Free weights are preferred over machine weights because they force both sides of your body to carry an equal load. Cyclists experiment with PowerCranks to prevent one leg from slacking off during a race. The exo ball is popular because it, likewise, is based on the premise that a happy, fit body is a balanced body. Yet we live our daily lives so physically out of whack it’s a wonder we can stay upright.
Category Archives: Fitness
Playground Boot Camp
“I oughta be doing that with you,” the moderately overweight mom who was watching her son yelled.
“We’re starting a class in April,” Polly Eslinger yelled back. “You’re welcome to join us.”
Eslinger’s response seemed to surprise the woman: We were on Cary’s Middle Creek Park Playground at the time, six grown-ups mixed among kids cavorting on the equipment. A class in what, the woman probably wondered — playing on a playground?
Walking the walk at lunch
April 28 is National Walk@Lunch Day. I could have sworn it was today.
I had the lunch shift down at the rickshaw plant and I knew right off I was in trouble. All along downtown Raleigh’s Fayetteville Street, along key side streets, and on up to the state government complex all I could see was a sea of white — white walking shoes, that is.
Do This, Not That: Timing your workouts
Jean Hagen-Johnson of Raleigh runs three days a week, 52 weeks a year, and always at 6 a.m. She runs during milkman hours not necessarily because she’s a morning person or because she savors the tranquility of a city yet to wake. Her reason is more pragmatic.
Exercise: eases ‘chronic’ anxiety (and whatever you do, don’t stop)
A review of 40 studies of the effects of exercise on people with chronic illnesses concludes that working out eases anxiety over what ails you. Scientists from the University of Georgia, in a report in the Feb. 22 Archives of Internal Medicine, found that exercise alleviates anxiety in sufferers of heart and circulatory issues, fibromyalgia, arthritis, various other pain conditions, cancer, mental health problems and the breathing disorder chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. The only illness exercise didn’t seem to help: multiple sclerosis.