Sunday, March 20, 2011

Body Fat Percentage, RHR, and overall health.

Hello friends and on-lookers, fellow athletes and google stumblers. It has been a few weeks since I have had time to write a blog. Everyday I have wanted to write about something, so many things have been on my mind. As I write this blog, I am eating some sliced apples in a sitting position, using my neck stretching device - strapped to my door frame. This is thank's to Nick Curson from Unity JJ for letting me borrow this lifesaver. As most of my friends know, I herniated 2 disks in my neck very severely a while back. This incident did not discount me from fitness or Martial Arts. Nothing could do that... Instead, it has taught me how to cope with it and make adjustments in my routines so it can be given time to heal itself. The neck stretcher is doing wonders... Thank you Nick!

I have been very busy with my training, studying and working as well. Just last week my friend and trainer Roger Blackshear, started another bootcamp out here in the South Bay area (Redondo Beach). I have been co training and learning how to run bootcamps. In the past few months I have trained with Roger more and more and he has been running me throuhg some different workout routines. All body-weight or very light weight dumbells or medicine ball workout's, a lot of sprinting, plyo-metric, athletic drills, and balance drills. Most everything we have been doing includes going from one body part to the other, back to back for anywhere from 3-6 minutes of constant exercise. Since then I have dropped from 185 lbs, (19 percent body fat and still health) to 168 pounds of solid muscle @ 6 percent body fat. I am faster, my heart rate recovery time is now around 30 seconds after complete exhaustion, and I feel more energetic and healthy each day.
Just the other day I checked my heart rate at a rest, it was 43 or 45 beats per minute.I believe the average for an athlete is 55-60, and many average Americans are 70-80 beats per minute. I feel really good about my heart and body fat condition.

The heart is a muscle, the most important muscle in your body. All your heart does is pump in and pump out, over and over again from birth to death... As you could guess, an unhealthy lifestyle could result in long term stress on your heart, leading to heart problems at earlier ages in life. With a healthy heart, and a lower more effecient heart rate, one could lower the daily beats down by as much as 90,000 beats per day. Multiply that times 365 days and you get the picture.

The bottom line is, and my message for today, make sure you are working out your heart constantly. It should be #1 right next to your body and health, and physical appearance. Be mindful of what workouts you are doing, and try to work all areas including the hearts and lungs. I will tell you from experience, a healthy heart, make everything feel and work great! Yes, everything, haha. No but really, I feel so energetic, with each pump my heart sends 2 times as much oxygen to my muscles, tissue, and brain, as it did before, when I was living "unhealthy".

To all of you out there with a healthy heart, give me "amen", to those out there that think they should be living a little healthier, start with some aerobic workouts that really get that heart pumping. Get creative! There are 1000's of workouts that you can do that don't include running at all!

I'll leave you guys with a little video giving some examples of fun workouts that can be pieced together in a circuit to get your whole body working.

Today I have a Jiu-Jitsu tournament, so wish me luck! See you next time.

,Devon

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