Wellness

[Icegoddess]

@SilleeMee, we used to go skiing at Winter Park/Sol Vista once a year.  Never had a problem with the altitude there or the other spots Whistler in Canada and Salt Lake City.  However, another time we went to Breckenridge and I started getting a headache during the drive up about the point where you start seeing the Mountain Goats along the road.  The headache never went away and things got worse from there.  I really was never hungry and then thought I had gotten a cold since others seemed to have the same thing.  Couldn't sleep at night and spent one entire day curled up in front of the fireplace I felt so bad.  The night before returning home back down in Denver I spent the entire night hacking up a lung.  I won't be going back there.  We ski at Big Sky now.  Great skiing and lower altitude.

[MoonieBaby]

SeaMaiden;

Gilad (the trainer who used to shows on the beaches of Hawaii) has a great step video (dvd) it's slow, concise and he has you use weights for the upper body....It kicks butt.

About 15 bucks on bodiesinmotionwithgilad.com....most helpful. 

I love my step and my dvds - i have 3 - each are excellent.

[hckynut]

@AspenGrove 

I guessing your friends didn't know about oxygen/carbon dioxide  transfer is how the Cardio/the Pulmonary, and muscle systems work.  Looks like they just learned.

Just like internal combustion engines, they can have 500 horsepower at sea level, and at best half of that above 5,000 feet. Raced cars here at 1300 above sea level, and 5300 feet at Continental Raceway. Without as much oxygen the engines needed a whole lot less gas mixture. Finding that was not easy for regular aspirated race cars. Those with Super Chargers made their own air.

hckynut

[AuntMame]

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@Annabellethecat66 wrote:

As someone who had her knees replaced about 2 years ago, and a few operations before that......

Watch your knees.  You'd get similar exercise going up and down the stairs.

I hope you're young.  I love to watch basketball.  Basketball players have notorious terrible knees.  

I don't know how hard that surface is but if you're coming up over and over and down on hard surfaces, it's terrible for the knees.

As high as that is, it's not very good for the knees.  Hopefully, you are't very heavy.

OK, the mom in me will sit down and shut up.  You name it, I've done it and tried it...

I used to do step aerobics.  I did it for about a year from a teacher who constantly said it had to be done right.  She'd come over and show us how to do it.  She'd never have it that high.  Maybe we were all duds but it would never be that high.

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I did step aerobics for years and years. Absolutely loved it. But I stopped a few years ago because I started worrying about the impact on my aging knees.

Still have my step and my 25-year-old Kathy Smith video. Sometimes I think about starting up again. But I worry about my knees. Seems like everyone I know at this age has had knee replacements.

A couple years ago I switched to Richard Simmons' Sweatin' to the Oldies videos because they have low impact on the knees and hips. Those are fun but I'd still rather do step aerobics. (Poor Richard. Hope he's doing well.) 

[AspenGrove]

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@SilleeMee wrote:

@AspenGrove 

Yes, the altitude and thin air will get you before you know it. One woman who I worked with moved here from Texas where she lived all of her life. She taught aerobics classes on the side. One day she asked me if she could come with me on my next trip up the Incline and I thought since she was a fitness instructor it would be okay...but it was not! She couldn't catch her breath and the steps were more than she could handle. We had to turn around and go back down after only ten minutes. She was shocked how difficult it was. But it's not really if you train for it first. It's a good thing you were there with your visitors. At least they were warned. Like the sign says...'is not a walk in the park'.

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Exactly,@SilleeMee!  Like you, I hike, snowshoe, and/or ski in the backcountry at high altitude here every single weekend and even with all of that conditioning, the Incline is no piece of cake! It's so deceiving until one is actually climbing it.

[AspenGrove]

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@hckynut wrote:

@AspenGrove 

I guessing your friends didn't know about oxygen/carbon dioxide  transfer is how the Cardio/the Pulmonary, and muscle systems work.  Looks like they just learned.

Just like internal combustion engines, they can have 500 horsepower at sea level, and at best half of that above 5,000 feet. Raced cars here at 1300 above sea level, and 5300 feet at Continental Raceway. Without as much oxygen the engines needed a whole lot less gas mixture. Finding that was not easy for regular aspirated race cars. Those with Super Chargers made their own air.

hckynut

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You betcha, @hckynut !  Visitors to CO just don't quite get it ... um., until they do.  For many just walking down the street becomes a lung challenge!  My friends learned the hard way that I wasn't kidding when I had tried to explain to them the science of organ fuctioning at high altitude!  Happily, I was with them and I knew they'be figuring it out really, really quickly! No harm done, but boy did it scare them straight. 

[Grouchomarx]

I used to do the Firm exercise videos years ago and there was a lot of step aerobics. I got in very good shape but it messed up my knee so badly I had to stop. 

[sidsmom]

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@Grouchomarx wrote:

I used to do the Firm exercise videos years ago and there was a lot of step aerobics. I got in very good shape but it messed up my knee so badly I had to stop. 

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Love the Firm videos...the original w/ Susan Harris still holds up.

And I still have the book. Always wanted to go to their studio

in South Carolina!  Also liked the way Anna Benson began

incorporating pelvic floor movements in the videos. 

Truly she was ahead of her time. 

[beckyb1012]

Makes me want to pull out my leg warmers and headband and look a bit like Olivia Newton John in "Lets Get Physical" video.

Step climbing is great exercise but I just climb the stairs daily during my lunch hour in the building.  Free workout.

[qualitygal]

I had some, they were blue and I was great on them and had a ball.  I did aerobic exercises on mine with Jane Fonda and others.  Cher had a great one. I even learned songs off of hers they still play today on the oldies channel.  That was a great workout too.