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Peter Stevens of Cambridge, England, was in his car Friday when a thief opened up the back door and grabbed his laptop.
The 34-year-old runner and IT expert chased him and was surprised when he caught up with the thief after just 225 metres.
Realising the game was up, the puffed-out criminal dropped the laptop, allowing Mr Stevens to pick it up.
Mr Stevens said: “I was appalled by how unfit this guy was. I thought it would take a lot longer to catch up with him. If you are going to go into the snatch-and-run business at least try and get fit or at least play to your strengths and go for something less energetic.”
The thief, who Stevens believes is much younger than he is, has not been caught, but Stevens put his money where his mouth is.
The next day Mr Stevens made a donation to a charity which promotes fitness.
He said: “I made a small donation at Milton Country Park to Cambridge Parkrun to help encourage youngsters to get fit. They seem to need all the help they can get.”
The Art of Manliness posted the physical fitness requirements and testing process used in the U.S. Army during World War II.
The Army first introduced a formal fitness test to the troops in 1942. Millions of men were being called up to fight in World War II, and not all of them were prepared for the rigors of combat. To get the men in fighting shape, the Army implemented a systematic physical development program as part of the Combat Basic Training course. And the Army Ground Forces Test was designed to assess whether the program was having its desired effect. The test included squat jumps, sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, and a 300 yard run. The emphasis was on functional fitness and giving American GI’s the strength, mobility, and endurance they would need to tackle real tasks on the battlefield.
In 1946, a Physical Training School was created at Fort Bragg with the mission of exploring how to take the goal of functional fitness farther. The training program developed at the school and the fitness test were codified in the 1946 edition of FM 21-20, the Army’s physical training manual.
Basically, Grandpa was doing Cross-Fit before it was cool.
The physical fitness standards for service members has been relaxed since then, and more emphasis is placed on technical skills. Take a look at the fitness testing done in the 1940s, and see how tired you get just reading it. Or -you may want to try and see how well you would do! Link -via Nag on the Lake
According to a study by the American College of Sports Medicine, it’s the Minneapolis-St.Paul metropolitan area, followed by Washington, D.C.:
Their winning rank reflects the cities’ relatively low (and rapidly-diminishing) smoking rate, their above-average percentage of regular exercisers, moderate-to-low rates of obesity, asthma, diabetes, and other chronic concerns, and rising share of farmers’ markets (indicative of a trend towards healthier dining). Boston takes the bronze, with Portland, Oregon fourth and Denver in fifth place. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Oklahoma City ranks as America’s least fit metro, followed by Louisville, Memphis, Birmingham, and Detroit.
Link via Marginal Revolution | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user Jason Lengstorf used under Creative Commons license
At 91 years of age most people are relegated to the retirement home, shuffling around in a walker or a motorized scooter. However Charles Eugster started body building at 85 and now feels fit and energized. Great, this makes me feel even better about my beer belly. Link
(Image credit: Gian Paul Lozza for the Guardian)
It seems like a silly question, some say that heavy people who exercise can actually be healthier and live longer lives than their skinny but sedentary friends.
Well, maybe. Adam Bean of Runner’s World asked two experts what "fit" really means:
RW: Do the benefits of exercise matter more than losing weight?
YES: Physical activity can lower your risk of cardiovascular disease, regardless of your weight. Whether you’re talking about boosting good HDL cholesterol, lowering bad LDL cholesterol, reducing blood pressure, and so forth—all these can be improved with exercise, even if you don’t lose weight. And this results in a lower cardiovascular-disease risk. Physical activity seems to have a profound effect on overall mortality risk as well—again, regardless of your weight.NO: Exercise can improve your health, but you can list more than 50 medical conditions—from diabetes to arthritis to acid reflux to sleep apnea to certain cancers—that result from complications from carrying excess weight. Even losing five or 10 pounds will lower your risk of developing these issues and improve your health.
Link (Photo: Shutterstock)
Every age has its own bodybuilders and strongmen (and women, too). The late Jack LaLanne who passed away Sunday is one of a long line of fitness enthusiasts who drew fans, from Eugen Sandow to Arnold Schwarzeneggar. Pictured is the Great Sandow, who organized the first major bodybuilding competition in 1901. Link
Jack LaLanne at 92 (photo: nathancreminsino
[Flickr])
The fitness guru Jack LaLanne has died. Now, many of you knew him only as an old man (albeit with a younger man's trim physique) hawking his juicer, but Jack was a true pioneer in fitness and nutrition.
In tribute to "The Godfather of Fitness," here are Neatorama's 10 Facts About Jack LaLanne You Didn't Know:
The Jack LaLanne Show
In 1951, when Richard Simmons was still in diapers and Jane Fonda was but a young lass, Jack started his own TV exercise show - the first fitness program ever televised, actually - that ended up running for 34 years. When it first aired, critics gave it 6 weeks tops. He even had to buy air time, because the studio didn't believe anyone would watch an exercise show.
Here's the first Jack LaLanne Show:
What's With the Ballet Slippers?
As you can see in the video clip above, Jack wore ballet slippers. Why? His blog explains:
In those days tennis shoes were not popular, and only used to play tennis in…Most show business people and Hand Balancers wore ballet slippers, and Jack being a Hand Balancer, that was what he wore!
Sugar-Addicted Juvenile Delinquent
Jack LaLanne was a self-described sugarholic kid, hooked on junk food:
“As a kid,” he flatly states, “I was a sugarholic and a junk food junkie! It made me weak and it made me mean. It made me so sick I had boils, pimples and suffered from nearsightedness. Little girls used to beat me up. My mom prayed… the Church prayed.”
He blamed his bad diet for attacking his brother with an axe and setting the family house on fire. At 15, his mother took him to see a talk by nutritionist Paul Bragg, and Jack reformed his eating habit and became interested in fitness.
America's First Health Club
Jack LaLanne opened the country's first modern health club in Oakland, California, in 1936 at the tender age of 21. He worked with a blacksmith to create many of the weight machines that you see in your neighborhood gym today.
Jack LaLanne vs The Medical Community
After he opened his health club, LaLanne got a lot of heat ... from doctors of all people!
“People thought I was a charlatan and a nut,” he said in a 2005 interview. “The doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people everything from heart attacks to hemorrhoids; that women would look like men.” LaLanne prevailed.
How Many Push Ups Can You Do?
Jack could do 1,033 push-ups. In 23 minutes. At the age of 42. Now, how about you?
Just a Little Swim
Every year, Jack LaLanne went for a little swim on his birthday. For his 70th birthday, he swam a mile and a half through the Long Beach Harbor while towing a flotilla of 70 boats. With his hands and feet shackled, no less.
We could talk about Jack's other fantastic feats of strength and endurance (he famously swam from Alcatraz to the San Francisco shore. Handcuffed. Shackled. And towing a 1,000-pound boat. You know the drill by now), but we'd be here all night.
Warming Up is for Sissies
You'd think that a fitness expert would tell you to warm up before a vigorous exercise, but not Jack LaLanne. No, Sirree! From an interview with Outside Magazine:
"Now, you listen to some of these so-called sports-medicine experts today--shit! It's just shtick. It's just something else to sell. Warming up," he scoffed, adjusting a red ascot fitted neatly into his jumpsuit, "warming up is the biggest bunch of horseshit I've ever heard in my life. Fifteen minutes to warm up! Does a lion warm up when he's hungry? 'Uh-oh, here comes an antelope. Better warm up.' No! He just goes out and eats the sucker. You gotta get the blood circulating, but shit, does the lion cool down? No, he eats the sucker and goes to sleep. And that," he concluded, folding his arms into a variation of the pose, "is the truth."
Facenastics!
Got a sagging face? Obviously you have never seen Jack LaLanne's Facenastics. That's right. He's got an exercise program for your face:
I Can't Die. It Would Ruin My Image.
And lastly, one of my favorite Jack LaLanne quotes (or "LaLanneisms," as he called it). When he was asked about the difference in public attitude between today and when he first opened his gym decades ago, Jack said: "Then I was a crackpot and a charlatan, today I am an authority… and believe me I can’t die, it would ruin my image."
Jack LaLanne, RIP.
ElliptiGo is a combination of a stationary elliptical trainer and a bicycle. It looks a bit unstable to me, but the official website says that it was successfully used on the grueling 129-mile Death Ride in California. What do you think — is this a useful exercise tool?
via CrunchGear | Official Website
Old age in itself is no barrier to fitness. Many people in their 80s and 90s stay fit with regular exercise, and some put many younger folks to shame! Imagine competitive swimming in your 90s.
92yr old Ladislav Nicek has been competing in the annual Winter Swimming Championships in the Vlatva River for over half a century, and has until this point only missed a few events. Up to 70 ‘otuzilci’ (hardy fellows) brave the icy waters in an event which attracts a huge amount of media coverage, a large percentage due to the efforts of Mr. Nicek. He even organises the event every year before jumping in himself.
Nicek is one of five elderly athletes profiled at Vitabits. Link -Thanks, David!
In 1995, two-year-old Hannah Clark of Mountain Ash, Wales suffered from cardiomyopathy and received a donor heart, which was "piggybacked" onto her original heart and took over its function. For ten years, the donor heart beat in Hannah’s chest, but she was developing tumors and could not continue the immunosuppressive drugs transplant patients must take to counter organ rejection. Since Hannah still had her original heart, doctors decided to disconnect the donor heart. After ten years of not working, her original heart took over pumping blood and functions without medication. Three years later, Hannah is completely recovered.
Professor Peter Weissberg, of the British Heart Foundation, said cardiologists have long wondered whether a heart which is failing because of cardiomyopathy might be able to recover if rested.
“This seems to be exactly what has happened in Hannah’s case in which the donor heart allowed her own heart to take a rest and recover.
“This is an exciting discovery since it proves that, in some instances, a weakened heart has the capacity to recover – if it can be helped.”
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by healthylivinggal83.
It may be the wrong time of year to think about how fat you are -or maybe it’s the best time of year to change your habits before you put the pounds on! HealthAssist lists 14 habits you want to examine to turn your health around and either lose weight or avoid becoming fat. Some you are familiar with, but others may be news. Who knew the way you dress makes a difference in how active you are? Link -Thanks, Karen!
