Friday, October 19, 2007

Resting Energy Expenditure (REE)

Working out is not the only thing that burns calories. Generating heat, like when you sweat, and functions by and for your organs actually burn more calories. that is why when it comes to eating you must take into account how much sleep you are getting during the day. Your body - organs and muscles - burns more energy the less sleep you get. You must also take into account how hard the work you are doing at home, school or work that day is. Your brain for instance burns glucose like a fireplace burns wood when it is really working!

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

Do It Yourself Heart Advice

Buy a blood pressure pump or electronic device to monitor your blood pressure once a month. Check your heart rate at times during exercise, like right after you have exerted yourself the most. If you just finished running on an incline on the treadmill, for instance, and your measure your heart rat at your wrist to be 118 beats per minutes, that is fantastic! It could mean you have a strong stroke volume. Your heart muscle has been built up efficiently form all of your hard work, and one of its pumps is sufficient to get blood to all of your body quickly, so that it does not need to beat as often.

Measure your heart rate by using your first two fingers on a prominent vein of the opposite wrist and looking at a watch or clock with second hands or digits. Count how many heart beats you feel in 10 seconds, and multiply by six for the amount of heart beats per minute.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Chair Exercises

Oh, what you can do with a chair - even some dance troupes incorporate one in their routines.

1.Do the abdominal chair exercise.

2.Pectoral muscles: Do push ups using a chair by putting the palms of your hands on the edge of the chair and extending your legs outward. Proceed with push-ups. It is self-explanatory. You will have to do more work for the chair not to slips. Someone can hold it down for you when you first do this exercise. Do four sets of ten repetitions.

3. Step up: Step up and back down from the chair. Do four sets of ten repetitions.
Each set is made up of stepping with your right leg and then left leg.

4. Do squats using a chair by almost sitting. Place your legs shoulder-width or a little more than shoulder-width apart. Almost sit on the chair. Sit until you are about two inches over the chair, then slowly stand. Do four sets of ten repetitions. You can hold a circle weight for more intensity.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

More Abdominal Muscles Exercises

1. Higher abdominal muscles: Do regular abdominal crunches while holding a free weight with both hands. Do four sets of 10 repetitions.

Level I: Sit on your sacral vertebra and upper gluteus minimus muscles, or tailbone, on the floor. Keep your legs straight or bend your knees. It would help if someone holds down your ankles for this one, or place them under a bar.

Level II: This is the Level I move with bringing in your bent legs, thus working your upper abdominal muscles and lower abdominal muscles.

Level III: This is Level II on a chair (See Perhaps the Hardest Abdominal Exercise).

2. Obliques: Grab free weights, one for reach hand. They should be heavy enough to give you a workout, but not so heavy to cause true pain. Hold them with the palms facing forward. Hold one free weight in each hand. Stand with legs shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent. Bend right slowly until the free weight almost goes to knee level. It is best for the free weights not to touch your legs, but to be about one inch away form your legs. Go to the center. Keep your back straight the whole time. Now bend slowly to the left. Repeat for four sets of 10 repetitions, with one movement on each side constituting one repetition.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

Monday, October 08, 2007

What Is the Magic Age to Retire from Sports?

Throughout my blog and book, I have written about the spirit, mind and body link. I hear often that me sometime between 35 to 40 years old break down in sports. There may be some scientific validity in this. However, I believe that 50% or more of the sometimes drop in their playing statistics is due to repeated injuries in one area, that even a 22-year-old would suffer form, and is mental. If someone believes that they will get worse in performance at 35 years old, it will happen. If their coach, team players and most people in general think this, it is in the collective consciousness and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There is a medical journal article Web site www.Pubmed.gov on which most peer-reviewed medical journal articles from the late 1800s to today are kept. I did searches on this and it appears there have not been many studies of people in their 20s to 40s and how age affects their performance. It is not easy to isolate that factor when injuries and mentality have a lot to do with it. I am not committed to answering this enough to perform my own longitudinal study. But I will look more deeply to see if there has been one. And even if there has been one, it does not mean that in the future more old athletes, if they believe and of course keep fit and practice, will be in sports. Dana Cortes, for instance, just set a swimming record at 40 years old. Archived New York City Marathon results will show that a good mix of people in their 20s and 30s, and some in their 40s, come out in the top ten.

The past does not give the future necessarily. On May 6, 1954, the Englishman Roger Bannister, a student at Oxford University, ran the first officially-recorded sub-four-minute mile at 3 minutes 59.4 seconds in Oxford, England. It was once thought to be impossible, but has been broken by many male athletes, and is now the standard of all professional middle distance runners.

Do not let one factor, whether age, gender, a physical challenge, or anything, and not people's tongues, even if they are in the majority take away your belief in yourself. Believe and move!

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

My Five Axioms

Theorems need to be proven, including in mathematics. Axioms are just true. I believe that life is a yin/yang balance, and that two sides of the coin can be true at once, as in Taoism. For instance, it is good and bad to have an ego. A woman can be feminine and masculine.

Some beliefs I hold to be true and self-evident. Here they are, and perhaps I will blog about them more a another time.

1. Socrates "Know Thyself" leading to Shakespeare's "To Thine Own Self Be True and IT Follows, as night the day, thou cannot be false to any man" (or woman or God)

2. Socrates's "Pan Metron Ariston": Everything with balance or measure for arista or excellence

3. The Truth comes out in the end.

4. What comes around goes around (as in the Christianity Golden Rule, Eastern philosophy karma, physics, and more).

5. What does not kill you will make you stronger.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Another Abdominal Exercise

Somewhere in the gym must be a matted bench that can be put on anyone of about four metal racks. Handles are on one end of it.

Place the bench on the highest rack. Grab the handle with both hands. Your head should be on the side of the bench with the handle. Keep your neck ad chest relaxed and your back on the bench. Raise your legs by using your lower abdominal muscles as much as you can use them. Raise your buttocks off of the bench about half a foot. Do four sets often repetitions. Increase to five sets of ten repetitions when you can, preferably within a month after doing this exercise on time a week.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

Talk Yourself into It

Why will you be healthy? Because you say so, and your word will create your world. You will not be attached to it. You just know, like you would know if you held your child you would not drop her or him, or if you were responsible to have them eat breakfast and get to school on time, you would do that.

You know you will be healthy because it is important to you, you are committed to it. You need your health to be effective in doing what needs to be done for what is important to you. You will be healthy. That is the bottom line. That is it.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

Three Ways to Use a Wall

Abdominal Muscles:

For a variation of a crunch. Scoot your buttocks to the wall and have your legs up, perpendicular to your hips. Do basic abdominal crunches to work out your upper and lower abdominal muscles. Do five sets of ten repetitions.

Lower Abdominal Muscles and Quadriceps: Sit with your buttocks and back against the wall for support. Raise one leg at a time, about half a foot off of the floor. You can use the palm of your hands for support. Do four sets of ten repetitions.
Does it sound easy? Try it.

Chest: Keep your legs together and straight. Do not lock your knees. Keep your feet about two feet from the wall. Put your arms shoulder-level up and your palms on the wall. Pretend that the wall is the floor and do "push-ups". Do five sets of ten repetitions.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

Basic, Simple Leg Muscle Stretches

Quadriceps: Stand. Lean against a wall with one arm if you must. Grab one ankle with your arm on the same side Bend your knee so that you or ankle touches our buttock of the same side (if you can). Stretch as much as you can unless you have bad pain. Keep this stretch for 10 seconds. Do the same for the other leg.

Hamstrings: Stand one leg. Place the ankle of the other leg on a stable bar or machine part. Lower the bent leg. Keep for 10 seconds. Do the same for the other leg.

Inner thighs: Face forward. Bend one leg and stretch out the other leg to the side. Lean toward the bent leg. Keep your back as straight as you can keep it. Keep for 10 seconds. Do the same for the other leg.

Outer thighs: Stand with one leg slightly bet. Grab the knee of the other leg with both hand. Bring that knee as high as possible ad then across the other side of your chest. Keep for 10 seconds. Do the same for the other leg.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.

What Is Harder Than Lunges?

Lunges done backward are harder than lunges! Grab a free weight, one for each had, of a weight that gives you a workout and that you can do for this exercise. Step backwards, one leg at a time, so that the forward leg is at a 90-degree angle at the knee. Do not let the backward leg's knee touch the floor. Get up slowing ad then put the other leg backward. Do four sets of ten repetitions. When you feel you can do it, do five sets of ten repetitions.

Always warm up before this exercise and cool down after this exercise. Warming up is stretching (see the next blog) and five minutes of treadmill at speed of a least 3.9 and no incline. Cool down can be the same stretches and waling around for on e minute at least.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.