The weather is finally turning springlike, which means that many of you are starting to think about the epic hikes you have planned for summer. Since nothing can torpedo an ambitious mountain hike quicker than legs that aren’t up for the hills, it’s time to start getting your gams ready for game day.

There’s a lot you can do starting right now to get in hiking shape.

Every day

First, on a daily basis walk, walk, walk. If you use a step-counter and your goal has been 10,000, up it to 15,000. Make yourself cognizant of the need to walk as much as possible. And take the stairs whenever the opportunity arises. If it helps, as you trek up the stairs in that dank, gray stairwell visualize one of the most scenic climbs you know.

Training hikes near home

On the trail, train on the hilliest trails you can find close to home. Here are some of our top choices for hilly hikes:

• Charlotte. Crowders Mountain State Park: From the Visitor Center, the climbs to both Crowders Mountain (Crowders and Rocktop trails) and The Pinnacle (Pinnacle Trail) have some steep sections; the 1.8-mile Tower Trail from the Linwood Access probably offers the best bang per vertical foot. At Morrow Mountain State Park, Sugar Loaf Mountain (2.8 miles) and Hattaway Mountain (2 miles) trails will build up your quads.
• Triad. Pilot Mountain: Start from the Pinnacle Hotel Road access and hike the Mountain Trail from the base of the mountain up to the Grindstone Trail, up to the top, gaining more than a thousand vertical feet in 4.5 miles. At Hanging Rock, start from the Flinchum Road Access on the Dan River and hike up the 3.6-mile Indian Creek Trail to the Visitor Center, then catch the 4.7-mile Moore’s Wall Loop Trail to the top of the park, a total elevation gain of about 1,700 feet. GetHiking! groups will be taking trips to Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock this weekend and next; see below for details on how to join us.
• Triangle. You can find some steep but short climbs in Eno River State Park (try Cox Mountain and Holden Mill Trail hiked clockwise), but your best bet for prolonged climbs is to drive to the Uwharrie National Forest and hike the 6.3-mile stretch from the Jumpinoff Rock Trailhead to Pisgah Covered Bridge Road, over Little Long Mountain and Kings Mountain.
• Greenville. Raven Rock State Park is a two-hour drive: there, you could get in a few laps on the 135-stair staircase leading down from 150-foot-high bluff to the Cape Fear River, and the 5-mile Campbell Creek Trail has some elevation.
• Charlottesville, Va. Having the Shenandoah National Park in your backyard is like having the best natural stairclimber around: so many good options. Leading Ridge Trail in the Central District offers the best elevation change: about 1,650 feet in one mile.
• Virginia Beach, Va. The bad news for mountain training when you live at the beach is that you live at the beach. But when it comes to natural stairmasters, you’re hard-pressed to top Mount Trashmore. Spend 30 minutes on the trash heap three or four times a week and you’ll be ready for most any climb.

Resources

Crowders Mountain, Morrow Mountain State Park, Pilot Mountain State Park, Hanging Rock State Park, Eno River State Park, Shenandoah National Park

For information on hiking the Uwharrie National Forest, check out Don Children’s “Uwharrie Lakes Region Trail Guide,” Second Edition, Earthbound Sports. Learn more about the book here.

The post Get in Shape for Summer Hiking appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

I wrote the following story ran for The News & Observer and Charlotte Observer. It ran in both papers on Tuesday, Nov. 12; it runs here, in its original form with links.

“Fun,” “social” and “a great stress reliever” aren’t exactly terms Rocky Balboa would have used to describe his workouts. But then, Title Boxing Club isn’t Mighty Mick’s Boxing gym.

Title Boxing is a new millenium take on one of man’s oldest sports, replacing pugilism with a peppy workout designed to burn calories and tone muscles. Title opened its first new age boxing gym in Kansas City in 2008. It franchised the operation two years later and in May opened its 100th club, which are spread throughout 27 states. Title moved into North Carolina this past summer; it currently has two gyms in Charlotte and one in Cary, with plans to open more in both markets.

If you’re still envisioning Mighty Mick’s — a dark, dank, depressing, put-up-your-dukes dungeon located in an otherwise abandoned Philadelphia flatiron — and wondering why the popularity, again, Title Boxing is a far cry from the boxing gyms of old. Cary’s club, for instance, is located in an upscale retail/apartment community, has a glass facade, is carpeted and despite the intense workouts that go on within, is devoid of the stench of sweat-soaked dreams.

“We’re not a gym,” says Joe Saele, who owns the Title Boxing on Ayrsley Town Boulevard in Charlotte, “we’re a club.”
The distinction, according to Title Boxing, is several fold.

“In a normal gym,” says Max McGee, general manager of the Cary club, “you have the musclehead factor — guys standing around trying to impress one another. “Here, all you have to do is show up and we’ll do the rest.”

Charlotte club member Brian Richards elaborates: “They push you,” says Richards, who joined the club the first day it opened. “Before, in group workouts, I was on my own, and  I didn’t push myself hard enough. Here, the instructors push you hard.”

“There’s no cheating yourself,” adds Jim Bakey, 23, of Holly Springs.

Unlike the more traditional boxing gym, where you might leave with a black eye or cauliflower ear, the only contact you have here is with a traditional “heavy” bag (a k a, a body bag).

“You don’t get hit, there’s no spit-in-the-bucket,” says Saele. “We appeal to soccer moms. In fact most of our members are women.”
Max McGee, general manager of the Cary club, says, when they opened in September, about 80 percent of their clientele was female. “It’ll level out to about 60 percent,” he adds, based on memberships at other Title facilities.

Then there’s the club’s Trainer’s Circle, an arc of benches where participants arrive early to wrap their wrists (required, mainly to prevent wrist injury from punching the bag), talk to the trainer and talk to one another.

“It’s very social,” says Lauren Orlando, a 29-year-old who makes the drive from Chapel Hill to the Cary club several times a week.
And there’s mandatory trainer interaction with each club member.

“The trainer is required to touch each bag at least once during a session,” says McGee. And it’s not a social call. During the punching sessions, for instance, the trainer may don oversized punching mitts and get the boxer to spar with him — at a faster pace.

Title offers various hour-long classes, but its most popular is its “Power Hour.” The hour begins with 15 minutes of cardio and strength exercises, followed by 30 minutes of eight  3-minute rounds of boxing with “active resting” in between, followed by 15 minutes of core workouts. The initial 15 minutes consists of a flurry of movement — running, jumping jacks, squats, lunges; the final 15 minutes involves planks, pushups, and various takes on the sit-up.

The boxing segment relies on four main punches: cross, jab, hook and upper cut, all of which are gone over by the trainer with new boxers. In rapid succession, the instructor yells out various combinations — “cross, cross, jab, cross, cross, jab” — and class members try to keep pace. Each three-minute round is timed on a well-watched digital stopwatch on the wall.

Title boasts that you can burn up to 1,000 calories during a single Power Hour.

Brian Housle, a senior exercise physiologist with the Duke Diet & Fitness Center in Durham is a big fan of boxing workouts. A kickboxing instructor himself, he says the workouts cover it all. “Cardio, strength, coordination, balance, agility — it’s a total body exercise,” says Housle.

He is, however, skeptical of the 1,000 calories per hour claim.

“It’s not an imaginary number,” says Housle. “But its unlikely that the average person could burn that many calories per minute.”
“On a moderately strenuous bike ride,” Housle explains, “the average person will burn 6 to 10 calories per minute. That’s about 300 to 500 calories per hour.”

“To burn 1,000 calories in an hour you need to burn 16 to 17 calories per minute, and that’s very, very, very, very, very vigorous activity,” says Housle. It’s also activity performed by an already big, muscular fit athlete, he adds, because it would take a lot of muscle mass to burn that many calories.”

Regardless of the CBPM (calories burned per minute), Title Boxing guarantees that if you stick with the program by going at least three times a week for three months, you’ll see results — or your money back. (Those results, adds McGee, are mutually determined by the club and member at the start.) Drop 100 pounds and you get a year’s free membership.

Cary club member Bakey, a physical therapist, doesn’t care about weight loss. A marathon runner who has clocked a personal best of 3 hours and 20 minutes, he’s just in it for a good, hard workout. He uses a different gauge to determine how good of a workout he’s had.
“After the first class,” he says, “I came home and laid on the floor for two hours. I was spent. But it was a good spent.”

* * *

What a fledgling boxer should know

* The four punches used (as defined by ringsidebygus.com):

Cross — power punch thrown with the boxer’s dominant hand. It’s also called a straight right, right or straight punch.
Jab — punch thrown quickly with the boxer’s leading hand straight from the chin in direct line to the target
Upper cut — thrown at close range, with either hand. The jaw or the solar plexus is the target.
Hook — inside power punch; a short, sideways punch delivered with the elbow bent so the arm forms sort of hook. The temple, side of the jaw, ribs and liver is the target.

* There is no hitting of fellow classmates. The only hitting is of the 100-pound heavy bags, about 50 of which are in each gym.

* Boxing gloves are provided to first-timers.

* Physical concerns? As is the case when you start any exercise program, Duke Diet & Fitness Center Senior Exercise Physiologist Brian Housle says you should consult a physician beforehand if there are concerns about your health. While there can be a lot of wear and tear on the wrists and shoulders, Housle says learning proper technique from the start should mitigate those issues.

The post Punching those pounds away appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Despite boasting five Bicycle Friendly Communities and a greenway system fast becoming one of the best in the nation, the Triangle got below-average marks on cycling in the fourth annual American Fitness Index survey released by the American College of Sports Medicine in May.

But the knock didn’t hurt the region too much: Of the largest 50 metro areas in the country covered in the report, Raleigh ranked as the 15th healthiest. Minneapolis-St. Paul, lauded for its green space, ranked No. 1. Charlotte came in at No. 36, while Oklahoma City ranked as the nation’s least healthy city.

The American Fitness Index, introduced in 2007, ranks cities in 30 categories, ranging from acres of parkland and number of farmer’s markets, to number of smokers and people with heart disease, to the percentage of residents with health insurance.

The Triangle’s high ranking – it was the second-healthiest city in the South behind No. 11 Austin, Texas – doesn’t surprise Hal Rubin, who lived in Cary for 15 years before moving to the Charlotte area three years ago.

“I adored the Triangle,” says Rubin, who founded the Raleigh Weekday Activity Meetup group, which has nearly 400 members. “Cycling, hiking, kayaking, camping – I could ride a couple blocks to the greenway and ride to Umstead (State Park, in Raleigh) or head out to the American Tobacco Trail and go to downtown Durham.”

The area ranked high in the category of “parkland as a percent of city land area,” with 17.1 percent of municipal land devoted to parks compared with the national average of 10.6 percent. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s heard Raleigh described as “the city within a park.”

“I really think we’ve been very fortunate in this area that our elected officials and our city officials have supported and valued cultural resources and recreation,” says Diane Sauer, director of Raleigh Parks & Recreation.

Not to mention the strong support of residents: Since the early 1980s, Sauer says, Raleigh residents have approved more than $200 million in parks-related bonds, garnering as much as 68 percent to 73 percent of the vote.

“At times, they’ve had the highest approval except for candidates running unopposed,” says Sauer.

The Triangle ranked below the national average in percentage of residents who bike or walk to work. Nationwide, 2.8 percent of workers claim to use those forms of transportation; in the Triangle just 1.7 percent.

Eric Lamb with Raleigh’s Transportation Department says the city is working to make such commuting easier. For one, there are those five Triangle communities deemed bike-friendly by the League of American Bicyclists: Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh. Lamb points to the change in Raleigh since 2008, when the city adopted its first bike plan.

“In 2009, we had 4 miles of striped bike lane,” says Lamb. “By the end of this year we’ll have 23 miles, and in 2015 we’ll be up to 75 miles.” The current bike plan calls for 300 miles of bike lanes and an additional 75 miles marked with “sharrows,” a marking on wider streets indicating the presence of bikes.

“We’ve had to go through a culture change,” says Lamb. “Bike and pedestrian planning wasn’t routine, it was considered something special, not an inculcated part of what we do.

“I wouldn’t say it’s automatic yet,” he adds, “but it’s better.”

The Triangle’s deep-seated ties to tobacco also weighed against the region. Some 16.2 percent of local residents smoke, more than 3 percent above the national average.

N.C. Prevention Partners, a nonprofit that works to reduce early death from preventable illness, says the situation is improving. A growing number of tobacco-free facilities – public schools, acute care hospitals and restaurants among them – is helping to discourage smoking. The region also struck out for having an overweight population: Nearly 1 in 3 residents qualify as being obese compared to the national average of about 1in 5.

N.C. Prevention Partners isn’t quite as optimistic on this score, noting that statewide the figures are even higher: 2 of 3 Tar Heel adults is overweight or obese, while 28 percent of high school students are likewise.

“For the first time in 200 years, today’s generation might not live as long as their parents,” the nonprofit notes on its website.

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The post Raleigh: 15th healthiest appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

I wrote the following for The News & Observer and Charlotte Observer. It ran in both papers on Feb. 12, 2013. It runs here, with links.

If you were one of the millions of Americans who vowed to live a healthier lifestyle in 2013, you may be edging toward the window of despair. But you probably already knew that.

“We’ve tracked the patterns,” Sue Dissinger, Health and Wellness Director for the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, says of people who vow to improve, “and after 30 to 60 days people start to slowly decline or quit.”

The YMCA’s figures, based on years of study, are echoed by the health and fitness world at large: Despite the best intentions, people tend to lose enthusiasm for a new and healthy lifestyle after about a month of sweating and watching what they eat.

Why does that happen? “We often make our goals too big, too ambitious,” says Lori Stevens, a registered dietician with WakeMed Cary Hospital. “We say, ‘Once the year starts I’m going to cut all sugar out of my diet.’ That’s extreme. It’s not sustainable.”

It’s also not inevitable, this throwing in of the gym towel.

Strategies that will keep you on track:

* Revisit your ‘plan’. You do have a plan, don’t you?

“The main reason most people fail is because they don’t have a plan,” says Ronnie Neal, a wellness instructor at Rex Wellness Center of Wakefield in North Raleigh. It needs to be a specific goal, not just “I want to lose weight,” or “I want to get in better shape.” You need both short-term and long-term goals, and you need to be able to visualize those goals.

• Have a realistic goal. Cutting out all sugar, as Stevens noted earlier, isn’t feasible. What is, she says, is vowing to skip dessert on weeknights and indulge only on weekends. “Or instead of saying, ‘I’m going to work out every day and run a marathon in March, say you’ll work out five days a week and do a 5K in April, then maybe a 10K in June and a half-marathon or marathon in the fall.”

• Write down your goal. “Writing down your goals hardwires them a little more into your subconscious,” says Neal.

• Be patient. That malaise you’re starting to feel may be because you noticed quick and immediate results the first two or three weeks of your fitness regimen, but now you aren’t losing weight as fast and the inches aren’t disappearing from your middle as quickly. That’s because your body is hitting a plateau.

You hit a plateau because your metabolism – the process of burning calories for energy – slows as you lose weight, advises the Mayo Clinic. “You burn fewer calories than you did at your heavier weight even doing the same activities, ” Neal says.

Solution? “You gotta change the routine,” says Neal. Your body has adapted to your exercise routine and has become more efficient, burning fewer calories. For instance, suggests Neal, “If you’re doing circuit training, either change the order of your routine or do new exercises altogether.”

• Be really patient. Mixing things up should get you past your first plateau, but it will take longer for your new lifestyle – the more active and healthier-eating you – to become routine. “It takes about five months for a new behavior change” to kick in, says Dissinger.

* Track your success. Find a “grading” system that works for you. Numbers work for some people: number of pounds lost, inches off the waist. (But they can also obscure true progress. “I had one client who was upset because he gained two pounds despite losing half an inch around his waist,” says Neal. The two pounds could have been water, Neal tried to explain, adding the real goal was to lose inches.)

Neal sometimes suggests keeping track of progress with a string. “Wrap it around your waist, mark it, hang it up in the bathroom. Three months later, do it again and cut off the amount that you’ve lost.” Those bits of cut-off string can be quite satisfying.

* Don’t compare. Don’t judge your progress by the person on the treadmill next to you. “It’s all very individualistic,” Dissinger says. Weight is part of our genetic makeup, and some people need to move more to see results. Experiment and find what works for you.

• Don’t get suckered. If you do get discouraged, it’s tempting to be wooed by those late-night infomercials – by the magic powder that makes it OK to eat half a chocolate cake, or the miracle exercise device that claims to do all the work.

“The biggest issue we have is with the overabundance of information in the media, of fad diets and supplements that claim to fix everything,” says Stevens. “It can be confusing and overwhelming.”

Alas, she advises, saying what you likely already know, “There is no quick fix, no magic pill.” Better health is, in the long term, about a healthier lifestyle.

* * *

A variety of online resources can aid your effort to live healthy:

•  eatright.org: Sponsored by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, which describes itself as “the world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals.”

•  heart.org: The “Getting Healthy” segment of the American Heart Association website includes information on nutrition, physical activity, weight and stress management, smoking cessation, healthier kids.

•  diabetes.org: American Diabetes Association Web site offers health and nutrition tips both for diabetics and non-diabetics. • Online fitness communities: As Ronnie Neal with Rex Wellness notes, it’s good to write down your goals. In fact, write down everything. Online fitness journals have become especially

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