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Summarizer
Women's Health November: Hide It Under the Mattress
All the magazines come at once. We summarize them. Sometimes thematically.
Close up of sexy breasts in cheetah print bra. Breastfeeding may dramatically reduce your breast cancer risk. Note to self: Procreate early. Uh oh, juice exploding out of an orange and phallic photo of a parsnip dwarfing a carrot. Gulp your OJ fast, lest it harm your teeth, and eat parsnips. Hello, a woman with glistening abs, wearing only a tool belt, hung with hammers and wrenches. Instant love fixes: Have stronger orgasms via deeper breathing. Boost intimacy by letting him watch you put on mascara. I'm on it. Now a super close-up of kissing couple, she pressed up against bookshelf, gripping it for support. Who says your period has to slow things down? Next page, same couple, still against bookshelves, his hands under her nightie. Scientists are discovering that your menstrual cycle can affect your libido in incredibly hot ways. Who knew? We like this article. Now a woman in off-shoulder sweater is giving me a devastating come-hither look. I don't really want the sweater, just to caress her shoulder immediately. After 100 pages of Women's Health I'm up for anything.
Scientific
Walking Makes Your Brain Work Better
Walking does awesome stuff to your brain, a new study shows. In particular, it increases the connections in your brain networks. Researchers used fMRIs to scan the brains of adults who were sedentary before the study but then started a walking program. A year after starting their 40-minutes three-times-a-week walking regimen, the study participants did significantly better on cognitive tests. They also showed significantly elevated connectivity in their "default mode network" (DMN is the network that dominates when you're passively observing or day dreaming) as well as in their fronto-executive network (that's the network that engages for complex tasks). In sum, walking: Good for you legs, heart, brain...pretty much everything.
Unholy Burgers
The Shelf Life of McDonalds
Not that we think you're sneaking out to grab a happy meal right now, but just in case, here's a fun little fast food experiment that might change your mind. A McDonald's hamburger and fries photographed fresh from the joint, and then photographed 137 days later. Yum. (via MindBodyGreen via Refinery29)
Modern Yoga
Tara Stiles Is The New Tracy Anderson
Tara Stiles, as we've noted before, is a new kind of yogi, all slick and modern with not even the faintest whiff of patchouli about her. We've also noted that she's really, really skinny. And this week, she's out with her new book Slim, Calm, Sexy, which promises to make you skinny too. Yoga Dork aptly notices the 3-word title just so happens to be "downsized and palatable enough for women’s magazine splash ads, and 3-minute morning show bits." All the slickness isn't necessarily bad, but it's certainly a long way from Bhagavan Das. That said, without having read the book, I nonetheless have two GIANT complaints (one of which has to do with the cover above):
More...Lady Gaga
How Lady Gaga Does Yoga
"Gaga just walked into my yoga studio. She comes in with a huge bodyguard. Strips down to her bra and panties in the locker room TWO FEET away from me, and then disappears into a blocked off studio for a private lesson. So crazy. Then ... After class she is chillin', still in only bra/panties in the lounge area. So perfect. Only Lady Gaga does that."
— alleged Facebook posting from a woman who allegedly works at a yoga studio in Minneapolis where Lady Gaga allegedly did some yoga while on tour yesterday.
Day 22: “What’s with Girls Wearing, Like, Super Tight Black Pants?”
An IM conversation I had yesterday in regards to women’s fashion choices at the gym.
J: whats with girls wearing like
super tight black pants
everywhere
and you can see the forms of their butts
not that im complaining
me: i dont think those are considered pants anymore
J: but are they aware?
New York
Poet Laureate
Down With Moobs
At Rehoboth beach this weekend, I had the chance to soak up some sun, crack open a couple of crab legs, rediscover the intestinal destruction that is butter dipping sauce, and skip in the sand like I was mentally-channeling/chasing a bikini-clad, beach-going Dorothy. Unfortunately, the ratio of varicose-mapped bodies and jiggly puffs to “fun and fits” was about 17 to 1. (Yes, I counted. C’mon Amurrica!) The WORST, though, was this one fairly normally looking bloke chilling beneath an umbrella, who stood up suddenly and had moobs dangling so low they grazed his waistline, like well-used udders brushing the grass.
More...Home Gyms
Treadmill Desks Unsexy, But Maybe Also Awesome
Put treadmills and desks together, and you have a deeply unsexy combination. Like sneakers with skirts (see above). But that shouldn't stop you, or so we're told by our friend David Goldenberg, founder of PigSpigot, and a treadmill desk early adopter.
More...Oh Boy!
Lift Off!
Somebody flipped the switch, and things are rattling and shaking at Social Workout HQ. Suddenly the page you are looking at is no longer the "home" page. That thing above is the new home page. it's all very exciting and disorienting. Hang in there.
More...Retreats
Upstate Rock Climbing, Yoga, Hiking, And Kayaking Weekend Retreat
- Who: Outdoor Bound Adventures, with a certified yoga instructor and a licensed trail guide with wilderness medical certification as guides for the weekend.
- What: Morning, evening, and midnight yoga sessions, hiking and rock climbing (with instruction for beginners), kayaking, cooking over a fire pit, and camping in tents on a private property right on the Hudson. All gear provided, except sleeping bags and yoga mats.
- Where: The Shawangunk Mountains, just north of NYC. Transportation provided from 73rd and Broadway
- When: August 20-22, 2010; also available the weekend of October 8.
New York
Profiles
From Banker to Yogi by Way of Skinny Boyfriend
[Since we launched Social Workout, people have started to tell us their stories. Stories of how -- often after years on auto pilot -- they found an unexpected path to happiness and community in a new exercise routine, an inspired teacher, or a hole-in-the-wall studio or gym. We love those stories. Lauren emailed us to mention she was launching a new yoga studio on the Lower East Side. But wait, wasn't she just a banker at Morgan Stanley? Yes, she said, but that was until her boyfriend suggested she take a yoga class.... -The Eds.]
Not long ago, I was a Morgan Stanley banker with a 60 mile a week running habit. Yoga was not part of my vocabulary. I was a Wall Street lifer. Or at least a Wall Street lifestyler. Yogi? No way.
More...New York
Anger Management
The Wall Street Journal Tries Bikram Yoga
What could make Wall Street Journal readers interested in yoga? Health? Eh, maybe. Anger management? Definitely! Today, WSJ takes a close look at Bikram yoga's potential for helping angry bankers "maintain emotional stability and harmony." The WSJ reporter's experience experimenting with Bikram is somewhat amusing, but if you want the short version, here it is:
More...Scientific
Don't Ask For Directions, Waste $3100 A Year
Because they're too proud to stop and ask for directions, British men waste $3100 on needless fuel consumption while driving around lost, according to a new study by a British insurance company. It's tempting to say ha ha, those silly men! And believe me, I would, except that I'm exactly like them. With driving yes, but with everything else too. Like, everytime I go to a new gym or yoga studio, I refuse to let on that I don't know what's up and instead furtively wander around casing the joint for like ten minutes, finding the location of the hidden cardio machines and extra towels all on my own. If you're like me, here's the lesson from the study: All those silly prideful minutes add up. Not that that means I'm going to start asking for help or anything...
Deal Alert
Free Yoga Classes in Celebration of National Yoga Month
As previously mentioned, September is National Yoga Month (and heads up to the calendar challenged, today is the first of September). That means yoga movies and even more yoga stories in the already yoga-saturated news. But it also means lots of free yoga! A few of the freebies you should check out:
- Lucy stores around the country (sadly, there's not one in New York) are offering free classes all month.
- Yoga studios in Austin, Dallas, Houston, L.A., and Philadelphia have organized free yoga days throughout the month.
- And more than 1,000 studios across the country are offering free week passes.
Treadmill Tips
A. J. Jacobs, Healthiest Human, Listens to NPR on Doublespeed
"I listen to NPR podcasts when I work out," said A. J. Jacobs. You may recall A. J. from our interview with him last year. An editor-at-Large for Esquire and bestselling author of Know It All and The Year of Living Biblically, Jacobs is now working on a book (unofficially) called The Healthiest Human Being in the World. The book is due to his publisher February 1st, and so we went out to lunch to compare notes on fitness culture. He was coming from a Cross Fit workout that morning, and had a Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato-and-Egg sandwich, sans the "B," or the bread. "I wasn't taking it seriously enough," he explained. "But I've only got five months, so I'm getting pretty hardcore."
Jacobs' books are a trilogy. First came mind, then spirit, and now he's on body. The range of his research seems to have led to some astute observations. "Those Cross Fit people are just as evangelical as Southern Baptists," he said. I nodded vigorously. I'm always ranting about the similarity between group fitness culture and religion. Anyway, that's how we got on to treadmill habits, and he made me laugh....
"Yeah, I like to listen to NPR's Your Health podcast," he said. "But I listen to it on doublespeed. It's great. The only problem is that when you talk to people, they seem to be talking really slow. But if you listen to William Hurt on doublespeed, he's still slow. William Hurt needs triple speed."
It was a fun lunch, and now we all have an important workout tip.
Site News
Social Workout 2.0 Cleared for Take Off
Fasten your seatbelts, and hold on to your login credentials, we're about to flip the big switch here in Social Workout headquarters: Beginning tomorrow, this "blog" will live at a slightly new address. Actually, it already lives there. If you move your eyes to the address bar at the top of your browser window — easy now — you'll notice that the site you are looking at is actually "blog.socialworkout.com."
Oh snap!
This might make you wonder: Where exactly is SocialWorkout.com at this very moment? Well, SocialWorkout.com, the "page," is currently in the garage getting re-tooled. Around high noon tomorrow, post switch flipping, that URL/page will reappear, but redesigned as a front door to BOTH this blog and to our new challenge site, a.k.a. Social Workout 2.0.
Huh? Could you go over that again?
Yes. As many of you know, we've been working away on a new and improved version of this site. Well, it's high time to push our baby out into the daylight. If you haven't already checked it out, the new site is less blog, and more personal activity tracker and communal challenge site....
More...Scientific
Up Next, Drugs That Make Your Chair Painful
How much "voluntary activity" you engage in is a highly heritable trait, says new research. In other words, if you like to exercise, thank your genes. If you hate it, curse your genes. In the latest study on the topic, scientists bred thousands of rats to prove that engagement in recreational running was a trait offspring inherited from their parents. Not a huge shocker. But what's interesting is the leap the researchers then made. In the words of the study's lead author: "Down the road people could be treated pharmacologically for low activity levels through drugs that targeted specific genes that promote activity. Pharmacological interventions in the future could make it more pleasurable for people to engage in voluntary exercise." Okay, okay, I'm maybe on board. But then he goes on. "Such interventions could also make it less comfortable for people to sit still for long periods of time." Woah, drugs that make it uncomfortable to sit?! Maybe we start with less comfortable chairs before we go all Brave New World on ourselves.
Outrageous
Best Equinox Group Fitness Class Names of All Time
EXCLUSIVE: By our count, Equinox offers 459 distinct "group fitness" classes. Some of these are seasonal, and there are no doubt a few discontinued classes listed on the club's web site where we did our exhaustive research, but, still, one question comes to mind: Holy Shit! The awesome fertility of the Equinox Group Fitness program clearly begs some explanation, a deep cultural reading, at least an economic analysis. We'll leave all that to the physical education PhD's or American Studies majors who we hope are following this space closely. Meantime, we'd just like to let the names speak for themselves. Without further ado, then, here is our round-up of the very best Equinox Group Fitness Class Names of all time....
More...
Practical Eating
Black Bean...Brownies?
Yesterday afternoon I made vegan brownies. Today I rave about them. Not only are they egg and dairy free, but they are sans gluten and soy. How? The main ingredients are a can of black beans, bananas, rolled oats and unsweetened cocoa. Consider them a protein-packed breakfast, lunch and snack food all in one. Now, the consistency is more akin to fudge than traditional brownie due to the lack of flour, but that will not get in the way of satisfying your chocolate jones.
More...New Gyms
Ultimate Fighting Coming to a Gym Near You
Ultimate Fighting Championship announced yesterday that they'll soon be opening their first-ever gym. Come next Wednesday, residents of Concord, California can experience "the UFC Gym Concept." Mark Mastrov, founder of 24-Hour Fitness and co-founder of New Evolution Fitness Company (which is also in the process of acquiring Crunch) doesn't explain exactly what the the "UFC Gym Concept" is, but UFC president Dana White says "it’s going to have something for everyone in the family." Ok, there's a lot to unpack here: Do Mom and little Billy really want to hang out in the UFC Octagon, an eight-sided fighting cage that will be at the center of the new clubs? Well, ok, maybe little Billy does. But you get the point: And when exactly did the notion of a "concept gym" get born. Sigh, I suppose every niche much be exploited.
More...Other Places
Elixirs
Juicy Green Pear Zinger for Yogis (And Wannabe Yogis Too!)
Hey all! I just got back from Wanderlust — yoga all day with stellar teachers, then live music, dance and tea lounge by night. It was epic to say the least. I'm filled with inspiration as a yoga teacher and plan on rocking out my classes hard this week! In the meantime, I want to share my favorite Wanderlust juice with you. I had this pear-ginger-blueberry-celery-lettuce elixir every morning it the Wanderlust "Food Coop," and it put my mind and body in just the right place. Everything in this drink is great for you and combined will help with digestion, lower blood pressure, calm the nerves while giving you energy, and flushing your system out like a liquid brush. Yes please. Plus it's easy to make at home!
More...Pool Alert
Aqua Zumba Is Golden
Water aerobics is coming out of the old-lady era, reports today's Washington Post. Water classes are getting a lot more intense and a lot more trendy. Commenting on their new hit class "Aqua Zumba," the director of group exercise for DC-area gym Sport and Health says, "Putting that in the water is just golden." Which may be true, metaphorically, but which brings to mind much too directly a literal truth about pools that is best left unmentioned.
It's one thing Ikea is pretty good at. The Billy shelves.
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