Physical fitness is all about "the various systems of the body are healthy and function efficiently to engage daily activities without tire". Also known as, running/moving up a flight of stairs without stopping in the begging, maybe halfway, and defiantly finishing at the top.
But seriously. Can you imagine not being able to do simple house or daily activities and breathing hard while your heart pumps blood through your heart like crazy? Hopefully not as sever, but you do notice that catching your two year old leaves you a little more than tired. So I would like to note some things I learned that helped me to climb those mountains, conquer bouldering rocks, and still look good while doing it.
Something to keep in mind when your wondering about physical fitness (P.F) is an abbreviation called FITT:
Frequency- how often you work out.
Intensity- how hard.
Time- how long, or duration.
Type- what kind of exercise.
I'll be the first to admit that I thought I knew a lot about P.F and health. However, as I continued to study the course, I realized that there was a much deeper level that I had barely begun to scratch. What I was doing was good, but it could have been better. Skill is something that you can not change, but your HEALTH is something you can always change. Luckily, I improved at my own pace during the course of my time in Arizona. There were some challenges. Ever heard of Target Heart Rate? I had, but before I never knew exactly what it meant or the importance of it during exercise. THR is the rate in chic you want to maintain your heart in while doing exercise, be it aerobic (where you maintain specific THR and keep it at that level for the entire workout) or anaerobic (short bursts and not a long duration). I won;t go too much into detail, but it helps to note these things. To get your THR, here is the formula:
220 - age = A (heart rate max)
A - resting heart rate (RHR) = HRR (heart rate reserve)
HRR x .60(for lower) or .85 (for higher) + RHR = THR (minim or maximum)
For RHR count your pulse for a minute. At first I didn't think knowing this was important, but after I learned about it I realized that I had reached my THR while climbing Wasson Peak, and that I had trouble maintaining it for long periods of time because my body just wasn't used to it. When I exercised, I walked. I did not run. So my THR never improved and long periods of hiking, with a set pace and slopes, were difficult. It wouldn't be until later that my THR would improve. It helped to know.
Another fun thing I learned about is metabolism. Apparently our packet had a lot of different activities for us to do and this along with finding your THR was in there. I won't go into much detail, but I found out that my body consumed 1,486.69 calories a day by just doing nothing. I had to eat food that made up for that amount and plus some, but not to much.
Carbohydrates are a wonderful source of energy, and I do love my rice and squash. It comes in the forms of fruits, glucose and fructose. The sweetest is sucrose. When we eat carbs it is turned into glucose, which in turn is stored as excess in the liver and muscle cells as glycogen. Any left over glycogen gets turned into fat. This isn't a bad thing. It depends on the situation. If your climbing to 9,000 feet or more and temperatures drop, then having a "power belly" or what I like to call "calorie belly", helps to keep your core warm. That's important if most of your organs reside in your core. Don't want them to freeze. Long periods of activity use fat, while short periods use glycogen.
I wasn't aiming to lose fat during the trip. I just wanted to see how it felt like to get and be P.F. It sure made climbing another Mt. Sinai a whole other experience. One that I could enjoy and feel good about.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Wasson Peak: January 6, 2012
"There is no way in hell am I climbing the rest of that."
The sun shined down with its beautiful brilliance as I sat on a rock near the trail. One of the the professors were with me, standing a few feet away. She had just noted the hill that we had to climb and as I looked up, I saw the a little bit bigger than dot sized people hiking up the side of the peak, stopping every once and a while before continuing.
"They can have that. They can have it!" I panted to try and catch my breath, taking a few swiggs of water. "My butt is staying right here. I'm going to claim this peak right here. This is now LaVana and Jean's Peak." Stretching my legs out, I felt them shiver from the exertion of hiking at the elevation of about 3,600 feet. And I wasn't even all the way there yet. Just some feet above half way.
There really was no way that I could finish the hike up the mountain.
That day our group was going on our very first hike on the trip. The trail was called "Wasson Peak Climb". Climb is correct. The elevation itself ranged from 2,850 to 4,687 feet and average hiking time in the book stated 6 hours. If people didn't know, hiking up mountains wasn't my passion to begin with. After climbing Mount Sinai in Egypt, I officially scorned off all mountains because that one brought me closer to God than I was comfortable with.
As far as I was concerned: I wanted to live the next day! I learned from that trip that I had failed to prepare myself physically for the traveling we undertook.
Yes, people worked out on the trip, but I didn't know the extent in which physical fitness was needed. When most people travel, I believe, unless it's a trip up the mountains or some outdoor activity, they don't consider the strain in which a change of climate can have on the body, how to counteract that strain, and keep up your physical health. I wouldn't, if I went from Minnesota to The Bahamas, which I do frequently. But it's the subtle changes, like being out in the sun more, eating more meat than vegetables, or sweating profusely that are signs given to from your body that it's adjusting and needs help. But it's small, we don't think how much drinking more water, wearing sunscreen or taking supplements can help our body. It's just a trip, right?
So why this trip, which required numerous mountains to hike and caving? Why would I purposely place myself in physically challenging situations that I had never been in before? Two reasons:
1. I wanted to look at health and the effect biomes had on the human body while traveling. It is part of my major after all. Finished with culture and politics, I decided to do a physical reference, since both physical and mental health can greatly affect a trip.
2. I wanted to find new outdoor activities. Usually I when I did exercise I went on walks or rode my bicycle. I needed to broaden my areas of activities, and the trip provided an excellent source.
But back to that mountain....
My friends from the Sinai climb were dubious when I told them about my January class. They had every right to be, after how I acted coming down the mountain. But now, as I sat on the dirt cooling down, I took a more calm minded approach and thought differently.
After all, I was here to learn about my body and what I could handle.
So far I was handling it pretty well. Despite deciding to turn around, I had gathered a lot of data. I started to feel light headed at about 3,000 feet. After coming from sea level, of course I wouldn't have acclimatized yet. It takes 5-7 days for a person to acclimatize to the area around them. The biosphere that we stayed at had an elevation of 4,500, but I hadn't done much physical work at that altitude. So it made sense that I felt light headed, sweated a lot, got tired more quickly and my legs started to shake. Oxygen decreases as you go up, and my body was feeling it. Instead of breathing through my nose, I breathed through my mouth to get more oxygen. As a result, water escaped my body another way besides sweating and I had to drink every few feet. Peeing frequently is a good sign to show that your body is being hydrated, yet in my case I noticed that most of my liquid escaped in perspiration. It did help to go a few feet, stop and rest for a few minutes to slow down my heart rate, drink some water and continue.
The most important thing a person can do is listen to their body.
Sitting on the rock I took off my new rhino boots and rubbed my toes. Blisters had started to form on my feet. I asked Jean if she had any band-aids. She did and I slapped those babies onto both my pinky toes and back of my ankles. Judy had told us that it was always a better to prevent a blister from forming than to rather treat one already formed. It made healing more efficient and you could wear shoes later on. I munched on a few peanuts before standing up. I faced the mountain I was supposed to climb, saluted the others who had reached the top and turned to go back down.
There would be other mountains to climb.
Posing at the "right" trail after going down the dry wash.
The sun shined down with its beautiful brilliance as I sat on a rock near the trail. One of the the professors were with me, standing a few feet away. She had just noted the hill that we had to climb and as I looked up, I saw the a little bit bigger than dot sized people hiking up the side of the peak, stopping every once and a while before continuing.
"They can have that. They can have it!" I panted to try and catch my breath, taking a few swiggs of water. "My butt is staying right here. I'm going to claim this peak right here. This is now LaVana and Jean's Peak." Stretching my legs out, I felt them shiver from the exertion of hiking at the elevation of about 3,600 feet. And I wasn't even all the way there yet. Just some feet above half way.
There really was no way that I could finish the hike up the mountain.
That day our group was going on our very first hike on the trip. The trail was called "Wasson Peak Climb". Climb is correct. The elevation itself ranged from 2,850 to 4,687 feet and average hiking time in the book stated 6 hours. If people didn't know, hiking up mountains wasn't my passion to begin with. After climbing Mount Sinai in Egypt, I officially scorned off all mountains because that one brought me closer to God than I was comfortable with.
As far as I was concerned: I wanted to live the next day! I learned from that trip that I had failed to prepare myself physically for the traveling we undertook.
Yes, people worked out on the trip, but I didn't know the extent in which physical fitness was needed. When most people travel, I believe, unless it's a trip up the mountains or some outdoor activity, they don't consider the strain in which a change of climate can have on the body, how to counteract that strain, and keep up your physical health. I wouldn't, if I went from Minnesota to The Bahamas, which I do frequently. But it's the subtle changes, like being out in the sun more, eating more meat than vegetables, or sweating profusely that are signs given to from your body that it's adjusting and needs help. But it's small, we don't think how much drinking more water, wearing sunscreen or taking supplements can help our body. It's just a trip, right?
So why this trip, which required numerous mountains to hike and caving? Why would I purposely place myself in physically challenging situations that I had never been in before? Two reasons:
1. I wanted to look at health and the effect biomes had on the human body while traveling. It is part of my major after all. Finished with culture and politics, I decided to do a physical reference, since both physical and mental health can greatly affect a trip.
2. I wanted to find new outdoor activities. Usually I when I did exercise I went on walks or rode my bicycle. I needed to broaden my areas of activities, and the trip provided an excellent source.
But back to that mountain....
My friends from the Sinai climb were dubious when I told them about my January class. They had every right to be, after how I acted coming down the mountain. But now, as I sat on the dirt cooling down, I took a more calm minded approach and thought differently.
After all, I was here to learn about my body and what I could handle.
So far I was handling it pretty well. Despite deciding to turn around, I had gathered a lot of data. I started to feel light headed at about 3,000 feet. After coming from sea level, of course I wouldn't have acclimatized yet. It takes 5-7 days for a person to acclimatize to the area around them. The biosphere that we stayed at had an elevation of 4,500, but I hadn't done much physical work at that altitude. So it made sense that I felt light headed, sweated a lot, got tired more quickly and my legs started to shake. Oxygen decreases as you go up, and my body was feeling it. Instead of breathing through my nose, I breathed through my mouth to get more oxygen. As a result, water escaped my body another way besides sweating and I had to drink every few feet. Peeing frequently is a good sign to show that your body is being hydrated, yet in my case I noticed that most of my liquid escaped in perspiration. It did help to go a few feet, stop and rest for a few minutes to slow down my heart rate, drink some water and continue.
The most important thing a person can do is listen to their body.
Sitting on the rock I took off my new rhino boots and rubbed my toes. Blisters had started to form on my feet. I asked Jean if she had any band-aids. She did and I slapped those babies onto both my pinky toes and back of my ankles. Judy had told us that it was always a better to prevent a blister from forming than to rather treat one already formed. It made healing more efficient and you could wear shoes later on. I munched on a few peanuts before standing up. I faced the mountain I was supposed to climb, saluted the others who had reached the top and turned to go back down.
There would be other mountains to climb.
Posing at the "right" trail after going down the dry wash.
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