Monthly Archives: April 2016

If you're like most people, you would prefer to get your daily workout done at the gym,or better yet, outside,than to do it at home. There's something about the fresh air of an outdoor workout or the invigorating atmosphere of the gym that helps to get your blood pumping and keep you motivated. However, there will be days when neither outdoor workouts nor trips to the gym are convenient, appealing, or even possible. Maybe your outdoor run has to be nixed because an un-forecasted torrential downpour hit your area. Perhaps you can't make it to the gym because your meeting ran late at work and you have to get home to watch the kids. Or maybe you're just not in the mood for your usual outdoor workout and the bustling nature of the gym just sounds overwhelming.

In July 2015, Wired published a list of "The 20 Most Bike-Friendly Cities on the Planet," as compiled by the Copenhagenize Design Company. Topping the list was Copenhagen, Denmark. The city was praised for investing heavily in the development of new bicycle-friendly infrastructure?from bicycle bridges to elevated bike paths. According to the Wired piece, the investment in creating bike-friendly infrastructure is an especially large trend in both Denmark and the Netherlands. (For the record, three Dutch cities made the top five, including Eindhoven at five, Utrecht at three, and former top-slot holder Amsterdam slipping to the runner-up position.) Both countries, in addition to building protected bike lanes and bike bridges, have worked to slant their traffic laws so that cyclists aren't so at the

In 2015, the Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes saw two boxers (Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao) occupying the top two spots. Third and fourth place were occupied, respectively, by football's biggest stars: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Surprisingly, though, the most well-represented sport on the Forbes top 10 list wasn't boxing or football. It wasn't golf, either, though both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson landed on the list, and it wasn't tennis, though Roger Federer ended up fifth and had the highest endorsement earnings of any athlete. Rather, three of the top 10 slots went to another sport: basketball. United States NBA stars LeBron James (who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers), Kevin Durant (of the Oklahoma City Thunder), and Kobe Bryant (of the Los Angeles Lakers) ranked in at sixth, seventh, and 10^th, respectively. The

According to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition, only one in three kids participates in physical activity every day. In all likelihood, the other two spend most of their time on the couch, playing video games on their Xboxes and PlayStations, fiddling around with apps on their iPads, watching TV, texting on their cell phones, or browsing the web on their computers. Indeed, the President's Council also notes that the average child now spends in excess of seven hours per day in front of a screen. Of course, adults today are using screens more often, and part of the trend is driven by necessity. Screens are necessary to communicate with friends, complete research papers or other assignments for school, listen to music, and so many other things that are important in the lives of kids and teens alike. Unfortunately,

The concept of group exercise classes has evolved considerably since the days of classic aerobics classes. First introduced in 1968 by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, aerobics was initially an exercise routine meant to hit all elements of fitness. Instead of just being a cardiovascular workout, just a flexibility booster, or just an exercise for muscular strength, Cooper's idea of aerobic combined cardiovascular exercise, stretching, and strength training, and exercises to hit all three. It was only later that aerobics were paired with colorful dance styles to become something that we now look back on as grounded in 1970s and 1980s culture.

The Evolution of Aerobics

For many years, most group exercise classes included enough resemblance to Dr. Cooper's original idea to be referred to as "aerobics." That word was just a blanket term used to describe all group fitness classes. There was some variation, but not a ton. Over the past few decades?and