Running by the numbers
Running is simple. Left foot, right foot, repeat. Yet somewhere in that simplicity I’ve been gifted more fitness and life lessons than I can possibly share. I’ll try anyway. Here are some numbers that will help your running, your fitness, and maybe even your life.
I can’t prove it, I just know it’s true
There’s a great running gag on ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ called ‘I can’t prove it; I just know it’s true’. Let’s play a round.
I can’t prove Brad Pitt was on Steroids for ‘Fight Club; I just know it’s true.
The Enemy is belly fat
Let’s do sit ups. I need to burn the fat around my lower abs.’
We get this one a lot. And ya know what, I don’t even correct people any more. As soon as I start to explain what’s wrong with that statement the eyes glaze over and their shoulders slump. No one wants the Truth.
Does exercise make you smarter?
Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki “found that subjects who’d ridden bikes for an hour had markedly better scores on tests of their prefrontal cortex function than those who’d spent the hour watching an episode of 24 instead.” (That just seems like a needless dig at 24 (decent show). Imagine they force fed ‘The Kardashians’ instead…).
Fit’s annual (2024) Holiday shopping Guide
Welcome to the best Holiday shopping list for the fitness nut in your life.
Three gifts; Three levels of commitment:
Stocking stuffer- show someone you care but don’t break the bank
Mid level- when you want to show you care with little more oomph.
The Grand Gesture- you’re either in the dog house, or looking to make an impression.
Cures for muscle soreness
It’s never free. Like famed leg breaker Rocky Balboa used to say ‘If you wanna dance, you pay the band, understand? You wanna borrow you gotta pay the man.’ Anything of value comes with a price. You want to get fit? There are costs. One cost: muscle soreness.
Live to be 100
For the uninitiated Blue Zones are, in essence, places where life expectancy and quality of life are on a different level. People routinely live over 100 years and additionally stay mentally sharp for the entire ride.
Kenny G, Balance, and the Mundanity of Greatness
‘Listening to Kenny G’ is a documentary on HBO that made me love Kenny G. Not so much the music (SongBird is great) but the Man: He’s inspirational. Kenny, like Baltimore’s famed stick up man Omar Little, has a code, and his code is practice.
I’m at the gym, now what?
Fit pros have all heard of something called the 80/20 rule: take a random sample of 100 gym members; 20 of them use the gym; 80 sign up and never return. Actually, I dispute that 80 never come.
Supportive shoes?
Once upon a time sneaker engineers tried to outsmart millions of years of evolution and fix our feet by adding a raised heel, air blown rubber, increased cushioning, thick tread, and support (via dual density foot bridges and rigid soles).
And by and large the rate of foot and leg injuries stayed the same.