Apply their tips to your next workout, whether it’s a killer strength session, a spin class, or a day on the slopes, and you’ll get a new appreciation for what your hardworking body can do–and a killer performance boost to go with it.

Fueling Up

4:45 a.m. It’s two hours before the race starts. I force down two slices of whole-wheat toast with a thin layer of peanut butter and a sliced banana on top.

What’s going on
Eating is the last thing I want to do, but I have to nosh now because my stomach needs time–two hours, to be exact–to digest complex carbs. Once I’m in motion, digestion will all but stop, so my belly will get no love from my body’s oxygen-rich blood, which it needs for digestion. “The nervous system directs blood to where it’s needed most,” says Carol L. Otis, M.D., co-author of The Athletic Woman’s Survival Guide. During a hard physical effort, the muscles that move my body crave oxygen and demand nearly 85 percent of my blood flow. The O2 combines with glycogen (a byproduct of carbs) to produce adenosine triphosphate, aka ATP. That’s the fuel that makes the body go.

Knowledge is power At least 80 percent of your pre-workout meal should be carbs. Try cereal with milk and a banana, or an English muffin with almond butter and honey. Prone to stomach issues? “Drink a carb-rich sports drink like Gatorade or a smoothie made with fruit and low-fat yogurt–they’re easier to digest,” says Ilana Katz, M.S., R.D., a sports nutritionist in Atlanta.

Revving and (Sorta) Willing

6:35 a.m. The starting gun goes off in 10 minutes. Even though prerace jitters make me want to hurl, I suck down an energy gel, sip some water, and wade into the lake for a quick warmup.

What’s going on
The blood can hold about 100 calories’ worth of easy-to-access glycogen, and I want my tank at full capacity. Eating a simple carb, like a banana or an energy gel, within 30 minutes of a tough workout tops it off. As for that pukey feeling: Anticipation has my heart beating fast–my nervous system is primed for action. “It’s like waving a leash in front of a dog,” says Matt Fitzgerald, author of Brain Training for Runners. “The dog knows it’s going for a walk and gets excited.”

A 10-minute warmup gets blood flowing to my muscles and away from other organs, revs my heart rate, starts working my lungs, lubes my joints, and reacquaints my nervous system with how my muscles fire. In a race, skipping a warmup means a breathless, achy start.

Knowledge is power To make a tough workout seem easier before you even start, “break it into manageable parts: Warm up, then set an easy goal: five minutes, one mile, or something similarly doable,” says Abby Ruby, Ph.D., a senior coach at Carmichael Training Systems in Colorado Springs. “Don’t worry about minute 45 at minute 10.”

High Gear

6:45 a.m. The starting gun fires. I dive in for the 1,500-meter swim. Breathing is a struggle, and my arms and legs protest.

What’s going on
As picky as a diesel-powered Jetta, my body runs on only one fuel: ATP. At the beginning of a hard effort, the body makes this muscle food using creatine, an acid it produces naturally. “This ATP is created in a flash,” Katz says, “and is gone just as quickly.” At the start of a workout, my cells have just under 10 seconds’ worth of this fuel. Then a process called anaerobic glycolysis kicks in. For the next one to three minutes, I can produce ATP without oxygen (right now I’m using all I’ve got to breathe). The trade-off: I cringe as my muscles start to burn.

Now my system switches to the lowest-maintenance way of making ATP: aerobic glycolysis. Here, a combo of oxygen, glycogen (from my breakfast and last night’s linguine), lactic acid, and fat stores feed my muscles. The body can run this way for hours; in fact, it uses this form of ATP for 99 percent of all activity.

Meanwhile, my adrenal glands release epinephrine (aka adrenaline), raising my heart rate and lowering my perception of pain. “Epinephrine is the cavalry swooping in for a fight, which is how your body sees this race,” says Tommy Boone, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. My nervous system doesn’t know if I’m being chased by competitors or a great white shark. Either way, its message is the same: Go fast and hard.

Knowledge is power Here’s a cardio workout that will reduce muscle burn caused by lactic acid: Warm up for 10 minutes (however you choose). Then up the intensity to at least an 8 on a scale of 1 (no prob) to 10 (big prob). “Choose an effort you can hold for 10 minutes,” Ruby says. Start with one or two 10-minute intervals separated by five minutes’ recovery. Each week thereafter, increase the number of intervals by one, or their length by two to five minutes, until you can hold an intensity of 8 for 30 minutes straight.

Cruise Control 6:57 a.m. My arms and legs stop hurting and I no longer feel like I’m about to hyperventilate.

What’s going on
My muscles are now using about 20 times as much energy as they would were I watching a race on TV. My heart rate rises to around 160 beats per minute (compared with about 70 at rest) and increases the amount of blood it pumps per beat. That blood swooshes through the thousands of adrenaline-widened capillaries in my muscles.

Because I’ve been an endurance athlete for most of my life, my heart, like any muscle, has gotten stronger through regular sweat sessions. My left ventricle, the piston that pushes blood through my body, is larger than an untrained female’s, so it can distribute a steady stream of blood over long physical efforts. My lungs, however, will never change size. Their job is to suck oxygen from the air; they’re programmed to keep up with my body’s O2 demand and with how fast my heart shuttles the oxygen-spiked blood to my muscles.

Knowledge is power This sprint workout (using your cardio of choice) fires up your heart and lungs: Warm up for 10 to 15 minutes, then go all out for two minutes, then recover for two. Depending on your fitness level, start with two to five sprints. Increase by one per week until you reach seven, then increase the interval length to three minutes. “Recover for at least 48 hours between workouts,” says Ruby, who recommends an easy jog or spin on off days to expedite recovery.

Feeling The Heat

7:53 a.m. I’ve conquered the swim and now, halfway through the 26-mile bike portion of the race, the relentless sun gets to me. I’m thirsty, sweating , and need energy–but the heat has killed my appetite. I grab a sports drink at an aid station.

What’s going on
As I gulp, the electrolyte-filled liquid flows through my stomach and into my small intestine, which converts the sugars into glucose to be deposited into the bloodstream. The process takes roughly 20 minutes. Had I forced down a protein bar, I likely would have paid for it: “During exercise, muscular demand is greater than digestive demand, so any food in your stomach just sits there,” Otis says. That’s why your belly protests if you munch right before or during a tough workout. As for the buckets of sweat pouring off my skin: That’s my bod keeping me cool. Those wide-open capillaries in my muscles are transferring warm blood to sweat glands in my skin. Like itty-bitty air conditioners, these glands siphon off water and chemicals like sodium and potassium from the blood and spit it out through my pores. The sweat evaporates; I cool down. The more I sweat, the longer my body temperature stays low, and the harder and longer I can go–provided I replenish my fluids. If I don’t, then dehydration sets in: If that happens, my blood will thicken, my heart rate will rise, and every motion will become harder.

I’m sweating profusely. But when I dismount my bike, I see that I’ve finished only about a third of a 24-ounce bottle of Gatorade. Uh-oh.

Knowledge is power For workouts and races longer than 90 minutes, aim for one gram of carbs per 2.2 pounds of body weight every hour. I weigh 175 pounds, so I need nearly 80 grams of carbs per hour.

Running On Empty9:20 a.m. I’m about two miles into the 10-K run and my legs are officially made of lead. Negative thoughts flood my mind: It’s too hot, I’m too slow, I didn’t train enough. I don’t have the physical energy or the mental discipline to slog through, so I settle into a run/walk pattern that I keep up through the rest of the race.

What’s going on
Physically, I’m toast. If the swim, bike, and run weren’t enough to accelerate muscle mutiny, suffering in 90-degree-plus temps are. My brain doesn’t recruit muscles to work as effectively as it does in cooler weather. It switches to overprotective mode. “Your brain’s primary job during exercise is to prevent you from harming yourself,” Fitzgerald says. When your core temp goes up, your brain makes you feel like crap to slow you down.

Knowledge is power Your brain can be the difference between a mediocre performance and a great one. “Recreational athletes have much farther to go before they bonk than they think they do,” Fitzgerald says. Build mental toughness by repeating a mantra (I forgot to repeat mine: “I can handle this for now”) or picking somebody to pass. After a hard workout or race, evaluate: Did you go as hard as you could have? What would you change? Use the answers as ammo for next time.

Afterburn

9:42 a.m. Two hours, 56 minutes, and 30 seconds after I dove into the water, I kick it across the finish line, awash in sweat and endorphins. After catching my breath, I beeline for the postrace spread of bananas and burritos.

What’s going on
The race may be over, but my body is still busy replacing its glycogen stores, removing lactic acid, lowering my heart and breathing rates, and shutting down the capillaries to my muscles as the ones to my stomach reopen. Mentally, I’m flying. “Exercise produces an opium-like substance in the brain that gives you a natural high,” Ruby says.

Knowledge is power Mitigate the damage you’ve done by eating and drinking ASAP. “Your body is depleted, and nutrition is the biggest recovery factor you can control,” Fitzgerald says. Aim to eat half a gram of carbs for every 2.2 pounds of body weight and take in protein at a four-to-one ratio. So I’d want 40 grams of carbs and about 10 grams of protein, like a whole-wheat bagel with peanut butter (déjà vu), a protein smoothie, or a chicken sandwich on whole-wheat bread.

Over And Ouch!

Working my engine at a greater intensity than usual makes my muscles decidedly annoyed with me the following day.

What’s going on
Although no one’s sure about the exact cause of delayed-onset muscle syndrome, or DOMS, the breakdown of muscles is likely to blame. In fact, the number of white blood cells, which aid ailing muscles, increases after strenuous activity. Mine are in serious overdrive. And surprisingly, research shows that ibuprofen and massage don’t soothe them that much. Sitting in an ice bath, however, for eight to 15 minutes within a few hours of a tough workout does slow damage. Elite marathoners including Deena Kastor and Paula Radcliffe swear by it.

A few days later, once the postrace sufferfest has passed, all I remember is the endorphin-fueled high at the finish. Sign me up for more! With everything I know now, next time I’ll be more badass than ever.

Knowledge is power As much as you want to sit on your butt, a low-key workout–a 20-minute jog, a spin on the bike, an easy swim–will get healing blood to your muscles faster than watching Project Runway.

This Is Your Body On Strength Training

The Move

Lunge
Before you take a step, your brain sends a message to your muscles–We’re about to lunge, folks!–via nerve fibers that run down your spinal cord.

Muscles are made of bundles of fibers that contain two types of proteins. When given the green light, the proteins slide across each other, causing the fibers to contract. This motion moves the bones attached to the muscle, and you bob across the gym floor.

The lunge causes microscopic tears to the muscle fibers involved. To repair them, your body rushes healing white blood cells, protein, and other fix-its to the scene. This increases the size of the muscle fibers and strengthens them. Ta da!–next time at the gym, you can add two lunges to your set.

Get Stronger

To get the most from your strength training, integrate cardio three times a week. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that, compared with women whose strength workouts stuck strictly to weights, those who ran on a treadmill for 30 to 60 seconds before each set gained 6 percent more muscle strength, added 9 percent more muscular endurance, and shed 6 percent more body fat over 11 weeks.

This Is Your Body On Yoga

The Move

Downward Dog
As you bend into this pose, your arm and shoulder muscles contract to support the upper body while your quads kick in and your hamstrings lengthen.

If your hammies start screaming when you press your heels into the floor, you can thank your proprioceptors. These cells monitor muscule length and tension to prevent injury. In this move, the proprioceptors in your tendons go on high alert and try to stop the muscle from lengthening.

As you inhale, your nervous system sends the blood that’s rushed to your head back to the heart. Exhaling activates the relaxation portion of your nervous system. Ah, sweet bliss.

Get More Flexible
A study at the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse, found that people’s flexibility increased by up to 13 percent when they practiced yoga three times a week for eight weeks.

Women’s Health Magazine

Exercise has long been touted as the panacea for everything that ails you. For better health, simply walk for 20 or 30 minutes a day, boosters say — and you don’t even have to do it all at once. Count a few minutes here and a few there, and just add them up. Or wear a pedometer and keep track of your steps. However you manage it, you will lose weight, get your blood pressure under control and reduce your risk of osteoporosis.

If only it were so simple. While exercise has undeniable benefits, many, if not most, of its powers have been oversold. Sure, it can be fun. It can make you feel energized. And it may lift your mood. But before you turn to a fitness program as the solution to your particular health or weight concern, consider what science has found.

Moderate exercise, such as walking, can reduce the risk of diabetes in obese and sedentary people whose blood sugar is starting to rise. That outcome was shown in a large federal study in which participants were randomly assigned either to an exercise and diet program, to take a diabetes drug or to serve as controls. Despite trying hard, those who dieted and worked out lost very little weight. But they did manage to maintain a regular walking program, and fewer of them went on to develop diabetes.

Exercise also may reduce the risk of heart disease, though the evidence is surprisingly mixed. There seems to be a threshold effect: Most of the heart protection appears to be realized by people who go from being sedentary to being moderately active, usually by walking regularly. More intense exercise has been shown to provide only slightly greater benefits. Yet the data from several large studies have not always been clear, because those who exercise tend to be very different from those who do not.

Active people are much less likely to smoke; they’re thinner and they eat differently than their sedentary peers. They also tend to be more educated, and education is one of the strongest predictors of good health in general and a longer life. As a result, it is impossible to know with confidence whether exercise prevents heart disease or whether people who are less likely to get heart disease are also more likely to be exercising.

Scientists have much the same problem evaluating exercise and cancer. The same sort of studies that were done for heart disease find that people who exercised had lower rates of colon and breast cancer. But whether that result is cause or effect is not well established.

Exercise is often said to stave off osteoporosis. Yet even weight-bearing activities like walking, running or lifting weights has not been shown to have that effect. Still, in rigorous studies in which elderly people were randomly assigned either to exercise or maintain their normal routine, the exercisers were less likely to fall, perhaps because they got stronger or developed better balance. Since falls can lead to fractures in people with osteoporosis, exercise may prevent broken bones — but only indirectly.

And what about weight loss? Lifting weights builds muscles but will not make you burn more calories. The muscle you gain is minuscule compared with the total amount of skeletal muscle in the body. And muscle has a very low metabolic rate when it’s at rest. (You can’t flex your biceps all the time.)

Jack Wilmore, an exercise physiologist at Texas A & M University, calculated that the average amount of muscle that men gained after a serious 12-week weight-lifting program was 2 kilograms, or 4.4 pounds. That added muscle would increase the metabolic rate by only 24 calories a day.

Exercise alone, in the absence of weight loss, has not been shown to reduce blood pressure. Nor does it make much difference in cholesterol levels. Weight loss can lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, but if you want to lose weight, you have to diet as well as exercise. Exercise alone has not been shown to bring sustained weight loss.Just ask Steven Blair, an exercise researcher at the University of South Carolina. He runs every day and even runs marathons. But, he adds, “I was short, fat and bald when I started running, and I’m still short, fat and bald. Weight control is difficult for me. I fight the losing battle.”

The difficulty, Dr. Blair says, is that it’s much easier to eat 1,000 calories than to burn off 1,000 calories with exercise. As he relates, “An old football coach used to say, ‘I have all my assistants running five miles a day, but they eat 10 miles a day.’”

In Brief:
- While exercise can boost mood, its health benefits have been oversold.
- Moderate exercise can reduce the risk of diabetes in people at risk. Exercise may reduce the risk of heart disease and breast and colon cancers.
- Though the evidence is mixed, exercise may also provide benefits for people with osteoporosis.
- Physical activity alone will not lead to sustained weight loss or reduce blood pressure or cholesterol.

While other strengthening and flexibility programs have been found to reduce injuries to the ligament, known as the A.C.L., they often require special equipment. The researchers said they wanted one that could be easily incorporated into regular team practices.

A co-author of the study, Holly J. Silvers of the Santa Monica Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Research Foundation, said the new program took only about 20 minutes three times a week.

For the study, the researchers worked with 61 women’s soccer teams in the N.C.A.A. and more than 1,400 athletes. Some teams were asked to use the new program for the fall season, while the others were asked to follow their usual routine.

That’s what I learned this week when I blogged about a new study suggesting cancer patients don’t exercise any more than the rest of us. The finding is troubling because some studies suggest exercise improves cancer survival, signaling that cancer patients have much to gain from exercising after a diagnosis.

But more than 100 readers responded to the article, and many of them complained that it was judgmental and blamed cancer patients for their plight. They added that exercise and calorie-counting are not priorities to a cancer survivor.

The study, published in the latest issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, examined heart attack trends among Germans during the 2006 tournament compared to other times of the year. They found that on days the German team played, cardiac emergencies more than tripled for men and nearly doubled for women.

How the team played, the overall importance of the match and whether the winner was determined by a shootout all affected fans’ heart risks. When Germany beat Costa Rica on June 9 of that year, cardiac emergencies rose. The effect was even more pronounced in the second preliminary match, when Germany defeated Poland in a dramatic contest, with the winning goal scored in the last minute. But notably, after Germany had already qualified for the next round, a less important match with Ecuador didn’t have much effect on the rate of heart attacks.

So-called knockout games, which determine whether a team stays in the tournament, appeared to provoke the highest level of emotional stress and resulting cardiac events. The quarterfinal during which Germany beat Argentina after a dramatic penalty shootout was associated with a major increase in the number of heart attacks. On the day of the semifinal, in which Germany lost to Italy and failed to reach the final, the number of events also surged.

Once Germany was out of the finals, the effects of the tournament on German fans’ hearts virtually disappeared. On the day of the match that determined third place, in which Germany beat Portugal, the number of heart attacks didn’t increase. The final match between Italy and France triggered only a moderate increase in cardiac events.

“Apparently, of prime importance for triggering a stress-induced event is not the outcome of a game — a win or a loss — but rather the intense strain and excitement experienced during the viewing of a dramatic match, such as one with a penalty shootout,” the study authors wrote.

The risk was highest for fans who already had heart disease. Their chance of having a heart attack or other cardiac events during the tournament was four times higher, while risk doubled for those who didn’t have a prior history of heart problems.

The researchers noted that the higher risk of viewing stressful soccer matches should be taken into consideration by doctors treating patients with known heart disease. Not only should doctors counsel patients about stress, but they may consider increasing a patient’s medication dose during stressful sports events.

Although European soccer fans are unique in the sports world for their intense loyalty and passionate reactions to game results, the findings likely translate to fans of other major sporting events, the authors noted.

“I know a little bit about the Super Bowl,” study author Dr. Gerhard Steinbeck of Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich told the Associated Press. “It’s reasonable to think that something quite similar might happen.”

A good trainer should also possess critical thinking skills. They shouldn’t simply do what all the other trainers are doing or copy workouts and exercises straight from a book or website.

If you are familiar with my training programs, you will know that they contain basic, no-fluff exercises. There’s no standing on gym balls or other dangerous and relatively ineffective training methods. There is nothing in my programs that I can’t justify. The trainer you choose should also be able to justify their exercise programs.

If I were picking a trainer, I’d insist on them meeting a very high level of criteria. After all, your trainer is in charge of your body and your health. You should demand a lot from your trainer. That’s the only way your training will reach another level.

Feel free to email me for trainer recommendations throughout North America. I might be able to recommend someone for you.

Since one of our least favorite holiday traditions is trying to find room for exercise in a busy schedule, here are 6 tips on how to continue to improve your body over the party season while getting a head start on your New Year’s fitness resolutions.

Step 1 – Train efficiently
Strength training is a very efficient type of exercise, giving you many benefits with a small amount of exercise. During the holiday season, you might be able to get the same benefits by reducing the number of sets per exercise in your workout from 3 to 1. That will help you maintain muscle and strength while significantly reducing your training time.

Interval training is another economical form of exercise. Rather than following up your strength training with 45 minutes on the treadmill, you can get the same (or better!) fat burning results from a much shorter period (20 minutes) of interval training.

Step 2 – Cut the junk
Men’s Fitness Training Adviser Alwyn Cosgrove suggests that we ask ourselves, “Will this help me or not? Is this a positive step or not?” So unless you can justify doing 3 exercises for triceps, then cut the junk from your workout and focus on efficient exercises only.

Step 3 – Warm-up as a workout
You don’t need to spend 10 minutes on the treadmill before you strength train. Instead, you need to prepare specifically for what you are about to do. If your walk to the gym is more than a couple of minutes, you can go right into specific warm-up sets for your strength training exercises.

Step 4 – Whole body vs. split routines
Don’t be a slave to doing chest and arms on Mondays. This eliminates any excuse to skip workouts when you deviate from your “weekly” schedule. Plan your holiday workouts to train either your entire body in one session or alternate between upper body and lower body workouts.

Step 5 – Train your abs with every exercise
The 15 minutes of sit-ups you do each day is a waste of time and is damaging to your lower back. Instead of wasting away on the floor, approach every exercise as an abdominal exercise. Brace your abs (like someone was about to punch you in the stomach) and never let your low back “round”. This body posture is especially important for exercises such as the abdominal plank, squats, push-ups, and all standing exercises.

Step 6 – Plan your workouts
In the spirit of the holidays, I’ve given you a lot of tips to improve your workout efficiency. Now the most important part is up to you to put them into action. So don’t go into the gym without a clue and end up on the cardio machine for an hour because you didn’t know where to start.

Each Turbulence Training workout follows an efficient and effective template to get in and out of the gym in under an hour. You can also choose to do a weights-only or intervals-only workout, therefore cutting even more time off of your trip to the gym.

Turbulence Training Template
5 minutes – 2 warm-up sets for key weight training exercises

15 minutes – Weights

20 minutes – Intervals

5 minutes – Stretch (tight muscles only)