“I’ve thought many times that I ought to erect a stand-up workstation for my computer,” I told Lauren via e-mail. “I’m not sure of the long-term implications, but it seems to me that standing would be better for me physically than sitting.”

Lauren, who for some reason has better insight into The Way J.D. Works than anyone I know besides Kris, wrote back:

I have thought about the same thing. I have heard that standing burned a large percentage more calories than sitting, and activates the muscles while sitting makes them ‘go all marshmallow’.

I think this stand-up workstation is a great idea. However, take a reminder from old pubs – make a place underneath (pubs use a foot-rail) to rest one foot about 4 inches higher, to take some strain off your back. (They gave us little boxes in art school to do this while standing at our easels). If you go back and forth between standing and sitting (as I may do) this may help you in many ways. You can always just flex your glutes frequently while standing

While killing time this afternoon, I came across Jason Kottke’s aside about walking desks, standing-height desks built over treadmills. Apparently there was a recent New York Times article about these workstations.

Now all of a sudden I’m wondering if it might not be possible to blog from a treadmill. Insane? Perhaps not. Check out this video.

The only drawback? Cost. I don’t own a treadmill, so there’s no chance that I’m going to whip up one of these from scratch. (Though I will begin watching garage sales.) Buying a pre-fab “walkstation” is out of the question. They run $6,500. That’s enough to pay for my gym membership for the next 54 years.

For more on treadmill desks, check out the following:

• Book of Joe: Treadmill workspace
• The Treadmill Desk blog
• Treadmill Workstation
• Office walkers

At a mile an hour (which is a typical pace for people who do this), the average person would burn about an extra 100 calories. If I’d spend just eight hours blogging from the treadmill every week, I’d lose an extra pound a month! Hm. I wonder if Kris would let me put a treadmill in the den…

As with an RPG, you roll a virtual character, manage your inventory and resources, and try to achieve a goal. Weight Watchers’ points function precisely like hit points; each bite of food does damage until you’ve used up your daily amount, so you sleep and start all over again. Play well and you level up — by losing weight! And the more you play it, the more you discover interesting combinations of the rules that aren’t apparent at first. Hey, if I eat a fruit-granola breakfast and an egg-and-romaine lunch, I’ll have enough points to survive a greasy hamburger dinner for a treat!

Even the Weight Watchers web tool is amazingly game-like. It has the poke-around-and-see-what-happens elegance you see in really good RPG game screens. Accidentally snack on a candy bar and ruin your meal plan for the day? No worries: Just go into the database and see what spells — whoops, I mean foods — you can still use with your remaining points.

And those 35 extra points you get every week? They’re like a special buff or potion — a last-ditch save when you’re on the ropes.

I’ve never used Weight Watchers, so I can’t comment on its game-like aspects. However, I’ve spent long stretches of my life carefully counting calories, and I can attest that this, too is very game-like. So, too, is exercise. One of the reasons I keep detailed stats on my running and biking is that the stats keep me motivated. I’m able to seem my progress. It’s fun for me to watch my improvement. It really does feel like a game.

Many other people have realized that people can be more motivated toward health and fitness if it’s disguised as “fun”. The one hundred pushup project sort of operates on this principle: make the gradually increasing pushups into a challenge in order to motivate participants. It works.

I believe Nintendo has actually tapped into this with their latest video game console. Kris and I don’t keep our Wii in the media room — we keep it in the exercise room. With the yoga mats, fitness ball, and weights, we have an old television and the Nintendo Wii. Kris uses Wii Fit nearly every day. Last winter, I played hours of Dance Dance Revolution. She and I both like the idea of games that require more than just sitting on the couch. (We have only a single chair in the exercise room — we always stand to play the Wii.)

Making fitness fun can help motivate those who might otherwise lose interest. I do suspect there are dangers in making people think that eating right and exercising must be a game, but at the same time I think any move toward fitness is better than none at all.

Footnote: Dance Dance Revolution II is coming out for Wii in under a month! Time for me to practice my dance moves.

Lately I’ve become enamored with the idea of passive exercise. I’ve long praised the wonders of walking to the store — a classic example of what I mean by “passive exercise” — but now I’m discovering other sources of activity that mirror the exercises that I choose to do for fitness. I don’t do these activites specifically for the exercise, but the exercise is an added bonus.

Picking berries, for example, can give me an amazing stretch. We have a couple of low-bush blueberries. My hamstrings get no better stretch than when I’m harvesting this fruit. The other day, Kris and I picked beans at a nearby farm. I stretched a lot of muscles trying to stay comfortable.

Also, over the past week we’ve been working to clean my mother’s house. I’ve noticed that carrying heavy loads from one room to the other gives me a great workout, very much like lifting weights.

Or when I climb our stairs every day, if I take two steps at once, and move s-l-o-w-l-y, I can get a good stretch in my quads.

Now obviously these passive exercises don’t isolate muscles the same way a proper weight-lifting session would, but I do feel that looking for ways to get just a little more exercise each day help with my overall fitness goals.

I’d actually love to find more ways to squeeze bits and pieces of “passive exercise” into my everyday life. Do any of you do stuff like this?

If you’re working on strength training, traveling can be a bit hard, particularly if you are not able to find a gym or your hotel does not offer any lifting facilities. The good news is, there are plenty of ways that you can continue your training, without having to lug your weights around with you. Here are five easy strength training exercises that you can do anywhere.

Get Some Weights
First, you’re going to need to make sure that you have some sort of weight for resistance. This can be a large phone book or even a large book. Most hotel rooms supply a local phone book and if you’re in a metropolitan area, you should be able to find one that is suitable. In a pinch, I’ve even used my laptop which is quite heavy.  

If you can’t find a book or don’t want to risk breaking your laptop, you can look at getting a set of aqua weights.  These are dumbbells designed to be filled with water when you get to destination. While books or aqua weights may not be as heavy as your regular weights, it is better than working with nothing at all.

Three Exercises for a Complete Workout
Once you have your weights it’s time to get started. I like to warm up with a little cardio to get my blood pumping and my muscles ready. Depending on the intensity of your current workouts, the reps you do for each of these exercises should range between one set of 12 each, to two to three sets of 16 reps each. You can fine-tune the reps to suit your particular skill level.

• Staggered Push-up — If you have the phone book, place it on the floor and get in the position for a push up. Place one hand on the book and one hand on the floor. This is a staggered push up. Complete the required repetitions as outlined above. This is a pretty easy exercise to do, especially if you can do 100 pushups. Slow it down to add intensity or add as many reps as you can handle.
• Rear Delt Fly — Place your feet in line with your hips and lean your upper body forward until you are looking down at the floor. Your back should be completely level. Avoid curling up in the middle or rounding your lower back. Pick up the book in one hand (or if you have two phone books you can take one in each hand) and raise your arm to shoulder level. Repeat for the required repetitions. Once again, you can slow it down for greater intensity.
• Tiptoe Squats — Place the book on the floor directly in front of you. Your feet should be placed a little further out from your hips. Squat down and place your hands on the book. Now, go up on your tip toes, while remaining in the squat position. Raise your hips as high as you can without removing your feet from the floor. Repeat as necessary.

These are just three easy little ways to stay in your strength training routine. Get creative with your travel weights and you keep your strength gains on your next trip.

Lazy Man blogs about general health topics.  If you enjoyed this post, you might also wish to read his articles about drinking water to lose weight, reasons to jump rope, and even get some Wii Tennis Tips. Image by e3000.

Our martathon training group met at Portland’s Duniway Park, just below OHSU and the Veteran’s Hospital. We ran up and over the hill, down into Burlingame, across the freeway, and into Tryon Creek State Park. Though we didn’t have any steep climbs, the course was filled with rolling hills.

After seven miles, four of us turned around while the rest of the group logged an eighth mile. Without our pace leader, we went a little quicker than we should have. By the end of the run, my body ached. My IT band was sore. My calves were sore. My toes were sore.

I drove home, hobbled across the lawn, hobbled up the steps, and hobbled into the bathroom. I popped four ibuprofen (as per doctor’s recommendation) and took an ice bath. When I hopped out fifteen minutes later, my legs had no soreness at all. They’ve been (mostly) pain-free ever since. (They’re tight, and that’s for certain, but there’s very little pain.)

The ice bath is a beautiful thing. Here’s how I do it:

1. I begin drawing a cold bath. I don’t turn on the hot water at all. I simply fill the tube with cold water from the tap.
2. While the tub fills, I put on a sweatshirt. Some of my running buddies wear mittens and a hat, but this seems like overkill. Yes, the sweatshirt is going to get wet.
3. While the tub is still filling, I get in and sit down. It’s cold. I squeal like a baby. I stretch my legs out in front of me and sit upright.
4. With my wife’s help, I add a 20-pound bag of ice. Many people just use their ice cube trays. In reality, you don’t need to add ice at all.
5. I sit in the water for 10-20 minutes. Actually, for the past two weeks, I’ve been using twelve minutes as the Magic Time. (This was recommended by the physical therapist who makes announcements before the training runs.)
6. When the ice bath is finished, I peel off the sweatshirt and take a brief hot shower — just enough to soap off the stink from running.
7. After a quick bite to eat, I do my post-run stretching.

Though the ice bath is uncomfortable at first, my body adjusts after a couple of minutes. (Well, it becomes numb more than anything.)

Though the scientific research indicates ice baths are of dubious benefit to a runner, psychologically they are amazing. And for me, there seems to be a real physical difference. The idea behind them is that the cold engulfs the legs, restricting the blood flow and reducing swelling. This, in turn, reduces pain.

For myself, and for many other runners, this seems to be the case. I plan to continue using them as a valuable part of my marathon training.

Photo by Allspice1.

Believe it or not, our recent purchase of Wii Fit has me interested in yoga once again. Kris faithfully does a yoga routine now every morning. I do a little during the day. (I find Wii yoga a little frustrating — it’s not the real thing.) Because my recent leg injury has prevented me from running, I’ve been looking for other fitness options. I discovered my gym offers two even yoga sessions, but they’re not at a convenient time.

Fortunately, Amy Jo pointed me to a site called Yoga Today, which is exactly what it sounds like: a daily yoga video on the web. Each episode is a new session featuring one of three instructors — Neesha, Sarah, or Adi — and set outdoors at the base of the Rocky Mountains.

The site apparently cycles through a library of 300 different sessions. Unfortunately, there’s no way to access favorite past episodes. You may access the past week’s workouts on the site, but after seven days the videos go away. (For example, the following video will “go black” in a couple of days because Yoga Today will remove it from their server.)

The Yoga Today FAQ promises that users may eventually purchase episodes permanently or order a DVD with multiple workouts, but there’s scant information about this. Still, these free yoga videos are an awesome resource.

Though I haven’t actually done any of the routines yet, I intend to. I’m actually excited to begin practicing yoga again, if even just a little bit.