CrossFit Games

I love this video. I don't do CrossFit, mostly because I'm a bit too old and creaky, although I do use HIIT and Tabata.

Check out the 2010 CrossFit Games -- see link to videos, of training as well as competition. The sport is kind of wacky -- kind of like the early days of triathlon, I guess. The competitors are wannabes in each of the core movements: weak Olympic lifters, clumsy gymnasts, slow sprinters, etc. But they have an all-around versatility.

I like the sisu (toughness) of this Finnish guy, Mikko Salo.

Sprints, interval training and energy expenditure

I've read studies in the past that found jogging or running at a moderate pace burns calories at a rate of about 100 calories per mile. This rate of energy expenditure depends on bodyweight, but only weakly on the actual running speed. Thus if you run, e.g., 2 miles you probably burned about 200 calories (depending on how big you are), whether you ran at 7 minute pace or 11 minute pace (i.e., you covered the distance in 14 minutes or 22 minutes).

However, from personal experience it seems that sprinting increases the rate of calorie consumption per unit distance (or per unit time) significantly. The study below is the first I've seen showing this kind of nonlinear dependence of energy consumption as a function of level of exertion. Note, some of the 200 calories resulting from 2.5 minutes of sprinting is consumed during post-exercise recovery, due to elevated metabolism.

See also Tabata or High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).

American Physiological Society : ... the men then checked in to a research facility at the University of Colorado Anschultz Medical Campus that was outfitted much like a typical hospital room. However, this room was completely enclosed, with air intake and exhaust regulated and equipment installed to analyze oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water content. Based on the results of this analysis, the researchers could determine how many calories the volunteers burned while each stayed in the room.

For two days, each volunteer lived in the room, continuing to eat the prescribed diet and spending the majority of their time in sedentary activities, such as watching movies or using a computer. However, on one of the days, they engaged in a sprint interval workout that involved pedaling as fast as possible on a stationary bicycle in the room that was set at a high resistance for five 30-second periods, each separated by four-minute periods of recovery in which they pedaled slowly with very little resistance. During the intense, 30-second bouts, the researchers coached the volunteers over an intercom system, encouraging them to give 100 percent effort.

Analyzing results from the room calorimeter system showed that the volunteers burned an average of an extra 200 calories on the sprint interval workout day, despite spending just 2.5 minutes engaged in hard exercise. ...

Height loss and aging

I had a physical today and they measured me at 183 cm. I seem to recall being 184 cm (six foot and a half inch or so). Have I lost height, or is it just measurement error? :-) How much does height actually vary throughout the day?

Apparently people don't shrink quite as much with age as they think they do:

Self-report overestimates true height loss: implications for diagnosis of osteoporosis

Abstract The Newcastle Thousand Families birth cohort dates from 1947; assessments have included height measurement at 22 and 50 years, when height loss was also assessed by self-report. A total of 388 attended for 50-year review of bone health, of whom 57 reported a median height loss of 2.5 cm, and 8 reported height loss of >3.5 cm. However, of 24 subjects for whom true height loss could be calculated, 7 had gained height, 9 were unchanged and only 8 had lost height since age 22 years. Self-report leads to over-reporting of height loss, and therefore should not be the sole measure of height loss. In clinical practice, objective confirmation of reported height loss should be undertaken, wherever possible, prior to further investigation.

At 180 lbs I'm basically the same weight as when I was a senior in high school. In case you are wondering, I do a very compressed paleo style fitness routine -- only 30 minutes per workout. When I was younger I would have considered one of my current workouts a "rest day" :-)

If you are pressed for time and a former athlete, I recommend Tabata training and sprints. (The guy in the video, Mark Sisson, is in his fifties! Love the footgear :-) I dream that I'll someday be able to get back on the mat and train BJJ/MMA, but who knows when that will happen... Sometimes, to get motivated, I watch videos like these.