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For 27 years he ate what he wanted and avoided exercise like the plague. Can an arsenal of fitness gadgets make this human healthier in just eight weeks?

From the snake oil salesman to the Thighmaster(TM), science and technology have promised the end of obesity, ill health and lethargy for centuries. Today, weight loss gadgetry is all around us, with affordable commercial systems available from Nintendo, Nike, Adidas and countless other manufacturers, all promising their technology will turn us into paragons of healthy virtue. How is it then, that for all of this, we live in an age where a quarter of the American population is obese?

Do any of these seemingly endless health aids actually work? Will a $200 wristband or a $100 pedometer cause you to banish microwave dinners and saturated fats, take up regular exercise at the gym at least three days a week and sleep well with no bad dreams? Or has the health industry made technology another ineffective distraction that only provides you with a vague sense that you're doing something positive? Is the real answer what it's always been: go for a walk in the trees and eat your greens?

I'm 27 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall and I weigh 239 pounds (108.4 kg). A typical day on the job for me is spent sitting at a desk, eating junk food and chugging caffeine like it's going out of fashion. Unsurprisingly, I'm tremendously obese, but then I always have been. Perpetually vacillating adipose tissue hangs from my every limb and has done so since I was a child -- it's been the source of poor self-esteem, bullying and depression. I don't go out in the summer, I wear a wardrobe of predominantly black clothes and I wake up in the middle of the night with heart palpitations. It's also entirely my own fault: when I was young, I condemned exercise as the pastime of those too stupid to read -- my regular sick-note forgeries got me out of gym class so I could spend more time with my head in a book. Unfortunately, it's become apparent that I've got the body of a middle-aged man on an express train towards type 2 diabetes and other weight-related maladies.

Next month, I'm getting married, and I want to arrive on the big day having made a change to my life, and so my poor spouse-to-be doesn't wind up living with an oleaginous troll for the next few decades. I've tried everything under the sun to make the change beforehand, and now it's time to see if technology can succeed where every faddy diet and pill couldn't. I've got the eight weeks before the suit fitting to try, and I'll give one device or program a go each week. So, can an arsenal of fitness gadgets really make me fitter, happier and more productive?

I begin where I'm sure many others have too. In fact, since nearly 23 million editions of Nintendo's Wii Fit have been sold since 2008, I'd be willing to bet plenty of people bought it specifically to help them lose weight. So, can a $250 console bundle supplant the need to attend an $80-a-month gymnasium? It's certainly notorious for inspiring countless academic studies and websites, and the thrust of the company's advertising budget has been devoted to selling the idea that this is all you need to transform you from dumpy drone into Charles Atlas.

After firing up the console, I undergo the Body Test, measuring my height and weight to give me my Body Mass Index (BMI). Once discovered, my slender, anonymous avatar balloons into a bow-legged, morbidly obese Mr. Creosote before the game offers me pseudo-scientific advice about my balance and posture, saying that ensuring you stand with perfect balance is both healthier and more attractive than leaning to one side. Each day, I try to cover a good variety of the mini games on offer, alternating between the cardiovascular, rhythm, balance and yoga / muscle plans before capping them off with a 10-minute free jog. Yes, that does involve jogging on the spot, and no, I don't do it with the curtains open. Sadly there's a problem: the pace is so slow that I'm not benefiting much, because my pulse isn't increasing. If I want to go a little faster and get more out of it, the quickened pace causes my avatar to fall over and the game exhorts me to take it easy. Suffice to say, I'm not actually doing much exercise.

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Fitter, Happier: an eight-week exercise in using technology to help lose weight

DERIDDER, LA (KPLC) -

As snipers with the Beauregard Parish Sheriff's Office Special OperationsGroupput on their make upand the dive team gears up- they are setting the stage for a training exercise that will test their abilities.

"The idea is to pull all of these people together. Communication we found is the biggest key. If we are not communicating the operation isn't going to go too well," said DetectiveJared Morton.

Morton explainedthe scenario has a suspect threatening to blow up the Bundicks Lake dam while holding two hostages at gunpoint.

"Best case scenario is if we do have a hostage involved like the information indicates is to get that hostage out safely. And the threat is to blow up the dam at Bundicks Spillway - so the best case scenario is we can prevent that from happening," said Morton.

As thescenario got underway divers begin their swim to land as snipersin the nearby woods sentback informationto the command center as negotiations with the suspect got underway.

Morton makes contact with the suspect by phone.

Morton to Suspect:"Look... Slow things down okay, it's just you and me. Right now nothing has happened. I got information that you are wanting to do some bad things... Some stuff you are going to get into a lot of trouble for you understand."

Contact with the suspect only makes him agitated. According to snipers he begins to get frustrated.

Snipers to Morton:"Subject is constantly pacing around. Now having conversations with two females believed to be hostages andraising his voice."

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Hostage Exercise tests BPSO Special Ops Group

Health benefits ... exercise improves mood in some.

Almost everyone has got the message that exercise is important for health. Yet most who start exercise programs stop. Perhaps, researchers say, the way to persuade more people to exercise is to study those rare individuals who love it.

What makes someone a committed exerciser? And how motivating are the much-vaunted improvements to health?

Recently these questions have become more urgent. This month, exercise researchers published an analysis of five rigorous studies reporting that about 10 per cent of people have an ''adverse response'' to exercise. In them, at least one cardiovascular risk factor got worse instead of better.

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Some exercise and public health experts worried that people might use the findings as an excuse not to exercise. But that assumes that exercisers are motivated largely by health concerns to begin with.

''When a physician tells a patient, 'You need to make a change for your health', that can be motivating, especially if the person has a health problem,'' says Rodney Dishman, director of the exercise psychology laboratory at the University of Georgia. ''But it usually wanes over time. People don't feel their bones getting stronger, they don't feel lipids changing, they don't feel their blood pressure changing.''

Most who start exercising say the goal is to lose weight or improve their health. But those who begin on the promise of imperceptible health effects often stop, Dr Dishman says, saying they do not have time, or are too tired after work, or they just lost interest.

And there are no good studies investigating why people keep exercising. Dishman and others suspect the motivation is sheer pleasure - feeling energised, a boost in mood, feeling restless and uncomfortable without exercise. And you may not be able to will yourself to have this response, he says.

Biological traits, Dishman says, ''seem to play a bigger role in both the choice to be active and the outcomes of being active than folks - namely public health advocates - have been willing to admit''.

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Breaking a sweat for the feeling rather than fitness

Published 10:59am Tuesday, June 19, 2012

By ALDO AMATO / Staff Writer

PELHAM Residents of Alabaster and Pelham can enjoy summer fun and exercise in their own backyard with camps and programs offered at the YMCA.

With kids out of school for the summer months, parents are always searching for an alternative to keep their children occupied during the three months off. Alabaster and Pelham YMCA Director Lane Vines said that childcare is always a popular option during the summer.

Childcare is the largest and most popular programs we offer in the summer months, he said. They usually operate between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day and parents can drop off their children as early as 7 a.m.

Summer camps draw a large number of children to both locations. Vines said that around 400 children attend camps at the Pelham location and about 75 at the Alabaster location.

We offer a wide variety of camps at all of our branches, he said. Theres a sports camp, princess camp, water sports camp and a bunch of other specialty camps that we offer. One of our most popular camps is called the Tour de Playground.

Among the specialty camps offered, Vines said that the YMCA offers more traditional camps which tend to be popular as well. He said that the branches have a long standing partnership with Oak Mountain State Park in which campers can hike, swim and geo-cache around one of the states foremost parks.

They are a great resource, he said. Campers can do a variety of things at the park and hang out at the beach so there is a lot that they offer.

Sports and aquatics activities also are also a popular choice among YMCA attendees. Vines said that the sports camps offered are not as grueling or demanding as those offered at universities however they are both challenging and fun at the same time.

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YMCA branches offer summer fun, exercise

Latest studies show that lesser exercise volume will lead to favorable fitness and weight control results, as opposed to over-training or spending longer workout hours.

Aside from the written facts, stories from successful weight maintainers can always attest to the short and long-term benefits of how moderate training will positively affect ones lifestyle, and how over-exercising can lead to performance, recovery and weight issues.

A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology shows that long-time runners improved their running performance, health status and emotional well-being after a 50-percent reduction in their total training over the span of seven weeks.

They followed a 10-20-30 training concept, a program that can be completed in 20-30 minutes including warm-up. While the program consists of varying intensities, rest periods and shorter workout duration (20-30 minutes), individuals with different fitness levels and exercise backgrounds can perform this type of training.

The 10-20-30 concept

Start with a 1-km warm-up at low intensity.

Perform 3-4 blocks of 5 minutes running, interspersed with 2 minutes rest.

Each block consists of 5 consecutive 1-minute intervals divided into 30 seconds of low-intensity run, 20 seconds of moderate-intensity run and 10 seconds of near maximal-intensity run.

Over-exercising is counterproductive to a workout lifestyle that can be sustained long-term because your body fails to adjust and recover in response to the huge load that you give to your body. The longer and the more intense the workout, the more time the body needs to recover. This can take several days, weeks or even months, depending on the individuals response to the training load.

This is primarily the reason you cannot join all the run and/or triathlon races every week and exert a race pace effort, especially if you are not a professional athlete. The shorter recovery time you need, the more frequently you can work out, the more calories you burn, because you might just need a day or two of rest per week.

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To keep fit and manage weight–exercise less

The Somerset County Office on Aging and Disability Services invites active older adults to participate in a water fitness program. People age 60 and over who enjoy pool exercises can choose from a variety of water exercise programs being offered at the Somerset Valley YMCA in the Bridgewater Aquatic Center, located at 601 Garretson Road in Bridgewater, and at the Somerset Hills YMCA, located at 140 Mt. Airy Road in Bernards.

Courses at the Somerset Valley YMCA include water Pilates, hydro and deep water exercise classes.

The cost for an eight-week course at the Somerset Valley YMCA is $28.

The Somerset Hills YMCA hosts two water exercise programs. The Arthritis Foundation Aquatics program (AFAP) offers a series of gentle activities performed in the shallow end of the pool that are designed for people with arthritis, rheumatic diseases and individuals who are recovering from an injury. It is not necessary to know how to swim for these classes. The other program, titled WET/Got Water? is a moderate to intermediate water exercise course.

The cost for an eight-week course at the Somerset Hills YMCA is $40. Participants are asked to complete the registration form in advance. To sign up for a course or to obtain the appropriate registration form, contact the county Office on Aging and Disability Services at 908-704-6346.

Checks can be made payable to the Somerset County Office on Aging and Disability Services (SCOA&DS). Prior to the first class, checks and completed registration forms should be mailed to Barbara Karpinski, S.C. Office on Aging and Disability Services, PO Box 3000, Somerville, NJ 08876.

For more information about senior fitness programs, contact Health Promotion Specialist Caitlin Witucki, the Somerset County Office on Aging and Disability Services at (908) 704-6346.

Originally posted here:
Seniors in Somerset County are invited to participate in water exercise programs

As we grow older, an active lifestyle is more important than ever. Regular exercise can help boost energy, maintain your independence and manage symptoms of illness or pain. Not only is exercise good for your body, but also your mind and spirit.

At the Mattoon Y we offer several exercise programs that seem to be popular among our senior members. Most weekday mornings our pool is an active area with classes such as: Gentle Joints, water volleyball, Prime Time, water aerobics and aqua Zumba.

In Gentle Joints the light water exercises ease arthritic and fybromyalgia discomforts while improving joint mobility, increasing muscle tone and enhancing circulation.

Designed for the mature adult, Prime Time also will help improve muscle tone and elevate the heart rate to a level that will improve your cardiovascular system. Both aqua Zumba and our water aerobics class will use the natural resistance of the water to work the muscles and improve your fitness level. With the aqua Zumba, you will enjoy the sounds of international music while making exercise a splash!

Are you a team player? Many of our members who come for water aerobics stay for a non-competitive game of water volleyball.

Aqua classes not only provide exercise but allow our members the opportunity to meet new friends. After exercise many of these members stay enjoy coffee and laughter in our Welcome Center lobby.

Some members prefer the land fitness classes. Among senior favorites are: Tai Chi, Forever Fit and Yoga stretch.

Tai Chi is a rhythmic Chinese martial art form that utilizes the whole body creating excellent circulation, balance and respiratory response. Yoga stretch implements Yoga postures with assisted isolated stretching for improved flexibility and enhanced mind and body relaxation.

For muscle conditioning, Forever Fit will offer a low-impact aerobic option including the use of light dumbbells.

Recently one of our members celebrated her 90th birthday by bringing her family to Forever Fit. There they witnessed how she chooses to stay young and strong and to keep a positive outlook on life.

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Mattoon Area Family YMCA: Senior adults should stay fit and active

SAN DIEGO, June 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --The American Council on Exercise (ACE), a leading authority on fitness and the world's largest nonprofit fitness and training organization, today announced a partnership with Town Sports International (TSI), a leading owner and operator of fitness clubs in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, which operates the New York, Boston, Washington and Philadelphia Sports Clubs. The two companies have come together to create Xercise International (XI), a personal training instructional program designed to develop fitness enthusiasts' passion into a profession.

The program is a three-month course that builds students' knowledge and skills in anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, nutrition, personal training, and business and marketing skills. The program will help students prepare for ACE's Personal Trainer Certification and for employment within the fitness industry, and will include both classroom lectures and hands-on training at TSI locations.

The training program will be facilitated at select TSI locations, rolling out initially in Connecticut and Virginia and led by TSI fitness professionals who will be trained by ACE. Additionally, upon completion of the course, top graduates will be considered for employment at TSI clubs.

"TSI is a renowned fitness organization and was a natural partner to bring enhanced training and leadership skills to those looking to enter the industry, along with a pipeline to a rewarding career in fitness," said ACE CEO Scott Goudeseune. "ACE is committed to arming the public with the latest knowledge and research for safe and effective fitness options. Fitness literacy for both professionals and fitness seekers is a key element in the fight against the obesity epidemic as we help empower Americans to live their most fit lives."

"A certification from ACE, through XI training, validates that a fitness professional is an expert in his or her field and has gone through the intensive training and testing necessary to produce an effective and safe workout program for clients," said Bob Giardina, President and CEO of TSI. "Bringing XI and ACE certified personal trainers on board further enhances our successful personal training program, adding value to the services we currently offer our half a million TSI club members."

About ACE

American Council on Exercise (ACE), America's premier fitness and personal trainer certification, continuing education, and training organization, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the benefits of physical activity and protecting Americans against unsafe and ineffective fitness products and instruction. ACE sponsors university-based fitness and exercise science research studies and is the world's largest nonprofit fitness certifying organization. For more information on ACE and its programs, call (800) 825-3636 or visit the ACE website at http://www.acefitness.org. AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EXERCISE, ACE and the ACE logos are Registered Trademarks of the American Council on Exercise.

About Town Sports International Holdings, Inc.:

New York-based Town Sports International Holdings, Inc. is a leading owner and operator of fitness clubs in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States and, through its subsidiaries, operated 160 fitness clubs as of March 31, 2012, comprising 108 New York Sports Clubs, 25 Boston Sports Clubs, 18 Washington Sports Clubs (two of which are partly-owned), six Philadelphia Sports Clubs, and three clubs located in Switzerland. These clubs collectively served approximately 523,000 members. For more information on TSI, visit http://www.mysportsclubs.com.

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American Council On Exercise And Town Sports International Partner To Certify And Train Fitness Professionals For ...

Seniors are sweating a lot of things these days, but in at least one case, this is a good thing. People from their 60s to their 80s are demanding much higher levels of physical fitness facilities and programs. At neighborhood gyms and retirement communities throughout the country, a pronounced fitness and wellness trend is making itself felt.

[In Pictures: The Best Places to Retire in 2012.]

The physical and mental benefits of vigorous exercise have become increasingly clear in recent years. So has the linkage with fitness and diet. Lastly, the social benefits of fitness and wellness classes are being recognized as a powerful benefit as well as a marketing tool to get seniors into pools and onto treadmills, bikes, and cross trainers.

Exercise and weight are the two variables that older people associate most strongly with their well-being, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. "Frequent exercise, not being obese, and visiting a dentist are even more important than are healthy eating and not smoking to reporting great health in old age," Gallup says. "While good health habits alone cannot stave off the effects of aging, those who do practice good health habits give themselves an edge in old age."

Del Webb has more than 50 active adult communities throughout the country designed for residents age 55 and older. Nearly three-fourths of Webb residents say they exercise regularly. Beyond making more use of Webb's on-site fitness centers and organized group sporting activities, Webb says, residents are branching out into more physically demanding activities.

[See Why Do Smart People Make Bad Investments?]

"Baby Boomers enjoy experiences, rather than just activities. They are also known to go to great lengths to resist the realities of aging," says Judy Julison, the company's national lifestyle director. "Golf and tennis are still popular, but now so are outdoor adventure activities like sky diving, marathons, rock climbing, off-roading, and marathon cycling with new friends."

If seniors are otherwise healthy into their 70s and even 80s, there is no physical reason they can't engage in strenuous physical activities. Social attitudes about the physical capabilities of older bodies are slowly changing, but remain an impediment to healthy aging for many seniors. Still, public gyms as well as those at private senior communities have introduced more aggressive weight and cardiovascular programs for seniors in recent years.

In addition to meeting residents' needs, many retirement communities also are trying to expand revenues by opening their facilities to people in nearby towns and cities. So they're putting in more equipment and more diverse fitness programs. While step aerobics may still be a popular offering for people in their mid-80s, retirement community pools also are seeing more lap lanes and places where people can engage in more vigorous workouts.

[See Budgeting for Healthcare in Retirement.]

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Exercise is Key to Successful Aging

Could a simple quadcopter revolutionize the way we work out?

ExertionGamesLab.org

We have robots to assemble our cars, and others to clean our floors while we're out of the house. There are robots designed to carry huge loads, and still others that patrol unfriendly skies. These unmanned machines work best alone, in part because technology hasn't reached the point where human-robot interaction works seamlessly. But that's about to change.

Increasingly, we're coming to view automated devices as companions, not appliances. One example is the Joggobot, a machine that, despite sounding like it came out of an episode of "Lost in Space," has the potential to change much about the way we exercise. At the moment, it's a relatively simple device -- just a quadrotor drone that keeps up with you on your runs.

The robot is tethered to your smartphone, which you use to tell the device how high off the ground it should float. And then, you just go. The robot follows you by focusing on a special T-shirt you wear (always a catch, eh?) marked with orange and blue squares. It operates under two modes: a companion mode that automatically adjusts the drone's speed according to the runner's pace, and a coaching mode that challenges the runner by pulling ahead just so slightly.

There's nothing really revolutionary about the technology in its current form. It's little more than a replacement for a jogging buddy. But combined with evolutions in mobile hardware and software, it's not hard to see what the future of exercise might look like.

If you've tried working out with your phone, you've likely come across apps like Runkeeper, a kind of cross between a social network and a personal fitness log. Many of these programs can keep a map of your routes, record how fast and far you've traveled, any changes in elevation you've made, and other data about your exercise history. It's mesmerizing to track all these indicators over time, but you're often left in the dark about how you're improving and, more importantly, what more you can do.

Imagine if some of these functions were integrated into a training drone. Many of us wear heartrate monitors while we run. Advances in device-to-device communications could enable the drone to watch the heart monitor for signs of overexertion or dehydration. Aiming to reach a target heartrate? Program the drone to help you get there. Pretty soon, we might end up doing away with heart monitors altogether, once drones gain image processing capabilities that enable them to track how flushed our faces are.

Training bots can also put into practice what we've learned about music's effect on exercise. Research shows that listening to music while working out forestalls feelings of fatigue, heightens our motivation, and makes our bodies operate more efficiently. Future Joggobots could choose the right songs in our libraries to keep us going.

That's not all. Imagine you're training for a marathon. You tell your drone how long you've got until the big day, and the device not only comes up with a months-long training regimen where it plans a different workout for each day -- a half-hour jog on Monday, hills on Tuesday -- but it works with you to execute the plan. On a tempo run where you alternate between sprinting and jogging, the drone that's following you will tell you when to pick it up and when to relax. And to pull you along, it'll accelerate to the appropriate pace.

Excerpt from:
The Future of Exercise Is Now (and It's a Flying Drone)

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