Are you aware of the heart health and fat-burning benefits of interval training?

The mainstream media is just finally catching on, so maybe you’ve heard the buzz.

In a recent study performed at Canada’s McMaster University, subjects did three interval training workouts per week, featuring interval sprints.

The sprints were not easy, done at the hardest pace the subjects could manage for 30 seconds. Meanwhile, another group did moderate cardio five days per week.

What the researchers found was that the short-burst interval training workouts were just as heart-healthy as the moderate-intensity cardio workouts.

The intensity of interval exercise can help prevent the early onset of cardiovascular disease by reducing the stiffness of blood vessels. And now this study suggests that shorter workouts are just as good as long cardio workouts.

So, yes, if you’re not a fan of long cardio workouts they can be replaced with short-burst training.

But before you get started, remember that it is important to train safely when doing intervals.

The subjects in the McMaster study did the intervals on stationary bikes, which meant they had less risk of impact injury and muscle strains compared to sprinting.

I also want to point out that they trained “all out” for 30 seconds. I do not recommend this 30 second burst if you are sedentary, de-conditioned, injured, or if you have not exercised in years.

If you are a beginner to interval training but are exercising now, start by increasing the intensity of your workouts for 30 seconds and then reducing the intensity for two minutes.

Continue to build up the 30-second “sprint” intensity over several workouts, until you are at a hard, but not “all out” pace. You will still get a lot of the benefits without the risk of injury.

Shelli

P.S. I’d like to ask you all for a “report card.”

In other words, are you finding these blog posts  helpful?

Do I choose topics that are of interest to you?

Do I communicate clearly?

What would you like me to write about in the months ahead?

I always appreciate your questions and that many of you forward these posts along to others you think would benefit.

Please, if I’ve helped you in any way, please share this site with your friends, or take a minute and tell a woman you know about these offerings. I write these to help us all feel better, look better and optimize our health.

Thanks!

Is Barefoot Better or Even A Good Idea?

Seems like a hot topic for runners and non-runners alike these days.

Almost every day I see at least one person running without shoes. Let’s take a deeper look at what all the fuss is about.

Dan Lieberman, a Harvard biologist, believes that modern running shoes may explain why fifty percent of serious runners are injured at least once a year (Nature, January 2010). It’s the way that wearing shoes changes both your gait and landing patterns when you run in them.

Why?

Modern running shoes have features that cause runners to land on their heels.

When you heel strike like this you land with a force of at least three times body weight at a 6-minute mile pace. The faster a runner runs, the greater the force, which causes stress fractures of the feet and lower legs, shin splints, tears in the fascia on the bottom of the feet, knee and hip pain, tendon and joint damage and more.

Now even if you’re saying to yourself, “but I don’t run a 6-minute mile pace”, the force of landing on your heels will still cause all of the injuries and pains I mentioned above.

What’s so bad about hitting the ground with your heel first?

This landing pattern stops the foot suddenly.

When you land on the front of the foot, however, this allows the foot to keep on moving so that your heel is lowered toward the ground and the force will be distributed throughout the entire lower leg.

Years ago, during the 1960’s, when “running” shoes first came into the marketplace, doctors felt running injuries were caused by excessive pronation (a rolling inward of the foot after the heel strikes the ground). They thought the foot rolled inward toward the arch to dissipate the tremendous force as the heel struck the ground.

They blamed the frequency of running injuries on the inward twisting motion of the leg after heel strike. They invented running shoes with special arch supports to limit inward rolling, and with padded heels to cushion some of the shock of the heel hitting the ground.

Perhaps “running” shoes were a good idea in theory, but these features actually reinforce the runners’ habit of landing on their heels.

Try walking barefoot and then put on cushioned shoes with arch support and you’ll see what I mean.

Dr. Lieberman has shown that barefoot runners are more likely to land on their forefoot or mid-foot. He has shown in his research that landing on the front part of the foot reduces the force of the foot strike very significantly.

However, he has no data to show that running injuries can be prevented by running barefoot. And of course stones, cut glass, and other assorted detritus that you find on the street can cause injuries. Most runners have such thin skin on the bottom of their feet that they couldn’t possibly run barefoot. It takes training and time to run barefoot.

So what data do we have?

Lieberman has shown two things:

1. That modern running shoes tend to encourage a runner to land on their heels.

2. Heel striking generates more force than front foot strike.

He has not yet shown that modern running shoes cause injuries or that injuries can be treated or prevented by running barefoot or in thin-soled shoes. His website is: www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu

What does all that foam padding and those dual-density midsoles do for you? They have to be doing something, right?

Well from my perspective, they’re deceiving the body!

Let me explain.

It’s based on your body’s proprioceptive abilities; the way your body communicates up and down all your pathways. When you run barefoot, or approximate barefoot running, your body engages your vision, brain, the soles of your feet, and all the muscles, bones, tendons and supporting structures of your feet and legs. Your body gets into gear, giving you a huge degree of protection from the forces of running.

When you have too much interference in the form of shoes, inserts, or heavy socks, your body’s proprioceptive system loses a lot of input.

Relatively new to the market are running shoes with very thin soles and minimal heels, shoes such as Nike Free’s (which have been around since 2004) or Vibram 5 Fingers. They have minimal features and allow your feet their full range of motion. I’ve been wearing Nike Free’s for many years now and I’ve never looked back.

I’m not a professional researcher but I do believe that it’s a good idea to just let your feet be feet, unencumbered by heavy shoes and too much arch support.

I share this belief with some podiatrists, physical therapists and other coaches.

Modern people spend too much time in shoes. This weakens many of the foot and leg structures. Going as barefoot as possible has always been my choice, whether at home or during exercise. Feet are at their healthiest when they function as they were meant to. We have to allow them to practice all the ranges of motion and movements that come naturally. This requires either going barefoot or approximating barefoot.

We’ll have to see down the road what researchers find out, but for now I’m sticking to my own gut feelings about keeping my feet healthy and functional and wearing as minimal a shoe as I can find!

What do you think!!

shelli

Here are some thoughts on being a smart recreational runner!

People often ask me, “Are we ALL biomechanically designed to run?”

There’s so much hype in the media about running and whether or not it’s good for you, so I certainly understand people’s curiosity.

That’s not an easy question to answer, though.

All of us have different bodies, so it’s not likely that Michael Phelps would have turned out to be a wrestler, right?

Studies show that people who are genetically gifted and built to run have greater success. Typically they run sustaining fewer injuries than those who do not have those genetically ideal bodies. This is probably true across the athletic board.

However, while genetics do play a certain role, if you enjoy running and you haven’t won the genetic lottery, here are two important things to remember.

1. If you’re one of the millions of runners who takes time off every year to heal injuries, only to get re-injured, please listen up.

Research clearly shows that if you’ve been injured before, you are at an increased risk to get injured again!

Getting injured means that you’re not doing something right.

You have biomechanical issues that need to be addressed. Get help so you can get back on the road and stay there.

You might need soft-tissue work, mobility training, movement coaching in the form of running technique corrections, strength training, or stretching to address the underlying issues.

It’s important to fix what needs fixing, and not pretend that time off is the answer. That’s rarely the case.

2. If you are a beginner and just starting to add running to your health and fitness lifestyle, or if you’ve run before and are starting to run again, make sure you add mileage gradually.

How many miles you run, and in particular, adding mileage too quickly, is directly related to getting injured.

The further you run, the more your biomechanical flaws will surface. Be smart about adding mileage and stay healthy.

Use these two tips and stay out there running longer and stronger than you ever thought possible!

shelli

This was the joke of the day that appeared on my calendar this past week.

Two men were hiking through the forest when they heard a bear approaching. One man dropped his hiking gear and searched through it until he found his running shoes. Watching the man put on the running shoes, the other man said, “What are you doing? You can’t outrun that bear!” The man said, “I don’t have to outrun him. I just have to outrun you.”

Whether you run for your health, to lose weight, or the joy of taking it on the road, calling yourself a runner is a badge you wear with pride. I know I certainly do!

Take a moment and ask yourself why you run or fitness walk.

Here are the answers I get most often when I ask women this question.

*It’s good for my health
*I want to lose weight/control my weight
*Anyone can run, so there’s nothing I have to learn
*It helps me handle my stress
*I like to run and like the way I feel when I’m done.

I’m thinking for most of us those answers would rank high on the list. So let’s consider each of these answers and whether or not they are indeed the benefits of running.

1. It’s good for my health and helps me handle stress: maybe, maybe not.

Aerobic training increases adrenal stress, which can make you fatter and produce other undesirable health consequences. Adrenal fatigue is a very important factor which I’ll address more in depth in another piece.

For right now though, know that when you do too much continuous aerobic exercise the adrenal glands are stressed in a way that disrupts your hormonal balance causing adrenal fatigue.

This leads to tiredness, allergies, frequent colds and flus, arthritis, anxiety, reduced memory, insomnia, feeling worn out and the INABILITY to lose weight even after extensive effort.

So while you are gaining cardiovascular and respiratory benefits, which I believe are the health benefits we think of when we say “we run for the health benefits,” please be aware that TOO much of a good thing can be stressful.

Remember, being fit and being healthy are not the same.

It’s important to bring a level of self awareness to your running so you know when you are dipping into an unhealthy stressful state.

Also, when thinking of how to blend health and fitness, think of becoming generally athletic and then taking that general athleticism into whatever exercise or sport you play.

In other words, you want to move well, REALLY well.

The idea is to be active throughout your life and discover your own pathway to enjoying a physically active lifestyle.

Adapting a philosophy towards sports/movement and health/fitness like the one I’m suggesting might take a paradigm shift for you. I encourage you, however, to be open to what I’m saying.

Running has its place but it’s far from the only activity we should be doing if we’re looking to be healthy and handle our stress!

2. Best way to lose weight and burn fat: NOPE.

Not steady state running at least. Going for miles and miles or for hours and hours is not the best way to burn fat.

Will you burn calories? Of course.

Want to burn fat? Listen up.

Remember, we are talking about CONTINUOUS aerobic exercise called LSD (long slow distance running) or steady state cardio.

There are other ways to train that are more effective and take less time.

We unfortunately have been brainwashed with the idea that to burn fat you have to do continuous aerobic work.

It is not the most effective choice and I think it’s a good idea to match what you choose to do with the reason for doing it.

In order to lose fat you need to stoke the body’s furnace to burn up fat reserves. To do this you need intense oxygen-depriving anaerobic exercise.

This does two things:
1-It increases the percentage of calories and fat burned as compared to the percentage of carbohydrates burned.
2-It raises your metabolic rate, which helps you burn off even more calories when you are at rest. This is called EPOC, and we’ll go into this more in a minute.

Intensity (% of your max Heart Rate) is what’s important in the number of calories burned per minute. The kind of running that is most effective for fat loss is called interval training.

You alternate minutes of high intensity exercise with low to moderate intensity exercise. You will more effectively burn fat and improve both aerobic and anaerobic fitness.

EPOC stands for excess post-workout oxygen consumption, and some in the fitness field assign great meaning to it, so it’s something you should be aware of.

There is a higher increase in caloric expenditure that occurs during the EPOC phase after resistance or anaerobic exercise versus aerobic exercise. And the EPOC over the 12-24 hour period following your exercise session can be from 10-150 calories.

Not a huge number but worth noting.

Also, let’s consider something else with steady state running and fat burning/calorie expenditure.

If you are economical and mechanically efficient when you run, you will expend LESS calories than if you are unskilled and utilize unnecessary movements during physical activity.

At first you might think, great I don’t (run, swim bike ) well so I’ll burn more calories, but remember, inefficiencies increase musculoskeletal stress and lead to overuse injuries.

So it’s an interesting Catch-22.

Though it takes time to develop efficient running mechanics, your economy will improve over time and you’ll be able to prolong the activity and get a greater total energy expenditure, but that means running for longer and longer time periods.

This may not be what you want: longer runs to burn the same number of calories.

As for a fitness view on all this let’s look at what Charles Poliquin, a well known strength and conditioning coach, has to offer when he talks about why aerobic work can be counterproductive. He includes many of the things we have already mentioned.

-Continuous aerobic work plateaus after 8 weeks of training so anything more is counterproductive.

-Aerobic training worsens your power locally and systemically, making you slower. This is important if you play team sports needing speed or jumping power.

-Aerobic training increases oxidative stress which can accelerate aging. Oxidation is a process that forms free radicals in the body.

Normally we use antioxidants to neutralize them. If there is an excessive build up due to excessive aerobics your body will be challenged to handle all the free radicals. This will change your metabolism and can accelerate aging.

-Aerobic training increases body fat in stressed individuals by contributing additional stress.

Again, stress to an already stressed organism actually adds body fat as it messes with your hormone balance.

-Aerobic training worsens testosterone/cortisol ratios which impede your ability to add fat burning lean muscle. Adding lean muscle will help increase the caloric expenditure that you need to lose fat.

3. Anyone can run, so there’s nothing I have to learn…NOT!

Yes, running will burn calories, and you can ease joint stress and move with less effort if you take the time to learn how.

And running can be learned by anyone. It involves understanding physics, physiology and your anatomy.

Too often though, what I see published in articles is something that says “if you can walk, you can run.”

This is not the case and I surely would not want most of the people I see walking to take their walk into a run!

Everyone needs exercise, yet why do so many people interpret this to mean all you need to do is RUN.

Unfortunately, I see too many people who have never given credence to the idea that it is important to learn good biomechanics for running.

I see bobbers, swayers, shufflers, prancers and clompers, all of whom think they are doing something good for themselves by running.

A lot of people out there running look miserable and in pain and as I often say, “Running is something we do in the name of good health that can make us miserable.”

Biomechanics–technique–how we move as runners–is easy to address. It is, after all, under our control. Yet it is often forgotten.

Runners need to understand it’s not just about WHY you run, but also about HOW you run.

The injury rate amongst runners is alarming and changes all the time so I won’t give you an exact number. I can say that I’ve never read a study that quoted less than 50% of all runners having had an injury during the year.

Learning how to run with correct form will make running less punishing so your fitness efforts won’t be constantly derailed by injury.

You can be comfortable while you run!

Correct running form is not second nature for most of us, and contrary to what many people think, it is not just stepped-up walking.

What I wanted to do in writing this was to have us look at the exercise we do, in this case running, and ask ourselves why we are doing it, and are we in fact getting the results we seek.

Mindlessly doing anything, and particularly running, can do just as much harm as good and we need to know the difference between whether running is helping us or hurting us.

shelli

4 ideas on how to do this:

Sometimes you train as fast as you can.

Remember though, that good form is always more important than speed. You might run hill sprints. You skip rope using the routines I suggested in TAM. You crank out a set of powerful push-ups.

Sometimes you train at a moderate speed.

When walking, swimming, or biking you have a target heart rate zone that you’re aiming for.

Sometimes you train at a slow or even super-slow speed.

You focus on the FEEL of the exercise. How does it feel inside your body? How do your muscles feel? This is a good training pace for tai chi or perhaps Yoga.

And just for a real change of pace, you even train at no speed at all holding a Yoga posture, for example, while focusing on your breathing and the flow of energy.

Focus on your breathing and relax. How does this pace feel? You do a body scan while being still, relaxing any muscles that are holding tension.

Changing the pace as I’ve suggested will help keep your menopausal exercise routines fresh and fun while you notice how much better and less symptomatic you’re feeling.

And how about for another change of pace you email me with your own change of pace ideas??

I look forward to hearing from you!

So how does a menopausal movement coach like myself           celebrate an  absolutely beautiful day?

By taking a walk and turning it into a run!

While running isn’t for every woman, I enjoy it very much.

I particularly like spontaneous runs.

What’s a spontaneous run?

This has happened to me twice already this month.

I’ll start out on a walk.

I have the location and distance already chosen. It’s minimally an hour or about 4 miles, and like most of you who walk I have my favorite loops.

I walk briskly. I tend to do these walks in the morning hours, so it’s a way to check in with myself and the new day.

This morning the sky was clear and the air particularly fresh and sweet. No wind, which was a welcome change from the windy past few months.

After about 40 minutes I’ll get this urge and know that I want to start running.

It’s a VERY different feeling than starting out knowing I’m going to run.

I get this urge, and say to myself, “Why walk when you can run?” and off I go.

It’s important that I check in with myself as I start to run.

How do my legs feel?

How’s my breathing?

How’s my energy level?

It’s not always appropriate to start running 40 minutes into an exercise session, but during these last two times it felt TOTALLY appropriate.

I finish my run sweaty, well spent and ready to start my day!

As an athlete I train in a way that’s commonly called “cross training”.

I swim, bike, lift weights, practice yoga and tai chi, play tennis and golf and generally stay fit by training across the physiologic spectrum.

This produces a well-rounded Shelli!

I have good endurance, good strength and I feel GREAT with lots of energy for the life I lead.

I encourage you to train in the same way, choosing the activities that YOU ENJOY.

Do not let your fitness go by the wayside………..move, breathe, feel how great it is to be alive and make staying active and fit a HIGH PRIORITY during menopause.

I guarantee that you’ll feel better if you do!

Enjoy your own spontaneity!

shelli