky thing. People are notoriously hard on themselves. I said, too, that satisfaction with one's state of fitness is highly dependent upon one's physical needs and goals. The couch potato isn't going to care about boosting his or her maximal oxygen uptake, and the marathon runner will never be satisfied until he or she crosses the finish line first.

For the sake of keeping this discussion focused, let's just assume that those of you who responded to the poll are neither hopelessly sedentary nor driven to perfection. For those of you who said you are not satisfied, my question is: Are you currently working to become fitter?

If you are not, what is stopping you? Lack of time is the reason most people give for not sticking with exercise, but I don't really buy that one. A mere half-hour a day of exercise can improve the health of previously sedentary individuals. Who among us couldn't find a "wasted" half-hour in every day that could be put to better use?

For those of you who are exercising, but are finding satisfaction with the results elusive, can you identify a reason for your plateau? Have you been doing the same exercise routine over and over for months or even years on end? Variety is crucial to maintaining interest and making progress. Have you been doing too much exercise? Exercising too hard and too frequently denies our bodies the rest they need to heal and rebuild, and can lead to overuse injuries that prevent us from exercising.

For those of you who are satisfied with your fitness level, congratulations and keep up the good work.

33 years later, Klammer's run still exciting

2009-10-31T06:00:00.008-04:00

Once again I'm in danger of angering people who dislike winter by writing about my favorite sport — even before the all the leaves have fallen — but I have a good reason for my early enthusiasm about skiing. You see, Marge and I just booked a ski vacation, so we're psyched about the upcoming winter.

I can almost hear the roar of the snow guns at night, and can see the rime in the trees sparkling in the morning sunlight. I can almost feel the wind in my face as I swoop down the mountain, leaving my cares far behind. For me, winter brings clarity to life like no other season. It is a time when everything seems in sharp focus, a time when every breath offers a visible affirmation of life.

So today I'm posting one of the most electrifying ski runs of all time, Austrian Franz Klammer's gold medal-winning performance in the 1976 Olympic downhill in Innsbruck, Austria. I know people who don't even ski who remember Klammer's run.

Compared with what today's powerfully built racers can do on modern equipment, Klammer's 1 minute and 45 second journey looks almost primitive. Yet it remains a let-it-all-hang-out pursuit of victory for the ages that begs a question:

How much are you willing to risk to achieve your goals?

Prodigy or parody?

2009-10-29T06:00:00.006-04:00

A friend sent me the following story, about a 5-year-old Romanian boy who is already making a name for himself on the Internet and in the world of bodybuilding. It's so bizarre that I'm at a loss for words, for once. If you'd prefer to skip the story and cut right to the video, here it is:

I wish Giuliano only the best. Something tells me he'll need all the help he can get.

Lack of seat belt use is driving me mad

2009-10-27T08:00:00.002-04:00

I don't usually put much stock in those geographical Top Ten lists that periodically get published — you know, the ones with such headlines as Best Cities in Which to Live, Best Places to Retire, Best Party Colleges! Nevertheless, they can make for a fun read.

Self magazine recently came out with "The 10 Healthiest Cities for Women," which caught my attention because my first thought was, what would make a city healthy for women but not for men, too? Well it turns out that some of the criteria were women-specific, such as having a large selection of ob-gyn doctors and low rates of violent crime and rape. (Yikes! I find it disturbing that this latter statistic can make or break a city.)

Burlington, Vt., topped the list, and Fargo, N.D., rounded out the top ten. In general, the healthiest cities were those in which women had lower disease rates, were less likely to be victims of crime, had access to good medical care, ate well, exercised and got adequate sleep.

The Self survey of 100 cities encompassed all 50 states. Naturally, I was curious to see how Rhode Island fared. The Providence, R.I./New Bedford, Mass. metro area ranked 48 out of 100. While women here were found to be less likely to die of breast cancer and were cited for their diligence with clinical exams, I was angered to read this: "Among the places where women are least likely to wear a seat belt."

We here in New England pride ourselves on our fine universities, our intellectual curiosity and our open-mindedness. So how can it be that women here — or anyone, anywhere, for that matter — are still not buckling up? Yet Massachusetts ranks dead last in seat-belt use in the United States, with only 66.8 percent of drivers and passengers wearing them, and Rhode Island isn't too far ahead at 72 percent.

I was never a particularly good student of science, but even I understand that if you're hurtling along and your car should come to a sudden stop due to impact, your body will continue to hurtle along at pretty much the same speed as it was traveling before.

This British TV ad sums up the role of physics in a crash quite well:

It's too bad, but we'll never see such ads on this side of the Atlantic — it seems they're too graphic and disturbing for our sensibilities. Kind of ironic, isn't it, when you consider the violence we see on TV every day, both real and fictional?

When it comes to seat-belt use, apparently we'd rather be treated in a more gentle manner, with inane slogans like "click it or ticket." I'm sure the threat of a small fine isn't going to prompt the denizens of denial to buckle up, and maybe I'm naive to think that jarring ads like the one above would have a better chance of success.

I just don't get it. What's so hard to understand about the importance of wearing seat belts?

Soaring with the Angels

2009-10-24T06:00:00.003-04:00

Now that it's Saturday, it's time to unwind and have some fun. And what better way to do it than flying with the Navy's Blue Angels?

OK, maybe some of you won't agree with me. Let's face it, when it comes to flying, people usually fall into one of two very different camps: those who love it (me!) and those who dread it (hi Kerstin!). The Rhode Island Air National Guard Open House and Air Show may be a good eight months away, but for those of you like me, it's never too soon to start getting psyched up.

Here's some beautiful video from the cockpit of one of the Blue Angels' F/A-18 Hornets that'll make you feel so much like you're up there with them that you might want to have a paper bag handy.

So strap yourselves in, hit the full-screen icon, and enjoy the ride!

Not feeling motivated? Get SMART

2009-10-21T08:00:00.001-04:00

Dropout rates in exercise programs are notoriously high, as much as 50 percent, according to some estimates. So what keeps some people pushing onward, long after others have permanently racked the dumbbells? In a word, success.

How many people want to commit to long hours of hard work — in any endeavor — when they do not see any progress as a result of their efforts?

In some instances, it may be the very goals we set for ourselves that undermine our ability to succeed. Perhaps we have reached too far in envisioning what we want to accomplish, or set our sights on something that cannot be measured, making progress seem elusive.

There's a model for setting goals that goes by the acronym SMART. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.

Without SMART goals, planning can be difficult, feedback missing, and motivation lacking.

Say I show up at the gym one day, seeking the services of a personal trainer, and I tell her, "My goal is to get really strong." That's more of a nebulous wish than a goal.

It would then be difficult for my trainer to design a program that will keep me engaged, and difficult to determine whether I've succeeded, because I never defined what I meant by strong, and I never set a deadline for accomplishing my goal.

Instead, it would be better to reframe my goal in this way: "I'd like to increase the amount of weight I can bench-press by 5 percent every month until I can bench-press and lift my bodyweight in 12 to 16 months. " I now have a clearly defined and attainable goal whose progress can easily be measured.

Having a defined set of steps to reach your goal can help keep you focused and motivated. It is much easier, for example, to think about losing 2 pounds a week than to think about having to lose 50 pounds.

The SMART principle need not be confined to fitness matters. It can be applied to any goal you might have, whether it's earning a college degree, learning a foreign language, or finding a new job.

So go ahead and "get SMART." If you fall a bit short of your goals, at least you can say, to quote secret agent Maxwell Smart from the old TV show of the same name, "Missed it by that much."

A word of caution about exercise

2009-10-19T07:34:00.020-04:00

Some sad news from the running world this past weekend: Three men died while competing in a marathon in Detroit on Sunday. The men collapsed within 16 minutes of one another between the 11-mile and 13.1-mile markers. The causes of their deaths have not yet been determined.

I mention this incident because exercise, while having the potential to benefit nearly everyone, is not without its dangers, particularly for those with undetected heart disease. An estimated 75,000 heart attacks occur in the U.S. each year after heavy exertion.

That's why it is always a good idea to confer with your doctor before beginning a program of strenuous exercise, especially if you have two or more risk factors for coronary heart disease.

Deaths in marathons and other road races are relatively uncommon. The Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Marathon last had a fatality in 1994, when a 42-year-old man suffered a heart attack, according to the Associated Press. More than 19,000 people had registered for Sunday's race, and presumably most of them finished safely.

A thorough physical examination and exercise stress test might seem unnecessary or inconvenient should you ever be asked to undergo them before beginning an exercise program, but they are for your own protection and benefit.

Coronary heart disease is the number-one cause of death in the United States, and there's an old saying that explains why it has achieved that dubious status:

Often, the first symptom of heart disease is death.

Words to live by

2009-10-17T06:00:00.003-04:00

I had been hoping today to offer a video of a great motivational sports speech, either from real life or the movies, because I'm planning to write about motivation next week. Sadly, though, most of the videos I found in that category were too full of profanities to post here.

Why a verbal thrashing of players that borders on abuse is considered motivational, I'll never understand. Maybe it's effective in getting the adrenaline pumping, but I think at the root of it is instilling a fear of failure, and I don't think that's a viable approach for long-term motivation.

I'll leave it to basketball great Michael Jordan to explain why.

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

— Michael Jordan

Models of what?

2009-10-15T06:00:00.001-04:00

In case you missed it, there's been a bizarre controversy involving designer Ralph Lauren and one of the company's models playing out in the blogosphere and mainstream media. It all started with a poorly Photoshopped ad in which model Filippa Hamilton's face appeared atop a body that was, well, let's just say physically impossible. As the blog Boing Boing so delightfully put it when it first posted the photo: "Dude, her head's bigger than her pelvis."

Ralph Lauren's legal team then went after the blog, claiming copyright infringement. The blog responded by mocking Ralph Lauren even further. The company eventually admitted that it had altered the photo, apologized and pulled the ad, which had run only in Japan.

Now, according to Hamilton, the company has fired her for being too heavy. Ralph Lauren acknowledged that it had ended its relationship with the model, citing her inability to meet contractual obligations.

Hamilton, 23, expressed her disappointment at the message that the ad sent to young women about weight. Hamilton told the New York Daily News, "I'm very proud of what I look like, and I think a role model should look healthy." However, Hamilton is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds, which means that she would be classified as "underweight" by most accepted standards.

I've long been disturbed by the images that advertisers try to pass off as "normal" or "desirable" female bodies. One need only look at the number of young girls on diets, at a time when proper nutrition is so crucial, to realize that the advertising world is damaging our youth. The 13-year-old daughter of a family friend recently told me that she does 300 sit-ups a day. She is a perfectly healthy-looking teen, but thinks she is fat.

The feminist in me has to believe the trend toward smaller sizes is about power: It is as though women are held in higher esteem by practically disappearing. Keep them thin, weak and vulnerable.

A group in San Francisco called About-Face is fighting back against what it calls "the media circus" using some pretty interesting tactics, such as putting decals with positive messages about body image on fitting-room mirrors. On its Web site, About-Face says its mission "is to imbue girls and women with the power to free themselves from the burden of body-image problems so they will be capable of fulfilling their varied and wondrous potentials."

We can all do our part by thinking critically about just what it is advertisers are trying to sell us. I, for one, am not buying it.

Don't let your back down

2009-10-13T06:00:00.004-04:00

Back pain is the second-most-common reason for visits to the doctor’s office, after respiratory infections, and Americans spend at least $50 billion each year to treat back pain, according to the American Chiropractic Association.

Lately it seems like I'm surrounded by people hobbled by back pain, and I count myself as fortunate for never having been likewise debilitated. And I'd like to keep it that way.

The editors at Prevention magazine have published a 14-item list of "Worst Habits That Hurt Your Back." Whether you've already experienced back problems or are hoping to prevent them, it's worth a read.

Some of the bad habits were fairly obvious, such as sitting at a desk or in front of the TV for hours on end, toting around a ridiculously heavy handbag, or walking long distances in high heels. But the list contained some information that surprised me, including that very firm mattresses can worsen back pain, as can holding a grudge and doing too many sit-ups or crunches.

Correcting some of these bad habits should be fairly effortless. Prevention is always easier than rehabilitation.

The full article can be found here.

Pumpkins are a blast

2009-10-10T06:00:00.001-04:00

October has always been one of my favorite months, and among the reasons is the prevalence of pumpkins.

I love just about any kind of food with pumpkin in it. I was delighted the other day when I went to Starbucks for coffee and saw the pumpkin bread, pumpkin scones and pumpkin muffins beckoning from behind the glass.

Pumpkins also evoke fond childhood memories of bountiful harvests of candy on Halloween and that classic Peanuts TV special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Even at 51, I still enjoy going to the pumpkin patch, picking out the "perfect" one, and then waiting until just before dusk on Halloween to carve it.

I love this time of year, when pumpkins large and small appear on doorsteps and in yards everywhere, providing that last splash of color before the faded palette of autumn yields to the starkness of winter.

So, in tribute to the great pumpkin, here's a time-lapse video showing the growth of one of the giants in its field. And what do you do with a pumpkin that weighs nearly 1,000 pounds after it's won you a ribbon at the county fair? Well, I wouldn't know firsthand, since as I have mentioned, I'm incapable of growing anything, but apparently it's nothing that a half-pound of TNT can't solve.

Seeds and earth do not a farmer make

2009-10-08T07:20:00.003-04:00

Over the years, I've had a list of "dream" jobs that I would pursue if I had my life to live over again — airline pilot, National Transportation Safety Board investigator, and detective among them. But there's another one that, while in theory is something it's not too late for me to do, I've had to accept that it is as improbable as the others, and that's being a farmer.

Why farming? I love the outdoors, hard physical labor, early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise hours, and the thought of providing such a basic and essential commodity as food.

One summer I volunteered at Casey Farm, a historical farm in Saunderstown, R.I., that promotes community-supported agriculture. The caretakers once let me hop onto a tractor and plow a field. I was in heaven that afternoon.

So why couldn't I be a farmer, even on a small scale?

Because I can't grow ANYTHING! This spring I planted squash, lettuce and carrots. The squash was a no-show, the lettuce took what seemed like an eternity to mature and in the end provided all of two salads, and the carrots, well, you can see for yourselves:

Yes, I waited all summer for these! I realize it was a bad year in New England for a lot of crops, because of all the rain early on, but still. Seriously, how hard can it be to grow a few vegetables? And now it's all coming back to me: the number of houseplants I've killed in pretty short order over the years, the wildflowers I planted one year that bloomed beautifully for a few short weeks, never to be seen again.

I just don't have a green thumb, so I'm officially throwing in the towel. Which is too bad, because the thought of plucking fresh fruits and vegetables right from the backyard is pretty appealing to me. Fresh is so much better. But farmstands and the supermarket produce aisle are so much easier.

I would like to take this opportunity, though, to salute local farmers everywhere: Thank you. Without you, I would definitely starve.

Maybe I could try my hand at dairy farming. I've always liked cows ...

It's a beautiful day for a poll

2009-10-06T06:00:00.009-04:00

I figured it's about time for another poll, if for no other reason than I don't have a single witty or incisive thing to say this morning about health or fitness. I think the fumes from my weekend room-painting project got to me.

So, here's the question: Overall, are you satisfied with your level of fitness?

Seems like a pretty straightforward question, doesn't it? But sometimes reality and self-assessment don't mix too well. For instance, I know some people who are incredibly fit, but because they are also incredibly driven, they are never satisfied with their level of fitness. On the other hand, I know some people who would not meet anyone's definition of fit, yet because their lifestyle is such that it doesn't require a lot of endurance or strength, they are perfectly satisfied with their level of fitness. See what I'm getting at? Good, because I'm not sure I do.

So, you know the drill by now. Just line up over there at left, remain orderly, don't try to sway anyone else, and cast your vote.

A Frightful demonstration

2009-10-03T06:00:00.010-04:00

I've always been intrigued by birds. They're fun to watch, and despite the commonly used derogatory expression "bird brain," they're really very intelligent creatures.

Although I knew they were capable of some pretty amazing feats, I had no idea that at least one type of bird can legitimately challenge the cheetah for the title of fastest animal on the planet — at least not until I watched this video of a peregrine falcon named Frightful, who was clocked executing dives at speeds between 183 mph and 242 mph.

One could probably question some of the methods used in the following experiment, and the claims made as a result of it, but it nevertheless leaves no doubt that the peregrine falcon is one fast and focused bird.

I think my favorite part of this video, though, is when her handlers take Frightful up in a plane, and she has this sort of panicked look, almost as though she was thinking, "What the ...? You call this flying?"

Be safe at home and the gym

2009-10-02T09:00:00.020-04:00

Since I've been something of a nag all week — Be sure to warm up! And don't forget to cool down! — I might as well continue.

For some reason, October always makes me think of safety. Maybe it's because of those public-service reminders to replace the batteries in our smoke detectors when we turn back the clocks. Or maybe it's because that first chill makes me think of stocking up on supplies for the inevitable power outages when the first heavy snow falls.

But there's a safety-related aspect of my daily life that I recently realized I haven't been paying as much attention to as I should, and that's the fitness equipment I use. I started thinking about this after reading about a recall earlier this year of stability balls. Somehow I managed to miss the story at the time, but more than 3 million balls were recalled after reports of injuries that occurred when the balls burst. Some 47 broken bones and bruises were attributed to this phenomenon, in which the stability balls burst like balloons, sending their users crashing to the floor, in some cases with dumbbells in their hands.

I started thinking about how many times I've used stability balls and other fitness equipment without giving them so much as a cursory inspection. It's been a longstanding bad practice that I've put a quick end to.

It's always a good idea to give the equipment you're about to use a quick inspection. Even at my gym, where the equipment is new and start-of-the-art, safety cannot be assured. I once watched a woman jump off a machine where a cable had just come off a cam, without telling anyone about the problem.

In the case of stability balls and resistance tubing, check them before each use for obvious signs of wear or cuts. Follow the manufacturer's recommendations for inflation of stability balls, and recognize that they have weight limits. Check fitness machines for any loose parts, frayed cables or seat problems. If you have equipment at home such as a stair-stepper or treadmill, follow the manufacturer's recommendations for maintenance.

Anytime your body is moving, there's a chance for injury. Take nothing for granted, and be your own advocate for safety. Being fit does you no good if you're hurt.

Oh, and be sure to change your smoke-detector batteries this fall.

And don't forget to cool down

2009-09-30T06:00:00.002-04:00

On Monday, I wrote about the importance of a warm-up period before aerobic exercise. I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the end of your workout, when it's just as important to gradually slow yourself down.

Just as many people skip the warm-up to save time, the cool-down period also sometimes gets short shrift in our hectic lives. But as I mentioned on Monday, we're only talking five to ten extra minutes. Surely you can spare that to treat your body with the care and respect that it deserves.

So big deal, you say, what could possibly happen by skipping the cool-down? Well, let's say you've been running at a pretty good pace on the treadmill for a half-hour, and then, suddenly, you just hop off and head for the shower. For the last 30 minutes, your heart and lungs and blood vessels have been working like the efficient machines they are to pump oxygenated blood to your exercising muscles. Then — bam! — without warning you're done. All that blood that's been flowing to your extremities is left sitting there, suddenly puzzled about its mission.

OK, obviously I'm not a doctor, but this sudden change in activity can cause a drop in blood pressure and pooling of blood in the veins that can lead to dizziness or fainting. So you might think you're headed for the shower, but in extreme cases you could instead be headed straight for the floor.

When you're ready to wrap up your aerobic session, just plan to add another five minutes in which to gradually reduce your intensity.

And when you're done with your cool-down, that's an excellent time to add some stretches to your workout, while your muscles are still warm and therefore more pliable. Some research has shown that post-workout stretching is more likely to result in greater gains in flexibility than stretching before a workout.

Warm-up, cool-down, stretching — it's all good stuff worthy of our attention. It's all part of the big picture here: better health, better living, better times.

It's cool to warm up

2009-09-28T06:00:00.022-04:00

Today I have a couple of questions. First, how many of you would take your car out of the garage on a cold morning and immediately accelerate to 60 mph? Right, I didn't think you'd do that.

Now, how many of you would go to the gym and plunge right into a workout without first warming up? Aha! Just as I suspected!

I can't tell you the number of times I've been at my gym and watched through the big front windows as someone gets out of his or her car, walks across the parking lot and into the gym, jumps on the treadmill and promptly punches it up to an oxygen-gulping, heart-pounding speed. Their cardiorespiratory systems are probably screaming, "What the ... ?"

Skipping the warm-up before aerobic exercise can be an unhealthy or even dangerous practice. Just as our cars benefit from a gradual transition between idling and hurtling along in fith gear, so, too, do our bodies.

One of the important physiological benefits of a warm-up is that it helps gradually redistribute the blood flow to exercising muscles. Plunge immediately into intense aerobic exercise and it's unlikely that your heart and lungs will be able to keep up with the muscles' demand for oxygen. You could end up hyperventilating or quickly fatiguing.

Regardless of the type of aerobic exercise you do, it's always a good idea to spend the first five minutes of the activity gradually elevating your heart rate until it reaches the target range.

I'm guessing that for most people who skip the warm-up, time is the issue. But what's an extra five minutes when you're already planning to spend 30 or 40 minutes or even more at an activity? A warm-up is a pretty small investment that can pay big dividends.

A cool-down at the other end of the workout is equally important, but I'll save that discussion for Wednesday.

The "I" and the Tiger

2009-09-26T06:00:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I played golf for the first time in well over a year. I was very pleased with how I was driving and hitting from the fairway, but anytime I got within 25 yards of the green ... well, let's just say my short game comes up short.

I've enjoyed golf on and off for most of my life, primarily for the scenery, fresh air and camaraderie it offers. I've never found it an exciting game, and haven't really put too much effort into getting better at it. I have too many other pursuits that I care far more about, such as skiing, tennis and bowling.

I'm not horrible at golf and I'm not good, I just am.

Golf is not an easy sport, and like any other, it has its share of participants who are naturally gifted at it. If you need any proof of that, take a look at this video of a 2-year-old Tiger Woods demonstrating his early prowess at the game.

Even then he had a swing more technically sound than that of the average weekend hacker — before he even could even talk!

Reining in my fears — or not

2009-09-25T06:00:00.006-04:00

I've always believed that if we want to overcome our fears, it's sometimes helpful to confront them head-on, to test our limits and push the envelope a bit.

If I had to list my three biggest fears in life, they would be, in order from most anxiety-provoking to least: public speaking, skydiving, horseback riding. I decided last week that it was time to tackle fear number 3, horseback riding.

This decision occurred on vacation in California when, after a wine tasting in Sonoma, Marge and I were lured into signing up for what looked like a beautiful horseback ride through a vineyard. As I mentioned the other day, our trip did not turn out exactly as planned, and this little adventure was no exception.

I will freely admit that I'm terrified of horses. They are beautiful animals from a distance, but up close, I find them scary and unpredictable. Think Christopher Reeve. I really don't want to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, so it was with trepidation that I even agreed to this ride.

Things started to go awry from the beginning. When we arrived at the vineyard, we found out that the guide we had been expecting was unable to take us. Instead, we got Javier, who while amiable didn't seem to understand that I was a novice rider who wanted to go as slowly as possible. No, it seemed that Javier, confident atop his racing-retired thoroughbred, wanted to show me what my horse could do.

I'm embarrassed to say that at one point, I think I was actually screaming. That was at about the time that my horse, Finbar, was running straight toward Marge's horse, Gabriel, and there wasn't a lot of space left between me and a barbed-wire fence ahead.

Maybe the terror was playing tricks on my mind, but I swear that Javier was laughing as I screamed. Or maybe I wasn't imagining it at all. Maybe he found it amusing that someone as clueless as I would go in such short order from a wine tasting to signing a liability waiver and into the saddle.

And to think I had expected it to be a growth experience in which I would overcome my fear of horses.

Instead, the whole scene brought to mind one of those steadfast childhood memories: I was about 7 years old, standing at the edge of a low diving board in a YMCA swimming class, crying my eyes out. The instructor was badgering me to jump — you know, in one of those you're-going-to-sink-or-learn-how-to-swim moments — but I wasn't having any of it. I was frozen with fear, and have since regarded any body of water other than a hot tub with suspicion.

Sadly enough, I think it will be a long time, if ever, before I get on a horse again. As some consolation, I got the distinct impression that Finbar was just as eager to part ways with me at the end of the ride. I can't say I blame him. Why would anyone want to tote a screaming fool around on his back when the sun was high and the temperature was flirting with 100?

Even though the experience wasn't what I had hoped it would be, I learned something from it. I still believe that pushing our limits can be a healthy thing, but now realize that if we stray too far from our comfort zones, the desire to test ourselves can be counterproductive.

When it comes to conquering fears, it can be a long way from Point A to Point B, and a slow trot might ultimately be faster than a gallop.

The power of simplicity

2009-09-22T08:30:00.002-04:00

No, I'm not here to give you that kind of advice. That would be highly irresponsible and even illegal.

I do, however, have some advice for those of you who would like to become more physically active but have trouble embracing the concept of working out: Keep it simple.

This occurred to me while Marge and I were on vacation in California last week. As with many of our vacations, I had planned this one for months. And like so many things we might plan for, it didn't turn out quite according to plan. It started with a very unplanned seven-hour layover at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Fortunately, it came to a close with an unplanned trip to the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. I hadn't even been aware there was such a museum, but while plotting our course from Glen Ellen to Bodega Bay on the last day of our trip, I happened to see it on the map. Like most people of our ages, Peanuts comic strips were a staple of our childhoods, so we set out for the museum.

As I made the rounds of exhibits there, I realized why I found the Peanuts characters so appealing. It was not the dialogue of the strips, which to be honest I never found all that funny, but rather the simplicity of the drawings. Schulz managed to capture a range of emotions and situations with a simple black line.

That got me to thinking about working out, as many things often do, and about how we do not need lots of fancy equipment or gym memberships to get in better shape. For some people who are trying to break out of a sedentary lifestyle, more might even be less, since exercise is often viewed as a chore.

How many people want to go directly from sitting on the couch to highly structured, multi-set routines at the gym? Probably not too many.

So why not start out simply, with a walk outdoors instead of on a treadmill, or climb some stairs instead of using a stair-stepper, or do some basic push-ups instead of the bench press? It doesn't take any equipment to work all of the major muscle groups, just a little imagination and ingenuity.

This idea is so simple, you're probably saying, "Good grief!"

Don't get carried away with lawn chores

2009-09-19T06:00:00.005-04:00

I usually try to find the positive side of things that might not immediately seem so positive. So for all of you who are bemoaning the end of summer, here's a thought: at least you won't have to mow the lawn for a while.

Words to live by

2009-09-17T07:00:00.001-04:00

What's this old dude from a century long ago doing on a fitness blog, you ask? That's William James, an American psychologist and philosopher. While I have no idea whether he was a fitness buff or not, he did have something to say that I know I'll remember the next time I face a physical challenge that tests my will to continue.

"Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second."

I had a bloody good day

2009-09-15T06:00:00.028-04:00

I've been a regular blood donor for a while, and last Wednesday I hit the three-gallon mark at the Rhode Island Blood Center's Narragansett office. Now before you start admiring the selflessness of my act, let me say that I've never believed wholeheartedly in the concept of altruism. Even Mother Teresa probably derived some joy from helping others, no?

When it comes to donating blood, I don't think it matters if your motives are a bit self-centered, so long as you get out there and just do it. There's almost always a shortage of blood of one type or another, especially in the summer months when people get all crazy on sunshine and fresh air and do stupid and injurious things to themselves and others.

Yes, I want to do my part to help out, but I also have to say, donating blood just makes me feel good.

Whenever I see those Rhode Island Blood Center commercials on TV, in which a teenage girl thanks blood donors for having saved her life, and calls them her heroes, I get all choked up. I think, "Hey, she's talking about me!" and then I feel all proud and happy.

Usually it takes a brave, larger-than-life deed to be labeled a hero. But giving blood? Ha! It's quick, painless and easy. It takes only about 45 minutes in all, including the interview, prep and post-donation snacks (the donation part itself lasts about 15 minutes). It hardly feels worthy of a thank-you, never mind the cookies and juice, and sometimes even pizza, posters and coffee mugs that they give you.

The Rhode Island Blood Center workers and volunteers are incredibly nice people, and they seem grateful and amazed that anyone would want to do this. And I'm amazed that anyone wouldn't want to!

There is so much suffering in the world that we can't do much about, but the chronic shortage of blood is a problem that all healthy people can easily do something about. Oh sure, I've heard all the excuses: I don't like needles, the sight of blood makes me sick (so don't look!), I know someone who knows someone who once had a bad experience — blah, blah, blah.

If you've ever uttered any of those words, I'm here to assure you that your fears, while I respect them, are overblown. It's truly no big deal. Look at me in that chair: Do I look like I'm suffering? Nope, I was kickin' back, watching a Rachel Ray cooking show and having some interesting conversations.

So why not call your local Red Cross or blood center and make an appointment to donate? Trust me, you'll feel great afterward — and somewhere a person in need might have a chance because you were willing to set aside your fears and spare 45 minutes of your time.

Who says girls can't compete with boys?

2009-09-12T07:00:00.010-04:00

If I were a horse, I'd want to be Rachel Alexandra. Wait, that sounded a little strange, didn't it? Oh well, it's Saturday and Saturdays, at least here at Rhode to Fitness, are meant to be a little strange.

My point, if it can be called a point, is that I admire strong women. So here's a clip of Rachel Alexandra, the beautiful filly whose victory in the Preakness Stakes in May stunned the horse-racing world, tearing it up with the boys again last week and becoming the first filly to win the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga Springs, N.Y. I especially love it that she edged out a horse named Macho Again.

Come to think of it, maybe I wouldn't want to be Rachel Alexandra, running in circles with Calvin Borel on my back, whipping my behind. No, I think I'd rather be some anonymous filly running free in a beautiful pasture.

And as for that announcer, does anyone have a tranquilizer gun?

Reflections

2009-09-11T06:00:00.017-04:00

It's no longer possible to wake up on Sept. 11 and view it as just another day, so I won't be writing about health or fitness today.

For eight years now, at least for those of us who live in the Northeast, it has been hard to trust a beautiful September morning. That Tuesday dawned so crisp, clear and promising.

It was my day off, and I was in my car, on my way to go mountain biking, when I heard the reports on the radio that the twin towers of the World Trade Center were no more. I at first thought it was a hoax, a modern-day version of a War of the Worlds broadcast, until I heard the voice of the late Peter Jennings. He was someone I trusted, at a time when I trusted few.

I went ahead and rode my bike, because I didn't know what else to do.

When I returned home and turned on the TV, I couldn't bear to watch for long. To continue would be to endure an endless loop of horror — of flames and smoke and falling bodies and buildings collapsing into dust — so I shut off the TV, and my phone, and spent the rest of the day and evening in a state of disconnect.

The days immediately afterward seemed equally unreal. The skies fell eerily silent, as the nation's air traffic came to a halt.

I also remember the unusually good manners on the road — so many cars with American flags fluttering from their antennas, their drivers letting me merge with a friendly wave instead of cutting me off and using gestures of another sort. Everywhere, there seemed to be a sense of solidarity, of community, like I've never felt before.

Neither the silent skies nor the return to civility lasted for long.

It is hard to trust a beautiful September morning. I'm relieved that here in the Northeast today, it is gray and rainy.

Are personal trainers intimidating?

2009-09-09T06:00:00.023-04:00

I recently received an e-mail from a friend who had been considering working with a personal trainer and wanted to know what she could expect. She had some hesitations and concerns, all of them valid, but one of her questions took me by surprise.

"My perception is that personal trainers only want to work with younger, already fit, size-12-and-unders who are serious athletes," she wrote. "I am none of those. Are personal trainers willing to work with a wide range of body types, fitness levels and physical challenges as long as the client has a doctor's OK, clear goals and is willing to put in the work?"

The answer to that question is a resounding YES! A good personal trainer should have the skills and desire to work with a variety of clients.

Her question, though, got me to thinking about the image that personal trainers present. Like everyone else, personal trainers come in different shapes and sizes, and to generalize would be a disservice to all.

But there's a saying in the personal-training business that your body is your best advertisement, and clearly there are plenty of trainers out there who flaunt what they have. My friend's question made me wonder whether it's truly a good business move. Could some of those rippling muscles be turning off more would-be clients than attracting them?

The answer to that is impossible to know, but I do think people who are trying to make changes in their lives and behavior might be more likely to succeed if they have as a role model someone who has, to some extent, been through what they've been through. One of the reasons I decided to get into personal training at the age of 51 is because I sense a lack of older trainers, at least in the gyms, who might better serve that "aging boomer" population we keep hearing so much about.

This is not to say, certainly, that a young trainer could not work quite well with older clients, or that an older trainer could not serve younger clients well, or that a trainer with a Mr. Universe physique could not inspire and help a client who is obese. Like any other profession, there are good trainers and bad, whether young or old, "ripped" or "average."

I suppose it is ultimately up to each person who seeks the services of a trainer to find one he or she can work and communicate well with and achieve positive results. It might not always happen on the first try.

To those of you who, like my friend, might feel a bit intimidated, I would offer this advice: Keep in mind that you are seeking a service, and trainers are there to provide that service. They are beholden to you. Make sure that they live up to your expectations and treat you with respect, whatever your goals and current state of fitness.

Testing, 1, 2, 3 ...

2009-09-07T08:00:00.003-04:00

I figure one of the advantages of having a blog is that I can occasionally use it to toot my own horn, so if you don't like that kind of self-generated noise, please cover your ears, because I have an announcement to make.

I passed the American Council on Exercise personal trainer certification exam on Friday! Hooray for me!

I took the computer-based version of the exam at TechComm partners, a proctored testing center in Smithfield, R.I. The exam was divided into two sections — 150 multiple-choice questions and a two-part training simulation involving two different client scenarios.

The exam took me 3 hours and 20 minutes to complete. By the end of it, I had no idea whether I'd passed, nor did I care at that particular moment. My head was spinning, my stomach was growling, and I just wanted to go home.

Maybe I'm just out of practice at taking tests — let's just say it's been, ahem, a while — but I found the experience grueling.

So I hit the "submit" button and then held my breath while filling out a brief survey about the testing experience. I guess I had expected a screen with fireworks to come up if I passed, so when the survey was over and I saw a sentence that began, "The test scores you achieved on the comprehensive ACE Personal Trainer Certification Examination ..., " my heart sank.

But then I read on: "... appear below. Congratulations! You passed the test!"

So does this mean I can now call myself a personal trainer? No, not exactly. In a few weeks I will receive my certificate from ACE, a respected organization in the fitness industry, attesting to the fact that I possess a good base of knowledge that I can use to safely and effectively train clients and to promote health and fitness.

I do hope to start doing some training in the near future, but that will require setting up a business structure, obtaining insurance and taking care of a few legal matters. I'll keep you posted on those developments, and I'd love to hear from any of you who already are personal trainers if you have any advice on getting started.

In the meantime, I plan to savor having completed that first step toward reaching my goal, and to continue learning. We must never stop learning, whatever our interests and passions are.

I take the responsibility of personal training very seriously. I want future clients to know that I will hold the trust you have placed in me with care, gratitude and respect. I look forward to meeting you and working with you, and sharing in the joy of your success.

Walking the walk

2009-09-05T06:00:00.002-04:00

In honor of Labor Day, I thought I'd post this video showing the farmer's walk, which supposedly derives its name from the heavy buckets of milk that farmers used to lug around. The event has now become a staple of strongman competitions.

So remember, don't try this at home, kids! Well, unless you happen to be this kid.

It's time to think about skiing!

2009-09-04T06:00:00.012-04:00

With that title, I'd better start boarding up the windows in our house to protect ourselves against the mob of brick-hurling summer-lovers who regard any mention of winter before Thanksgiving as a form of seasonal blasphemy.

Sorry, but now that there's a chill in the evening air in New England, I can't help myself. As you can see, I can get pretty excited about skiing. That's me in 2005 upon reaching one of my dream ski destinations: Lake Louise, in Alberta, Canada. Like so many things we might dream about and plan extensively for, reality didn't quite measure up to my expectations, but I'll save that story for another post.

Anyway, the point I was going to make is that if you're planning to go skiing this winter, NOW is the time to start preparing your body for it. There's an old saying in the sport: You have to get in shape to ski, you can't ski yourself into shape. I've always been a firm believer in that.

Skiing is a dynamic sport that uses a lot of muscles throughout the body. Many people make the mistake of regarding it as primarily a leg sport, but think about the effort it takes to pole and skate your way along a flat surface to get to the chairlift, before you even start to ski. If you haven't been preparing your entire body, you're going to feel that in your shoulders, arms and back the next day.

And not to be grim, but I think preparation for skiing demands to be taken a little more seriously than, say, golf or bowling. People do sometimes die skiing. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often, despite what my non-skiing friends seem to think, but with its speed and obstacles and weather-related challenges, it is a higher-risk sport than most in which the weekend athlete typically participates.

"You have to get in shape to ski, you can't ski yourself into shape."

I like to keep risk in perspective, and I've always considered driving to work on I-95 a far riskier activity than skiing. In the 25 years that I've been skiing, I've suffered only three injuries that required medical attention — a sprained thumb, a broken rib and a concussion (in my pre-helmet days). I think that's a pretty good record considering the many hundreds of times I've skied, including participation in recreational races and race leagues. I've always made a pre-season ski-specific workout a priority, and I think it has served me well.

Getting in shape beforehand — for any sport, really – will help you avoid injury.

Ski magazine has some excellent suggestions to help you get ready for the slopes this winter, which you can find here. In case you're tempted to not even touch that link because you think it's going to be another one of those grueling regimens involving lunges, plyometric jumps and wall-sits, think again. No, this is FUN stuff that you can do outdoors, while it's still warm and sunny, such as trail running and mountain biking.

I've always been partial to mountain biking to help me prepare for the skiing season, and for the sheer joy of it even when I'm not thinking about skiing. Mountain biking may be done on two in-line wheels instead of two parallel boards, but the similarities with skiing in movement, balance and mindset are amazing.

So there's no reason for you occasional skiers to be mad at me for mentioning winter so early (the hard-core skiers will completely understand). Get out there and play this fall, whether on a mountain bike or in your sneakers.

Trust me — you'll have fun, and without even knowing it, your body and mind will be ready when those first flakes start to fall.

The latest poll results are in

2009-09-02T08:00:00.007-04:00

Congratulations — you readers once again passed one of my highly unscientific and perpetually flawed polls with flying colors!

With a massive turnout this time of 11 voters, you showed that you're a well-rounded group when it comes to your motivation for exercise. Six respondents, or 54 percent, said they exercise mainly to improve their overall health, and two, or 18 percent, said their chief motivation was to gain strength. The other three reasons, weighing in with one vote, or 9 percent, each were: to lose weight, to improve physique and to improve cardiovascular endurance.

You obviously recognize that exercise can play an important role in enhancing the overall quality of your life and your health. I sometimes get a little annoyed at the way exercise is sold to the public primarily as a weight-loss vehicle. Sure, maintaining a healthy body composition is a big part of overall health, but exercise has so many more benefits than just reducing body fat.

So keep up the good work, and maybe someday I'll get a poll response that's big enough to be meaningful. In the meantime, I'm having fun trying — and fun can go a long way toward improving one's overall health, too.

A bare-bones lesson on calcium

2009-09-01T07:10:00.006-04:00

The other morning I came downstairs to find Marge stirring her liquid calcium supplement into her calcium-fortified orange juice that would accompany her bowl of calcium-rich Total cereal, which was, of course, swimming in milk.

"Whoa, hold on there, my little buckaroo," I said. Well, not really — I just thought that sounded kind of cute.

No, what I actually said was something more boring and harsh, like: "I hope you don't think you've just taken care of your day's calcium needs." Yes, the sad truth is that when it comes to calcium, a little at a time goes a long way, but a lot all at once goes pretty much nowhere.

I'm not a dietitian or nutritionist, but I've read enough to know that our bodies absorb calcium best when it is taken in amounts of 500 milligrams or less. The National Osteoporosis Foundation recommends that adults under age 50 get 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day and those over 50, 1,200 milligrams daily, in conjunction with appropriate amounts of vitamin D.

So if you're hoping to get the recommended amount of calcium but trying to do it all at once, whether through food or supplements, you've just wasted 500 to 700 milligrams of calcium, not to mention a lot of money over the course of a year in the case of supplements. Your body will better absorb calcium if it is consumed in smaller amounts spread throughout the day.

If you'd like to know more about the role of calcium and your health, the National Institutes of Health has a comprehensive fact sheet here.

Skip the drama and just act!

2009-08-31T09:10:00.001-04:00

I've always had mixed feelings about that popular self-help expression "fake it till you make it." While I'm sure that approach can help some people, it has always struck me as too trite to be of real value to those who are trying to make big changes in their lives.

But I'm rethinking the matter, particularly as it relates to exercise. A few days ago, while studying my American Council on Exercise personal trainer manual, I came across a variation of that maxim: "It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling rather than feel yourself into a new way of acting."

The section of the manual in which this sentence appeared had to do with the principles of behavior change. According to one model of lifestyle change, we go through five distinct stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance.

When it comes to regular exercise, a lot of people seem to get to the contemplation stage, but never make it to action. One of the most frequently cited reasons for not working out is lack of time. I've always believed, however, that people will manage to make time for the things they truly want to do.

I also often hear people say — and I've been guilty of it, too — that after a day at work, they're too tired to work out.

But what if you just went and did it anyway, regardless of whether you felt like you had the time or energy? As any veteran exerciser knows, regular exercise is more likely to be a source of energy than fatigue.

So next time you find yourself contemplating exercise, but coming up with a host of reasons why you won't, just get up and go. If you stick with that strategy, you just might, over time, find yourself looking forward to exercise because you know it will make you feel better. Your actions, then, will have changed the way you feel about exercise.

Suddenly you'll have time for exercise, and arriving home from work tired will be a reason to go to the gym or take a walk in the park instead of parking yourself on the sofa.

Well, it's just a thought ...

Surf's up!

2009-08-29T06:00:00.001-04:00

Tropical storm Danny is upon us this weekend, threatening heavy rain. Last weekend Hurricane Bill churned up some unusually heavy surf along the coast of New England. That, naturally, thrilled the surfers, who were out in full force.

Here's a short clip of professional surfer Ian Walsh, of Maui, Hawaii, riding the waves off Newport, Rhode Island. Isn't that deliciously ironic?

Words to live by

2009-08-28T06:00:00.004-04:00

Just a little quotation to get your day started, as you do whatever it is you do, and dream whatever it is you dream:

"You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare."

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Bird brains and fear

2009-08-27T06:00:00.005-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I was relaxing outside on our patio, just content to look out at the woods and the sky. At some point a female cardinal swooped in, low under the bird feeder, and landed in the grass below. She sat motionless for a minute, looking at me, sizing me up.

She soon began to crane her neck every which way, turning perhaps 10 or 15 times before occasionally ducking into the grass for a peck at the seed that had spilled from the freshly filled feeder. I wondered why she didn't just fly up onto the feeder, which would seem a much safer perch from which to eat, but then I remembered that I had been so remiss lately in filling it that her expectations were probably pretty low.

I watched her for maybe two minutes, amazed at the amount of energy it must have taken for her to consume just a few morsels. I started thinking about stress, and the toll it can take on our lives. I have no idea what the life span of a cardinal is, but I'm guessing it isn't very long.

She left as abruptly as she had arrived, and a male cardinal swiftly took her place. Her mate, perhaps? He, however, perched immediately on the feeder, though his nervous gyrations were much the same.

Stress in our lives can take many forms, but watching these two birds made me think of fear in particular. I had just read an excellent post about positive thinking by Jack Canfield in the Huffington Post. Canfield had summarized fear so simply that I found it brilliant: "Fear is self-created by focusing on something in the future that hasn't happened yet." And, more to the point, will very likely never happen.

I once read a book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers, and although I don't remember much of the book, I do remember the author making the claim that 90 percent of all of our fears never come to pass. I don't recall what kind of research she had to back up that claim, but if it's even half true, it's still pretty comforting.

Oh sure, there will be those doomsayers who say, "Well what about the 10 percent?" But think about it: If you thought you had a 9-in-10 chance of winning the lottery, you'd be rushing to buy a ticket, right? Yet how often do we shy away from trying something based on our 1-in-10 chance of whatever it is we fear?

"Without risk, there can be no reward." I came across that sentence recently in a horoscope. I generally don't read horoscopes and this particular one wasn't even mine, but that line caught my eye. Again, it was one of those simplistic but insightful statements.

I smiled as I watched the cardinals, thinking of the things I wouldn't have today if I had succumbed to my fears: a loving relationship, a nice home, and memories of trips taken to beautiful and interesting places and friendships made along the way.

The pair of cardinals in our backyard may or may not have had only a 1-in-10 chance of being snagged by our neighbor's cat, a hunting machine if there ever was one, but their hypervigilance has no doubt evolved because it has served the species well over time.

But what about our own vigilance, our own caution? What are we so afraid of?

Are we ourselves the potential enemy we fear?

Home-state pride, KFC style

2009-08-25T07:11:00.012-04:00

Just when you think the American diet can't get any worse, along comes this ...

As the report notes, it's being sold only in Rhode Island and Nebraska for now. Why? Who knows, but it sure makes me proud. Yes, little Rhody is for once in the vanguard of ... something.

I don't think I've visited a Kentucky Fried Chicken in 20 years, but I might just have to go soon to see who, if anyone, is ordering this concoction. I'm hoping it's all a hoax or a misunderstanding. It wouldn't be the first time that Fox News has — horrors! — reported something inaccurately.

The term "double down" has its roots in gambling. When you consider the extent of obesity and heart disease in this country, it seems a pretty appropriate name for this sandwich.

Julie & Julia & Me

2009-08-24T09:16:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend Marge and I went to the theater to cool off, and to see Julie & Julia. Yes, I think our priorities were in that order.

The film, for those who might not be familiar with it, is writer-director Nora Ephron's adaptation of Julie Powell's memoir of the year in which she decided to cook and blog her way through every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Marge and I both enjoyed the film, in large part because Meryl Streep's performance as Julia Child was so entertaining and endearing, and because the film featured two strong women who decided they wanted to do something and did it, despite the obstacles and skepticism they met along the way. Both of them had very supportive husbands, and we also found it refreshing to see male characters who were portrayed as something other than clueless or contemptible.

I'm not familiar with French cooking, and although I remember Dan Akroyd's Saturday Night Live parodies of Julia Child — one of which was included in the film — I never watched Child's show. But I could find plenty to relate to in the character of Julie Powell, played by Amy Adams. When Powell began cooking and blogging her way to fame in 2002, she was a 30-year-old low-level New York City bureaucrat who yearned to be a writer.

I think every blogger can relate to this movie: the moments in the beginning of her project when Julie questioned whether anyone was even reading her blog, the thrill of receiving her first comment, the responsibility of knowing that her words were being read, and the frustration of producing worthy material day after day.

It is that last point that is prompting me to write this. At one point in the movie Julie's husband, seeing her obvious frustration over the demands of her self-imposed deadline, suggests that she back off the project. She responds by saying that she can't, that there are hundreds of people who read her blog daily and count on her to post.

I have no illusions that there are hundreds of people hanging on my every word each day. Truth is, a typical day for my blog is 20 visitors and on a really good day, 40 to 60. Only a handful visit every day.

My initial goal was to post six days a week, preferably something informative or entertaining or thought-provoking. The time required to do this, however, is getting to be too much. I do have a full-time job, and several other things on my plate at the moment, and lately I have been struggling to make time for all of them.

And guess which one has suffered the most? My workouts!

More important, I don't want to get to the point where my desire to post something daily leads to my posting just anything. Nor do I want this to become more chore than fun, because I have been having a lot of fun with it.

So beginning today, I'm abandoning my commitment to posting daily. Some weeks I might end up posting every day, and some weeks I might post only a couple of times. Routines can often be helpful, but I don't want to become a prisoner to one.

I hope those of you who have visited regularly will understand, and will continue to return. I appreciate your interest, and your comments.

A video tribute

2009-08-22T06:00:00.014-04:00

I'm not usually afraid of heights, but watching this climb, even on video, is absolutely dizzying.

It is all the more amazing because Dan Osman, a climbing legend in his day, swiftly scaled this 400-foot-plus cliff without ropes or any other kind of safety mechanism. Whatever you think of the wisdom of doing something like this, you have to admire the sheer athleticism of Osman's feat.

Sadly, like so many other practitioners of extreme sports, Osman met an early death, in 1998 at the age of 35, while practicing his extraordinary version of fun. Ironically, he died while "rope jumping," in which one jumps from a cliff and is caught by a safety rope.

It was, in the end, a failure of a rope that did him in.

Carbo unloading

2009-08-21T06:00:00.004-04:00

If you thought that title was a clever way for me to announce that I was ridding my diet of most carbs, you're going to be disappointed. No, this is a good old-fashioned rant about one of my pet peeves: the vilification of carbohydrates.

I figured today is as good a day as any for a rant. Rants are, after all, much easier to write than a well-thought-out post about some journey of self-discovery or a well-reasoned response to some poorly designed health study. I'm just plain tired at the end of this long week, so a rant it is!

Let's face it, carbs are like people: there are good ones, and there are bad ones. But somehow carbs seem to have all been lumped together in the collective public mind, if there even is such a thing (see, with a rant you don't need to fact-check or even consider whether you're making sense!). Well I'm a carb-eating, potato-lovin' gal who's fed up!

Recently at my gym I overheard a woman boast that she NEVER eats ANY carbs. Hello? Has not a fruit or vegetable passed through her carb-virgin lips? And if so, what, exactly, is she eating?

Her statement was so shocking that a trainer who overheard it felt compelled to insert himself into the conversation and warn her that she was jeopardizing her health. She waved off his concerns like a plate full of pancakes and home fries.

Carbohydrates are the body's chief energy source. Leave them out of your tank and you'll be running on empty soon enough.

So back to those potatoes I love. Are they good for you or bad for you? Well, it mainly depends on how they're prepared. French fries — not so good for you. Baked — and served without a ladle of sour cream and a half-cup of bacon bits — pretty good for you, especially if you eat the skin, too. Potatoes are a good source of fiber, vitamins and minerals.

I'll be sure to think of that woman at the gym the next time I bake a potato: this spud's for you!

Gender and sports

2009-08-20T06:00:00.012-04:00

I was wondering what I was going to write about today, because I was fresh out of ideas and energy, thanks to a bizarre work schedule this week. And then I came across this story about questions concerning the gender of a competitor in the IAAF World Championship in Athletics in Berlin, Germany.

Actually, I don't follow sports all that much, and were it not for my friend Kerstin in Meiningen, Germany, I wouldn't have even known that this competition was happening.

Anyway, the story about Caster Semenya, an 18-year-old South African who won the gold medal in the 800-meter race Wednesday, made me cringe for two reasons. First, the basis for the allegation that she might really be male seems to be an almost knee-jerk reaction: if a woman performs in a spectacular fashion, perhaps she is not really a woman, particularly if she has more muscle than the average woman. And second, if the allegation is true, then sports have been further diminished by yet another episode of cheating. Either way, it would seem to be a black eye for sports.

But the issue might not be as clear-cut as it appears at first glance. The story quotes IAAF spokesman Nick Davies as saying that it is a "medical issue, not an issue of cheating," and that "extremely complex" testing is under way. I can only imagine where this may be going, and if it's going where I think it might be, I feel for Caster Semenya.

It brings to mind the controversy that surrounded the late Babe Didrikson, one of the greatest female American athletes of all time, who was plagued by questions about her "femininity." Or, more recently, the controversy surrounding Sarah Gronert, a 22-year-old German whose presence on the women's tennis tour has sparked controversy.

I don't know what more to say other than that I hope Semenya keeps her medal, and that she and the sports world can move on.

By the way, I apologize for using news links that included some vile comments by readers. But such ignorance, sadly, is a big part of these types of stories.

Ticktock, ticktock

2009-08-19T06:00:00.004-04:00

For better or worse, this is going to be one of those random-thought posts, in this case about time.

I've always been fascinated with time — not in a Stephen Hawking, black-hole kind of way, but more in the way that we mark it. It all seems so arbitrary, yet so important to our daily lives.

Yesterday I was reminded of the passage of time not by the hands of a clock or the pages of a calendar, but by the appearance of purple loosestrife. Though considered an invasive weed, I've always found it beautiful. But its appearance, usually in August here in Rhode Island, makes me a bit melancholy.

It signals that the summer is nearing an end, often at about the same time that I realize the summer has begun. It always triggers that where-has-the-time-gone feeling that makes me just a bit sad. Not sad because I've mismanaged or wasted my time, but sad because I realize how quickly it all goes by.

Fall is my favorite season, yet fall often makes me think of aging, or even dying. Think about the overused metaphors we read and hear: people are usually either in the spring of their lives, or their autumn. Autumn, in this context, is generally not considered a good thing, even though autumn in nature offers us some of the finest weather and the most spectacular scenery. I hope it will be so, too, in my life metaphorically.

As I noticed the purple loosestrife yesterday on a riverbank near our house, I was reminded of that late September, ten years ago, when I decided to spend a week in a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, all by myself. Now this cabin had propane-generated electricity, but was pretty primitive compared with what I'm used to. My friends and coworkers thought, in a word, that I was "crazy" to spend my hard-earned vacation time there.

But there was something appealing to me about the idea of a week of solitude, if not entirely off the grid, certainly off the clock. I was determined to not look at a clock the entire week. But at the last minute, I did pack a wristwatch, and that concession to habit should have told me right then and there that my experiment was destined to fail.

So there I sat, all alone in my cabin that could have easily accommodated six people, with my stack of good books and some good food and wine, hoping to enjoy my time in the absence of it as we normally experience it. The sunrise would be my alarm clock, darkness my cue to call it a day. I would just go with the natural rhythms of my body and nature, not forcing anything like I am so often forced to do.

I made it only two days before I peeked at that watch I brought along. I don't know why it was so important to me, but I just HAD to know what time it was.

Throughout my life I've periodically kept journals, and one of my entries, many years ago, read: Would we live our lives any differently if we knew precisely how much time we had?

What do you think?

Mind your peas and cukes

2009-08-17T10:06:00.057-04:00

Yesterday I wrote about the difficulty of paying full attention to the present moment. One area where a lot of us could probably stand to be a little more mindful is our eating habits.

Between meals grabbed on the run at fast-food restaurants and meals consumed in front of the TV, is anyone truly enjoying their food?

How often have we stuck another forkful of food into our mouths while still chewing the last bite? Did we stop to think about the sight, smell, texture or temperature of the food? Do we know how much we've actually eaten?

I am so guilty of doing other things while eating. Unless my partner and I have invited company for dinner, we almost always eat — and I hate to admit this — in front of the TV, our plates on the coffee table. It's cozy and familiar, but not conducive to good eating habits.

Sometimes I find myself regarding food as a necessary evil, wishing I could spend my time doing things other than cooking and preparing meals. I've never really appreciated food the way some of my friends seem to.

There are reasons to eat mindfully other than enhanced enjoyment of food. Health experts agree that mindless or distracted eating contributes to overeating, which leads to weight gain and sometimes even digestive problems. So if you want to lose weight, mindful eating sounds like an easy and sensible approach to help you on your way.

A lot of helpful information about mindful eating can be found on the Internet. I was surprised to find that there's even a Center for Mindful Eating, dedicated to promoting the concept.

So what exactly is meant by mindful eating? It means turning off the TV or putting aside that book or newspaper during meals and focusing your senses on the food before you. It means taking one bite at a time, paying attention to the taste, texture and temperature of the food, and the sensation of it in your mouth. It means chewing each bite slowly and noticing the transition from chewing to swallowing.

OK, it sounded good to me, so I decided to try a mindful-eating exercise, but I made the mistake of trying it with one of my favorite snacks: sardines. Now I can safely put sardines on my list of former favorite snacks. What was I thinking?

I'm sorry, mindful-eating proponents, but some things are better eaten with distraction.

The beauty of the moment

2009-08-17T06:00:00.018-04:00

I have been to Utah twice now, once in 2001 by myself and again in 2006 with my partner, Marge. It is a place of captivating beauty that left its mark on both of us.

Our favorite stop was Arches National Park, not only because one of our favorite movies (Thelma and Louise) was filmed in part there, but also because the park contains some of the most amazing scenery either of us has ever seen. Views such as this:

And this:

And this (Delicate Arch, at left, is the arch featured on Utah license plates):

Oddly enough, though, of the hundreds of beautiful photos of arches and bridges, hoodoos, and mountains from our vacation, one of my favorites has always been this close-up I took of an ant making its way along the sun-baked earth of Arches with a chunk of a tourist's Doritos chip:

This moment fascinated me not only because the ant's seemingly endless struggle stirred feelings of existential empathy, but also because I had even noticed the ant in an environment in which it would have been entirely easy to miss.

I don't always observe what is around me in great detail. I will freely admit that my mind is often a mad dash of thoughts: thoughts about the past and the future, about things I shouldn't have done and things I should do, about why things are the way they are instead of the way they could be. I am not someone who easily occupies the "now."

But in Utah, amid the stunning beauty and free of my daily stresses, real or imagined, I was wholly present in the moment. My photo of the ant, I suppose, was a product of the macrofocus of both my camera and my mind.

It shouldn't require a vacation to have such moments, although we sometimes have to make the time for them. Lately I have been feeling stretched a little too thin, and realize that I need to slow down a bit.

I plan to try to set aside some time each day to sit quietly, clear my mind and just see, hear, smell, touch and taste the life around me at that particular moment.

Our culture doesn't always make it easy to be present in the moment. At our local Stop & Shop on Saturday, the Halloween decorations were already on the shelves.

Whiplash doesn't always require a collar

2009-08-15T06:00:00.003-04:00

Three weeks ago I featured rats playing basketball, so this week I thought it was time to let the dogs have their day. Or at least one cute Jack Russell terrier named Whiplash. If this doesn't make you feel happy and energized, nothing will.

Health care and us

2009-08-14T06:00:00.023-04:00

Watching the recent debate over health-care reform in this country has been something akin to rubbernecking at a grisly car wreck: it's disturbing, but I can't seem to turn away. So there I was yesterday watching a TV report that featured the usual angry mob at a town hall meeting hurling insults and outlandish rumors at one hapless congressman or congresswoman or another.

And it struck me: Many of these people who were angrily expressing fear over losing their beloved health care, whatever it may be at the moment, were part of the problem. Many of them were either overweight or obese, mostly preventable conditions that can lead to a host of physical problems that further feed the health-care juggernaut. It just seemed so tragically ironic.

Dr. Andrew Weil, the noted alternative-medicine guru, wrote in the Huffington Post on Sunday that our system is "not a health care system at all; it's a disease management system." Americans, he wrote, spent "an astonishing $2.3 trillion" on medicine in 2007.

Dr. Dean Ornish, known for his work in using lifestyle approaches to treat coronary artery disease, also weighed in on the Huffington Post, writing that 95 cents of every dollar spent on medical care "were spent to treat disease after it had already occurred." He cited heart disease, in particular, as an expensive burden on the system that could largely be prevented.

"Many people tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, laser, or high-tech surgical procedure," Ornish wrote. "They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle — what we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and social support — can be as powerful as drugs and surgery, but they often are. Often, even better."

Not too long ago I overheard a conversation in which a woman was telling her friend that she had been diagnosed with mild hypertension, and was planning to take medication for it. "Exercise and dieting are too much work," she said. "I'd rather just take a pill."

In my town of Richmond, with a population of just over 7,000, the only commercial strip contains three pharmacies — a Rite Aid, Walgreens and CVS — all within a half-mile of one another.

The status quo is clearly working for some.

In Focus: Triathlete Diana Lajoie

2009-08-13T06:00:00.008-04:00

Diana Lajoie admits to having a competitive streak so fierce that she usually declines to participate in anything she knows she can't win. She's even quick to end her favorite computer game of Yahtzee when it looks like it's not going well, opting instead to start a new game.

So it surprised the 38-year-old resident of Seekonk, Mass., as much as anyone when in 2004, at the urging of a couple of triathletes in the yoga class she taught, she decided to enter her first triathlon in Ashland, Mass., an Olympic-distance event that consisted of a swim of just under a mile, a 24.8-mile bike ride and a 6.2-mile run.

"I was delighted just to finish, and I got the bug," Lajoie said last week over dinner in Providence.

"Bug" might be a bit of an understatement. Since then, Lajoie estimates, she has competed in 10 Olympic triathlons, 4 sprints (consisting of a half-mile swim, a 12.4-mile bike ride and a 3.1-mile run), 2 "70.3s" or half-triathlons (a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile run) and 3 Ironmans, the granddaddy of all triathlons, consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run.

In her last Ironman, in Lake Placid, N.Y., on July 26, Lajoie placed 17th out of 104 in her division with a personal-best time of 12 hours, 1 minute and 21 seconds. (All of these photos, incidentally, are from the Lake Placid event.)

While happy to have posted her best time in Lake Placid, Lajoie felt she could have done better were it not for some issues that arose related to her race-day intake of food and liquids.

"Nutrition is everything," she said.

The problem began with a minor cramp in her right calf during the swim, she said. She fared very well during that portion of the event, finishing 10th in her division. The cramps escalated during the bike ride, Lajoie said, so she began drinking a lot of water at every aid station and dipping into all the nutrition she carried in her Fuel Belt, "just like in training." She managed to finish strong in the bike ride, at ninth place in her division. But her troubles were just beginning.

"By the time I got to the run, the leg cramps were gone, but my stomach was upset," she said. "Thank God for Porta Johns. It was very challenging."

When such unforeseen troubles arise on the course, Lajoie said, "It becomes more of a mental race than a physical race."

Running has always been her weakest link in the event, Lajoie said, which is why she's planning to emphasize running in her training from October through February, perhaps participating in some 5Ks and 10Ks to work on her speed. But that will be for training purposes only.

"I love triathlon," she said. "I could never see myself just swimming, biking or running."

Her goal is to be invited to the most famous of all triathlons, the World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. "I think it is [the goal] for everyone," she said. Only the top three finishers in each division of an Ironman are invited to the Hawaii race, though the top 20 are kept on a list of potential invitees in case some cannot make it.

Because Lajoie finished 17th in her division at Lake Placid, she was honored to have her name on that list.

Lajoie said one of the most difficult things about running an Ironman, aside from the countless hours of training, is learning to pace herself. Being so competitive, it's hard, she said, to watch people pass her, but she has to resist the urge to try to keep up.

"The whole point is to find a pace that will be comfortable without burning yourself out," she said. "So many people leave themselves for dead on the run."

If there's one thing Lajoie hopes others will take from her story, it is that she has accomplished what she has as an ordinary woman. She did not have parents who pushed her along the way, she did not have a high-paid coach. She is truly self-motivated, having trained herself using plans downloaded from the Internet.

"I'm just a normal person," said Lajoie, who works as a CAT-scan technologist at Rhode Island Medical Imaging. "Anybody can do this, whether running their first 5K, or doing the first one-mile walk that they've never done before."

There is a price to pay for the training required for Ironmans, though. Lajoie talks almost ruefully of the pre-dawn hours spent training alone, and the fact that she can never seem to find the time to go camping under the stars on a weekend with her husband.

"So you envy other people," she said. "The only time I sit still is when I hit the wall."

I'm thankful Diana took the time to sit still with me for a couple of hours, and I didn't get the sense that there was a wall anywhere in sight.

Trip report: Carolina in my mind

2009-08-12T06:00:00.005-04:00

Not that Carolina, although I have enjoyed visits to the beautiful Outer Banks and the refreshingly liberal oasis of Asheville, N.C.

No, the Carolina of which I write today is here in Richmond, R.I., practically in my backyard — the Carolina Management Area, a 2,359-acre expanse of woodlands, wetlands, fields and fun. This past weekend was a real beauty, the kind we haven't seen too many of in these parts this summer, so Marge and I loaded up the mountain bikes and headed over to the management area to ride.

Like the Great Swamp Management Area that I wrote about last month, the Carolina Management Area doesn't offer much in the way of technical riding, though I would rate it as more difficult than the swamp. There are a few places where the trails narrow and become rocky, and as Marge discovered, there are some hidden hazards for those who decide to ride over things despite not being able to see what's on the other side. That's her at right, picking herself up after nearly going over the handlebars after her front wheel fell into a hidden hole on the other side of a fallen tree. (Not to worry: she was startled, but fine.)

But mostly you'll find wide, smooth, pine-covered trails through the woods, and some doubletrack through meadows and cornfields. A word of warning about those meadows: if riding through high grass creeps you out, you probably won't like it here. There were moments when, with Marge leading the way, all I could see was her head amid fields of wildflowers and grass, the trail barely discernible.

One of our favorite parts of the ride is an old cemetery that is in danger of being claimed by overgrowth. If you're not looking for it, it's pretty easy to miss. It seems like it's in the middle of nowhere, until you realize that years ago, this was somewhere.

We always like to stop and poke around the gravestones, many of which are practically illegible by now. I know it might sound a little macabre, but sometimes nothing makes me feel more alive than being surrounded by the dead.

We had to laugh toward the end of our ride when, as Marge set up to take a photo of me entering a cornfield, I was nearly blown off my bike by two shirtless teenage boys on bikes who came screaming around the corner out of nowhere. We were laughing both because we hardly ever see anyone riding here, and also because of the contrast in our ages. As Marge said, "How many women our age do this kind of thing?" We wish there were more, because it is a lot of fun.

The management area is bordered on the south by Route 91 and the north by Kenyon Hill Trail. It's bisected by Pine Hill Road, and there's good riding on either side. Parking can be found in two small lots on Pine Hill Road, including one by the hunter check station. On the north side, you can also park at the Carolina Trout Pond, whose entrance is off Switch Road on the west side of the management area.

I wish I could provide you with detailed directions for riding in the management area, but I've always been one to just wing it. Fortunately, I have a good internal compass. Unlike the Great Swamp, Carolina is a vast area that has been known to be the scene of search operations when hikers have been lost (this usually occurs, I might add by way of reassurance, when people set out on their hikes late in the afternoon or early evening and are surprised at how quickly it can become dark).

You can find some rudimentary Department of Environmental Management trail maps here. But if you're still a little hesitant, detailed maps can be purchased at places like Agway on South County Trail in Exeter and URE Outfitters in Hopkinton.

And one last warning: If you decide to ride in the fall after Oct. 1, just be sure to wear 200 square inches of blaze orange. It seems like there's always some kind of hunting season going on in this state.

Although I know there are some hikers and equestrians who would like to see an open season on mountain bikers, I've never understood that mindset.

This land belongs to all of us. Why can't we respect one another and get along? There's plenty of room for all of us.

Success stories: A casting call

2009-08-11T06:30:00.007-04:00

I'd like to try a little experiment and occasionally run stories about people whose accomplishments can inspire us.

I plan to kick off this experiment Thursday with a profile of Diana Lajoie, a Massachusetts resident who somewhat hesitantly entered her first triathlon in 2004 and has been swimming, biking and running her way to personal achievement ever since. Last month she finished an Ironman in Lake Placid, N.Y., in just over 12 hours, a personal best.

I hope you'll enjoy Diana's story and help provide me with material for other such stories. I'd love to hear from you if you or someone you know has an inspiring story and would like to share it with me.

The accomplishments don't necessarily have to be of the athletic variety. They could be about weight loss, or finding happiness, or overcoming a physical problem. Just something that reminds us that ordinary people are capable of some pretty extraordinary things when they tap the power within.

You can e-mail me with story suggestions at rhodetofitness.gmail.com

The polling station is open again!

2009-08-10T00:01:00.001-04:00

Yes, it's time to cast your vote in another scientifically unsound, but fun, Rhode to Fitness poll. When I last opened up this blog to an exercise in democracy, I learned that the vast majority of Rhode to Fitness readers (or, more accurately, all 18 of you who responded) were already a pretty active group. No surprise there, really.

This time I'm interested in hearing from you about why you exercise regularly. I'm sure there are some potential reasons I didn't include in the poll, such as that the guy or gal you've been chasing belongs to the gym, so therefore you must go, too. But I think I've included most of the reasons people usually cite for spending good time and money to work themselves into a disgusting sweat.

So have fun, and remember to vote early and often — oh wait, that isn't right, at least not in this precinct. No, you can only vote once, but please do stroll on over to the "booth" at top left.

On the ropes

2009-08-08T06:30:00.009-04:00

Lately I've been noticing more than a few people at my gym jumping rope to get warmed up before starting their workouts, or to keep limber between sets of whatever it is they happen to be doing.

I can't really remember jumping rope much as a child, when a lot of other girls were doing it, and the thought of beginning to do it at age 51 kind of scares me. So I have to admire the girls in this video, who take jumping rope to a whole new level.

This is the team known as The Firecrackers, a dedicated group of fourth- to eighth-graders from Ohio who practice two hours five to six days a week.

Look at their smiles and their enthusiasm. I find their performance so refreshing in this age of overpaid, overdrugged professional athletes whose boorish behavior lands them in the headlines more often than their athletic accomplishments.

If you're stalled, shift into "overload"

2009-08-07T06:30:00.002-04:00

A couple of days ago I mentioned the principle of specificity, which says that physiological adaptations to exercise are specific to the system or part of the body being worked. Today I might as well toss out another principle of exercise science for your consideration, and that is the principle of overload.

This principle states that in order for the system or part of the body being exercised to adapt to training and make progress, a greater-than-normal stress must be placed on it. In other words, your workout should tax you a bit.

If you want to improve your cardiovascular endurance, a moderately paced half-hour walk around the local track every day won't cut it. Or, if you want to build leg strength, squats with an Olympic bar minus weight plates are not going to do it.

I mention this because over the years I've heard a number of friends bemoan the fact that they were not getting faster or stronger, or whatever it was they hoped to achieve, despite working out regularly.

But upon further questioning, it usually turned out that they were still doing the same old exercises at the same intensity as when they first began working out. Their muscles, heart and lungs were probably crying out: "Help! We're bored! We need a challenge!"

Now "overload" does not mean "overdo." When adding weight to a lift, or distance to a run, you want to challenge yourself, but within safe limits. I won't speak about running, because I think I've spent enough time this week documenting the fact that I'm not a runner.

And although I'm not a personal trainer — at least not yet — I have spent 20 years engaging in regular weight-training, so I'll limit my comments to that subject.

With weight-training, the best way to judge whether a weight load is appropriate for any given exercise is by the number of reps you can do until fatigue (fatigue meaning you could probably do only one or two more reps before your form would be compromised). In general, 8 to 12 reps is considered a safe range for experienced exercisers (if you're just starting out, 12 to 15 is a better bet).

So if you're easily banging out 15 reps while whistling and mentally composing your grocery list, and feel like you could still do a whole bunch more, that's probably a good sign you can go heavier.

Why spend all that time at the gym without getting results?

Sadly, a lot of people who end up asking themselves that question give up without understanding why success is eluding them. Just remember: at the gym, "heavier" is a good word.

Phys ed class can be a real pain

2009-08-06T06:00:00.002-04:00

Another one of those "study" stories that I love (not!) came out earlier this week, this one sounding an alarm over the rising number of injuries among children participating in phys ed classes.

The study, being published in the September edition of Pediatrics and reported this week by a number of news outlets, found a 150 percent increase from 1997 to 2007 in injuries suffered among children ages 5 to 18 during gym classes. Extrapolating from the data they collected from 100 representative U.S. hospitals, researchers estimated that such injuries had risen from fewer than 30,000 in 1997 to more than 60,000 a year by 2007.

What was most interesting was that the researchers attributed to the rise in gym-class injuries to a lack of appropriate supervision. They pointed out that in some school districts, phys ed teachers don't even have to be certified.

Of the injuries documented during the study, strains and sprains were more common among girls while boys suffered more cuts and broken bones. Isn't some of that just normal kid stuff?

The study is worth considering, particularly as it applies to the supervision that children receive. Children should be properly supervised at school, whether it be on the playground, in the gymnasium or in the science lab.

But I certainly hope the fear of possible injuries and resultant litigation doesn't prompt schools to cut back on gym classes even more than many already have. Children need to be encouraged to be more active.

A cut or sprain is nothing compared with the potential toll of obesity, heart disease or diabetes on that child later in life.

A footnote to my road race adventure

2009-08-05T06:00:00.006-04:00

It occurred to me after posting my report yesterday about participating in the Run 4 Kerri that perhaps some readers might be thinking, "I can't believe this woman who wants to be a personal trainer can't jog four miles!"

So in my defense, I just wanted to mention the "principle of specificity," a principle of exercise science that says physiological adaptations to exercise are specific to the system or part of the body being worked. Or, in simpler terms, if you want to get better at an activity, you have to actually do it.

I've never liked to run. This puts me at odds with many of my friends and acquaintances, who daily log the kinds of mileage that would kill me. They run through the rain and snow, through heat and bitter cold, through injury, and sometimes right out of the lives of their significant others. They are, in a word, addicted.

In my younger days I tried running, but it never did much for me. All that pounding on the joints wasn't pleasant, and I found it kind of boring. For a while I switched to trail running, which was more interesting, but as a solo activity was also unnerving. I would find myself running from imagined dangers lurking in the woods and I would emerge with a heart rate elevated from anxiety more than anything else.

So I eventually abandoned running altogether and turned to kinder, gentler forms of cardio exercise, such as fast walking, hiking and biking. Those things I can do well, and do for hours and long distances without fatigue. And more importantly, I enjoy them. It's hard to stay motivated when you're forcing yourself to do an activity you don't like simply because you think it'll be good for you.

I consider myself to have a relatively good level of cardiovascular fitness, but all those things I've done to achieve it did not translate to the road race on Sunday. Our bodies are funny that way.

For instance, although I regularly do biceps curls with 20-pound dumbbells, I know that when my fall bowling league begins next month, I'll be feeling sore the day after picking my 14-pound ball up for the first time in months. It doesn't seem like it should be that different, but it is.

As I mentioned yesterday, in spite of my limitations, the Run 4 Kerri was a fun experience and inspired me to consider participating in some more races, if for no other reason than I like a challenge. Clearly, running is a sport in which I have a lot of room for improvement.

I'll be running in the future with the principle of specificity in mind: I'm planning to further train my sense of humor.

I pretend to be a runner for Kerri

2009-08-04T06:00:00.034-04:00

On Sunday, my partner, Marge, and I participated in the 8th annual Run 4 Kerri, a 4-mile road race in South Kingstown to benefit a scholarship fund in memory of Kerri Bessette, whose story touched both of us.

I'll put this out there right now: I AM NOT A RUNNER — NEVER HAVE BEEN, NEVER WILL BE. I could easily improve my endurance if I chose to work on it, but as for speed, I am SLOW — ALWAYS HAVE BEEN, ALWAYS WILL BE.

But that said, Marge and I were looking forward to the race, which organizers said had drawn 980 participants on that sunny, muggy morning. Marge, due to a foot problem, had decided to walk the whole thing, and had set a goal for herself of finishing in under an hour. I had no goal, really, other than to jog as much as I could and not completely disgrace myself or end up having to be hauled away in a rescue truck.

We felt a little intimidated as we sat in a line of traffic on Matunuck Beach Road, waiting to get into the parking area before the 9 a.m. race. There were already people in low-numbered bibs running up and down the road, warming up. Warming up? I couldn't imagine it — I would need to save every once of energy for that four miles, which, by the way, would be the longest distance I've ever "run." I've participated in a few 5Ks (3.1 miles), having been goaded into them by friends, but that's been the extent of my running experience.

We managed to find a parking space, register for the race and arrive at the starting line with 10 minutes to spare. A pretty good crowd was assembled, and I wondered what Kerri would think of the turnout she inspired.

We bumped into a friend of ours, Dot Zullo, who is a racewalker (and Rhode to Fitness follower), and chatted briefly with her and did a few obligatory stretches before the gun sounded. And then we were off!

Dot walks so fast that I decided she would be a good pacesetter for me, even though I was jogging. I managed to keep Dot in sight until a little past the two-mile mark when suddenly — voilà! — I turned into Gumby. So I stopped jogging and began walking, using the break to take some photos along the way. After all, I knew you'd want photos, too!

By now the sun was beating down on us pretty ferociously, and even though the course looped past Matunuck Beach, there was no cooling ocean breeze on this day.

I never saw Dot again until the finish area, and for the rest of the distance I alternated between jogging and walking. I just had fun with it, and enjoyed the banter of the other runners and the neighborhood residents who sat on their front lawns ringing cowbells, shouting encouragement and directing their sprinklers onto the street for our benefit.

I ramped it up a little as I neared the finish, so that I could at least look like a runner, even though the clock revealed me as a fraud. As I entered the finish corral, I ran past a man who was lying on the ground being tended to, ice packs on one knee and an arm. I don't know what happened to him, but I didn't get the impression it was terribly serious, even though the rescue had been summoned. I was thankful that it wasn't me.

I crossed the finish line in 44 minutes and 27 seconds, four minutes and 27 seconds behind Dot. Marge (at bottom right, looking strong and happy at the end) met her goal by finishing in 58:50. We all felt a feeling of accomplishment, although probably nothing compared with what Patrick Tarpy of Providence must have been feeling. He finished first with a time of 19:23.

I was even more excited when I found out that my bib number had been drawn in a raffle. I lined up to collect my prize, watching as those ahead of me got such things as gift certificates to restaurants and theater tickets. So what did I win? A $15 gift certificate toward the purchase of a medical ID bracelet or necklace. Ha! Were they trying to tell me something?

And one last little indignity. Later that day I went to check the results on the Cool Running Web site and couldn't find my name. That's because I was listed as Kathy Farmous. I had to laugh. But I did finish 17th out of 55 in my division, so maybe there's a little hope for me after all.

I have to admit, as Marge and I drove away at the end of the race, we were already talking about "the next one."

And the winner of the poll is ... everyone!

2009-08-03T08:07:00.009-04:00

The results are in from my highly unscientific poll intended to gauge whether my readers are gym rats or couch potatoes. Thanks to its poor design, I'll never know.

With a whopping 18 respondents, the breakdown was as follows: 8 people, or 44.5 percent, reported that they exercise daily, another 8 people (also 44.5 percent, for the math-impaired) reported exercising at least once a week, and 2 people, or 11 percent, said they exercise once a week. No one reported exercising only rarely.

Now I didn't define exercise for purposes of this poll, so for all I know, a half-hour of gardening was given as much weight by the respondents as a 60-minute sweat-fest on the elliptical trainer. But it really doesn't matter, because the point is, those of you who responded are active in some way, and that already puts you ahead of an estimated 40 percent of Americans who live a sedentary lifestyle.

In 1995, the American College of Sports Medicine released its "exercise lite" recommendations for adults. The guidelines were intended to educate the public about the health benefits of even moderate exercise, in recognition that a one-size-fits-all approach to exercise does not work. It turns out that for basic health benefits, you don't have to practically kill yourself at the gym for hours every day (if your goal is weight loss, however, you will have to work a little harder).

The guidelines were updated in 2007, in conjunction with the American Heart Association, and can be found in detail here.

For healthy adults under 65, the guidelines call for "moderately intense cardio 30 minutes a day, five days a week or vigorously intense cardio 20 minutes a day, three days a week, and 8 to 10 strength-training exercises, with 8 to 12 repetitions of each exercise, twice a week." For adults over 65, the cardio recommendations are the same, but the strength-training recommendations are adjusted slightly.

The cardio activity can be accumulated in bouts of at least 10 minutes each — not a huge time commitment when you think about it.

A study published in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion found that 67.5 percent of all adults reported watching TV or videos an average of two hours or more a day within the previous month, and 25.2 percent of adults reported using a computer outside of work an average of two hours or more a day. Cleary, Americans have some extra time, but prefer to sit on it.

A sedentary lifestyle has been shown to be a risk factor for obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other health problems. So let's get up and move!

Oh, and be on the lookout for further polls. They may not be scientific, but I think they're fun.

The agony of ... victory?

2009-08-01T06:00:00.011-04:00

A couple of weeks ago while writing about the deadlift, I made the point that strength can help us avoid situations we'd prefer not to be in. Perhaps you thought I meant escaping the occasional parking-garage mugger, but I really had dicey sports moments in mind when I wrote that.

And as this video shows, strength can also help us emerge uninjured from situations we didn't want to be in, but ended up in anyway. (I apologize that the sound and graphics are in Japanese, but it was the best of the video that I could find.)

For those of you who don't follow skiing, this is Hermann Maier of Austria having an epic crash in the 1998 Olympic downhill in Nagano, Japan. Not only did "The Hermannator," as he was called, get up and brush himself off, but he came back a few days later and won Gold medals in the giant slalom and super giant slalom.

And one other thing: the Austrians take their skiing very, very seriously, and the national team had once told a young Maier that there wasn't a future for him on the team because he wasn't strong enough. So what did he do to build that strength that would help make him almost unbeatable in later years? He went to work as a bricklayer.

Just goes to show you, you don't need a fancy gym to get strong.

Patch-work memories

2009-07-31T08:00:00.005-04:00

This week, for whatever reason, I've found myself taking quite a few strolls down memory lane (I have no idea how many calories that burns). A couple of days ago I was thinking back to junior high school gym class. Now I know the words "gym" and "class" in succession strike terror into a lot of people, but I rather enjoyed those classes.

I'm sure academics were stressed, too, at the junior high I attended in Indiana, but what I remember most was the gleaming new fieldhouse where our gym classes were held. It was a place of activity and excitement. Walkers, joggers and runners vied for position on the track; the trampolines at the center erupted with tumbling bodies; and thick ropes dangled from the ceiling, holding climbers in various states of ascent.

I also remember a girl named Linda, who was sort of the female Bruce Jenner of our class: you name it, and she could perform it, catch it, throw it or lift it better than anyone else.

All of us had to wear one-piece, navy-blue gym suits that weren't very attractive, but Linda always looked sharp in hers. That's because her suit contained a lot of those patches from the President's Council on Physical Fitness. Remember those?

I think I managed to earn one or two of the patches, but my navy-blue gym suit was still largely a sea of blue.

Anyway, while thinking about Linda and her patches, I got to wondering whether that program still existed. I have no children, but my understanding is that many cash-strapped schools have cut out physical education programs entirely.

To my surprise, I found out that the program does still exist, and you don't need to be a 13-year-old in a hideous gym suit to participate.

Called the President's Challenge, the program lets you register, pick an activity, and track your progress in that activity as you work your way toward an award. You can challenge friends or family, or just yourself. You can find the details here.

I don't know about you, but I love challenges and rewards, and think they can be powerful motivators. Of course feeling fit and healthy is the best reward of all.

CPR is not just for dummies

2009-07-30T08:34:00.001-04:00

Heart disease is the number-one killer of men and women in the United States. In 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, 652,091 Americans died of heart disease, and 50.5 percent of them were women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly half of all cardiac deaths occur before emergency services arrive or before the victim reaches a hospital, the CDC says.

If you witnessed someone having a heart attack, would you know what to do?

I'm now better prepared to respond should I find myself in such unfortunate circumstances. Last week I became certified in CPR and the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED) by taking a 3-hour class at the Rhode Island Red Cross headquarters in Providence.

Why did I do it? The short answer is that I had to, because I need that little certification card before I can even take the American Council on Exercise personal trainer exam.

But after having taken the class, I'd like to think that even if things don't work out for me as a personal trainer, I will maintain my CPR/AED certification. The class was completely painless — no embarrassing moments pretending to be a victim while the rest of the class watches — and easily worth a few hours of my time and $45.

There were about a dozen of us in the class, and we paired off to practice such skills as aiding a choking victim, but had our own mannequins on which to practice the rescue breaths and chest compressions of CPR. We went through the CPR steps as a group, following along with an instructional video, and the instructor made the rounds to make sure each of us was doing it correctly.

I was impressed that a few people had attended the class not because certification was a job requirement, but because they wanted to be prepared in an emergency. One young's man story was particularly touching: He said his grandfather had started choking on some food a few weeks before, and he wished he had known how to help.

The instructor, Keith Choquette, who said he spent 10 years as an emergency medical technician before becoming an instructor with the Red Cross, was very candid about the chances of reviving someone with CPR alone: about 5 percent. CPR in combination with the use of an AED brings those chances up to 10 percent, he said.

But he made a point that had never occurred to me, which was that even if the heart attack victim does not survive, CPR can greatly improve the odds that the victim's organs can still be donated. So a bystander who performs CPR might not be saving the heart attack victim's life, but could be saving the lives of many others.

And though those odds of survival are terribly slim, think about how they would sound if you or someone you loved were the victim. As Choquette said, "A chance is a chance."

To find a CPR course near you, contact the American Red Cross.