Weight Training Helps Breast Cancer Survivors

A new study says that breast cancer survivors who engage in a progressive, supervised weight training program fare better than their counterparts who do not lift weights.

Occupational therapist Cathy Kleinman-Barnett works with breast cancer patients, but she has never encouraged women with lymphedema, a breast cancer-related swelling of the arm, to lift weights. A new study contradicts recommendations that breast cancer survivors avoid weight lifting, because of swelling.

However, she may be changing her tune, thanks to a new study in the August 13 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. It turns out that breast cancer survivors with lymphedema who engage in a progressive, supervised weight-lifting program fare better than their counterparts who do not lift weights. Read more

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Posted in: breast cancer,breast cancer survivors,lymphedema,weight training

Cardio Makes You Fat

Finally, the mainstream media is catching on to the cardio-for-weight loss scam.

... The awful truth for every would-be slimmer is that going to the gym is unlikely to make you thin. It may even have the opposite effect: it could actually make you fatter. This will have personal trainers chewing their smelly insoles in fury, but there is sound science behind the theory that gym-going could actually impede weight loss.

The problem is the kind of exercise most dieters favour. Most eschew the weights area, inhabited by its hardcore of scary looking men.

[...]

Dieters therefore tend to choose cardiovascular exercise, which works the big muscles of the body, for example the legs. It makes the heart work harder to pump more oxygenated blood to the muscles, so the lungs have to take in more air to provide this oxygen, which is why you feel out of breath.

However, while cardiovascular exercise might feel exhausting, the calories it burns are pretty pathetic. Thirty minutes on the rowing machine burns just 300 calories. That's 50 calories less than a 100g slice of pepperoni pizza. Read more

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Posted in: cardio,fat loss,Weight Loss,weight training

Is Yoga Really Enought to Keep You Fit?

For those who don't like aerobics or lifting weights, the practice of yoga has benefits well beyond flexibility and relaxation. Recent research shows that yoga may also improve strength, aerobic capacity, and lung function.

When it came to the fitness benefits yoga can or can't provide, yoga teacher John Schumacher had heard it all. A student of B. K. S. Iyengar for 20 years and founder of the Unity Woods studios in the Washington, D.C. area, Schumacher was convinced yoga provides a complete fitness regime. But many people, even some of his own students, disagreed. Yoga might be good for flexibility or relaxation, they'd say, but to be truly fit, you had to combine it with an activity like running or weight lifting.

Schumacher just didn't buy it. Read more

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Posted in: aerobics,eye yoga,strength training,weight training

20 Minutes of Doom Workout : Sprinting and Puking

The "20 Minutes of Doom Workout" is a great all-around workout, combining, sprinting, pull-ups, and weights. The puking is a bonus.

Prep:

Load up a bar with 85 pounds.

Have a pull up bar about 200 meters away and on top of a steep hill.

20 Minutes of Doom:

As fast as you can without injuring yourself: Read more

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Posted in: pull-ups,sprinting,weight training