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Get Off Your 'Buts'! Booty Camp Now

]]> http://thetruthaboutfatlossforwomen.com/2010/10/12/get-off-your-buts-booty-camp/feed/ 3 http://thetruthaboutfatlossforwomen.com/2010/10/12/get-off-your-buts-booty-camp/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TruthAboutFatLossForWomenWithLaniMuelrath/~3/RSbJtYgFUP4/ http://thetruthaboutfatlossforwomen.com/2010/10/12/toning-shoes-will-they-really-give-you-a-better-body/#comments Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:49:48 +0000 Lani http://thetruthaboutfatlossforwomen.com/?p=4836

"Chisel your butt and legs!"

"Burns more calories!"

"Makes the gym obsolete!"

Hang on sistah, let's not get carried away with what the "toning" shoes can do. Do they really give you a better body? Have they replaced other workout routines for women as a lower body training tool?

More on Toning shoes: Will they really give you a better body?

"Chisel your butt and legs!"

"Burns more calories!"

"Makes the gym obsolete!"

Hang on sistah, let's not get carried away with what the "toning" shoes can do. Do they really give you a better body? Have they replaced other workout routines for women as a lower body training tool?

If you watch the ads on these funky-looking shoes, the message is powerful: lace these on and your backyard will look like our model's, just by replacing your regular footwear with these. Even high profile athletes like Joe Montana are pushing them.

Do they live up to the claims?

As revealed in my quick video above, independent research conducted by ACE (American Council on Exercise) demonstrates no statistically significant difference in wearing any brand of "toning" shoes over your typical walking or running shoes.

No tests were done on weighted shoes in this case, which may be another story altogether. We're just talking about the high-wedge "toners".

Six site test

ACE used electromyography to measure muscle activiation at 6 different sites.

To measure muscle activation, researchers recruited a second group of 12 physically active female volunteers, ages 21 to 27 years, who performed a similar battery of five-minute treadmill trials (as explained above) rotating shoes at random. Researchers used electromyography (a.k.a. EMG) to record muscle activity in six muscle areas: gastrocnemius (calf), rectus femoris (quads), biceps femoris (hamstrings), gluteus maximus (buttocks), erector spinae (back), and rectus abdominis (abs), as subjects walked in each of the four pairs of shoes. As a baseline for EMG analysis, maximum voluntary isometric contractions (MVIC) on all muscles were also performed using manual muscle techniques prior to testing.

The Results

Guess what? No evidence emerged to support the claims that these shoes will help wearers exercise more intensely, burn more calories or improve muscle strength and tone.

Save your cash…unless

Priced at from $100 – $225, if you are looking for the magic toning bullet, save your cash and put it into something proven to add muscle workload to your walks by adding more resistance, like weighted vests, belts, or hand-held weights.

Unless, of course, you find these shoes so dang fun that you can't wait to get out on your daily walk, in which case I say money well spent! Many women find these shoes comfortable and with their thick cushy soles, a cushion to the press of foot to floor all day long.

And remember, a proven method for firing up calorie consumption while boosting metabolism and muscle challenge is Burst Training, or High Intensity Interval Training, as detailed in my free Fitness Breakthrough Kit.

Download the ACE Report

You can download the "toning shoes" report from ACE and read the whole skinny here:

ACE Report:  Toning Shoes

What do YOU think about these shoes?  Do you have a pair?  Like 'em? Why?  Do they get you out walking more often? No?  Please share your thoughts in comments below.

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Sunset from our room above Cannon Beach, Oregon

Irresistible, these Bursts on the beach (see Burst Training Beach Style) . Running barefoot in the sand as hard as I can, then trolling my toes in the surf until I get my wind for another.

But today's run took a surprising  turn when I encountered a fledgling murre – an ocean diving bird – stranded in the surf.   A gathering of gulls caught my eye, and a closer look revealed a smaller bird floundering low in the water.    As I approached, the gulls scattered, but not so the little murre, by now feathers soaked and floppy.

Having had the privilege of handling many birds in my time, I reached down quickly to cradle this little guy to bring him up to the beach for a closer look.

Fledgling murre, stranded in the surf

Feet looked fine.  Wings wet to the bone but nothing broken.

I stayed by baby murre until my sisters were close by,  then jogged from the beach to a nearby hotel while they stood guard.  With humans and their canine companions strolling the beach in regular intervals, this helpless bird was not long for this world without intervention and guardianship.

Long short? Resort looked up number for Bird and Wildlife Rescue.  Hotel found a small box for me in which to house our little friend while Bird and Wildlife hustled on out to pick him up.  Everyone was absolutely wonderful, eager helping hands everywhere.

Four Lessons To Learn From Bird Rescue

The plight of this little bird draws a parallel to our experiences with growth and change, aspiring to our goals, like this fledgling bird aspiring to hunt and fly.  Here's the second story the murre told today.

1)  Avoid the temptation to jump back into your comfort zone. When stepping up to claim "better!", turning back to doing things as you are used to doing them will abort the change process and quite possibly spell doom.  The baby murre instinctively turned back toward the surf because that was all he knew, even though he was soaked and skinny and to flop toward the sea would have spelled inevitable doom.  We can be quick to back peddle on new challenges because of physical and psychological discomfort.  But they are part of the liberation process, just as they were for this fragile bird.

My sister Pam and I, part of the rescue team

2)  Welcome assistance and don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Without the intervention of a human, whether myself or someone else who may have come down the beach after me, this bird would have continued to flounder and would eventually have been taken by the water or a predator.  Sometimes we are so insistent on doing things ourselves that we don't get anywhere.  Too proud to accept a helping hand?   When it comes to big goals and endeavors, and you're learning to fly, someone who has been there and successfully traveled the leg of the journey before you can save you a lot of missteps, false starts and grief by coaching you through the process.

3)  Get support. It took a team to make the rescue happen for our murre friend.  First, initial rescue from the surf.  Guardians to stand watch while I ran for help.  The call to and arrival of help from Wildlife Rescue.   Sometimes you don't have the best results when you go it alone.  Support with a team, group, and like-mindeds when it comes to fitness or any other important endeavor can make the difference.

4)  Embrace the plateau. Progress and success come in uneven spurts.  We may give up when just on the cusp of a win.  I spoke with Wildlife Rescue later today, to check in on baby murre.  They said he was thin and being fed, was wet and is now warm and dry.  He may be ready for release before long, but if the winter storms come in soon they will keep him in sanctuary through the winter, training him to feed and buiding up his strength and skills for the warmer weather of spring.  In other words, time for the practice, practice, practice that is part of mastery.  On the one hand, this may seem like stalled progress.  On the other hand, a time necessary for the best test of one's skills , when strength and mastery have been cultivated.   A kind of plateau.  We can learn from this.

Next….

P.S. A word from Wildlife rescue to pass on to you.  Once a bird or other animal hits the human-and-their-pets, bikes, and vehicles zone, "nature takes its course" no longer applies.  Intervene and get the wild animal access to rescue or sanctuary.

image:  junebeetle

Burst Training, Oregon beach style, with yours truly

Remember, this one can be done anywhere. Even while traveling.

As long as you've got 2 working legs, no excuses. I"m talking about Burst Training.

Burst Training is one of the most effective, least complicated workout routines for women who are busy yet want to stay fit. (For a complete tutorial and schedule on how to do Burst Training, see my FREE Fitness Breakthrough kit you can download here.)

For me, Burst Training usually means a 15 minute quickie on my stationary bike.

Lucky me to blast through this routine for a change in barefoot freedom on the sand while here in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Two days in a row.

Bursts Finito!

It Started As A Walk

My sisters and I, while on brief beach holiday, have been hitting the beach for a walk after an early breakfast to catch the salt air, get in some good exercise, and generally squeeze some solid play time in at the start of the day.

By our second day, inspiration propelled my legs into Bursts on the beach. 120 footfalls at max speed til I was winded, followed by about 2 minutes of easy walking to recover. Another sprint. Recovery. And so on. Perfect.

More Outdoor Girl Shenanigans

After a lunch of grilled portobellos with potatoes and a pile of veggies, we drove north to find a trail high above the Pacific cliffs. We traversed a solid 3 mile loop, and turning from the steep climb to drop back toward the shore, with stunning views through the evergreens to the beach below.

Stunning views through the evergreens to the beach below.

In the distance, where I'd started the day with the footfalls of running.

What about you? How's your Burst Training going? Any place is game.

• Trails.
  
• Tracks
• Sidewalks.
  
• Dirt paths.
  
• Pools.
  
• Bikes.
  
• Elliptical machines.
  
• Treadmills.
  

OK, I admit it,  the beach sexes the whole thing up.

But the effect on your body and mind, anywhere, is the same. Energy soars. Sleep is sweet. Your metabolism gets stoked to a premium.

Please tell me about YOUR Burst Training method in comments below.

Next…

Yours truly at Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, Oregon, on the cusp of sunset

Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do.

My two darling sisters, Pam and Kristie, and I have just driven out to the Oregon coastline after rendezvous in Portland from 3 corners of the country.

We drove the winding roads from the city to the coast, stopping for baskets of berries and loaves of fresh bread along the way.  Oh, and some huckleberry jam.

Sunset, barefoot walk on the beach.

The sun just dipped below the horizon.

There's a fire in the fireplace.

The rice cooker is bubbling away, wafting sweet brown jasmine across my laptop.

I'm suspecting late night laughter and the sound sleep that comes in the company of sisters. Morning java overlooking the Pacific from our 3rd floor deck.

Oh, did I mention we have our spa dates all lined up for tomorrow? 

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Assembling food and fuel to pack into cooler and boxes for our camping trip to Yosemite! From the upcoming Fit Food Quickies™ Cookbook.

True to my promise to report in on how I fueled the heady and grueling ascent to the top of Half Dome n Yosemite last week (see How A Busy Woman Trains To Climb Yosemite's Half Dome) I'm here to report that we did the whole darn thing on our usual, easy prep fare.

That means piles of plants and potatoes, big bowls of grain, fistfuls of fruit, beautiful grainy breads and colorful beans, and a few nuts and seeds thrown in for fun, flavor, and rib-sticking gusto for long days of hiking.

Eating this way for years has defied the "need lots of protein for muscle and energy" myth that I've seen disproven over and over again.  As a matter of fact, the more I learn, the more it is clear that the very edibles we have been led to believe by the four food lobbies as "building strong bodies" can be crippling to our health and sap our vitality.

Cramming The Cooler

Packing for a 4-day camping trip, when you are used to lots of fresh and fibrous foods as we are, just takes a little more planning – and space – than the cheese and salami route.  Not a problem.  It took one giant cooler and 2 large cardboard boxes, along with my backpack brimming with sandwiches, apples, and snap peas  for the journey en route.

Along with and including  the starter staples as in the image at the top of the page, I packed:

• 2 quarts of brown rice that I cooked in the rice cooker and then froze as part of the "ice" for the cooler
• 1 dozen large fuji apples
• 2 dozen bananas
• several cups of steel cut oats and rolled oats
• raisens
• bag of grapes
• cans of cooked beans
• loaves of bread
• large bag of tomatoes
• jar of peanut butter and jam
• 2 bags baby carrots
• 2 giant bags of snap peas
• McDougall soup mixes – about a dozen
• Annie Chung noodle soup
• almond milk
• flax seed
• Lara Bars

A Day in the Menu

On our big trek day to Half Dome we had a typical day's eats.  As that is pretty fresh (shall we say emblazoned?) in my memory, let me run through the day.

Plant Powered to the top of Half Dome

Breakfast:

Our launch time out of camp was planned for 6:00 a.m., still flashlight time in Yosemite Valley, so I needed to prep breakfast the night before and store it in the bear locker.  I took a couple of cups of rolled oats, a handful of raisens, and soaked it in the pot overnight.  In the morning, a quick heating of same delivered two steamy, sweet bowls of grain which I topped with a full banana each, scoop of flash seed, sprinkle of sucanat, and splash of almond milk.  Full tanks, and ready!

For the hike I packed and we ate through the course of the 10 hour trek, round trip:

• two hummus, tomato, and avocado sandwiches  on sprouted grainy bread
• two peanut butter and banana sandwiches
• four giant fuji apples
• 4 lara bars

Of course, we packed several quarts of water.   As we neared the challenge of the last "sub dome" (I call it a pyramid, a giant stair-step process up to the base of the dome) and the haul up the cables themselves,  I ate my two apples to get more glycogen packed in my  muscles, already sponges to absorb more stored energy from the exertions early on.  This proved to be a good strategy as I never ran out of juice.  Just got a little winded.  After all, we were at nearly 9,000 feet.

Mission Accomplished!

Our arsenal of eats proved to be perfect for the day, we had enough to go on and even came back with a couple of the Lara Bars.   And ten hours later, after crashing into camp,  we caught our breath, and then treated ourselves to veggie burgers and salads at Yosemite Lodge.

What are your tricks for packing and eating healthy on the run or camping?  Share your ideas in comments below!

Triumph at the top of Half Dome

Terror grips your gut even before you slide up onto the near vertical granite wall you've got to glue your nose to if you want to haul yourself to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite.  Call it a summer highlight or sheer foolhardiness, but this week's ascent of Half Dome ranks as one of lifetime's peak experiences.

The crazy journey to summit Half Dome begins with an over-eight-mile hike (yes, that's one way!) and UP nearly 5,oo0 feet of steep mountain trails,  with the most challenging leg – hauling yourself up the cables with sheer arm strength and purpose of will to the top – the last.

The cables. Straight up. Here I go.

We hoofed it out of base camp at 6:15 a.m., steeled by a cup of courage and giant, steamy bowl of oats and bananas.  Backpacks crammed with water bottles and a full arsenal of eats (more on food and fuel in another post), we layered up against the 4,000 ft. elevation Sierra cold, fully mindful that the day's trek would more than double our elevation, with the Half Dome summit hovering at just under 9,000 ft.

How Does a Busy Woman Train For This One?

What kind of hours do you imagine you might need to get into this kind of shape?

Truth is, with just 2 tweaks to my usual, time-minimized workout routines for busy women, I was primed for the job.

How 27  Minutes Of Workout Time Got Me To The Top

Believe it or not, my weekly workout routine time – totaling 3  1/2 hours/week overall – that averages out to about 27 minutes a day – did the trick.  Here are the key pieces that put me, literally, over the top.

1)  Burst Training: I knew, looking ahead to the Half Dome climb, that I would need explosive bursts of energy to meet the demands of clawing up the cables the last portion of the climb.  I not only kept up with my 3x a week 15 minute Burst Training (see my FREE Fitness Breakthrough Kit for complete instructions and schedule), but I added one more 60-second burst.  Still did the whole bit in 15 minutes per session.

With Greg at the top of Half Dome, west horizon

2) I added pull-ups: Using my ballet bar as fitness toy, I added  2 – 3 sets of 15 reps per week.  With my feet on the floor, body in table position and an overhand bar grip, this move strengthens arms, shoulders and back – really targeting the lats in a big way – for the task ahead:  Pulling my body weight UP those cables, with feet as stabilizers and back up.

3)  Quad strengtheners: Thigh Warriors, Fit Quickie #6, has proved to be my best friend in building rock-solid thighs and were my ace in the hole on this one.  I did my usual routine on this one, just making sure I pushed my limits each time.  (How low can you go?)

4)  I kept up the calf work: Knowing that gecko-style climbing and holds on vertical faces demand strong calves, my usual calf-raise routine did the trick.

5)  Glutes and hamstrings: Fit Quickie #6, Gorgeous Glutes and Hamstrings are a mainstay of my workout schedule and proved to be excellent prep.  Incredibly, I came back without a sore fiber in my backyard.

Here's The Best Part

The same targeted body-shapers that I've come to love for the feel and look they create turned out to be the very best tools for building the body I needed for undergoing the strength challenges of the Half Dome quest.

And when you think about it, this makes perfect sense.  At least for the cable-climb portion of the journey, extreme demand on muscles held under tension was critical to prepare for.

Later, at moonrise from Glacier Point, Half Dome floating in the background

Much of the time was spent hovering in bent knee position, calves and quads tensed for the hold.  Arms, doing same, with short pause points at crossbars on the granite face, following by explosive seconds to the next landing.

As it turned out, I had the wind, the arms, the back and the legs to do it.  And make it back the full 16+ mile hike round trip, hitting camp once again after 4:00 that afternoon. And all on my focused, minimized workout schedule.  Yahoo!

Next time I'll tell you all about how I fueled for this one.  This may surprise you, too!