The Star Online: Lifestyle: Health
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Health |
- Don’t follow workout fads blindly
- New fitness tracker captures more than 100 activities
- Australian study points to potential cure for AIDS
| Don’t follow workout fads blindly Posted: 17 Jan 2013 03:39 AM PST If you are one of the thousands of Americans who started a fad workout after New Year's, there's a question you might want to ask yourself before you get hurt. Why? Not, why am I working out? The benefits are obvious. Rather, "Why do I want to do this specific workout program?" Orthopedic surgeon Derek Ochiai says if more people took the time to honestly answer that question, fewer weekend warriors might come to his Arlington, Va., office with workout injuries. If you've decided to do DVD workouts like P90X or Insanity because your friends swear by them or the infomercials are inspirational, you haven't put enough thought into your workout plan. "You need to take honest stock of yourself," he said. "What are you able to do?" Workout fads in and of themselves are not a bad thing. "They can get people motivated," Ochiai said. "And there are cardio and musculoskeletal benefits to these workouts." The trouble lies in the choosing. Choose wisely and you might be ripped in 90 days. Choose poorly and you might be in a doctor's office. From DVD workouts to boot camps, CrossFit to pole dancing classes, a poor approach can result in nagging overuse injuries or painful back, knee and hip problems. "These workouts are made for somebody," Ochiai said. "But they aren't made for everybody." Consider P90X and Insanity. These workouts are challenging and offer impressive results, but Ochiai points out they are really designed for people who are already in pretty good shape. "It's not a class with an instructor," Ochiai said. "If there is an instructor on there screaming at you to do 10 more reps, that doesn't mean that's what you should do." If you got one of these workouts or something similar for Christmas, Ochiai says to remember it could be a big jump from your current fitness level. "Too many people just start trying to push through the exercises instead of trying to build up to it," Ochiai said. Before diving in, he recommends watching the workouts and honestly accessing if you are ready. P90X, for example, comes with an assessment test to determine if the program is over your head. Also, keep in mind you don't have to do the entire workout. You can do the parts of the workouts you feel comfortable with. You can stop if it seems prudent. You can walk away completely and put together a more appropriate workout program. It's a DVD. The instructor will never know. "Pay attention to your form and not the reps and intensity," Ochiai said. Couch to 5K is a popular phone app workout designed to help people launch running programs. And while the program brings people along slowly, Ochiai says it still might be too fast for some people. He's seen people injured trying to follow the programme. Don't feel obligated to run farther just because a computer program says you should. "There is no one size fits all workout," Ochiai said. Likewise, Ochiai says don't rely on the instructor at your local bootcamp/Zumba/CrossFit/yoga class to perfectly match workouts to your fitness level. "If you are unsure if you should do something you are probably right," Ochiai said. It's OK to modify your form or ask an instructor for an alternative exercise. If you think you'll be susceptible to peer pressure working out in a group setting, Ochiai says maybe cautiously try some of the exercises at home first, then work your way to where you can perform them. Creating your own workout groups with friends you trust can also be a good idea. "You can watch each other and support each other in a positive way," Ochiai said. Practicing in Virginia, Ochiai follows the Washington Redskins and says he'll watch this afternoon when they host the Seattle Seahawks in the playoffs. He says pondering how these finely tuned NFL athletes got to this point can unveil good lessons for those trying to launch a journey to more modest fitness goals. "The Seattle Seahawks don't just show up in September and start playing football," Ochiai said. "They build up to it. They increase what they are doing slowly so they're less likely to get hurt." -- The News Tribune/MCT |
| New fitness tracker captures more than 100 activities Posted: 17 Jan 2013 03:09 AM PST If you haven't gotten your fill of new wearable devices to track your fitness, make room for one more: the Amiigo. The fitness bracelet project, which is currently going the crowdfunding route, offers a distinguishing feature: it can track more than 100 different activities. Amiigo's waterproof bracelet can track movements of the upper arm, such as biceps curls, while a shoe-clip, also waterproof, can track leg exercises. The Salt Lake City-based designers say their device can also capture specific data such as exercise type, repetition, sets, duration, speed, and intensity. What's more, it can track your heart rate, blood oxygen and skin temperature data, and calories burned. Plus the system lets you share your data with social networks or organize competitions with friends to earn points, regardless of what type of exercise you're doing. Both hardware components use Bluetooth 4.0 to connect to iOS devices (iPhone 4S and newer) and Android devices supporting BLE. Backers will need to commit a minimum of $99 to get one of these devices in their hands. The product is set to retail for around $125. -- AFP Relaxnews |
| Australian study points to potential cure for AIDS Posted: 17 Jan 2013 01:30 AM PST An Australian scientist said Wednesday he had discovered how to turn the HIV virus against itself to stop it progressing to AIDS, describing it as a major breakthrough in finding a cure for the disease. David Harrich, from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, said he had successfully modified a protein in HIV that the virus needed to replicate and instead made it "potently" inhibit virus growth. "I have never seen anything like it. The modified protein works every time," said Harrich. "If this research continues down its strong path, and bear in mind there are many hurdles to clear, we're looking at a cure for AIDS." Harrich said the modified protein, which he had named Nullbasic, had shown a "remarkable" ability to arrest HIV growth in a lab environment and could have exciting implications both in curbing AIDS and treating existing HIV sufferers. He described it as "fighting fire with fire". "The virus might infect a cell but it wouldn't spread," said Harrich of his study, published in the latest edition of the journal Human Gene Therapy. "You would still be infected with HIV, it's not a cure for the virus, but the virus would stay latent, it wouldn't wake up, so it wouldn't develop into AIDS," he added. "With a treatment like this, you would maintain a healthy immune system." A person with HIV is said to have AIDS when their count of CD4 immune system cells drops below 200 per microlitre of blood or they develop what is known as an AIDS-defining illness; any one of 22 opportunistic infections or cancers related to HIV. The majority of people infected with HIV, if left untreated, may not progress to AIDS for 10-15 years or longer, according to the UN. Antiretroviral treatments can prolong this further still. The new Nullbasic gene therapy, if proven, could see the deterioration from HIV to AIDS halted indefinitely, bringing an end to the deadly condition. Harrich said the fact that a single protein could be so effective could spell an end to onerous multiple drug regimes for HIV patients, meaning better quality of life and lower costs to individuals and governments. "In that respect, this is a world-first agent that's able to stop HIV with a single agent at multiple steps of the virus lifecycle," Harrich told ABC Radio. "You either have to eliminate the virus infection or alternatively you have to eliminate the disease process and that's what this could do, potentially for a very long time." Animal trials of the protein are due to start this year, with any treatment using it likely to be some years away. According to the latest UN figures, the number of people infected by HIV worldwide rose to 34 million in 2011 from 33.5 million in 2010. The vast majority (23.5 million) live in sub-Saharan Africa, with another 4.2 million in South and Southeast Asia. There were 1.7 million deaths from AIDS-related causes worldwide in 2011, 24 percent fewer than in 2005 and nearly six percent below the 2010 level. New HIV infections have at least halved in 25 low and middle income countries, many in hard-hit Africa, over the past decade, with particular progress made towards protecting children from the deadly virus. The UN said in November that achieving zero new infections in children was appearing increasingly possible. -- AFP Relaxnews |
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