Mama Said Knock You Out!

Boxing is a great all-around cardio and strength workout

As I walked through the fifty heavy bags hanging from the massive steel cage, I was determined to make LL Cool J (and his mama) proud.  My hands were fully wrapped; I was ready to throw down. 

While I may have been psyched up for a full-on sparring session, a boxing workout for fitness does not typically involve throwing punches at an opponent.  Instead, you target  your aggression toward the punching bags, or in some classes, simply throw punches in the air.  A variety of boxing-based workouts have been on the fitness scene for some time, including Tae-Bo and cardio kickboxing.  Title Club Boxing is the new kid on the block, bringing old school boxing training to your Columbus neighborhood.  If you thought Tae-Bo was a workout, your world is going to be turned upside down with this one.

Eli Ayars, the tatted-up, musclebound MMA fighter leading the class, certainly looked the part, but his demeanor was helpful, safety-minded, and attentive to each participant.  He brought a certain manic energy that wound the class up and got us energized.  Music pounding, trainer bouncing, we started in right away with short interval warm ups - jumping jacks, push ups, squats, lunges.  We progressed to explosive movements, with split lunge jumps, “star” jumps, squat jumps and burpees.  Between each set of warm-ups, we ran laps around the gym. 

This warm-up engaged large muscle groups, elevated our heart rates and definitely burned some calories.  The mixed-level group approached each move with modifications as necessary, and since each interval was timed rather than counted, each participant was able to set his own intensity by adjusting the pace to the individual’s fitness level. 

We donned our gloves for the boxing portion of the class, the real meat and potatoes of the workout.  Eli focused on technique here, encouraging new participants to learn the proper movements to avoid injury.  Combinations of punches were relatively simple, the goal being to burn calories.  Anaerobic drills, short bursts of forceful work, had us working at the upper limits of cardiovascular capacity, increasing efficiency of the cardiovascular system.   In between intervals, we got to rest and recover, and after a series of drills, we ran laps again.  My shoulders started to burn as I nailed the bag over and over again.  These repetitive motions clearly build muscular endurance, but on their own would not encourage much gain in muscular strength. 

The boxing portion of the class culminated with an all-out “sprint” with 20-second intervals of different moves of our choice.  Left jabs, then right crosses, push-ups, now alternating upper cuts, followed by alternating hooks, high knees, jab-cross combo, more push-ups, squats.  I was out of breath, and I was not the only one.  A girl next to me muttered to Eli, “You’re killing us!”, but she was smiling.

Currently, females outnumber males in these classes, as women are generally more often drawn to group fitness than men.  Carla Meinberg has been boxing at Title Club for several months and believes that she “gets more out of this than [she] did with a personal trainer.”  She finds herself with more energy after classes, and has seen improvements in her physique and in her core strength.  Many participants also report an increase in self-confidence and a feeling of toughness.  If you can deal with the physical challenges imposed here, you can face almost anything.

As more and more men become aware of the benefits from boxing, their numbers are growing.  J.C. Decker, a Title Club boxer for one year, lost twenty pounds after starting these workouts, without even trying.  The trainers motivate him to push himself harder than he would on his own.  Eli intones that with this workout, “There is no second guessing.  It’s never boring.  It’s never dull.”

If you are looking for an athletic workout to get lean and toned, boxing may be a good fit for you.  Check with your trainer to make sure he is properly certified and trained in boxing technique, exercise physiology, and safety considerations.  Have fun, fight hard, and make LL Cool J proud.Follow @catherinederrow

Energize your workout!

Glucose is the main source of energy for physical activity.  Eat foods with complex carbohydrates to fuel your workouts.  Eat small portions about an hour before you begin exercising.  Smart choices for pre-workout nutrition are:

·      Fresh fruit (bananas, apples, oranges)

·      Trail mix with dried fruit (no M&Ms or other sugary candies)

·      Oatmeal

·      Lentils

·      Energy gels

Don’t forget to drink plenty of water as well!!

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Nutrition Basics

Basic nutrition facts are common sense – the challenge is accepting what you already know to be true and sticking with your goal to eat more healthfully.

 

·       No need for fad diets.  Forget Atkins, South Beach, Paleo, or whatever else.  The key to long term weight loss and maintenance of goal weight is changing eating habits for good.

·       Avoid processed foods.  If the ingredients are unrecognizable, unpronounceable, or too numerous to count – stay away!

·       Choose whole foods instead.  Get your nutrients and vitamins from fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, nuts, seeds, and legumes that can be found in nature.  These foods are more easily digested, lower in calories, and overall more healthy for your body.

·       Eat mostly plants.  While meat offers a great protein source, studies show that plant-based diets are more healthful.

·       Eat the colors of the rainbow.  The bright and vibrant colors found naturally in fruits and vegetables reflect the variety of nutrients that they offer. Make sure your plate contains lots of different colors, the darker the better.

·       Limit portion sizes.  You don’t have to join the “clean plate club”.  Cut your sandwich in half and save the other half for later.  Use a smaller plate to limit serving size.  Say no to seconds.

·       Eat mindfully.  Slow down.  Chew your food.  Set the fork down between bites.  Ask yourself, “am I hungry now?”  If not,do something besides eat.

·       Don’t beat yourself up.  We eat for a lifetime.  Eat for pleasure, but eat for health as well.  Enjoy your food and dine joyfully.

The steps to eating better are easier than you think.  Commit to making a few changes at a time.  Forgive yourself for lapses, and get back on the right track.

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Dieting and Kids and other Sensitive Subjects

A personal essay by Dara-Lynn Weiss in the recent issue of Vogue magazine has caused quite a stir. The essay concerns Weiss' attempts to regulate her daughter's eating habits as a result of her pediatrician's observation that Weiss' daughter's BMI fell into the obese category.

Internet bloggers and commentators express outrage at the Weiss' admissions of occasionally harsh criticisms of her daughter, reprimanding the daughter for unhealthy food choices, making scenes in restaurants, applying rules inconsistently, and acting hypocritically by secretly consuming the same foods she admonished her daughter for enjoying. (All parents make these mistakes and more all the time. I find no need to vilify Weiss for confessing her parenting sins.) Clearly, by putting personal and family issues on public display Weiss opens herself up to judgment, and may subject her daughter to undue embarrassment from the scrutiny of the sometimes strained mother-daughter relationship.

However, in my reading of the article, I find Weiss' tone to be self-aware of her shortcomings. She does not claim to be recommending to readers a litany of effective parenting methods; rather, her essay is an acknowledgement of the difficulties of navigating an important, but sensitive, subject with her daughter when she has yet to come to terms with how to deal with it herself. Weiss admits to struggling with body image issues, food, and weight herself. She faces these issues with ambivalence, wanting to allow her daughter indulgences while at the same time encouraging healthy choices.

Her daughter's pediatrician expressed concern over her daughter's weight, and indeed, childhood obesity is a real problem. Reading over many of the commentators, people brushed off the idea of obesity in children by commenting that a little weight on kids is normal and nothing to be concerned about. However, health problems associated with obesity are well-documented, and the problem is growing exponentially, with the incidences of childhood obesity tripling over the past thirty years.

While Weiss' methods may leave something to be desired, at least she is attempting to deal with the problem. She also addresses an issue that I feel is often neglected: the type and amount of food that children are confronted with on a daily basis. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has made it his mission to help schools overhaul their menus to include healthier options, but unfortunately, most schools are continuing to offer the same mass-produced, overly processed, canned, frozen junk that we had on our plates as kids. Adding to that, each and every milestone is a child's life appears to be rewarded by some kind of candy or unhealthy treat. Cupcakes brought in for birthdays, candy for Halloween/Valentine's Day/Purim/President's Day/Arbor Day, lollipops for haircuts, cookies included with kids' restaurant meals, and on and on. Everywhere they turn, kids are confronted with sugar in all forms. A child struggling with her weight meets temptation all the time, forcing her to make difficult decisions.

Furthermore, several commentators suggest that Weiss failed to factor in exercise as part of the equation, when in fact, she does mention that she enrolled her daughter in tae kwon do, an activity in which her daughter enjoys participating. Physical activity is part of a healthy lifestyle, part of the way that we build healthy habits into our children's lives.

While Weiss may not be the poster child we want for combating childhood obesity, at least she is taking steps in the right direction for her family. Rather than snipe at her over the internet, let's find ways, hopefully more constructive ways, to help our children stay healthy, be active, and eat nutritiously.


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How's Your Body?

Someone asked me today: "How's your body?" and I obviously answered: "AWESOME." How's that for a positive self image?

That's not what he meant, of course. He was asking me, have you had any injuries? For a person who trains everyday, usually twice a day, and has for over fifteen years, that's not an unreasonable question. I have been lucky to have been healthy and injury-free (other than muscle soreness) through the many years of intense working out.

That seems to be less common than you might think. In his book, Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports, Michael Sokolove draws attention to the disturbingly high incidence of injuries in women's and girls' sports. Due to a variety of factors, including the competitive climate of athletics with regard to the intensity of play and year-round duration of practice and play, the fundamental musculoskeletal differences between male and female athletes, and the fierce determination of the players, more and more girls and women are getting hurt in their sports. The proportion of female athletes who experience significant injury (such as an ACL tear) is exponentially higher than for their male counterparts. In some sports, like soccer and basketball, tearing an ACL is almost a rite of passage, an inevitable part of participation.

Unfortunately, while eager young athletes and their driven coaches may see these injuries as detrimental in terms of lost playing time and deconditioning while rehabilitating, the consequences can be much more severe. Every surgery, no matter how minor, carries inherent risks, and each time these women go under the knife they subject themselves to the possibility of additional complications. Furthermore, tears and damage to the ligaments and tendons of the joints of young, healthy people may result in crippling impairments twenty years down the road.


Of course we do want our daughters to run and play and compete. We can't have them sitting on the sidelines watching the boys play. So how do we keep them safe? Here are some ideas:

• Cross-training. The tendency of the past few years is to have kids specialize in a single sport from a very young age and immerse them in the sport completely so that they are playing and training for the one sport year-round -- through the regular season, school, club and travel teams. This leads to a lot of repetitive movements and overexposures to opportunities for injury. Allow children (boys and girls) to play a variety of sports and games. This will create a cross-training effect that will strengthen the whole body in different ways.

• Rest. Hyper-competitiveness and drive may give her an edge over the rival team, but is it worth it if she can't walk in middle age? Keep a reasonable training schedule that allows for at least one true rest day a week. While training, remember to get sufficient sleep each night. Fatigue leads to injury.
  

• Increase muscle strength. Many joint injuries result from weakness in the muscles supporting the joint. In addition to cardiovascular endurance, athletic drills, and practice games, incorporate resistance training to strengthen the muscles, particularly the lower limbs. Do weighted squats and lunges to strengthen quadriceps and hamstrings

• Listen to your body. Respect the signs and signals that your body gives you. "Warrior girls" want to play through pain and push through injuries -- but this only makes the injuries worse. Although it can be hard to stop, particularly if it is a key moment in a game, it may make the difference between a minor ache and a catastrophic injury.

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Krav Maga - Find Your Inner Fighter

An attacker slams you hard to the rough asphalt and presses a knife up to your throat. Do you know what to do? If you practice krav maga, then you are prepared to defend yourself in such a scenario.

This latest fitness trend isn’t really about fitness at all, even though you can certainly improve your fitness through regular krav maga training. Krav maga was developed, and is currently practiced, as a method of self-defense under unpredictable and dangerous conditions. Its founder, Imi Lichtenfeld, faced with aggressors in World World II-era Eastern Europe, combined elements of wrestling, boxing, and gymnastics to overcome and defeat assailants. Later, he brought this method of self-defense to the fledging Israel, where the army was trained in krav maga for hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. More martial arts techniques and movements were incorporated, and krav maga proved to be extremely effective for fighters in real-life situations.

As krav maga grows in popularity, most participants flock to classes seeking fitness benefits. In the Level I class that I took at Ohio Krav Maga & Fitness, we got our hearts pumping and blood rushing by jogging around the gym. After a few stretches, the fighting began right away, with punches delivered to our partner’s focus mitts. My no-nonsense partner forcibly pushed me away if I edged in too closely. I could feel my heart rate rising with this high intensity work.

Unlike other forms of martial arts, krav maga is not a sport. There are no matches, and the focus is not on form or alignment -- it’s about getting the job done. As a result, functionality is premium; all moves are meant to translate into real-life situations to effectively defeat your attacker.

In our class, instructor John Lovins led us through several groundwork maneuvers designed to free ourselves from being pinned down by an assailant. We first perfected the best way to fall and get back up while still protecting and defending ourselves. We then moved to partner-work with another person straddling and choking the other. These positions can be uncomfortable for someone with personal space issues (like me!), but as another instructor, Terri Rosen, pointed out, “this is a safe place to deal with that uncomfortable feeling” rather than in a truly dangerous situation with a stranger digging his fingers into your windpipe.

Grappling with my partner as I learned points of weakness, throwing elbows and dodging kicks, I felt empowered and strong. I also felt tired, as our entire body was employed to defend ourselves. In krav maga, there are no rules, no time-outs, no off-limits. This system is based on the real world, and in the real world, you do whatever you can to stay alive. Krav maga gives you the tools to take advantage of your own power. In the process, you gain strength, burn a few calories, and become more confident.

For power, we finished off with drills, moving quickly through hard and fast punches on the striking pads. While we were slugging it out on the shield, our partner would simulate a knife attack, which we then fought off using the skills we had practiced earlier. The adrenaline is rushing, your shirt is dripping with sweat, and instructor Sue Burton sums up your thoughts, “Holy crap! What just happened?!” What happened? I'm a fighter now.Follow @catherinederrow

Power Yoga

Today I tried out a much-hyped studio that offers power yoga. Power yoga is a hybrid form of vinyasa yoga that grows out of the Ashtanga tradition, cultivating the physical benefits of yoga.

Typically, one of the primary purposes for doing yoga is the focusing of the mind. Beryl Bender Birch, one of the first proponents of power yoga says, "the idea behind the physical practice of yoga is to encourage a deeper mind-body awareness ... [improving the] physical body helps bring clarity and focus to the mind as well."

However, at this studio, top 40 pop and R&B music blared from the speakers while we practiced, preventing any clearing of the mind. While the music was fun to listen to, it distracted the focus from the breath and perhaps inhibited body awareness, as our minds were on the music rather than our actions on the mat.

One of the main differentiations of this type of yoga from traditional yoga was the pace. The teacher led us through the sequences at a tempo significantly quicker than even Ashtanga yoga, a very athletic form of yoga. Although the instructor cued the breath, if a practitioner were breathing at that rate, she would likely hyperventilate. As a result, movements were not linked to an inhale or exhale, which usually typifies most vinyasa practices.

Another disadvantage to this faster rate of movement is the sacrifice in alignment. Most practitioners (this was a mixed-level class) cannot achieve proper alignment when their bodies are changing shape at such a rapid pace. Safety is a huge concern. Unfortunately, in this class, the teacher practiced along with the students, with her back to the class. She was not monitoring the students for good form, or even able to make verbal corrections as she could not see the students.

Moving at such a quick pace made for a good aerobic workout, however. Our heart rates increased, and we were definitely burning calories. Yoga is still a low-impact activity with a moderate intensity, so the calories burned are going to be less than a high impact activity like running for the same period of time.

Power yoga does have some strength building components to it as well, leveraging our body weight to perform planks, push-ups and balance work. These exercises will certainly make a difference in your body over time, especially compared with a sedentary individual, but the strength gains are going to be less than doing a traditional strength training program with resistance.

Lastly, the room was heated to approximately 90-95 degrees, increasing the flexibility of the muscles. Warm muscles are more relaxed and have increased range of motion. However, it is unclear to me to whether significant gains in flexibility can be sustained after the class since the poses were not held for any length of time.

For me, power yoga was enjoyable as an aerobic workout, an alternative to using the elliptical or going for a run on a "rest" day. I really don't consider it true yoga, since to me, one of the primary goals of yoga is relaxation and focusing on the breath, which was completely absent from this practice. Still, power yoga is a fun way to burn calories and maintain muscle tone.Follow @catherinederrow