I know that Central Park used to have somewhat of a bad reputation for joggers not being so safe when they performed they’re daily or spaced out jogs to get in their cardio work, because they’re were many muggings. It used to be that you didn’t feel safe jogging in the notorious landmark park located in New York, but the past few years have proven a great cleanup for the park, and heightened awareness has led to a lower mugging rate.

However, just recently, a jogger who happened to be preparing for a physical fitness test for the army was actually mugged, so this may raise new fears that the park that is great for jogging and cardio running and walking is not safe again.

The jogger, a young 23 year old man named Johnny Reberon, said that muggers, who were brandishing knives mugged him as he was jogging along at around a quarter to nine at night, slashed him in the arms and legs before they made off with what he had which was his wallet with an undisclosed amount of money and the iPod he was wearing to listen to, as many of us do when we exercise.

The guy’s poor parents were afraid he might bleed to death when they saw the amount of blood he had lost from his wounds, but it ends up that he is ok thank God. He had a cell phone that was tucked in his socks and said that he called 911 with it, but could not speak. It’s a Godsend that two other patrons found him and were able to help him. Stories like this always make you want to just stick to your horizon treadmill, don’t they?

We just completed a post on cardio exercise and how important it is to really focus on this often overlooked and dreaded part of working out. Well, one of the things we notoriously do during a good cardio session is we sweat. A lot of people, including myself, don’t like to sweat a whole lot unless it is because we are working out, because it shows us that we’re working hard, and we usually correlate that with “melting fat” off, or burning fat off.

Well, is it really important that you sweat when you’re working out? Does it really make a difference in how intense your workout is, and whether you are burning off excess calories, and hence fat? Some people even crank up the heat on purpose because they think sweating will help them burn off more.

While it is true that when our bodies temperature gets higher, we burn more calories, working out at higher temperatures can actually be dangerous. We put ourselve at risk for heat stroke and passing out, and some people may even be putting their hearts at danger if they have pre existing conditions. Fitness specialists insist that everyone sweats at different rates.

Some people may sweat just from walking up the stairs, while some may not sweat until they are a half hour into an intense cardio workout. So, they say, the level of sweat does not really serve as a good measure for how effective a workout is. They say that what really determines it is your heart rate, and how far above the normal heart rate you are.

You may want to look into what your target heart rate is by approaching someone at your gym at the front desk so they can calculate it for you, since this is the measure by which you would figure out how effective some form of exercise is for you.

I just read an interesting article by a fitness professional that advocated sticking strictly to cardio, and lots of it, if you are looking to shed weight. They recommend that instead of focusing on strength training when trying to slim down quickly, it’s better to focus more on more intense cardio workouts, to the tune of one hour at a time!

That seems like a long time, especially if you’re like me and you tend to max out on cardio workouts at about 45 minutes, and it is a lot of time, but you may have to work up to it if you are serious about slimming down quickly. They even recommended that you do what’s called “split training”, and do an hour of cardio in the morning and then another cardio session at night.

This way you are keeping your metabolism higher at both ends of the day, making it more likely that your body will continue to be a calorie burning machine so you can drop those excess pounds quickly.

I know more cardio is not what most people want to hear who want to lose weight, but the simple truth of it is that intense cardio is excellent at rapidly burning off calories and speeding up the metabolic rate at sustained periods of time. Extra pounds are, after all in essence just extra calories that need to be worked off because when we pile on pounds, it is from excess calories and fat that have no where else to go besides our thighs, love handles and bellies.

You could probably at least mix it up a bit and do a little on the elliptical, the recumbent bike and then the treadmill, as long as you are doing a solid hour, I would think. At least then you wouldn’t get bored with the same excercise for a full hour, which seems like a long time to be doing any one thing. Again, the key is to keep that metabolic rate up for that whole time, so as long as you’re moving and preferably sweating a little, you should be fine.

We’ve all had those moments that hopefully come a lot more intermittently than going gangbusters on working out. It’s those periods that can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, where you swear you have to peel yourself off the sofa just to go get on the elliptical or the treadmill for a half hour and get some weight work in too.

It’s just those times when, you know what’s good for you, and you know you’ll feel a world better when you’re done working out, but somehow convincing yourself of that becomes a gargantuan task that seems all but impossible.

So, as long as these times of a lack of interest in physical activity only come along once in a while, it’s no big deal, but what if we find ourselves doomed to a life of potato couch-hood, or at least a few weeks? The answer is not that simple, but the best way to describe the remedy for lack of interest is to just get there and do it, no matter how long it’s for.

Even if you can only muster about fifteen minutes on the treadmill, that’s better than nothing, and at least it keeps the body used to getting physical activity and exerting itself, instead of the body becoming used to inactivity. Also, it’s easy to train our bodies to stop working out, and our muscles to get lazy, but it’s hard to train our bodies to keep in motion, but once we get there, we almost can’t help but “crave” physical action consistently in our lives.

So, if you can just get yourself there, on the workout machine, or at the gym, or outside to begin your fast walking or jogging, chances are that once your body gets into the swing of it, all those endorphins you’re creating will make it hard to stop. This has happened to me many times, where I really thought I didn’t want to work out, but then when I started I couldn’t stop, and actually found it - gasp - pleasurable!

As I think I’ve stated before, I live in Northeast Ohio, and we get some pretty wicked winters. Needless to say, when we get an intermittent 60-70 degree day interspersed in our long, cold winters, everyone is chomping at the bit to get outside, whip out the short sleeves, and leave work early to enjoy what’s sure to be a short lived break in the weather.

Indian summers, as they’re called, which are atypical runs of weather in the middle of winter in areas where the climate is typically cold in the winter, are a perfect excuse to get out of the house or work, put on the running or walking shoes, and walk or run. The fresh air always proves to be exhilarating, especially after all that time cooped up in dry heat, and dust buildup over the winter time.

I was just talking to a friend of mine about working out indoors versus outdoors, and how there really is no comparison. In the summer, I actually look forward to taking the occasional job or brisk walk, because I enjoy the fresh air, the scenery, and the feeling that you get when your outside instead of running like a hamster on a wheel indoors.

So, if you live in a state with inclement weather like I do, take advantage of the nice weather breaks, and get out there and run, or walk, or heck, do whatever it is you like to do, maybe rollerblading or something like that, and burn some calories and get those endorphins going!

Want to have a nicer butt, a firmer rear, maybe better toned upper legs and lower too? Well, it’s just as simple as taking the stairs any time you possibly can. Having a two or three story home helps immensely as well. If I counted how many times I took the stairs in one day, between my work and home life, since both places require the climbing of stairs - two flights at the work place, I’d say it easily tallies at least ten times per day, many times more depending on how much activity is going on.

I make sure that at work, I take the steps whenever possible, because they are particularly challenging when coming in the morning, since I come in on the ground floor purposely, I have to take three flights up to get to my second floor office, and it’s a nice way to get my blood circulating and get energized first thing in the morning, especially since I have a desk job.

Then, throughout the day at work, I make sure I get up and walk around quite a bit, and always make a few visits the the cafeteria, or just downstairs, just so that I can take those three flights of stairs and get my heart rate up, as well as get a little muscle workout in the process. Taking steps is like getting on a stairmaster machine, only it’s a little more strenuous even than that, since you are usually moving at a quicker pace and real steps are structured so that they are a little harder than a machine that has been made to be as smooth as possible.

I’ve noticed since we own a two story home and I’ve focused on really taking the stairs every time I can at work, that my butt has become firmer, I’m not kidding! I won’t say it’s become smaller, because I believe that takes exercise in the gym and also dieting, but it has definitely become more firm when I feel it, than it was before. Taking the stairs pays, it gets your blood circulating, builds cardio endurance, and breaks up the days when you are sitting on your butt a lot - ie at work!

Once in a while, or maybe all too often, we hear of a young athlete, even as early on as high school, suddenly, and seemingly mysteriously, dying in action while playing sports or otherwise dying suddenly, usually during some sort of physical exertion. The reason that most health experts and fitness gurus are saying this happens, is most commonly an enlarged heart, something that needs more agressive screening and preventive medicine and diagnosis to prevent these sorts of things from happening.

Many times we will hear of a twenty-something marathon runner suddenly dying, usually for unknown reasons until an autopsy is done finding they had an undiagnosed, or maybe even diagnosed, enlarged heart. Someone with an enlarged heart or an irregular heart beat may not be able to tolerate prolonged physical exertion like those with normal, healthy hearts, and therefore may immediately suffer an arrest when the physcial activity just becomes too much for the heart to bear.

Although having an enlarged heart may not make physical activity that involves exertion impossible or even not recommended, it may definitely help to have the ordinary screenings that definitely help to catch these types of cardio problems and prevent potential sudden death for younger athletes. Some are pushing for more uniform screenings in young athletes and family history gathering so these types of cardiac issues can be identified upfront and a preventive regimen can be followed for the patient.

I, for one, happen to have a problem where my quads, or as they are termed properly, quadriceps, the large leg muscles that start just below your hips on the fronts of your legs, get absolutely huge when I work out consistently or very hard. But only if I’m doing certain types of aerobic exercise, and I’ve figured out which ones to avoid and which ones to do liberally to keep them smaller so my pants fit me right.

One of the worst things, at least for me, to do, to get big quads, is the treadmill. It may be because I use the treadmill in an uphill climb somewhat, but I also think it’s because I tend to move slowly and deliberately. This also happens to me if I’m running though, so I’ve figured that a treadmill is just too choppy and high impact for me since my quads tend to grow from those types of exercise for some reason.

I’ve found an excellent alternative to the treadmill though, to not build up my quads, is the elliptical machine, because it is designed more with muscle lengthening, and long, smooth strides that elongate the muscle rather than make it contract, as a treadmill can do since it is high impact.

I love my Horizon elliptical, because it provides me with aerobic exercise, but yet it doesn’t build my legs up too much like other pieces of exercise equipment can do.

Well, two things that you may either love or hate to do, or maybe you love one but hate the other, apparently may have a significant impact on your overall longevity, meaning they impact the amount of time you have on this earth to live, which in short is a pretty big deal! Drinking alcohol has been both lauded as being healthy in moderation and also pulverized as one of the top reasons for early death.

Of course, anything in moderation may be ok, so I’m of the school of thought that drinking occasionally probably wouldn’t hurt anything, but I definitely fully believe that regular exercise is extremely important to one’s longevity and health.

Well, this new study actually suggest exactly that! It says that if you exercise regularly and drink moderately, statistically you’re in the group that is said to live a little longer than those that do not exercise and do not drink at all. Good news for those of us that enjoy the occasional drink, yet also keep it in check with including daily exercise in our regimen to stay healthy.

After all, both moderate drinking and exercise may actually help to curb anxiety, while drinking in excess can actually increase it and even lead to depression in many, sapping the will to live, and yes, the will to exercise!