Health and Fitness...

[amarock Amat]

So Ive found myself, stuck at my college twice a week with litterly hours of extra time..... I have thought about maybe using the gym, to run on the tredmill for half an hour and maybe lift some weights.  

 

The questoin is....will these have any real effect on my physical healthness , or am I better spending my time on second life pumping the shift button and doing my push ups, on the space bar key.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

Why not do both? Buy a treadmill or a stationary bicycle and add a small platform or table for your notebook. That's what I did. There are also small fitness bikes that fit under a desk:

[Chelsea Malibu]

Mentally, everyone needs exercise. It's not just for the body, it's for the brain chemistry as well.  Everything benefits from exercise and the more time I spend in front of the computer, the more time I need to "cleans my brain" with some good anaerobic exercise.

[Orenthal Philbin]

litterly?  tredmill?   muwahahahahah

[Storm Clarence]

My avatar is in impeccable physical condition.  I can even fly.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

Btw, you can find a bunch of prim treadmills on the Marketplace: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/products/search?search%5Bcategory_id%5D=&search%5Bmaturity_level%5D=GMA&search%5Bkeywords%5D=treadmill

That's also a way of combining SL with physical exercise.

[Mayalily]

Exercise increases all kinds of good things in your body and makes u feel overall better.  And when u feel overall better, u will have a happier and healthier RL and SL. 

I often exercise with SL running as I don't have a SL job yet, so I don't feel I need to always be at the keyboard.  I use SL as a workout tool.  I just go to an empty sim (but now I have a SL rental home I can do this in), let my avatar dance, and then I do my workout in RL (which for me isn't weights, it's more dance aerobic oriented.)



Regular physical activity that is performed on most days of the week reduces the risk of developing or dying from some of the leading causes of illness and death in the United States.

• Reduces the risk of dying prematurely.
• Reduces the risk of dying prematurely from heart disease.
• Reduces the risk of developing diabetes.
• Reduces the risk of developing high blood pressure.
• Helps reduce blood pressure in people who already have high blood pressure.
• Reduces the risk of developing colon cancer.
• Reduces feelings of depression and anxiety.
• Helps control weight.
• Helps build and maintain healthy bones, muscles, and joints.
• Helps older adults become stronger and better able to move about without falling.
• Promotes psychological well-being.

Specific Health Benefits of Exercise

Heart Disease and Stroke. Daily physical activity can help prevent heart disease and stroke by strengthening your heart muscle, lowering your blood pressure, raising your high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels (good cholesterol) and lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels (bad cholesterol), improving blood flow, and increasing your heart's working capacity.

High Blood Pressure. Regular physical activity can reduce blood pressure in those with high blood pressure levels. Physical activity also reduces body fatness, which is associated with high blood pressure.

Noninsulin-Dependent Diabetes. By reducing body fatness, physical activity can help to prevent and control this type of diabetes.

Obesity. Physical activity helps to reduce body fat by building or preserving muscle mass and improving the body's ability to use calories. When physical activity is combined with proper nutrition, it can help control weight and prevent obesity, a major risk factor for many diseases.

Back Pain. By increasing muscle strength and endurance and improving flexibility and posture, regular exercise helps to prevent back pain.

Osteoporosis. Regular weight-bearing exercise promotes bone formation and may prevent many forms of bone loss associated with aging.

Psychological Effects. Regular physical activity can improve your mood and the way you feel about yourself. Researchers also have found that exercise is likely to reduce depression and anxiety and help you to better manage stress.

http://www.nutristrategy.com/health.htm

[Rufus Darkfold]

You could even make it a pedal-powered generator so your pedaling would power your laptop.

 

[Jaylin Wytchwood]

Well i found getting two hours of workout 3 times a week really helps in fitness & feelin good

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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Rufus Darkfold wrote:

You could even make it a pedal-powered generator so your pedaling would power your laptop.

 

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That's a great idea, and a great incentive for a serious daily workout This could solve the public obesity epidemic and the renewable energy problem in one go.

[Ceka Cianci]

i can see it now..strong arms and strong legs and bleh in the middle heheheh kidding..

 

seriously i think the thing that goes under the desk would be great for some people in our office..it would i'm sure stop all the swelled ankle and feet problems they are getting..

myself i can't sit too long without having to get up and walk around my desk..i stretch all the time.. i never have those problems..but the ones that never get up until it's break time or have their breaks at their desk..they are always complaining about circulation problems..

you can't even see their ankles..and it's not because they are heavy or anything..some that have the same problem are not heavy..i just think it is water or whatever seeking the lowest point..

i just see bad problems later in life with that...

so that bike thing could help them alot i am sure..just with circulation..

[squashy Beeswing]

Yes, DO go to the gym!  Even just walking on the treadmill for 30 mins 3-4 times a week will help alleviate any aches or stiffness caused by too much SL time.  Very good for mental stress, too.

Now, if you could just help me up from this chair i may even start to practise what i preach.  :matte-motes-big-grin:

Seriously, get into good habits now before you really get sucked into the SL lifestyle. 

[Void Singer]

twice a week workouts are less than optimal, but still good for you...

stretches, followed by mixed endurance weights (10-15 repetitions, and enough weight to be near failure at the end) followed by simple cardio. if you go through it all fast you can do a decent work out in an hour to an hour and a half.

if you're getting to failure point on any of it, then you are pushing too hard, but you should be close. exceeding failure point is what body builders do... generally you don't want to do that, unless that's your ultimate goal, and even then you want to be trim first and go high protein diet once you are.

[Poenald Palen]

Sedentary = death faster.

If I said you could sit in one seat and it takes 10-40 years off your life and then pointed to another less comfortable one that would allow you to have those years...albeit maybe 5-20 of them might be with dementia creeping into your life...would you jump out of a plane and take a kilo of cocaine and snort it while going down after I got doen asking you? Well, that is what some people do. Then there are people who care a bit. They sit in any seat and just don't do crazy insane stuff. They feel safe. Then there are people who try to find out what the heck is up with the chair and claim I am full of it. Then I admit, I was only making an analogy and was really talking about people sitting around to much and trying to tell them to simply stand a bit more. ....then it hit me! My analogy was wrong, that standingn does NOT detract from the comfort of your comfy chair...it makes it better! Btu sky diving and snorting a tonne of cocaine and killing yourself does NOT help one bit at all, so at least I am right abotu something...got to make sure of that in an analogy or people will go around all willy nilly making the whole world think you are condoning eating chairs or something..or maybe they wont.

 

But yeah. MOVE AROUND. I mean, don't eat to much either. Also, we need to change the way we poop. Sitting in that way we do on the western toilet is not good. American Football players are getting diverticulussulsuuseiess. Yeah, something about the bowels stretching and so on. We need to eat better, move aruond more AND even if we do this..simply even poop better! Heck, when society trains you to live unhealthy to the point where you can't even poo without a risk of the bad food you are eating pushing your bowels into little pockets of rot that can lead to death....helll, what are we supposed to do!

SO, I am starting to advocate standing desks, and figuring out how to make one myself with the few tools I can borrow as it is lower cost than buying one. Not only that, but move somwhoe. Running is hard for large people, so maybe something like the treadmill and a fan to keep you from sweating into you electronic devices you will surely want to use. Those pad computing things are neat, so are those eInk style thingies. They have great battery life. USe one of these as an excuse to get around! Yeah, tell your spouse you NEED a new tbalet computer, superwizzepad from a fruit company, or some kind of neato plastic powder in clear stuff ink device you can kudle as you walk around! It is for you health, you NEED it or you wil die. Spouse says no? Then they want you to die...if you are cute and the right sex I will let you marry me temporarily in an arabian sim where it is allowed, then I will let you buy it! But if you are ugly and I don't see some ceavage..I am afraid you will have to get your spouse drunk and maybe black mail them...sorry. But yeah....uh, of course I am joking I will NOT marry anyone, and am simply joking about people needed spouses to let them buy things....even though it must at least be nice to have someone to at leat ask or talk to about that sort of thing instead of arguing about evil plans to take all your money with battery packs to nobody and chalk the argument up as talking experience for if you are really around anyone and maybe a litle acting experience to boot. Ah...yeah. move around and stuff!

I need to, infact that is what I am going to do. Then go lay down....but that is what I am supposed to do because of time periods and all that. Uh..actually I am supposed to not move around to much.....well, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

But, yeah...MOVE AROUND. I really wish I could make that tread mill or walking thingy that people could interact with. The hope we have is, of course, the Kinect work....LL did some work on this pre-kinects release...Well, that is what I read. But they could be lying and then the pressure of me letting you all know and all your emails askign where it is at makes the dude who was supposed to be working on it admit he was playing a vintage pong game trying to unlock a easter egg he heard about and didn't bother...of course, this leads to him running away and bumping into a guy that he needs money from and the guy starts screaming abotu how there are better things in the world to do with his money and then a dude laughs and offers to allow him to invest in a company that wants to resurect famous people...well, at least clone with thier DNA! Napolean is rebord, takes over parts of china and then sucure nukes and starts a nuclear exchanges in asia and it leads to a space program in which only smart people with experience in virtual reality and gaming get to go to build mars with small robots and control teams of nano bots in a HUGE giant lemmings style game interface that requires running around a HUGE touch screan.

 

Of course, only the fit ones who don't mind bad food and tang get to go....so, drink tang, use a standing desk, move around and practice drinking in a weightless environment by moveing your food around on a thread really slowely and tryign to eat it pretending you are floating around your kitchen in like super slow motion....yeha, then you will be picked and not have to be on earth with tonnes of people who have cancer, poiosen intestine pockeet AND MORE cancer from teh nukes as they go to the local thyroid removal booths to drop a few coins into it and "insert head and atach strap here" to get a robot surgery form the surgery vending machine.....stuff like that.

I mean, I am sure you have heard this type of rambling from you docter many times...so, yeah...what the docter said!

[Poenald Palen]

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Jaylin Wytchwood wrote:

Well i found getting two hours of workout 3 times a week really helps in fitness & feelin good

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See, this is what I heard. Intensity is important...They where saying just a few minutes of intense workout and then rest a few minutes. So this over an over a few times and your done! Don't even do it every day. And many are saying weights over aerobics now. The idea is your muscle will burn calories as you do normal tasks, and the rest in between helps you get more from the work out when you do work out...others say move every day. I figure, get on your feet as much as possible AND do something more intense, like vigerous treadmill as you watch TV or whatever. But humans would walk around all day looking for food and such in the wilds, so you get the weird caveman sort of workouts that spawn from nature coming to mind when you try and figur eit out...I figure just move, stress you system a little....but then again, I am not the picture of good health but I don't do much of this working out stuff. I just walk or stand a bit, something intense now and then throuhout the month.

BUT, of course I would love to make a treadmill thingy with sensors on it, as I have mentioned before! Ishatara showed us the setup SHe uses...well, not the avatar lol. But yeah, the meatspace button pusher behind the avatar. That is so neat. revolutions per minute, timers and so on are all so simple and there are already many plans to make bicycle computers. The part of hacking this all through like a midi controller or even a USB board, make a driver and then set up the SL input thingy stuff it has for mouses, joysticks and so on. I have seen/heard of joysticks, pedals and wheels(gaming type) and even saw a guy who rigged up a treadmill to control walking in SL! It is not hard, just expensive and the real issue is making a sellable commercial product so people can benifit from it because....well, not everyone wants to hack open casings, hack at drivers and hack midi/usb/arduino's and so on....no magets spinning past coils to record blips and timers and so on...nope. This is a slow way to do it, I mean...I can't even be bothered to go searching for parts and rip some copper wiring out of a transformer and dig out some harddrive magnets and so on...I mean, it is easier to just get up and move around and log off! lol. Plus, the radiation from the PC, the monitor and so on is not really so good all day for like 12 hours! So...yeah, it is good to just get up and move around.