Fun and Fitness for the 40-Something

If you’re still shopping for gifts for the runners in your life, Road Runner Sports has cut prices on many items and is offering free shipping for a limited time—including guaranteed Christmas delivery for orders placed by 9:00 a.m. Pacific time Tuesday. With coupon code CX180214, you can save an additional 15 percent. Between the reduced price, free shipping and coupon code, I just saved about $40 on a pair of running shoes. And, as I’ve mentioned before, Road Runner has fantastic customer service and a generous return policy (even for run-in shoes).

Lately I’ve noticed a couple guys at the gym who regularly jump rope. I haven’t jumped rope since high school, but it makes a great (and cheap) workout. According to the American Council on Exercise, “not only is it a great cardiovascular alternative to your usual aerobic workout, jumping rope can increase body awareness and develop better hand and foot coordination.” Like most exercise, though, you want to do it right to avoid injury (and embarrassment!).

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The British medical journal BMJ is out with its second list of “festive medical myths.” As the authors admit, “both physicians and non-physicians sometimes believe things about our bodies that just are not true.” To probe the truthiness of common medical beliefs that often pop up around the holidays, they searched the National Library of Medicine’s medical database for scientific evidence to support or refute these beliefs. Their work generated the following list of medical myths:

1. Sugar makes kids hyperactive.
2. Suicide increases over the holidays.
3. Poinsettias are toxic.
4. You lose most of your body heat through your head (so all those ridiculous hats my mom made me wear were for naught?)
5. Night eating makes you fat.
6. Hangovers can be cured.

For more details, check out the New York Times health blog. And you can find last year’s list here.

Even if you really want to try yoga, you might find the idea of an actual yoga class in an actual yoga studio with actual yoga practitioners a little daunting. I know I have a hard time picturing myself in such a setting. Women’s Health to the rescue: the WH web site has an illustrated, 11-move, at-home yoga routine. Now you can enjoy the benefits of yoga without even leaving the house.

I cannot, however, endorse that pose WH shows with the woman and the dog. It just seems wrong.

It’s Friday, and you’re dragging at work (or at play)—what do you do? While a cat nap might be tempting, you’re probably more likely to hit Starbucks. Depending on your tasks, though, a nap might be just the ticket.

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Darkness is creeping in earlier and earlier. The Winter Solstice is next week—and the days will slowly but surely grow longer—but that’s small comfort if you can only schedule your walk or run for late afternoon or evening. If that’s the case, and you just can’t bear another session on the treadmill, Windy City Sports has provided some safety tips, summarized below.

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In keeping with the fast food theme, “behold the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”

Really, if you’re a Burger King fan, it’s a gift for you, too. Warning: The links are NSFW.

It seems to me that this would make a better perfume—wouldn’t men be more drawn to the scent of meat than women? And then maybe a french fry scented cologne to attract the ladies.

Fresh off of posting about the potential link between low fat intake and running injuries, here I am being Debbie Downer about that most obvious way to boost your fat intake—fast food. Not surprisingly, fast food is far from healthy. The Cancer Project, a nonprofit affiliate of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, reminds us of this with a list of “the five most unhealthful fast food value meal items.” But they also provide some cheap and healthy alternatives.

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My never-ending quest to get to the bottom of my latest running injury continues, so I was struck by a particularly intriguing explanation I recently stumbled across: I don’t eat enough fat! Okay—I’m making a bit of a self-serving leap, but I did find a study called “Fat intake and injury in female runners.”

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If you’re like me, you don’t give much thought your back unless it’s hurting. Of course, with 75-85% of Americans experiencing lower back pain sometime in their lives, you might give it a lot of thought. The back is an essential part of the body’s “core,” and muscle weaknesses can wreak havoc all the way down to the feet. Yet, we tend to neglect the back muscles when working out. The exercises below will help you take care of all the back’s muscles–the erector spinae, latissimus dorsi, rhomboids and trapezius.

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