"Summertime and the swimmin' isn't easy"

When it comes to cardiovascular activities there are plenty of options whether it is running, cycling, rowing (urging), or swimming.  As much as I enjoy cycling and rowing (I have never been a fan of running and never will be), my favorite cardiovascular activity, especially during the spring and summer months in sunny California, is swimming.  My love for swimming developed when I was in high school.  Between varsity water polo, varsity swim team, and club water polo during the off seasons, there was hardly a time during high school that I was not swimming.  After being accepted to LMU, I tried out for the men's water polo team as a walk-on and made the team.  However, I realized it was more important to focus on my academics and future career and left the team at the beginning of my freshman fall semester.  After that, I went from swimming almost daily to hardly ever.  It was not until the beginning of this semester when I started blogging that I began swimming again.  It was anything but easy!  However, the health and fitness benefits of swimming are well worth the struggle and have refueled my love for the water.

Featured Exercise: Swimming

Besides the obvious improvements to cardiovascular endurance, swimming has other less obvious health and fitness benefits including but not limited to:

1. Relief for load-bearing muscles/joints: Water buoyancy helps reduce the apparent weight of the human body.  This temporary load reduction on joints and muscles, particularly for those who are overweight or train with heavy weights at the gym, can help decompress joints, allowing for increased blood flow and repair as well as allow tight, load-bearing muscles such as the lower back to release. 
2. Strength training: Water is twelve times as dense as air which means that the act of propelling yourself through the water adds resistance training to the workout.  The faster and harder you attempt to pull yourself through the water, the higher the resistance and muscle exertion.
3. Improved flexibility: Swimming puts the body through a broad range of motion that helps joints and ligaments stay loose and flexible. The arms move in wide arcs, the hips are engaged as the legs scissor through the water, and the head and spine twist from side to side.
4. Burns calories: Water (at appropriate temperatures) is a much better thermoregulator than air and allows for sustained cardiovascular activity without overheating.  The chart below quantifies the number of calories burned per hour for various body weights while doing various aquatic activities.

If you have access to a pool and do not mind showing a little skin I highly recommend swimming for an hour the next time want to burn calories, improve your strength and aerobic stamina, and have a good time while you do it.

Final approach in sight. Over and out.

MJH

Error 404 AM

The majority of my blog posts discussing the health portion of "College Health and Fitness" focus on diet and nutrition.  However there is another important health topic extremely relevant to college students that affects fitness performance as well as overall well being.  I know it may be hard to believe (as an Electrical Engineering student involved in ROTC and Greek Life, I find it hard to believe myself), but college students need sleep.  A lack of it, or even too much of it, can greatly affect fitness performance, cognitive performance, and overall health.  Several factors contribute to "Error 404 AM: sleep not found."  I will address causes of and potential solutions for sleep deprivation that I have encountered during my [at times not so] glorious college career.

 

Featured Health Topic: Sleep

Causes of and Potential Solutions for Lack of Sleep

 

1. There are not enough hours in the day:

As the chart above illustrates, it is hard to balance academics, social life, and sleep; not to mention having to find time for physical training.  In order to make time for everything, I started setting aside a minimum of 6 hours of sleep a night no matter what.  If I had to be up by 8am, that meant I was in bed before 2am; no exceptions.  Additionally, I viewed physical training as part of my academics.  Not only does working out reduce stress and increase focus (both important with respect to academics), it also increases your quality of sleep and helps you fall asleep faster which is important when you do not have hours to spare lying awake in bed.

2. Unable to fall asleep:

Stress, poor diet, and lack of exercise can all add to inability to fall asleep.  For me, this usually occurred when I neglected my fitness training several days in a row.  Although it is not always easy to do, if you can consistently eat healthy and exercise (which should take care of the stress) you should not have a problem falling asleep and staying asleep.

3. Playing Catch Up:

I used to think that I could get away with little to no sleep during the week and "catch up" on the lost sleep on weekends by getting 10 - 12 hours of sleep at a time.  Unfortunately this is not true and oversleeping can actually made it harder to form regular sleep patterns, causing you to sleep less during the week.  Even if I did not get enough sleep during the week, I made it a habit of not sleeping more than 9 hours a night on weekends.

As a final remark, if you are serious about improving the quality of your sleep, or just want to try out a cool smartphone app, SleepCycle can track your REM sleep (illustrated above) and quantify your sleep quality based on duration and level of sleep.  Also, you can specify a window of time during which you to want to wake up and the app will wake you up when you are closest to being awake, making it easier to wake up without feeling groggy. 

Final approach in sight. Over and out.

MJH

The Urge to Erg

By definition, an erg is a unit of work or energy, equal to the work done by a force of one dyne when its point of application moves one centimeter in the direction of the applied force.  Erg, is also an informal name given to indoor rowing machines.  The act of using these machines is often referred to as "erging."  Besides having a cool name, erging is one of the most effective full-body, cardiovascular exercises you can do.  Your leg, arm, back, and abdominal muscles are all utilized while erging, making it an infamously uncomfortable exercise.  However, this discomfort comes with benefits.  Using all of these muscles groups significantly increases the number of calories burned during your exercise period.  Additionally, when done properly, erging is impact-free.  There is no pounding or grinding of joints that can occur in other cardiovascular activities.  Erging can also improve flexibility in your hamstrings and hips.  However, it is important to understand and use proper technique to avoid possible injury and to receive the full benefits of this exercise.

Featured Exercise

Erging is a repetitive cycle of four key positions: the catch, the drive, the finish, and the recovery.

1. The catch position: begin rowing from this position, with shins vertical, torso angled forward from hip (keep spine in neutral position), arms fully extended, and abdominal muscles engaged.
2. The drive movement: initiate a quick, powerful push with legs while keeping arms extended forward. Continue pushing with legs while opening up the torso angle (using core strength) until a slight backward lean is reached.
3. The finish position: as legs reach extension, finish the stroke with a powerful arm pull towards the upper abdomen.
4. The recovery movement: return to the catch by extending arms forward and allowing the handle to pull the body forward. Flex forward at the hips, aligning the chest over thighs, and slide the seat up towards feet.

The illustration above demonstrates each of the four described positions.  A more detailed video demonstration of proper technique can be found here.

Final approach in sight. Over and out.
MJH

Flexi-ble Meals

In addition to the meal plans required by LMU for all students living in traditional residence halls, students also have the option of adding "Flexi Dollars" to their OneCards.  Flexi is used to augment meal plan values and carry forward from year to year.  In addition to being accepted at all campus locations, it is also accepted at numerous off-campus OneCard merchants.  The majority of these merchants are pizza parlors.  However, there is one merchant that I attend regularly for meals and groceries because it is 1) extremely close to campus (about a 10 minute walk from the back gates if you do not have a car or bike) and 2) the food selection is amazing, not to mention healthy.  If you haven't figured it ye, the merchant I am referring to is Bristol Farms.

Featured Off-Campus Meal

Bristol Farms has healthy pre-made meal options for students without a kitchen or who hate to cook (like myself) as well as healthy groceries and produce for students who have access to a kitchen and enjoy preparing meals.  On-campus meals lose their appeal after a while and if you are like me, changing it up every once in a while is a must.  If you have Flexi, now you can!

My favorite pre-workout meal from Bristol Farms is their wild salmon teriyaki bowl which includes a grilled salmon filet with brown rice and steamed vegetables, topped with a small portion of teriyaki glaze sauce.  This meal is available hot and ready-to-eat or refrigerated so you can take it home and heat it up at a later date.  This meal is also a great choice for lunch or dinner.  In addition to being delicious, the salmon bowl is loaded with protein, carbohydrates (the good kind), vitamins (salmon is loaded with omega-3), and minerals; all of which are essential to efficient exercise and recovery.  If you are not a fish person, Bristol also offers the same pre-made bowl with chicken breast instead of salmon filet.  Both are excellent pre-workout meal choices with an added bonus.  When you are in the check-out line, instead of handing the cashier your debit card or cash, you can hand him/her your OneCard instead!

Final approach in sight. Over and Out.

MJH 

Soul Cycle

In addition to attending crossfit sessions, which definitely contain cardiovascular elements, I have been looking for other high-intensity cardiovascular activities that are also fun and enjoyable (if I don't think it's fun it's hard for me to push myself).  You might be thinking, "If crossfit is as amazing and beneficial as your previous posts make it seem, then why are you looking for other cardiovascular activities?"  Although crossfit are certainly effective and enjoyable, the majority of these workouts are extremely taxing on my joints (particularly shoulders, wrists, and knees) and I recently have been taking more "rest days" than actual days at the LMU gym or Paradiso Crossfit.  In order to remain active during these rest days, I needed to find a high-intensity physical activity less taxing on my body.

Featured Workout

My friend's girlfriend works at Soul Cycle in Santa Monica and he jokingly recommended I go to a class.  I took him up on his offer and surprisingly loved the workout and experience.

In the past I have stereotypical regarded "spin class" as a social activity that happened to take place at a gym.  However, I could not have been more wrong.  When I walked into Soul Cycle, I was handed a towel and snap-in cycling shoes.  Having never cycled before, I was in for a treat.  The class was about an hour long and it was not only one of the most difficult cardiovascular activities I have ever done but also it was also a blast!  The instructor had a playlist of songs that lasted the entire class.  We were required to cycle at the same pace as the varying song beats and instructed to dip our upper body up/down and side-to-side while cycling to the beat.  Additionally, we were required to increase and decrease the cycle's resistance at the discretion of the instructor as the songs progressed.  I felt like I was at a party instead of a workout session!  Initially I thought I would be sitting for the majority of the class; that was not the case.  The instructor had us "out of the saddle" for close to 90% of the class.  The 10% I was allowed to sit, I had weights in my hands and was doing weighted positions holds, or press variations.  By the end of the session, I was covered in sweat, could barely walk, and couldn't stop smiling.  Despite being only 1 of 3 guys in attendance, I am definitely coming back.

The only downside to this class is its price tag of $30 a session.  However, you are doing something great for your body and having a blast while you do it.  I know plenty of college kids that will easily spend $30 to go out on the weekends to have a good time.  If you replaced on of these nights with a Soul Cycle session, I doubt you would notice too much of a difference in your pocketbook at the end of the month, but I guarantee you would notice a difference in your health and fitness. 

Final approach in sight. Over and out.

MJH

"Not all drinks are created equally."

I want to start this post by stating that I, in no way, wish to advocate for or promote the consumption of alcoholic beverages, especially under-age drinking.  This post is not intended for persons under the age of 21 or for those over the age of 21 who choose not to consume alcohol (healthiest and safest choice).

However, that being said, social drinking does occur in college and for those of you who are health conscious but still choose to consume alcohol, there are ways to make drinking less unhealthy.  I intentionally used "less unhealthy" instead of "healthy" because, with the exception of an occasional serving of red wine with a meal, I have yet to hear or read about alcoholic beverages providing any substantial health benefits.

If you are extremely serious about significant weight loss or muscle gains, alcohol consumption should be cut out completely.  I know that is probably not what you wanted to hear but once alcohol is consumed, it is the first to get burned as energy in your system, leaving that healthy, nutrient filled meal you had earlier to be converted and stored in your body as fat.  Additionally, alcohol impairs your body's hormone regulation and sleep pattern which are necessary for any significant fitness gains.

However, if you are not looking to be the next Iron Man or Woman and just want to enjoy the social aspects of college drinking without packing on the extra pounds, here are some tips I have learned from both my own experiences (as a 22 year old who can legally consume alcohol) and from Nerd Fitness, another health-conscious college blogger.

"Less Unhealthy" Drinking Summary

First, understand that drinking is essentially the consumption of empty calories.  If you are a larger person, which plenty of health-conscious males and females focusing on muscle building are, it will typically take more alcohol to feel its effects than those with less body mass (there are exceptions to this rule).  If you fall into this category, your drink of choice should not be beer.  Beer, compared to other drink options, is high in carbohydrates, calories, and sugar, and is relatively low in alcohol.  This means you will have to drink more beers and ingest more carbohydrates, calories, and sugars in order to feel the same effects as someone with less body mass.  A less unhealthy option would be one of the following alcohols: red wine, whiskey/brandy/cognac, tequila, or vodka.  These drinks are higher in alcohol content and much lower in carbohydrates (none in whiskey) and sugars. If you wish to combine hard alcohols with mixers, stay away from "the sweet stuff" which includes and soft drinks or fruity mixers.  I say this for two reasons. One, adding these sweet mixers heavily increases the calories in the drink, making it no "less unhealthy" than beers. Second, eliminating the sugars from the drink make the drink taste quite a bit stronger and will generally cause the drinker to slow their drinking pace and ideally decrease total consumption.  If you wish to consume hard alcohol but do not enjoy your drinks straight, some better mixer options include: lime juice, club soda, and water.

Moral of the story, the next time you go out with friends, understand that all drinks are not created equally, and while social drinking will never improve your health or fitness, there are options that will harm it less.

Final approach in sight. Over and out.

MJH

I got a fever! And the only prescription is more kettlebell!

Throughout college I have encountered short, sporadic periods of lower back pain.  Last week I approached my crossfit instructor and asked her for any tips or tricks to alleviate and ultimately eliminate this problem. She explained to me that the majority of muscular lower back pain is caused by a muscular imbalance called lower crossed syndrome.  This muscle imbalance can occur from spending a large percentage of your day in the seated position (as an electrical engineering student I am an not surprised it happened to me).  In simplified terms, lower crossed syndrome occurs when you have tight hip muscles from sitting too much, which in turn deactivates your butt muscles, making them weak.  This imbalance then causes your lower back to become tight which then deactivates and weakens your abdominal muscles, resulting in an imbalanced cross of muscles illustrated below:

I was expecting to receive instruction on lower back and possibly hip stretches, but to my surprise the solution was a whole-body strength and conditioning exercise called the kettlebell swing.

Featured Exercise

Even if you do not suffer from a tight lower back or a weak core, the kettlebell swing is still a great strength and conditioning exercise for building lower body and core strength.  It can also be modified with lighter weight and higher repetition frequency to improve cardiovascular conditioning.  

One repetition of a kettlebell swing is completed using the following:

1. Start with your feet shoulder width apart with the kettlebell resting in your hands.
2. Squat down, moving your hips back and bending your knees slightly, so that the kettlebell swings between your legs and is slightly behind your heals.  It is important to keep a neutral spine (do not hunch over and look straight down at the floor) and ensure that the majority of the weight is loaded in your heels.
3. Drive up from the squat position, fully extending your hips so that you are in an upright standing position.  Ensure that the weight remains loaded in your heals at the bottom of the drive and transitions to a more even distribution as you approach an upright position.
4. Keep your arms extended with the weight in your hands during the upward drive (slight bend in elbows).  The momentum of the drive will cause the kettlebell to swing upward usually reaching its peak between parallel with shoulders to directly overhead.
5. As the kettlebell begins to fall keep your arms extended and as the kettlebell approaches the bottom of its swing, extend your hips back and slightly bend your knees, allowing the kettlebell to swing between your legs and slightly behind the heels of your feet.  Remember to keep and neutral spine and load the weight in your heals while in the bottom of the swing.
6. Once at the bottom of the swing, begin next repetition by repeating steps 3-6. 

The image below illustrates the proper form described.  For additional technique guidance, refer to this video.

Status Update

At the start of this blog I weighed 222 lbs with a 37 in waist.  At my first check-in (2 weeks in) I weight 219 lbs with a 35.5 in waist.  Today I weighed in at 217 lbs with a 34.5 in waist.  My goal for this weigh in was to weigh between 215-220 lbs (met that goal) and have a 34 in waist (close but no cigar).  I did however, enjoy myself a little too much over the St. Patty's day weekend and allowed more than a few cheat days with my diet which most likely contributed to not meeting my waist measurement goal.  With respect to my strength and cardiovascular abilities, my strength has increased in all areas, and my 1.5 mile run time has decreased.  Overall, I am happy with the progress being made. 

Final approach in sight.  Over and out.

MJH