1 The product: It's a wristwatch with a detachable link that captures data from a sensor in a Nike+ shoe. It monitors time, pace, distance and calories burned. After a run, you can track your progress on www.nikeplus.com.
Sometimes it's the little touches that make a fitness center stand out. Take the Biltmore Fitness Center's twin water cooler. One, enticingly glistening with condensation, held plain ice water. The other was filled with fresh-cut lemons and water. That's not only classy but it's a smart and healthy drink to offer someone who has lost minerals through sweat.
Ina Lee, 62 publishing company owner Fort Lauderdale Time to reflect: Every morning I look in the mirror and say, ``Who I am is the possibility of vibrant lifelong well-being.''
Plyometric exercises produce fast, explosive movements. Although they are used primarily by athletes, they can be useful in everyday life. This movement targets the muscles of the chest, triceps, shoulders and core.
Karl Egerman, 73 retired pediatrician Hollywood Small town doc: I practiced in Trussville, Ala., a small town outside of Birmingham. I lived there about 30 years and I was the only doctor in town for a long time.
Push-ups should be some of the primary exercises in your upper body training program. Varying the types of push-ups you perform will continue to challenge your muscles and keep boredom at bay. A push-up you may not be performing is the tap push-up. It's especially useful for those who find regular push-ups challenging to their cardiovascular system. Hint: You can quickly catch your breath during the tap portion of this exercise.
Three Crunch DVDs worth a try: Cardio Go-Go Dance: Sexy dance routines to raise your metabolism and ramp up your heart rate. Belly, Butt & Thighs Boot Camp: A kick-butt workout that combines strength training and cardio.
We could all use some physical activity, so how about some yoga for the little ones? Itsy Bitsy Yoga for Toddlers and Preschoolers: 8-Minute Routines to Help Your child Grow Smarter, Be Happier, and Behave Better (Da Capo Press, $16.95) has poses -- Rag Doll, Whale and Kissy Knee -- ideal for children as young as 18 months. Yoga can do more than increase their flexibility. It can also help them sleep longer, express themselves and focus.
David Pearson, 75, likens Ed Delatorre's South Miami Bootcamp class to a little United Nations. ``It is by far the most integrated -- physically, socially, intellectually -- place of its type in Florida. The workout is terrific but it's almost like a spiritual lift when I leave here.''
Plyometric exercises produce fast, explosive movements. Although they are used primarily by athletes, they can be very useful in everyday situations. This movement is great for increasing power in the muscles of the legs and core.
When it comes to defining your lower body, weighted lunges, deadlifts and squats are unsurpassed. Not everyone, however, has access to a gym, but some basic gear such as a stability ball, dyna disc, BOSU and jump rope can give you a leg up on a home workout. For this simple hamstring exercise, all you need is a BOSU. Although it lacks a certain degree of difficulty, that doesn't mean your hammys won't be hollering.
Jennifer Kries New Body! Pilates, a beginners' mat workout, will help you look and feel taller, tone and sculpt all over and improve flexibility. Bonus feature: A 10-minute total body toning session.
SWEAT EQUITY
Crunch trainer Randy Washington looks over a first-timer to his Athlete's Workout class and makes sure this person has suitable sneakers. ''A lot of jumping,'' he warns.
LOSING WEIGHT IN 2008
So far, our six dieters are holding onto their New Year's resolution -- lose weight in 2008 -- despite a few speed bumps. Collectively, they've shed more than 100 pounds the old-fashioned way, by eating less and moving more.
SWEAT EQUITY
Mariah Carey coos and pleads, ''touch my body,'' in her current No. 1 single of the same name. In case the vocal invitation isn't fetching enough, there's Carey clad in a bikini, erupting out of the ocean, on the cover of last week's People magazine.
The single-leg hamstring curl on a resistance ball is terrific for developing the hamstrings and glutes while adding stability and endurance to the core.
ROLE MODEL
Fifty teens from local Miami high schools got the chance to spend some off-court time with Serena Williams, the defending women's singles Sony Ericcson champ. Nike invited the girls to meet with Williams and chat about the advantages and challenges of being a female athlete. Williams lauded the efforts of ``pioneers like Billy Jean King, not to mention all the other great women athletes who really led the way in starting title IX which was really, really important so the female athlete like...
Grab a yoga mat, blanket and towel to give these new DVDs a try: Yoga Link/Hip Helpers is designed to stimulate weak muscles and ease tension.
SWEAT EQUITY
If you saw The Bourne Ultimatum recently, or the other two action films in the Bourne series starring Matt Damon, you probably marveled at the amazing fight sequences coordinated by Jonathan Eusabio.
Here's an exercise that will help you get your butt in gear: the plié squat on the leg press. It simultaneously works your glutes, quadriceps and adductors (muscles of the inner thighs).
If you're pregnant and your OB recommends exercise, try Prenatal Fitness for the Entire Body. The DVD is designed to help keep you in shape during your entire pregnancy and postpartum period. It includes more than than 90 minutes of exercise (yoga, gentle stretching, resistance training, etc.) and 20 minutes of pregnancy and wellness information. $14.95 at www.gomomfitness.com.
IMG, the sports and entertainment management giant, conducts strength training for its elite athletes in a hangar-like gymnasium here nine miles off I-75. It's a spectacle of freakish sport-specific variety: refrigerator-sized linebackers and seven-foot forwards, six-foot pony-tailed baseliners with legs thick as tree trunks. Jesse Levine, who at 20 is the 163rd-best men's tennis player in the world, enters this forest.
Dance away the calories with: Dance with Lisa: Dance to Enhance ($14.98), which combines cardio, dance, yoga and Pilates to sculpt and tone.
SWEAT EQUITY
This week, instead of looking back at a class and grading it, we're going to depart a bit from the column's regular format and look ahead to three new class offerings coming to South Beach's Equinox in mid-April: Yoga 360, which utilizes a round yoga mat because, well, they say it's better; Impact shadow kickboxing and -- snicker -- Climb-Max, a stepping class taken on a slanted riser.
The squat, one of the most complete exercises around, is taken up a notch in this version. The single arm dumbbell squat requires much more body control and further stresses the muscles of the legs and core.
Waddell McGee, 62 Retired Army sergeant Miami Hospital corners: I'm very structured, even though there's only my wife, the dog and myself. In the morning I get up, go to the bathroom, make the bed and don't sit on it until it's time for bed. Everything must be folded the right length. My wife just shakes her head.
Contestants from the hit NBC reality show share their secrets in The Biggest Loser Success Secrets: The Wisdom, Motivation, and Inspiration to Lose Weight -- and Keep It Off! (Rodale, $21.95). Some of their advice: Don't eat food out of the original container. Make time for exercise. Work out to your favorite music. If you put in half-hearted work, you'll get half-hearted results.
1Tennis shoes might look like any other sneaker on the outside, but it's what's on the inside that makes a difference. The shoe must support both sides of the foot to handle quick lateral movements and weight shifts. The sole should be flexible to accommodate fast changes of direction when you're chasing the ball all over the court.
Three new Acacia DVDs: Yoga to the Rescue for Back Pain shows how therapeutic yoga exercises can improve posture, ease pressure and relieve tightness. It shows the right and wrong way to perform the exercises and offers alternate easy positions.
When you're short on time, multitasking is mandatory and the stability ball indispensable. It challenges your core while you focus on training other muscle groups. Try the traditional biceps curl while sitting on the stability ball.
SWEAT EQUITY
Bodyweb with the TRX System sounds something we'd find on the back of a Spider-Man DVD. Instead, it's a component of the popular suspension training exercise program making inroads across the States. The ''total resistance exercise'' (TRX, for short) suspension system is a pair of yellow straps with black handles attached to a playground-like rod that looks like a swing set sans the swings.
SWEAT EQUITY
Disclosure: I hate spinning. Yes, I realize one can burn upward of 700 or more calories in an hour peddling like a maniac on an indoor bike -- going nowhere, mind you -- but I don't care.
The medicine/resistance ball reach crunch combines two movements for one explosive exercise. The primary muscles targeted are the abdominals and hip flexors. Secondary muscles worked include inner thighs, serratus anterior and triceps.
Sang Whang, 76 author, scientist Miami All work, no play: I was the typical immigrant from South Korea -- work, work, work and my health went down, down, down. I went to school, worked as an instructor and designed electronic filters used for Air Force communications. My blood pressure was high and my cholesterol was high.
FITNESS
Lack of exercise is a well known contributor to childhood obesity. In the United States, at least one in every five children is overweight, and nine million children older than 6 are considered obese. Obesity in both children and adults has been linked to Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and sleep apnea.
Denise Austin is on the move with two new DVDs: Yoga Body Burn is a vinyasa fat-blasting workout sure to rejuvenate your body and flatten your tummy, before ending with a series of gentle stretches.
SWEAT EQUITY
The Cars were on to something with that Shake It Up song. The Power Plate, utilizing something called ''advanced vibration technology,'' hit the States in 2001 but was developed in the '60s in Russia to strengthen muscles, aid circulation and stimulate bone mass for cosmonauts in training.
Leg workouts are primarily focused on the muscles above the knee. Strengthening the gastrocnemius and soleus, the muscles of the calf, are vital as well. Developing the calf muscles not only gives balance to the lower part of our legs, but also controls our foot flexion. Calf raises on a leg press are excellent for challenging the calves.
Edna Shalala, 96 retired lawyer Miami Classroom, courtroom: I retired from teaching when I passed the Bar in 1952. I practiced law for 50 years and retired in 2002. Now I spend half the year in Cleveland and the other half with my daughter Donna at the University of Miami.
This exercise, the alternating single arm row, targets the biceps and the large muscles of the back. It also adds stability by strengthening the core muscles.
•
