Fitness Facts You Should Know

Fitness Fact 1. Studies have suggested that walking at a brisk pace for three or more hours a week can reduce your risk for coronary heart disease by 65 percent.

Fitness Fact 2. About 25 percent of American adults — and an even greater percentage of women — are sedentary. After age 44, upwards of 30 percent of women are sedentary, and by age 65, the proportion increases to almost 35 percent. By the time they reach age 75, about 50 percent of all women are sedentary.

Fitness Fact 3. Only about 22 percent of American adults engage in regular, sustained physical activity for at least 30 minutes five times a week, and only 15 percent exercise both regularly and vigorously.

Fitness Fact 4. No matter how poor your current level of fitness, you can start an exercise routine and become fitter and healthier. Even 90-year-old women who use walkers have been shown in studies to benefit from light weight training.

Fitness Fact 5. Simply adding movement into your daily routine can increase your level of fitness. For example, if you park in the last row of the parking lot and walk briskly five minutes each way between your office and your car, walk up and down the stairs at your office during your 10-minute afternoon coffee break, and walk the dog for 10 minutes when you get home, you've racked up 30 minutes of exercise for the day.

Fitness Fact 6. Women with heart disease or arthritis actually experience improved daily function from involvement in various modes of physical activity.

Fitness Fact 7. Fitness consists of four components: your body's ability to use oxygen as a source of energy, which translates into cardiovascular fitness; muscular strength and endurance; flexibility; and body composition.

Fitness Fact 8. To address all the components of fitness, an exercise program needs to include aerobic exercise, which is continuous repetitive movement of large muscle groups that raises your heart rate; weight lifting or strength training; and flexibility exercises or stretching.

Fitness Fact 9. Walking at a brisk pace (a 15-minute mile or 4 mph) burns almost as many calories as jogging for the same distance. The benefit of jogging is that it takes less time to cover the same distance and it benefits the bones; however, it may be too strenuous for some.

Fitness Fact 10. It takes about 12 weeks after starting an exercise program to see measurable changes in your body. However, before 12 weeks, you will notice an increase in your strength and endurance.

Copyright 2003 National Women's Health Resource Center, Inc.

Most Livable City?

Okay, okay, I apologize that I'm not the biggest fan of Pittsburgh. But it's home and there are awesome people here (including my husband and you guys, so I'd better be careful...). But most livable? Really? According to Places Rated Almanac, Pittsburgh is #1 in a contest that compares rankings on nine factors that influence the quality of a place: ambience, housing, the local economy, transportation, education, health care, crime, recreation, and climate. I guess climate isn't weighed as heavily as other factors. Especially considering that we share the top four spots with Seattle and Portland!

So what do you guys think? Would you rank The Burgh as a most livable city? Why or why not? I know this has nothing to do with Spinning, but I thought it was interesting anyway.

New iTunes Sport iMix

Happy sunny Saturday! I just posted a new Sport iMix today based on the playlist I used in today's class. It features Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani, The Chemical Brothers, Timbaland, Nelly Furtado, Beck, Blue Man Group and lots more. 12 songs. 57 minutes.

The iMix is called "pedalgirl: spin x". Check it out here. You can purchase all, or just some of the songs you'd like to have for your own collection.

Enjoy!

I need your music ideas!!!

Hey y'all, I need your help. I've got a loaded iTunes account ($80+ yippee!), but no clue about new ride songs. For whatever reason, it was easy to come up with stuff at first, but now I'm drying up on ideas. So...since technically it's your class...how about you give a sista a hand and tell me what some of your favorites are.

Team in Training

Okay, so last weekend I got this brochure in the mail from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team in Training. It's this really awesome program where the LLS trains you for a big endurance event (marathon, triathalon, century ride), flies you there and takes care of everything, in return for you raising money for the LLS. There are some really awesome races included--all over the country and even a marathon in Ireland. So I'm flipping through the brochure and it says something about an informational meeting in our area, on McKnight Rd, and I decide to RSVP.

Here's the thing--I really want to ride a century (that's 100 miles). And there are 2 this year. One's in Hawaii and one's in Maryland. Of course, the choice is clear, right? Yeah, no. I'm going to Maryland because that's where my family is and I thought it would make for a nice ride to have people cheering me on. So, anyway, the ride is on October 6, though it's really a whole-weekend event.

Anyone interested in training and riding with me? The informational meeting is on May 1 at 6 p.m. at the Panera Bread on McKnight Rd. Let me know if you want to go!