Backwards Treadmill Walking: How Many Minutes Should You Do?
Find out how little time you really need to walk backwards on a treadmill to reap benefits. (more…)
Do You Need to Exercise if You Walk Everywhere?
If you believe that walking everywhere (no car) means you don’t need to do structured cardio exercise, you’re very mistaken.
To produce a training effect on the heart, exercise must keep the heart elevated for at least 20 minutes, though at higher intensities, even 10 minutes will do.
The elevation need not be literally every second of those 20 minutes, such as in high intensity interval training.
If you walk everywhere, your heart rate isn’t necessarily elevated at all. Consider “walking everywhere” a form of transportation, not exercise.
Ask yourself if there’s a progressive component:
• Has the walking speed increased over time?
• Have inclines been added?
Walking at a transportational pace is just too easy to be considered valuable exercise to strengthen the heart and bones.
And no matter how much you walk every day, you still need to strength train too!
I once read in a forum a post from a person who criticized another’s suggestion that people give up driving to save money, improve environmental air, avoid accidents, etc. (no mention of the increased exercise).
Someone responded by stating that taking the bus everywhere was very impractical and time consuming. The first person then stated that buses run everywhere at all hours.
The other person said that a trip to the gym would take two hours via the public transportation system.
That’s when the first poster said, “If you walk everywhere, you won’t need to go to a gym.”
Does walking replace this? Shutterstock/ruigsantos
Does walking replace this? Shutterstock/Syda Productions
I couldn’t believe it. If you walk everywhere, think of what kind of walking this would consist of: casual paced movement.
If you walked to the post office, would you be up to tossing in some high intensity interval training?
It’s highly unlikely that at any point during ambulation, a person who “walks everywhere” would incorporate serious fitness striding into their casual forays.
Imagine walking to your job. Are you willing to work up a sweat and enter your office perspiring in your workplace clothes?
Or are you willing to pack away your high heels, stockings and power suit in a sack as you briskly stride to work, then change in the bathroom?
Or are you up to changing into exercise clothes after work, then busting out of the building and power walking all the way home, or even half-way and then strolling the remainder, while you suck in the exhaust fumes of rush-hour traffic?
What about all the calories burned?
If you walked everywhere and never used a motor vehicle, you’d burn a lot more calories than if you drove or rode a bus.
However, the fitness and cardiovascular component would be absent, because transportation-paced walking, even for miles, does not impose enough demand on the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems to produce a physically fit body.
In this case, the calories burned simply reflect mileage, not intensity.
Even if you made an effort to make as much of all the walking as briskly as possible, your body would eventually adapt very well to this.
And then what? How fit can you possibly get if all you do is briskly walk? It’s limited, unless there are hills involved.
If you “walk everywhere,” you still need structured cardio exercise — and of course, strength training!
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Freepik.com/ asierromero
Should Obese Individuals Do Only Cardio Exercise for Weight Loss?
Should fat men and women stick to ONLY cardio exercise for their weight loss attempts?
If you’re obese and you’ve been grinding away hour after hour, week after week, on cardio machines–and doing nothing else for weight loss–there’s a pretty good chance you will never even get halfway to your weight loss goal.
(more…)
Why You’re Not Losing Any Weight from Walking on a Treadmill
It’s SO aggravating: You’ve been walking and walking for many months on a treadmill yet have not lost a single pound or maybe just a few pounds, but nothing really has changed with your body.
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Can Strength Training More Frequently Treat Low Back Pain?
If you want to treat your low back pain, the emphasis should be on weight training rather than on aerobic activity.
Don’t assume that strength training — or doing more of it — will make your back worse. However, there are several things to consider.
As a former personal trainer, I am not surprised that a study shows that lifting weights more frequently is much more effective at treating low back pain, than is the absence of weight workouts.
The University of Alberta study involved 240 women and men with longstanding low back pain. One of the limitations of this study is its small size, but the results can’t be ignored, either.
The investigation demonstrated that the subjects who worked out four times per week had less discomfort than the people who exercised only 2-3 times weekly.
The more-frequent exercisers had 28 percent less pain.
Study Considerations
“There are conflicting studies about this and so many variables that affect pain,” says Melissa Franckowiak, MD, an anesthesiologist in Lockport, NY. Anesthesiologists often treat low back pain with epidural steroid injections, also known as “nerve blocks.”
The patient needs to consider the following:
- Do such studies compare patients with the same cause of low back pain? Dr. Franckowiak points out some differing origins: muscle strain, herniated disc, and facet joint syndrome.
- How the results were followed up from one study to the next is also important to consider. Long-term follow-up shows a more credible outcome than short-term follow-up. The University of Alberta study spanned 16 weeks.
“It seems reasonable to suggest that more active people suffer less back pain, but the type of activity is also important,” says Dr. Franckowiak.
“Running long distances four times per week may cause more pain on joints despite strengthening muscles for endurance by optimizing the cardiovascular system for power, whereas moderate exercise [strength training] four times per week may provide the physical movement needed to provide enough strength to core muscles that prevent back pain, without overdoing it.
“Exercise such as swimming or using a treadmill for walking quickly, or a stationary bike, keeps joints lubricated, gets your target heart rate up, and can challenge muscles enough to strengthen them if the resistance on the machine is varied.
“You can certainly improve low back pain symptoms by performing weight strengthening exercise and without doing a ton of cardio.
“Females tend to tilt their pelvis anteriorly, arching their back and hanging out on their anterior ligaments and allowing for weak abdominal muscles. With this posture, low back pain results from weak abdominal muscles.
“Doing a moderate abdominal workout of small-range crunches, pausing at the peak of the contractions, will help this pain dramatically.
Crunches. Credit: George Stepanek
“It’s not necessary to work the abdominals every day to get full effect. Twice a week is beneficial.
“Also strengthening rhomboid muscles, teres muscles and latissimus dorsi [back muscles] to bring the shoulders into a less slumped posture will help with mid to low back pain.
“Men, especially older men, tend to do the opposite, rotating their pelvis posteriorly so the low back appears flatter when slouching.
“Strengthening the posterior spinal muscles with rowing, pull-downs and gluteal extension exercises are a few things to get started on strengthening.”
Lat Pull-Down
Intuitively, one might conclude that lifting weights is the last thing someone with low back pain should do.
But controlled and methodical training with weights — particularly with machines that are designed to keep the spine neutral — are very beneficial to people with low back pain.
Dr. Franckowiak is the inventor of two patented medical devices and the CEO of Pneumaglide, providing airway solutions to the surgical services and emergency medical services communities. A fiction writer under the name of Melissa Crickard, she is the author of “The Labrador Response” and “Another Five Patients,” available on Amazon.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
Top image: Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090602133559.htm
Sideways Walking on a Treadmill: Hands OFF the Rails!
WRONG!
Holding onto the treadmill while walking sideways totally defeats the purpose, and this article explains why, and how walk hands-free.
Every so often I spot someone walking sideways on the treadmill and he or she is always holding on.
Holding onto the treadmill while walking sideways will sabotage your objective.
Holding on may seem like the smart thing to do, but this defeats the objective. What is the point or purpose of walking sideways on a moving tread in the first place?
It doesn’t seem to be fat loss in people who perform the movement slowly and who are not overweight.
I gather they want to improve coordination or maybe they’re just bored and want to try something funky.
Holding on while walking sideways will not improve your balance at all, nor will it promote cardiovascular fitness.
“Holding on denies the upper body of the benefits of this natural full body movement,” says Dr. Tom Carpenter, corrective exercise specialist, certified personal trainer and chiropractor, inventor of Stand Corrected™, a portable harness-like stretching tool that helps alleviate back, neck and shoulder pain.
Dr. Carpenter continues, “Going hands free while walking sideways improves posture, coordination and balance. It also promotes hip, knee and ankle strength, allowing you to be more stable, whether it’s playing sports or just performing regular daily activities.”
Furthermore, next time you see someone walking sideways on the treadmill, look at their posture.
They are always bent over, not just forward, but to the side. This is bad for the spinal column and throws gait off completely.
Tips for Walking Sideways on a Treadmill
Start out at a speed that you think is too slow. You will not stumble at only 1 mph. Turn yourself sideways and let go. This is not as hard as you think.
In fact, have you ever played basketball or tennis? You side step in these sports all the time.
A moving tread is no different. It’s easier because you are not handling a ball or racquet.
If you hold on at a faster speed, you will not accomplish anything except distorted gait.
Holding on will remove body weight, and legs and core muscles will not really be supporting you.
Let go at a slow speed and get used to it. Focus on proper posture, correct spinal alignment and square, balanced shoulders.
People who hold on have hunched up and crumpled shoulders. Their hips are out of whack. Their posture is crooked and they will never improve their balance or fitness.
Watch your feet if you fear stumbling. As you get used to 1 mph, then increase the speed to 1.5 mph.
After you get used to that, increase it to 2 mph. Don’t rush with the progression.
When you walk sideways on a treadmill, your legs and core should do all the work for maximal calorie burn (if that’s important to you), maximal neurological recruitment and maximal cardio training effect (once you start moving faster). Do not rely on the machine’s rails to do the job for you.
Photo credit: Aleesia Forni
Based upon 30+ years of experience, Dr. Carpenter’s practice approach reflects his belief that restoring optimum health and function will enable his patients to enjoy a much greater amount of vitality and wellness. Chiropractic care is true health care, not sick care!
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
Why You Haven’t Lost Weight Running on a Treadmill
Have you been grinding out lots of running on the treadmill and still haven’t lost any weight, or maybe three pounds at the most? You’re doing something wrong.
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Why You Haven’t Lost Weight Using a Treadmill Incline
Are you going batty wondering why you haven’t lost much weight after all those high incline sessions on the treadmill?
There’s a definite reason why, despite walking endless miles on a high treadmill incline, you haven’t lost much weight.
In fact, maybe you’re even still the same weight as when you began months ago on your quest to slim down.
If you’ve been religiously sticking to a program of using a high treadmill incline yet the anticipated weight loss hasn’t happened, I bet anything that your hands are glued to the machine’s bar or side rails the entire time!
This common treadmill error “un-inclines” the incline, because it causes your body to lean back, creating the same angle relationship with the tread as you’d have if you were walking with a zero incline.
Left: Make-believe incline walking. Right: Actual incline walking.
Not only that, but holding on, whether there’s an incline or not, significantly reduces the workload.
So though the calorie readout may show a big number at the end of an hour, that number is much higher than the calories you actually burned.
When you hold onto a treadmill, especially when it’s set to high incline, the treadmill itself takes over some of the exercise.
The worst offense takes the form of gripping the front bar with straight, locked-out arms.
The pronounced hip and knee flexion that takes place during true uphill walking is absent because, as mentioned, the body is angled way back.
This leaning-back makes your body perpendicular to the tread surface, even though the incline is high.
To reap weight loss from an incline, your body must be vertical, which will then force increased hip and knee flexion.
To make your body vertical, let go of the treadmill!
Source: Freepik.com
But you’ll get thrown right off the tread if you do, right? Solution: Slow the speed. A speed of 4 mph, even 3.5 mph, is way too fast for a sustained walk at a 15 percent incline. It’s not realistic.
Even seasoned hikers rarely sustain this kind of speed on a hill with a 15 percent grade.
A more realistic speed for a 15 percent incline is 1 to 1.5 mph if you want to sustain it for 30 minutes.
If you think that’s two slow, give it a try! I’m betting you’ll have to drop the incline to 5 percent within 15 minutes. Yes, I’m serious.
Holding onto a Treadmill = Ineffective Weight Loss Plan
Another problem with the locked-out, straight-arm hold is that this makes the bones in the arms become anchors to the bar.
Do you realize just how strong bones are when they’re used like this?
The bones absorb significant resistance; you’re not actually climbing that incline:
Rather, your feet are merely grazing along while the bones in your arms absorb the forces.
To understand this concept, look at it this way: What’s easier?
Hanging on a pull-up bar with your arms very bent? Or hanging with straight arms?
What about leaning forward while holding on so that the body is more vertical?
Some people who hold onto the bar or console while using an incline will pull forward with bent arms, but then the muscles in their arms and shoulders take over some of the work.
So even though their body is vertical, they’re still not genuinely climbing because they’re pulling themselves into that vertical position.
When you use a high treadmill incline the right way, you can lose a lot of weight.
If you think walking a high incline is too hard, then use a slower speed.
Easy exercise will not result in the weight loss you so desperately want.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Shutterstock/Iam_Anupong
Can You Work Out Every Day Seven Days a Week? Yes!
Yes, you sure CAN work out every single day; don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
The issue isn’t that of working out every day of the week. The issue is what kind of exercise you do. (more…)
Should Obese People Lose Weight Before Joining a Gym?
If you’re obese then STOP waiting to lose weight before joining the gym!
To wait till you lose weight before joining a gym is one of the biggest mistakes you’ll ever make.
A gym will help you lose weight.
But it’s a safe bet that most people coming here are obese and do not know if they should first lose weight before getting a gym membership.
I was a personal trainer for a major health club chain for five years, and I have to wonder just where the idea comes from that weight loss is a prerequisite for a gym membership.
The sales manager of any club will never require weight loss first before purchasing a membership.
The reasoning behind all of this isn’t too far removed from the idea that a skinny 90 pound weakling refusing to join a gym to build up his body—until he puts on 30 pounds! Wouldn’t that be very silly?
Do not try to lose weight before joining a gym—no matter how obese you are.
This just makes no sense. Could it be that you’re scared to walking onto the gym floor, fearing that everyone will “stare” at you?
Could it be that you believe any kind of workout will be too painful, and hence, let’s lose some weight first?
Well, think of it this way: If you’re already in the club, you have no choice but to exercise.
Shutterstock/Nomad_Soul
If you stay home…you’re probably not going to exercise because there will be too many other more appealing things to do that are beckoning for your attention.
Or perhaps you’ll invent things to do that you think need to be done that moment, such as cleaning the windowsills or rearranging the clothes in your child’s bureau.
Maybe you fear being overwhelmed, having never before set foot inside a big gym.
So you decide to lose weight first. But this never happens. Maybe five, even 10 pounds come off, but that’s it, or, it returns, and you’re back to square one.
How long will you allow this madness to continue? Ask yourself this:
Do you really think the salespeople at the gym, who get commission to sell memberships, really care that you’re obese, even if it’s too a morbid degree?
Here are some tips to overcome your anxiety or reluctance to join the local gym, and to stop the campaign of trying to lose weight first:
• Walk into the club and ask to speak to a sales associate. Trust me, you’ll be seeing one within seconds.
• Know that this individual will be very kind to you (never mind that all he or she is thinking of is another commission).
• The sales rep will give you a tour and answer all of your questions.
• As you go on the tour, take note of the various sections of the gym where you might want to work out, such as one of its quiet corners.
• Ask about classes.
• Ask about childcare.
• Ask about personal training. Some memberships include several sessions with a trainer.
• Do not be put off if you don’t see any patrons who are your size.
“I’ll probably be the biggest person at the gym!”
SO WHAT? Get over it.
Ask yourself, really now, what is so wrong about being the biggest person in the building? It may very well be true, but…SO WHAT?
Ask yourself WHY you’re the most obese person in the gym. Hmmm…now think about this for a moment—because there’s a very logical explanation.
Give up?
You’re the largest person in the gym because all the other people bigger than you are sitting at home trying to lose weight first before joining the gym!
Now WHO’S going to be successful at weight loss and getting heathy and fit: THEM, or YOU?
Whom do you want to be like? THEM…or the fitter, leaner folks you see at the gym?
Okay, so you’re looking at the much smaller members and thinking, “I could never look like that.”
Well, stop looking at them and instead look at someone who’s obese—but smaller than you.
So let’s say you weigh 250. Your goal, then, could be to look more like the same-height individual who appears to be around 210 or 220.
Then when you drop to 220, you could be setting your sights on getting down to 195.
But stop trying to lose weight FIRST before joining the gym! Look at it this way:
Working out will make you stronger, faster, more energetic, sleep better and will help relieve aches and pains. For goodness sake, what are you waiting for?
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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