Fit Communications

When I was a lass of 28 and my friend Maggie Green and I were workout partners, we used to talk about building "pecs to the neck." Well, we probably never achieved that state of pectoral development, but we did progress.

I have never been a particularly strong bencher, but there’s something about the movement I love. Today I woke up thinking about benching and decided I was going to rep with 95 pounds. I’ve been playing it safe since I started working out with free weights again last May–fairly high reps, moving up in little increments. A typical example would be 12 reps at 80.

But this was one of those days when I felt strong. I did three quick warm-up sets–65 x 6, 75 x 5, 85 x 4–and all felt good. Got all excited about putting the 25s on the bar and got four very good reps at 95. Anne helped me when I bottomed out on number 5.

Then it was on to pull-ups, dips, and the usual stuff I do for upper body.

Anne, on the other hand, was having one of those blah workout days and wondering why. Who knows? Sometimes it’s obvious–you stayed up too late the previous night, you’re getting over a cold, you’re depressed about something, your hormones are wacko. Much of the time you never know.

Part of the discipline of lifting is to bear with your blah days without letting them depress your spirit.

Isn’t this interesting? Today I can’t lift what I could lift last week or last month. Whatever. I guess I’ll just keep on with my workout, knowing that for every unexpected "weak" day, there’s an unexpected strong day when you feel like you could tear the roof off the place without breaking a sweat.

This is mysterious stuff.

I love it.

A few weeks ago I heard that Jack LaLanne was going to be in Chattanooga on Feb. 6, kicking off Memorial Hospital’s Heart Week events. I immediately made arrangements to cover the event (Chattanooga is only about 100 miles from home) and was offered the chance to interview Jack.

I’ll say more about the event in a future post, but the short report is that Jack LaLanne is a fun guy to talk to and a great motivator. When I walked in and was introduced to him and his wife, Elaine, by the event’s organizers, he shook my hand and said, "The sex goddess is here!" I said, "Oh, so they told you about me." Best way to cope with a kidder is to kid right back.

He was a fun interview and didn’t need any prodding. His hosts from Memorial came by about 10 minutes till 2 p.m. and said, "Jack, are you ready to go now?" He said, "No. We’re still talking." Probably very frustrating to his hosts–but fun for me.

Here’s this 90-year-old guy wearing a black jumpsuit (his trademark), a black leather jacket, and some very cool-looking shades. He works out two hours every day, never eats anything refined, and looks like he’s 70–but the fittest 70-something you’ve ever seen.

Elaine is about to turn 80, and she began the public performance by putting on a Pointer Sisters tune and getting the audience to move around. She looks great too and was hard to photograph because she was in constant motion. We should all be so lucky.

In any case, they were a lively pair. More later.

Thanks to the folks at Memorial Hospital for being so kind, welcoming, and accommodating to me.

Took part in my fourth body pump class this morning. I’m learning what weight I need to up the intensity. Am still apparently not using enough in the chest segment (mostly bench-pressing), as it’s too easy.

The hardest part for me is lunges. The squat is an old familiar friend, but I’ve always hated lunges–and thus neglected them–because I find them so difficult. Perhaps this will spur me to conquer my laziness.

I know I sound like a broken record when I rave on about Tom Venuto’s e-book book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. But at the moment I’m especially gung-ho about Tom because I’m liking the zig-zag calorie rotation he describes in chapter 6 of the book. For one thing, it makes the whole calorie-counting thing more interesting and tolerable.

Here’s how it goes:

First you figure out your basal metabolic rate–how many calories you need just to sustain life. If you know your lean body mass (LBM), the Katch-McArdle formula is best and works for both men and women:

BMR - 370 + (21.6 x lean mass in kilograms)

Hint: divide your LBM in pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms.

If you don’t know your LBM, use the Harris-Benedict formula, based on body weight:

Men: BMR - 66 + (13.7 x body weight in kg) + (5 x height in centimeters) - (6.8 x age in years)

Women: BMR - 655 + (9.6 x body weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in centimeters) - (4.7 x age in years)

Once you’ve got an estimate of your baseline calories, below which you should never go when counting calories, multiply the number by an activity factor:

Sedentary: use 1.2
Lightly active: use 1.375
Moderately active: use 1.55
Very active: use 1.725
Extremely active: use 1.9

So, given my LBM of 109 pounds (49.5 kg), my BMR, using the Katch-McArdle formula is 1,440 calories.

I use the activity factor 1.55. Multiplying it by 1,440, I get 2,232 calories per day.

I suspect I probably burn a few more than that, but I’m being conservative.

Okay, so what’s the zig-zag rotation all about? The idea is to spend three days on a moderately reduced-calorie diet (15 to 20 percent below maintenance), then one day at maintenance level.

Why zig-zag? To prevent the body from reducing metabolic rate in response to reduced intake. By eating at maintenance level a couple of days a week, so Tom says, you help prevent the body from thinking you’re starving. The other plus, of course, is that not every day is a restricted day. Nice.

The National Strength and Conditioning Association publishes its Performance Training Journal in pdf form, and it’s free. NSCA has just redesigned the journal, and it looks terrific.

To get a subscription, visit the NSCA website, click the journal’s cover, and submit your name and e-mail address. Don’t worry about spam–you won’t get any.

This issue focuses on baseball and softball, but several articles will be of interest to many. Here are descriptions of a few:

Training Table
Sport Nutrition Primer
What should you eat before, during, and after exercise? This column teaches you what foods you should fuel up on to optimize your performance, and when to take them. 

Train for the Game
A Medicine Ball Progression for Developing Core Strength and Power
This training progression is designed to incorporate a variety of elements for improving core strength in rotation. It graduates from easy to more difficult, and includes injury prevention, strength, and even agility and speed training elements. 

In The Gym
What is Motor Unit Recruitment?
What is the explanation behind the people who do not appear overly muscular but are clearly stronger than the bigger, better built people? It is motor unit recruitment. This issue’s column will take a look at what motor unit recruitment is, and the potential for strength increases that lie within. 

Mind Games
One at a Time
While score is important, a focus on score or some other outcome measure during competition (e.g.. total weight lifted, time in the ½ marathon, place at regionals) often detracts from the task at hand. The alternative is to focus on what is controllable; that is, what needs to be done right now to be successful. This column will discuss how to keep your focus on what is controllable, and what is happening now.

Fitness Frontlines
The latest news from the field on: varying bat weight, half time muscle temperature and performance, physiological adaptations with cardiovascular machines, and nutritional supplementation usage.

When each issue is published, subscribers receive an e-mail describing the contents. You have the option of reading individual articles with links from the e-mail or downloading the entire issue.

I’m keeping a food journal again–primarily because I really needed to figure out how many calories I’m taking in so I could tweak, if need be, to keep burning the fat.

I resist calorie counting, probably because I was so obsessively weird about it in my youth. I could’ve rattled off a calorie count for just about any food in existence. Like so many other young women who are absolutely not fat, I thought I was too fat. During those adolescent years (pre-weight training) I was between 105 and 115 pounds at a height of nearly 5′ 5". And that ain’t fat. But you have to consider that Twiggy (a starved waif) and her ilk were considered ideal women.

My body image didn’t get corrected until I discovered weights and running and started being concerned with lean body mass and fat percentage rather than scale weight.

At any rate, keeping the journal is illuminating.

I’m following Tom Venuto’s advice and doing a very mild caloric restriction: 15 percent.

When I have a chance, I’m going to re-read the dieting chapters in Tom’s e-book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. I’ve talked about Tom’s book before, but for the record, it’s a terrific guide to permanent fat-reduction through healthy diet, weight training, and cardio.

In any case, that amount of food reduction isn’t too painful, although it requires me to think twice about everything I eat and to plan what I’m going to eat. Both of those are good changes.

Just had one of those great workouts when I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the weights. Bench press, pull-ups, dips, dumbbell shoulder presses, dumbbell pullovers–just basic stuff, but how good it feels on those days you’re in the groove.

Saw a most inspiring young woman in the weight room this afternoon. She was doing preacher curls with the EZ-curl bar and two 25-pound plates. I think the bar itself is around 12 pounds. Not bad at all. She had great-looking biceps and a very balanced, proportionate physique. Good upper body fullness and what looked like muscular, well-rounded legs beneath her tights. More power to you, honey.

I’m enjoying the combination of "real" weights two days a week and body pump (very high reps with very light weights) on Saturdays.

Here’s an interesting piece from MSNBC.com. The writer tends to downplay the role of intentional exercise, but the article includes some intriguing info about the value of fidgeting and otherwise just shaking a leg.

Everyday activity critical to weight loss
Everyday pacing, fidgeting and restlessness may play a bigger role in whether someone’s fat or thin, according to a small study of self-described couch potatoes.

Here’s what Dave Draper (a.k.a. "the blond bomber") says:

An excuse is no reason to dismiss your training. Remember the Bomber’s criteria for skipping a workout: Unless you’re unconscious or bleeding from an open wound, you don’t.

You do subscribe to his e-newsletter, don’t you?

If you’re not reading the poet laureate of weights, you’re missing a treat.

Plenty of training newsletters make their way to my e-mailbox each week, and I delete most after a cursory glance–or no glance at all. Dave’s is the one I read.