Article by Liz, who blogs at InnerTeub. Cross-posted here.

In second grade, I got busted for skipping class. Now, I agree, any seven year old skipping out on classes (my preferred method of truancy: ask to go to the bathroom, and then never return) is cause for alarm – that behavior is clearly not going anywhere good. What makes me laugh, however, is that the class that I was skipping was GYM.

OMG I hated being forced to play. HATED. I skipped recess, too. I much preferred to curl up with a book and read throughout rather than OMG INTERACT WITH KIDS MY AGE PLEASE MAKE THE FUN STOP. (Side note: You know how on Gilmore Girls, Rory is first approached by CuteDean because he noticed her reading a book and was all a-swoon with how hot she was, sitting there being all intellectual? THAT NEVER HAPPENS. EVER. The CW is LYING to you, Book Smart Girls of High School Age. LYING.) (Side note to my side note: Keep reading anyway. High school boys are dumb and the mostly all end up living in their parents basement wondering where their glory years went. But you? You will live a full life of awesomeness that will only be enriched by your bad book lovin’ self.)

ANYWAY. My point: I hated gym, and did basically EVERYTHING in my power to avoid any gym type activities.

Life is a bit different for me now. Something clicked as I got older and I began to really embrace physical fitness in non-group sport form. Individual sports were totally the key for me, and being an “adult onset athlete” has shaped my life (and ass) in more ways than I ever imagined possible. That being said, I still stand by my hatred of gym class and group sport activities. So it makes me TOTALLY giggle that I’ve been going three days a week to a crappy run down gym complete with pull up bars, free weights, and other intimidating gym class type torture devices, and PAYING SOMEONE MONEY to recreate gym class.

That’s right folks: I’ve embraced the CrossFit fad completely.

There’s a lot of writing on CrossFit and its philosophy and methodology, but for me it basically boils down to a shorter, more intense workout that kicks my butt and makes me want to cry. Now, I’ve cried at the end of three hour runs before, but it’s nice to be able to get to that point more quickly, y’know? (…erm. No. You might not know.) Anyway, after so many years of pure long distance endurance, this shorter, intenser, power/strength based workouts are totally intriguing me. You do CF on your own (the website has the Workout of the Day posted um, daily), but it’s great to have a dedicated coach watching to make sure I don’t do anything stupid to hurt myself (in addition to going over – and over – the correct form for everything from rowing to deadlifts to pullups) and a group of people to suffer with.

Take this past Monday. I showed up at 6am to find the group doing the following workout:

Run 400m
30 pullups
30 kettlebell swings
Repeat 5x

Which was slight different than Friday’s workout:

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Squats

Now, I cannot do 30 pullups (and I certainly cannot do them 5x in a row), but I can do modified pull-ups, and hopefully sooner than later I WILL be able to do a full one unassisted… and then another one. And while I still like going on long bike rides and runs, it’s fun for me to have a workout that can resoundly kick my ass in 30 minutes or less. And more so than that, these workouts are making me stronger overall, which is only going to help me get better and better at the longer distance stuff I love so much.

While I know CrossFit is a hugely hyped fad right now, I’m loving it, and I’m seeing the results. And it has the added benefit of reminding me how far I’ve come from that second grade bookworm who was petrified of gym.

(Cross-posted from my group NOLA 2010 training blog.)

Thanks to a recommendation from Christine, I recently read Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, and I think you should read it too. Here’s what I wrote when I pimped it on another blog:

The Amazon blurb starts out describing this book as “Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration.” It’s an absolutely fascinating read, deeply satisfying on a number of different levels. You can simply enjoy the fast-paced story that builds up to a fifty-mile foot face made up of semi-crazed ultrarunners and a tribe of nearly superhuman Tarahumara Indians, or you can also soak up the brain-bending thesis about why we were born to run and why the current plethora of overly cushioned fancy athletic shoes is making it so hard on our bodies to do so. Finally, I can almost guarantee reading this will change how you think about running, and light a fire in your soul to get out there and give it a try.

I loved every page of this book, it was so exciting and interesting and just the perfect thing to be reading right now. I’ve always thought of running as something unpleasant that people do anyway because it’s healthy, and this book got me to begin understanding the passion behind it. The people in the book are mainly ultrarunners, and you’d think that mindset would be hard to identify with—I mean, they run hundreds of miles, on PURPOSE—but this perspective, their hardcore love for running, infused me with a newfound determination.

“…Ann insisted running was romantic, and no, of course her friends didn’t get it because they’d never broken through. For them, running was a miserable two miles motivated solely by size 6 jeans: get on the scale, get depressed, get your headphones on, and get it over with. But you can’t muscle through a five-hour run that way; you have to relax into it, like easing your body into a hot bath, until it no longer resists the shock and begins to enjoy it.”

There’s also some mesmerizing stuff in the book about how we humans were evolved to run, how we physically peak as runners at 27 but don’t start to decline until 64 (!!), and how we are designed to run without shoes.

“The deconditioned musculature in the foot is the greatest issue leading to injury, and we’ve allowed our feet to become badly deconditioned over the past twenty-five years,” Dr. Hartman said. “Pronation has become this very bad word, but it’s just the natural movement of the foot. The foot is supposed to pronate. [...] Your foot’s centerpiece is the arch, the greatest weight-bearing design ever created. The beauty of any arch is the way it gets stronger under stress; the harder you push down, the tighter its parts mesh.”

The chunky heels on Nikes were originally invented because the company’s co-founder thought runners could get a longer stride if you step ahead of your center of gravity and land on your heel, instead of the natural mid-foot strike. As more arch support and side buttressing has been added over time, the more our feet have atrophied as a result. Basically, the idea is that the more fancy your super-cushioned running shoes are, the worse they are for your feet. And the more injuries you will get as a result.

“We found pockets of people all over the globe who are still running barefoot, and what you find is that during propulsion and landing, they have far more range of motion in the foot and engage more of the toe. Their feet flex, spread, splay, and grip the surface, meaning you have less over-pronation and more distribution of pressure.”

I’m probably not going to get out there and run barefoot, but I did buy a new pair of shoes after reading this book. And you know what? I absolutely love them. They don’t look anything like my old shoes: they’re lightweight, really flexible, and I can feel my toes gripping with each stride.

(Plus, they’re practically neon red. I may look like a dork out there, but by god you’ll see me coming.)

Anyway, Born to Read is a great, great read. I highly recommend it, especially for novice runners looking for inspiration.

Article by Melissa

Melissa Macchiavelli is a mom of two and marketing consultant living in Baltimore, Maryland. An amateur photographer, avid reader and vegetarian dining aficionado, she enjoys discovering new blogs to read, biking around the city and spending time with her husband and kids.

The fears that crept up the night before I started an outdoor boot camp turned out to be mostly imagined – no yelling, no push-ups in the mud, no tears. Every Wednesday and Friday morning from 6:00 to 7:15 I joined a small group with our trainer, a former Marine Corps fitness instructor, for eight weeks of exhilarating and demanding exercises. After the initial fitness test, a humbling experience the results of which I hope to never see again, we set off for an introduction to the basics of boot camp.

That first day still replays in my head as one of the worst; the ground soggy, the air thick with humidity, the sweat dripping in my eyes as we alternated between jogging and sprinting – mostly uphill – before finally stopping to immediately launch into a series of jumping jacks, standing crunches and squats, then quickly resuming the running/sprinting drill. We repeated this pattern several times over the course of an hour before ending up back at the starting point for stretching and cool down.

My group was evenly divided between men and women with abilities ranging from a seasoned triathlete to a woman whose husband, unbeknownst to her, signed up and (gently) forced her to take the course to kick-start a fitness routine. I was in pretty good shape, or so I thought, but that first day made me question myself. Doubts combined with lack of sleep from a teething baby caused me to spend the day in between sessions wondering if I could hack it…and beating myself up for not taking fitness more seriously since having my son. Finally, I decided to give it a week before calling it quits and kept myself motivated with the promise of a small reward – new running shorts.

I survived that week and all seven after that. I got used to the rhythm of our workouts – warm up, running drills (typically with sprints), a series of barebones strengthening exercises followed by stretching and cool down – and finally learned to think less and work more. We used no traditional equipment or weights relying instead on monkey bars, flights of stairs and our own body weight as resistance, a big change from my usual rut of circuit training paired with low impact cardio.

About halfway through the sessions I became less of a gasping, sweaty mess and managed to finish most of the exercises with my head held high. Eventually, I inched my way up toward the middle of the pack during runs, never skimped on sit-ups and learned how to properly balance myself to finish more push-ups than I ever thought possible. Our trainer constantly reminded us not to measure ourselves against the person next to us and focus only on improving our individual progress, which proved to be a great reminder as the weeks got harder.

This experience taught me almost everything I hoped; I’m physically stronger, more confident about my abilities and motivated to set more challenging goals for myself. The only area I failed to stick with was the early morning wake ups – in the two weeks since boot camp ended I’ve awakened early only once to exercise. But I have a new goal for myself – one early morning workout plus two additional days of running each week in preparation for a 5-mile race in December. I know I won’t finish in record time but I’m determined to run the whole course. And next April I’ll be the first in line to sign up for another round of boot camp.

Article by Stephanie

Stephanie contributes ongoing food articles at Four Forks.

I endured middle school in the late 80’s and early 90’s, so I think that puts me squarely in the first generation that heard an awful lot about the evils of peer pressure. It was going to make you do all sorts of unspeakable things that you should definitely NOT be doing. Bad, bad, bad, that peer pressure.

Now that middle school is squarely behind me (though the 80’s legwarmers were pretty prevalent in my five-year-old’s dance class last week), I’m finding peer pressure to be a good thing, especially on the health-and-fitness front. When I surround myself with people who I think will notice the choices I’m making, I tend to make better choices and push myself harder. Below, three specific ways I recommend using positive peer pressure to stay motivated.

• Run (or walk, or bike, or join a gym) in an area where there’s a moderate to strong chance that, at least once during your workout, you’re going to be seen by someone you know. This way, when you’re heading up that hill and debating whether or not to slack, the sliver of possibility that someone might see you just might keep you going strong. (It does me.)

• Grocery shop as though you might run into your aerobics instructor, personal trainer, or (insert name of person whose magically fit body you admire here). Pretend that someone in your fitness peer group is going to assess your cart for health and nutrition at the check-out; it will slant your choices towards the healthy, nutritious food all the way through the store. I am telling you, the shame factor keeps those Oreos out of my cart every single time.

• Get a group of friends together to work out. This fall, we did this a few times in my neighborhood: cajoled one woman who had taken several “boot camp” courses to lead the rest of us early on Saturday mornings in sprints, stairs, dips, hills, and lunges for an hour. We ranged in age from 30 to 40 and were all over the place when it came to fitness levels, but nobody wanted to be last coming around the track every single time. I know that I worked a little harder than I would have on my own, all because of the pressure of the group.

So it’s official: peer pressure CAN be a good thing. (Also, legwarmers.) Tell me, what are some ways you’ve used positive peer pressure to motivate yourself?

Article by Courtney

Courtney is a 20something old-building nerd, who loves to play bike cop (Spandex! More =’s better!) and hike when there’s not six feet of snow on the ground in Montana. During the winter she can be found falling down mountains “skiing” and at the gym, mindlessly ellipticizing off the cookies she ate yesterday. She’s getting married next summer, and let me tell you, grandma’s size 12 dress from 1953 is NOT a size 12 from 2009! Her blog “Courtney’s Content” can be found at: http://courtneyscontent.blogspot.com/.

I have a body type naturally inclined to build short, bulky muscle. No, really, my family throws college and pro offensive lineman like prizewinning stock at a breeding farm. Genetics, well, I often refer to them as rhyming with “witch”, and my fitness battle began in high school when I swam and played basketball (to which I am spectacularly unsuited).

As such, my version of hitting the gym always included a lot of hard core cardio and little to no resistance training, for fear that I’d lose my neck to my shoulders. I could run three miles at a respectable (in my mind) eight minute per mile pace, but deadlifts, phft. Nah. And I couldn’t keep my focus long enough to do core work; I get bored during the “rest” and after two sets I think “I’ll go home and do this during The Office”… want to bet how often I followed through on that?

But all of this running, ellipticizing and biking started to get old this summer and boredom lead to skipping workouts. Then we got engaged, and that whole wearing-a-white-dress-in-front-of-250-of-your-closest-friends-and-family-and-spending-thousands-of-dollars-on-photography is a heck of a motivation to refocus on fitness. I needed to shake it up, and add something to my routine. Preferably something cheap too, since we’re finishing building a house and saving for The Blessed Event.

I flipped through the calendar at my gym, mindful of how nuts my schedule can get in a weekful of meetings and staff reports, and the Pilates classes caught my eye. Okay, lets be honest here, Pilates classes caught my eye because my perception of the movement included getting to lay down on a mat and do some nice stretching followed by some gentle sit-ups or crunches; you know, generally laying around and calling it a workout. I’m lazy at heart.

One Saturday morning I decided I’d go to a class, then stick around for my usual cardio session. I walked into the “Mind/ Body Studio” of my gym, trying not to snicker at the name. I usually try to send my mind somewhere else for the hour I’m working out, not engage it! Anyway, I took off my shoes (surely the sign of a low-intensity workout) walked in, rolled out a yoga mat and laid down for a quick nap before class. This was going to be awesome! Sleeping and calling it going to the gym!

Then the instructor, a long lean woman who in my mind typified the yuppie mommies in my community, came in and chirped to everyone that we’d be getting started. We began laying on our back with knees bent and breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Then added engaging your core (aka- sucking it in), then engaging your pelvic floor (aka- sucking it up?), then using our abs to lift our hips off the floor (um, is this some sort of sex training?), and then all sorts of other lifting motions with arms (am I cartwheeling here?) and halfway into class I wondered what the HELL I was doing there, while simultaneously trying some sort of complicated move that involves moving your left arm out and away from you while also moving your right leg in a different direction. And engage your core!

Remember above where I said I was unsuited for basketball? My lack of grace of movement is a running joke in our house- I knock stuff over, try to do too much and spill, and walk into door jambs. So trying to pat my head in one direction while rubbing my tummy in another is a fine motor skill I never mastered. Pialtes, it seemed on that Saturday, would be a funny story to tell my fiance after I got done with my cardio session.

Then, once I’d had the mental conversation with myself about how rude it would be to get up and walk out of the class, the instructor started the ab series. And hahahahahah whoooeeeee did she kick my abs. As an indication of how little ab work I do unless forced to, I had to rest during the 10 minute ab series… THREE TIMES. Like sweating, gasping, muscles crying needed to rest. All the while the instructor is chirping and snapping her fingers to indicate the pace at which my abs are supposed to be lifting me from the mat and, I don’t know, twirling me around the room or something.

I left class that morning totally befuddled about the experience. I was sweaty, which indicated an elevated heart rate; I was embarrassed about my inability to perform ballet-like moves, which indicated that at 26 it’s still a miracle I can chew gum and walk; but most significantly, I thought I might go back.

I have continued going to pilates classes two to three times a week for three months now. Ironically, I still seem to exit class with the same sweaty, uncoordinated feeling, but I also leave knowing that my abs, lower back, inner thighs, hip flexors and occasionally my triceps are going to be sore in the morning, an indication that they’ve been worked. I keep coming back because, well, I don’t do those exercises without peer pressure (and an instructor who turns out to be very nice), and I know they’re important.

While my abs remain buried under layers of stubborn fat, I do feel stronger in my core. I also stand taller; more aware of how engaging my abs (suck it in!) positively effects my posture. I can’t say that I’ll ever be as long, lean and graceful as the instructor, who happens to have been a ballet dancer for 30 years, but I can say that I’ve tried something new, and it seems to be sticking. I haven’t substituted pilates for cardio, but have added it into my usual routine.

But don’t get me wrong; my favorite part is still the beginning, where you lay on the mat and take a quick nap.

Article by Erin

Erin is a hockey playing mother of two (4 & 1 year old boys) who dabbles in triathlons in the summer. She’s working up to an olympic length tri this summer so needs to stay in shape through the winter any way she can.

The best smell on earth is the smell of the rink. It hits you when you open the door with your heavy bag weighing on your shoulder and your breath clouding around your head from the winter cold.

The dressing room before a game is a nervous buzz of activity and conversation. The first game of the year always brings about that feeling of uncertainty – do I still remember how to do this? Inevitably someone breaks the tension by putting their skates on ahead of their pants and giving everyone a moment to remember that this sport is all about the team.

When the zamboni exits the building in a cloud of diesel, we hit the ice. The music pumps and we enter the rink like the Toronto Maple Leafs to a crowd of dozens. A few laps to warm up and get the blood pumping is all it takes to remind our muscles how the game is played.

The whistle stops the music abruptly along with our hearts as the adrenaline charges through us. The puck drops and we burst forward like a dam of pent up anxiety. The bench is cheering and shouting instructions we don’t hear as we focus on our only target – the net.

By the third period, our bodies are spent, our lungs hurt from cheering and breathing hard in the cold air. We sit on the bench longer and groan when the whistle blows and our teammates skate towards us to take our place.

But all it takes is a break away. The right winger has the puck and charges down the boards over the blue line. We are right there with her and deque the defense to get open in front of the net. The pass comes and with a flick of the wrist the puck hits the netting as the buzzer goes.

You realize you haven’t taken a breath since you received the puck and collapse into the embrace of your teammates as you celebrate the goal.

All too soon the zamboni starts up again and you are lining up to shake hands and congratulate the other skaters for a game well played.

The dressing room after the game is lively with good natured banter. Plays are relived and players from the other team are cursed for their perceived poor conduct. It is with the last ounce of our energy that we remove our skates, pack our bags and head back into the cold night air.

Next week is already on our minds.

(Note: you can find out about Canadian leagues across the country at the Canadian Adult Recreational Hockey Association, and US adult hockey info at USA Hockey.)

Article by Laura

Laura is a musical theatre actress living in New York City. She’s been blogging for ten years at http://thespectrum.org. She is a proud vegetarian who enjoys contemporary fiction, black cherry seltzer and making color-coded To Do lists.

I recently took up Bikram Yoga again, for the second time in my life. I caught sight of an advertisement for a new yoga studio opening up in my neighborhood and for whatever reason, I suddenly thought sweating to death would be an excellent way to spend a few hours. BACK TO BIKRAM, I declared, reasoning that this would be just the push I needed to ramp up my workout routine. And oh, was I correct. I am officially an addict.

I attended a Bikram Yoga class twice a week or so when I was home from college for a summer with my cousin Tom. I remember it being hot and I remember it being hard but mostly I remember that after the class was over, Tom and I would do Rockette kicks in the parking lot because Omg, dude! Look how high my leg goes! Flexibility!

In case you need more information than “high Rockette kicks” (whatever, who ARE you?), Bikram Yoga is a type of yoga that is done in a heated room, usually about 105 degrees. This allows you to pretend that you are vacationing in Africa. More importantly, the heat allows your skin to sweat out toxins while warming up your muscles and increasing flexibility. There is a sequence of 26 poses that are performed twice in a 90 minute class. The poses and the sequence are always the same, the idea being that each one sets you up for the one to come.

Some things I’ve noticed changing in me thanks to Bikram besides the obvious overall increase in flexibility: clearer skin, an ability to breathe deeper when things are stressful in my daily life, no more lower back pain, an increase in focus and concentration, more self-confidence. One thing I love about Bikram is that every day, my practice is different and the only thing I am comparing myself to is…myself.

It also helps that Bikram is a strenuous workout; it’s pretty much impossible for me to think of anything else but the present moment. My mind rarely wanders the way it does during a run or other type of exercise because it just CAN’T. It’s too busy wondering if my knee is going to just pop off my body and roll around on the floor. Or it’s marveling at the thought that holy cow, I had no idea my ELBOWS could sweat!?

Concentration, self-confidence, flexibility, toned muscles, and OH YEAH, Bikram is also a sweet sweet calorie burn. It can be deceiving sometimes because the excessive sweating can often make you feel like you’re working harder than you are. I’ve found some online calorie calculators estimating my calorie burn to be anywhere from 500-850 in a 90 minute class. WHA?

I believe that’s a LITTLE outrageous. The only sure way to know for sure is to wear a heart rate monitor which isn’t exactly possible as it might disrupt class and your practice. (Perhaps check with your instructor first? Or find a silent monitor?) Regardless, I can usually tell when I’m truly pushing hard and when I’m just coasting on the fact that sweat is pouring out of my eyeballs. I highly doubt I ever burn 850 calories in a session and feel most comfortable guessing that it’s more likely 350-500. Either way, pretty awesome!

Some things to keep in mind if you’re interested in trying it out!

Stuff To Bring. A yoga mat, a towel and the biggest water bottle you can find. My studio offers towels free of charge and mat rentals. For some other studios, all that stuff is left up to you! Find out before you go. Dress in layers if you’re not sure what you’ll be comfortable wearing. I will say that long sleeves, long pants, long anything are a bad idea. (Snowsuit? ABSOLUTE WORST IDEA.)

Most people wear shorts and a tank top. If you feel comfortable, a sports bra or bathing suit top works too. Men usually show up in shorts, no shirt. The less, the better. I promise you. Also, might be good to inquire if there are showers. If you can hop right in the car and drive home, you might not mind. But for people like me who have to get on the subway? A shower is necessary.

You Don’t Need To Be An Expert To Begin! You do not need to be a master yogi to take a Bikram class. In fact, Bikram was the first kind of yoga I ever took in my entire life. (Hi! I’m nuts!) That being said, know your limitations. Most instructors are fantastic at offering alternatives to poses in case you have a bad back, bad knees, etc. Take them up on their suggestions!

When The Heat Is…Too Hot. Most people get dizzy and/or nauseated throughout their first few Bikram classes. It’s normal. Your body is adjusting. The best thing to do is sit down or lie down on your mat and join in again once you’re feeling better. Sip some water. Breathe. The worst thing to do is leave the heated room since the temperature change might upset your body more. You can also ask the instructor where the cooler parts of the room are. In my studio, the sun hits the windows in the mornings and creates more heat around that area. (We took the temperature once near where I was standing – 135 degrees!) If you are just starting out, find a place that’s cooler!

Know Your Body. Bikram Yogis suggest attending class on an empty stomach, which works for me most of the time, especially when I go to class at night. However, morning classes are different for me and I’ve found I simply can’t make it through them without a pre-workout snack—an apple and peanut butter, a Luna Bar, etc. It’s okay to listen to the guidelines but of course you should adapt to what works best for you!

Hydrate. All day before class and for hours after, drink that water. Alcohol and caffeine intake should be limited before class for your own darn good. (As someone who went to a Bikram class after a night of a drinking delicious wine—just take my word for it, okay? I said I liked hot yoga. I didn’t say I was smart.)

And there you have it, folks! I encourage practically everyone I meet to try out a Bikram class as I am a total fanatic at this point. I feel like I am simultaneously pushing my body hard and also taking gentle care of it. I walk out of that class and am on a total high! There really is nothing like sweating it all out for 90 minutes and then dancing all the way home. Which I do regularly. High rockette kicks and all.

By Alison.

Alison is a recent grad school grad and a wanna-be archivist. In her free time, she rides horses, reads books, and knits. She very randomly blogs at confiance.blogspot.com. If you have any questions about riding and horses, feel free to ask her at confiance AT gmail DOT com.

A couple times a week, I put on skin-tight pants and pull on some knee socks and go spend an hour or so sitting on my butt.

That hour tends to be one of the hardest work-outs I’ve come up with yet.

I ride horses. I’ve been riding for 15 years now and have tried a variety of different types of exercise – running, rock climbing, gymnastics, aerobic classes at the gym, weight lifting, and tai chi.

While the pants don’t leave much to the imagination (and can be a bit pricey – $60 on average) and you’ll typically leave the barn covered in hair and dirt, riding is the exercise that I keep doing because I love it. I don’t need to motivate myself to get up off the couch and to the barn – I have to force myself to go home after a ride. The fact that I get a work-out from it is just icing on the cake. Riding at a trot is said to burn 457 calories an hour for a 155lb person. Grooming a horse would be 422 calories an hour. (For comparison, jogging comes in at around 493 for the same person.) And riding is much more fun than jogging.

While it may look like you’re just sitting along for the ride while the horse does the hard work of carting your butt around, think again. Riding uses your shoulders, triceps, biceps, abdominal, back, inner and outer thighs, and calf muscle groups. All at the same time.

You need balance to stay on a moving animal, so your core muscles work to hold you upright and in the saddle. You need to drop your heels down, stretching out your calves. At the trot, since a two-beat gait that can be ungodly uncomfortable, many riders post—one beat spent with your butt in the saddle, one beat standing up in the stirrups. Up, down, up, down, up, down.

You need to encourage the horse to move forward with your seat, or to slow down a bit with your knees and thighs. Your shoulders should be back, and some horses may lean into the bridle, forcing you to hold them up. I had the best arm muscles of my life while riding a horse who hated to slow down and loved to lean into the bridle.

When jumping and/or galloping, you’ll want to be up out of the saddle, holding yourself up. Go ahead and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Now bend your knees and hips, so that your center of balance is above your feet. Your knees shouldn’t go over your toes and your butt should be way out behind you. Now try holding that position for 30 seconds. And imagine doing that for 10 minutes while on a moving animal so your balance keeps changing.

Of course, there’s quite a bit of work to do before and after your ride as well. If your horse is out in the field when you arrive, odds are pretty good he’s gonna be in the farthest corner of his field and will have no interest in coming to the gate for you even if you DO have his favorite treat, forcing you to walk alllll the way out to him. Tack—the bridle, saddle, and girth— can weigh a good bit as you lug them to and from the horse. Plus, you’ll have to groom the horse—typically you’ll use a curry comb to loosen all the dirt and hair and a brush or two to knock all that loose stuff off of him again. Imagine rubbing a hard rubber brush over the sides and back of a horse—you need to put some muscle into it. You’ll need to pick out the horse’s feet, holding each one up in turn. And after your ride, you need to do the whole thing in reverse.

Full water buckets are heavy, as is a bale of hay – about 65lbs, I think. A wheelbarrow full of dirty bedding from a stall is hard to push and of course, the muck pile is uphill. Feed tends to come in 40-50lb bags and a horse can eat a lot in a single day. I used to help run a training barn in the summers, and between walking everywhere to turn out and bring in some 25 horses a day, cleaning 18 stalls, feeding, making sure everyone had hay and water, and riding, I was always in the best shape at the end of the summer.

I still work out in other methods—currently, I’m trying to run 2 miles 3-4 days a week and weight lift the other days. The better your fitness level, the better your riding and vice versa. After a tough lesson, I know I’m not running or lifting the following day, because my body needs the chance to forget about those muscles I wasn’t aware I had.

It also helps that riding can be a fairly low-impact sport—you aren’t pounding your legs into the pavement, and there are all sorts of different disciplines to try. Barrel racing might not be for you, but you might love a long trail ride on a Saturday morning. A friend of mine once started riding again three days after breaking her ankle, she just removed her stirrups from her saddle. (Being told, by the way, to drop your stirrups in a riding lesson is a way of the instructor saying “let’s start the torture session.”) Also, every ride will be different, which helps prevent boredom sneaking in and ruining your workout.

Riding is a middle-aged and beyond friendly sport. Many people are in their 30s before they can afford the expense and time riding requires. In the 2008 Olympics, the oldest competitor was 67 and rode dressage for the Japanese equestrian team. Bruce Davidson is 60 and has been competing in three day eventing since 1971.

It’s true that riding can be a very dangerous form of exercise. Even just working with horses on the ground is dangerous: you might get kicked, bitten, knocked over, or stepped on. And at about 1000lbs, that can leave quite the (hoof-shaped) bruise. However, if you’re smart and careful about it and find a good trainer, you can greatly minimize the risks. Wear a helmet. If the barn doesn’t have a rule about it, wear one anyway. (And maybe consider finding a different barn.)

If riding sounds like a fun sort of exercise, try it out. If nothing else, you’ll have a reason to be walking funny. Find a good trainer that makes you feel comfortable and have a few lessons.

Resources:

• The American Riding Instructor’s Association
• The USEA’s list
• For hunters/jumpers, the USHJA website
• The United States Dressage Federation

When my baby was born in July 2008, I resolved that one of the best things I can do for both him and myself is to model healthy eating and physical activity. And in the fifteen months since then, what started as bouncing along to exercise videos became twenty-five miles of running each week. Not fast, mind you, but I was logging miles like I never had before. I ran my first half marathon the day before my son’s first birthday. I felt great; so strong and proud of everything my body had accomplished in the past year. I felt so high, in fact, that I decided to take on a new challenge – learning how to play roller derby.

Why, pray tell, would a suburban stay-at-home mom decide that this was the logical next step? Well, I was eager to play a team sport for the first time since high school, I wanted to make new friends (not that I don’t love a good conversation with my mom-friends about poop), and I wanted to punch sum bitches, so I went out and got myself some quad skates. A five week long roller derby clinic with the Bay Area Derby (B.A.D.) Girls was my introduction to the sport. Before this, the last time I had been on skates was my seventh birthday party, but I had the idea that I am an athlete so this will be easy. Holy cats, was I wrong. On the first day of class I could skate in a circle, slowly, and that was it.

Luckily, the first thing we learned is how to stop. The second? How to fall. The third? Derby isn’t about punching bitches. Well, back in the early days of derby revival (2002ish), there was a certain amount of staged fighting in the banked track leagues (think Whip It). But today most leagues play on a flat track and follow the rules set by the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. Fortunately though, there’s still a bit of camp involved. Many derby girls favor playing in booty shorts and fishnets (an outfit I previously would have died at the thought of wearing), and in most leagues skaters compete under their derby names.

But derby is also about a lot more than that. The B.A.D. Girls operate as a skater-owned 501(c)(3) non-profit that is built on the blood, sweat, and tears of the skaters themselves. Nobody makes a dime, and yet we manage to provide athletic entertainment on both regional and national levels and maintain a commitment to helping other local grassroots organizations. It is about sisterhood and empowerment – the muscle and skill to knock an opponent down and the strength to create something larger than ourselves.

None of this is unique to my hometown league. Derby leagues operate similarly all over the country, and the sport continues to grow. Even if you don’t think you have the time to commit to joining a league, I encourage you to look into introductory clinics. The workout is incredible – think thighs of steel, agility, and cardio endurance like crazy. And if you can’t do that, then come to a bout, drink a beer, and cheer for your local derby girls.

Links:
Women’s Flat Track Derby Association
B.A.D. Girls Roller Derby

– article by Sara Cohen. Sara is an East Coast native who dropped out of graduate school to do things like move to California, climb mountains, and have babies. She plans to return to the respectability of academia sometime around 2015.

I recently received an email from someone asking me if I could suggest any alternatives to the 30 Day Shred workout, because although she loves the results, she doesn’t love the ongoing knee pain she’s experiencing.

Aching knees are a common complaint about 30 Day Shred, particularly if you aren’t used to working out that strenuously. It may be a short program, but if you’ve tried it, you know it’s definitely not easy. There are a number of possibilities for why your knees may be hurting—and if things are REALLY uncomfortable, like you can’t bear weight on your knee or you have visible swelling, you should absolutely see a doctor to figure out what’s going on—but the likely culprit is inflammation caused by over-fatigued supporting muscles.

People tend to think they have bad knees when in fact what they have are weak legs. If the muscles that support your knees aren’t adequately supporting the knee joint or absorbing shock before it gets to the knee, the extra stress placed upon your knee can cause injury. Muscles and tendons get inflamed, things hurt, you end up throwing the DVD out the window because hey, this sucks.

The main muscle groups affecting knee stability are your quadriceps and hamstrings, and to a lesser degree, your calf muscles and hip abductors. If you think about the lower-body exercises you’re doing in 30DS—the lunges, squats, jumps, etc—you’re really working the hell out of all those muscles. Which is a good thing! Except if some of those muscle groups get tired too soon, or simply don’t have enough strength, your knees may not be stabilized properly during your workout. The kneecap can pull and twist to the side because the supporting muscles aren’t holding it in place.

Most knee pain can be corrected. What you want to do is two things: 1) strengthen the muscles that support the knee, and 2) stretch those muscles. Some handy links:

Knee Strengthening Exercises
11 Exercises that Help Decrease Knee Pain
Knee Pain: Exercises You Can Do at Work

Stretches for the Knee
Knee Pain: 5 Effective Stretches

Everyone’s pain tolerance is different and I am most definitely not a medical expert, so I can’t say whether or not you should stop doing 30DS altogether if it makes your knees hurt. I would say that it’s probably worth your while to put some time into strengthening your legs regardless of whether you continue with 30DS, because it will help you avoid knee injury in the future. One idea would be to switch to a non-weight-bearing exercise for a while (like biking or swimming), while separately working on increasing leg strength and flexibility.

Dealing with any existing knee pain so you can incorporate impact/weight-bearing exercises into your fitness routine not only opens up your fitness choices, but may also be a key factor in enhancing your bone health. Plus, it’ll help you be more capable of doing your usual daily activities, like hauling tantruming children from place to place, getting down on the floor to fish LEGOs from underneath the highchair, catching toddlers as they plummet off couches, etc.