Archive for March, 2007

Improve Your Weightlifting Routines

Improve Your Weightlifting RoutinesTo get more visible results from your weightlifting routines, try adjusting the speed of each move. That’s the news from a recent study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology.

For nine weeks, 28 women completed three weekly strength-training sessions.

One group spent six seconds lifting and two seconds lowering during each exercise, while the other group did the opposite.

Even though both groups gained overall strength, the women who took six seconds to hoist the weight developed larger muscles.

The change wasn’t enormous, so women can rest assured they won’t bulk up excessively. (more…)

Attention, Couch Potatoes

Attention, Couch PotatoesYou can still reduce your risk for heart disease and undo some of the ill effects of inactivity.

A recent Duke University study shows that sedentary people can improve their health, and even reverse damage, simply by starting an exercise program.

“It’s never too late to improve your heart health with exercise,” says C. Noel Bairey Merz, M.D., director of the (more…)

What is Body Composition?

What is Body Composition?Continued from Better Workout by the Numbers.

Body Composition How much of you is made of fat and how much of you is made of muscle and everything else.

How it’s measured The gold standard is a hydrostatic tank in which you’re weighed underwater, but most gyms use a caliper to take a series of skin-fold measurements.

Some gyms use a bioimpedance meter, which sends electrical currents through your body, but the caliper test, which is available at pretty much every gym for $10-$20, is accurate enough for most people. (more…)

Courtney Love: Weight Loss and Diet

Courtney Love: Weight Loss and DietWhat is going on with Courtney Love?

Well, it is kind of hard to recognize her, don’t you think?

That is because she has lost some weight, a whole bunch of weight in fact!

Look at her, I can actually see some muscle definition, or am I seeing thing?

According to Us Weekly, Courtney Love’s weight loss is clocking in at 45 pounds and she has lost all that weight in only four months. How did she do that? (more…)

Fad Diet: The Hollywood Cookie Diet

Fad Diet: The Hollywood Cookie DietWhat is the Hollywood Cookie Diet?

It sounds too good to be true – which is expected since any bona fide fad diet always does – but some followers of the Hollywood Cookie Diet claim they have lost as much as 30 pounds in two months by swapping meals for cookies.

That is 15 pounds a month! If true, this makes it compatible with, say, laser liposuction (a.k.a. SmartLipo) and clenbuterol - - but can you really lose that much weight by eating cookies? (more…)

Juice Fasting

Juice FastingLike the Master Cleanse, juice fasting is a type of dieting which should be avoided.

This is not, however, how juice has gotten a bad rap. Juice is thought to contribute to the increase in childhood obesity.

That is, until now.

You can give your kid back his juice box, thanks to a new study from Baylor College of Medicine that found 100 percent fruit juice actually doesn’t cause weight gain in preschoolers. (more…)