RoadSkater.Net - Comments for "basic exercise"

Quick Welcome and Suggestion

In reply to The Secret to Weight Loss and Maintaining Your Target Weight:

Hi and welcome, AziBlue, and thanks for thanking eebee and the rest of us. We look forward to meeting you soon. I am not around just now and have been heads down working on a project so I could not answer sooner.

One suggestion is a simple one, to enter Country Park from the northernmost Lawndale entrance, via Orman. Go to the end of that and turn left and veer left into the lot there. It's a flatter, gentler way to get started on loops at Country Park.

Here's a link to the Orman Street lot map.

You may want to go back and forth on the saddle to the left as you face the lake. Generally, traffic on wheels is supposed to go to the right (counterclockwise as viewed from above), but when starting out it's OK to go back and forth in that area, and even further to the left up to the flagpole or so. This will give you a chance to view the downhill there that descends from the parking lot where you practiced the other day.

Also there are some nice parking lots available for something a bit more flat. I've always wondered how the pavement would be on the north side of Target between the store and the huge former Sears warehouse...looks nice and I think the old through street is blocked back there. I also thought that the street behind Target might work too if they didn't kick you out. But Country Park is the best place we know for now, and we stay out of Battleground Park (unless taken through there on a charity ride) as they'll kick you out and there's no need for the negative vibes.

OK I must go but please do post as you go and comment on anything. Thanks a ton for joining. Sometimes we think we might be typing into the vacuum, but we have to believe and express anyway. So far we met Andy because of the site and you'll enjoy meeting him too. We hope you'll start dreaming of 2 days of 45 miles each by September! (No pressure, ha!)

Good Folks at Bicycle Toy & Hobby

In reply to The Secret to Weight Loss and Maintaining Your Target Weight:

That shop was the host of a training ride for the Tour to Tanglewood last August, the last one before the tour itself. You can read my report on skating it here. They did a great job hosting and have always been extremely friendly and welcoming to us skaters. I'm glad that you had a positive experience there.

Dunno about visors. I've never taken one off but I've never had a helmet that had one to take off!

Sadly the weather forecast looks pretty grim for the near term. Maybe things will turn around toward the end of the month, but over the next ten days or so it looks like we'll be lucky to see 50 degrees. And that's no fun except maybe for an impromptu New Year's Eve midnight skate, and we won't be having another one of those for a while.

But hang tight and we'll find a time to get out there. I'm looking forward to having a new member of the local skating crew.

Hey Tim! Thanks for the

In reply to The Secret to Weight Loss and Maintaining Your Target Weight:

Hey Tim! Thanks for the warm welcome. Gee, everyone's so nice, especially to someone just getting interested!

Let me know when you all go to the park and I'll try my best to show up. Sometimes I work late, sometimes I don't, so it's all depending on the day. I would LOVE to see what some experianced skaters look like in person, and take as much advice as possible. As for the parking lot up there.... my wheels just LOVED all those rocks! :) They need to be rotated anyways, so I figure not too much damage. :) But I probably will park by the natural science center, so I won't be afraid of the big hill next time. I get over 10 to 15mph, and all I can think is.. "Oh no, what do I do... and how do I not look like an idiot doing it."

Also, I helped a woman who owns the Bicycle Toy and Hobby shop in High Point with some labels at work, so I decided to stop in and see her about helmets. She was so wonderful, fitted me correctly with a helmet, and apparently skaters get a 10% discount. She told me not to mess with my helmet and readjust it, and if it became readjusted, to just come back and she'd help me fit it again. She was really wonderful to talk with, and... I did leave with a helmet of my very own. It's a Trek Vapor something or other. She said most skaters took off the visor. Any reason why? I think it looks awesome... but then again, I'm kind of a dork. :) Anyways, for a $35 (after discount!) helmet, it's not bad looking at all, though, I looked at it in the mirror, andI admit it's a bit goofy to see. I will go back for pads this weekend before I try anything crazy like... skating out of my driveway.

Enough rambling, thank you again for the invitation and I would love to go. My only request is that you laugh with me lots while I fall and trip and look stupid! Any help or advice you all want to give will definately be helpful. Thanks again for the warm welcome and everyone's help!

Welcome

In reply to The Secret to Weight Loss and Maintaining Your Target Weight:

Hi Mike, and thanks for joining us here. I'm one of those Country Park skaters that Elizabeth mentioned and it would be great if you'd join us.

The big parking lot at the tennis courts (Jaycee Park) unfortunately hasn't been paved in a while so it's fairly rough asphalt with a lot of stones poking through--especially bad if you're going slowly and feeling every little bump. The pavement on the 1.6-mile loop around the lakes is much better, but also more challenging with hills and turns and dogs and children on trikes. But it's not an insurmountable challenge if you have a bit of experience as you seem to. With some time and persistance and maybe an oopsie or two...

Regarding teachers/coaches: None of us gives lessons on a formal basis, but as Eebee says, it's hard to get us to shut up about technique. We've been doing this and talking about it for quite a while and have a number of formal clinics behind us with some very good teachers (Blake has most of those actually) and we'll be glad to help you along best we can. Practice and experience are the main components anyway IMHO.

I've heard very good things about skatey-mark's clinic and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

We don't have much of a schedule these days with the short daylight and cold temps, but I've been trying to get out on reasonably wam afternoons for an hour or so. I was out last Monday (1/7) and had a nice 10-mile skate. Give me a shout next time we have a forecast of 60s or higher and sunny and we can try to arrange something. From spring onward, we'll have one or two evenings per week when we plan to meet up, and other days when we just do.

Regarding helmets: I've crashed and smacked my head hard in a $100 Giro and in a $10 Bell from Wal-Mart. They both broke but they both worked. I wear the $10 ones now because I'll never think twice about replacing one if I even suspect that it might have gotten damaged. (No cycling/skating helmet is designed to take more than one impact.) They look a little shabby if you're a helmet snob, but I do this as a service to the kids who won't have to worry about having the dorkiest helmet at the park as long as I'm around. :-)

South Beach Diet Rocks!

In reply to The Secret to Weight Loss and Maintaining Your Target Weight:

That's so funny. I dropped my last stubborn 10lbs last year in September alone thanks to trying the South Beach Diet for the first time. Although I'll have to say, with the training we were doing, such as 30+ miler bike events (on skates), going without any power gels, gatorade or other starchy carbs would've been a hospital trip waiting to happen. I tried to eat bananas though instead of wheaty stuff on phase I if I had done over an hour of skating. Right now I'm reading Chris Carmichael's Food for Fitness, hoping for a free pass to eat more toast :-)

You could knock out two birds with one stone regarding top-notch quality instruction in the Eddy Matzger Roadshow, if you wanted to do that. Otherwise, I don't believe there is an abundance of inline skate instructors in the Greensboro area. I'd like to be proven wrong on that one. There are several local skaters, however, who have attended the Matzger workshop enough times to pass on tidbits of info to you at the park for free. If you ask, I think you will be inundated with useful gems. I will let others reply as to their Country Park schedules. Otherwise, a good thing to check in an instructor (someone you'd pay) would be whether they have either the old IISA certification, or the newer one from United Skate Schools Group . As far as I'm concerned, those are both good credentials.

Also obviously it makes sense to be taught by an Inline skate instructor, as opposed to a roller skater or somebody who skates on Landrollers, or even ice.

You should be able to get plenty of good pointers from some of the skaters on this site who skate at Country Park and that'll help you make huge progress, confidence-wise. Which parking lot were you at - did you mean the Tennis Center parking lot or the one in front of the Nature-Science Center? There's another T2T cyclist veteran in GSO who wanted to learn to skate, and I had this dream of helping him out to where he was ready to skate T2T instead of biking it, but he just got married so we probably won't see him again for a few years!

Now that I think about it, Skatey-Mark offers a T2T fundraiser speedskating workshop in the Summer. I hope he does that again this year! I feel very good recommending Mark.

As far as helmets go, Cycles de Oro has plenty. The owner, Dale Brown, has been good to us roadskaters! I think I used a plain old Bell helmet from WalMart, though, for many years. Main thing is it fits well and it cracks when you hit the pavement instead of your skull!

Good for you, getting a bonus, and spending it on skate stuff :-). I can't find any pics of your present skates, but if they got you rolling again, that's excellent!

There are probably things I've forgotten to mention. But posting is free so I'm sure I'll drone on some more soon. I'm honored to have been part of you reconnecting with your deep-rooted inner skater!

Welcome and Congrats!

In reply to The Secret to Weight Loss and Maintaining Your Target Weight:

Congratulations on losing 50lbs! Welcome to roadskater.net, thanks for signing up, and thanks for posting! Sounds like you're a skate-addict, so you've come to the right place :-)

I had completely forgotten about that post you commented on, which I wrote all of 6 months ago! It's great to hear about inspiring someone to skate more.

Before I say anything else...we are helmet-advocates here, so if you don't have one yet, get one for yourself so you can, as Blake says, 'protect your moneymaking asset'.

Nagging done.

There's a whole network out there of outdoor rec and speed skaters in various parts of the country. In New York, and Atlanta (where I am) there's some sort of group skate almost daily with email groups to give everyone a heads-up. We have skaters registered on this website from Greensboro, Raleigh, Asheboro, as well as other states like Michigan, Texas and Pennsylvania. There are other skating websites/forums, both nationally and worldwide.

There are indoor and outdoor speed teams to join and practice with, plus races to sign up for and scare yourself into a training deadline (which works for me each year!). If you'd prefer something more low-key there are several weekend skate festivals around, the bigger ones being the Great EsSkate in Miami (soon! Feb 8-10), the Philly Free Skate, the Athens-to-Atlanta Roadskate, the SkateBoston weekend, and the Big Apple Roll in New York. Depending on the location, you may need downhill skills including speed control and braking.

I don't know of any professional instructors in NC, but perhaps somebody else here does. I was a certified beginning inline skate instructor under the now defunct IISA. However, I am always happy to help beginners with braking, turning, basic stroke. If you're in Atlanta sometime it's well worth getting some instruction from Paul or Cindy of Bohemian Skate School. They were my first coaches, thank God! Skating behind others who didn't really get any instruction when they started skating, I see many bad habits I never had to unlearn because Paul and Cindy started us all off on the right footing in the first place. Well that sounds way too much like I'm bragging - I meant it as a compliment to Paul and Cindy! There's also the Eddy Matzger Roadshow, which is coming to Greensboro in April. This is an absolute blast, with more instruction than most can handle in one weekend.

If you're in NC, you may be interested to know that thanks to the hard work of Blake L and Craig M., inline and roller skaters are more than welcome to take part on skates in the local cycling Tour to Tanglewood Multiple Sclerosis fundraiser. This is a hilly, fun excuse to get out there every Saturday morning in July and August and get your rear in shape on the Training Rides (which are free).

Generally the outdoor speed and rec skaters love ridiculously long mileage. Many of us train for the 90 miles in 2 days Tour to Tanglewood, 87 miles in one day Athens to Atlanta, and Skatey-Mark did 274.3 miles over 24 hours at the Roller Montreal 24 hour race. With that many hours on skates, you can eat as many carbs as you want.

It's so great you posted! Welcome again. What diet did you follow? What type of skates do you have? Do you skate at your local park?

Thanks so much for the warm

In reply to The Secret to Weight Loss and Maintaining Your Target Weight:

Thanks so much for the warm welcome!

A new helmet and pads are already in my budget for next week. (For now I have an old clunky borrowed one.) Any recommendations for helmets or great places to get them? I was gonna check out local bike places. As for my diet, I lost all the weight on the South Beach Diet. Or as I call it, "Mike's Struggle to Like Veggies." Now I'm proud to say I don't flinch at trying new stuff and I do tolerate veggies VERY well. Some could even say I prefer them. I'm happier with where I spend my money on food, the choices I've been making for the last part of last year, and I can't see myself ever being who I was again. (Fast food addict with 2 million excuses.) I hope getting involved in some professional lessons and maybe a group will help me to continue this new lifestyle I've started.

You gotta promise not to laugh at my skates, because they are very old. In March I get a big bonus at work and plan to get new skates, and I'm already looking and excited. The ones I have now are called Bladerunners, and it's Pro 4700. I have no idea what level they are, or if they are any good For rekindling my interest and getting me outside, they are doing a good job. As far as skating at my local park goes, I've went to Country Park since I live close and thought that I would skate in the big parking lot there to get myself familiar with the process again. I was too nervous to go into the park. Those little voices saying how silly I look were talking to me. I was only out there for maybe 30 minutes today and retreated back to the safety of my neighborhood streets. I have to work on being comfortable on my skates in public around people and looking like a lunatic. Haha, hopefully once I find lessons I'll be better about that. Maybe tomorrow I'll actually go INTO the park. Wish me luck!

I plan to post and ask the group about lessons in the area, but when I find possible coaches, what are some good questions to ask to determine if they are any good? Thanks again for the wonderful warm welcome. I know the only way to get involved is to jump in and discuss it with people who know what they are doing, so it's nice to have a group like this, where I won't feel too dumb asking noob stuff. Haha

Hey Eebee, I'm new here

In reply to The Secret to Weight Loss and Maintaining Your Target Weight:

Hey Eebee, I'm new here and just catching up on different topics that seem interesting. I was reading about some other beginners and I have to let you know you inspire me to really get involved with my skating. Especially with this post. I did the same thing you were just talking about. I've been on a diet and lost about 50lbs, and when the time came to really add a habitual workout to my life, I decided that the gym is GREAT.... for rainy days when I want to sit and listen to music. But for normal everyday keeping myself fit, it needs to be fun and actually involve me. As a kid I would skate and feel so natural. It was like flying. My own personal freedom from everyone else. So, I broke out my old skates from high school. (Which still fit... incredibly!) Now I'm looking for good places to skate, and I promise myself each day.. to strap them on, and skate... even if it's just for 20 minutes. I'm in the process now of looking for a professional instructor! Anyways, I wanted to let you know that you and the entire Roadskater team here, so far have really inspired me to relive what I felt when I was younger. Thanks!

'Eat for Health and Performance' calories for men

In reply to A Liberating Nutritional Program for Athletes (Diet Exercise Weight Loss):

To be more specific than the above post...if you're following any of this at all...I realized I left some things out.

If you read this far, you're probably wondering where the logic is in my statement that my insufficient calories caused my weightloss to stabilize. I left out that each insufficient-calorie night about 11pm I find myself in the kitchen with the toaster, a loaf of bread and a tub of margarine, churning out an impressive production-line of hot buttered toast. It's comparable to taking $200 out of your monthly pay and putting it in savings, only to come up short by the same amount on your monthly bills and then charging your credit card up a storm to bridge the gap. It's one of those laws of the universe that I don't have a phrase for. How 'bout Save Now, Pay Later (in excess fat or credit card fees). So the plan is to head off hunger at the pass by including a few more preferably healthy portions of carbs and protein, and successfully side-stepping your body's panicked perception of starvation.

I also forgot to mention that I'm going by the Eat for Health and Performance section of the book The Lance Armstrong Performance Program, by Lance Armstrong and Chris Carmichael. It's all very vague how I have decided to compare an 87 Mile A2A training program with the "Fast Recreational Rider" program in the book. On an A2A 87 mile skate-training schedule, we blow their Fast Recreational Rider out of the water on the weekly mileage, but this is still way more calories than most sports books that I've read have recommended. I haven't read any Ironman type nutritional books, so I'd be interested if anybody out there has, and could comment on that.

I also neglected to mention some numbers men can use. In the book they recommend for a 9 week training plan:

Weeks 1-3 = 13 calories per pound (of your bodyweight, e.g. 175lbs x 13 = 2,275 cals/day)

Weeks 4-6 = 14 calories per pound

Weeks 7-9 = 15 calories per pound

For the women Fast Recreational Rider, they suggested 12, 13 & 14, which is where I came up with my portion quantities in the previous post. Doing the portion thing is so much easier than calorie amounts, and what percent of that is fat, protein, etc.

Upping the Portions

In reply to A Liberating Nutritional Program for Athletes (Diet Exercise Weight Loss):

Since I have managed to skate more days than not over the past month, my metabolism kicked up a notch and the above eating schedule has been insufficient. My weight has stabilized. I have consulted the Lance Armstrong Performance Program by Chris Carmichael & Lance Armstrong and according to their recommendations for calorie intake on a 9 week training program, have upped my portions intake thus:

For the next 3 weeks:

Carbs = (previously 6) 8 portions of 80-100 cals each. Oh what the heck, just go with 100!

Protein = 4 portions of 100 cals

Fruit = 3 portions of 60 cals

Veg = 6 portions of 25 cals

Treat = 3 portions of 100 cals

After this 3 weeks I should have lost a few more pounds, which other clueless 'diets' take as a sign for you to reduce your daily calorie intake, as you'll weigh less. Well honestly, where's the fun in that?! Why would anybody stick to anything like this only to be deprived and not rewarded at the end of it?! Chris and Lance say as I progress in my training program for weeks 4-6, I should actually increase my calorie intake. Yay. And this makes perfect sense, because the more embedded I get into my skate training, the more I approach wild abandon on the carb cravings. So for the middle 3 weeks I'll up the portions thus:

Carbs = 8 portions

Protein = 5 portions

Fruit = 3 portions

Veg = 6 portions

Treat = 3 portions

I know I should be more exact, and spread out the portion increase more evenly, but this whole schedule is about usability and ensuing longevity.

The last 3 weeks I'll add another portion to the treat section, which sounds like something to look forward to :-)

Thanks for the Stretching Info

In reply to Stretching for Speed:

Thanks for the info, andrewinnc. I can't promise I'll do any of it, as I don't fold up well and don't seem to be inclined to improve it. But it is a great thing to do I am certain, and I encourage everyone to give it a go. One of the things I learn at each Eddy Matzger workshop (roadshow) is how inflexible and imbalanced I am! Then I make a new skate year's resolution that lasts, well, it doesn't last. How was that skate in Raleigh with Artem (feel free to start a new message for that one if you reply)? Wish we could've made it there.

Glad for the opportunity of the Up2speed rides!

In reply to Don't Fear the Sweeper: The Fine Art of No-Drop Rides and Skates:

What a great way to get in some intermediate roadskate training in the Spring, sandwiched between cyclists. It's hard to find such long uphills in a park or other closed course, or trail. I am very thankful to the cyclists for letting us join in.

It's tricky and I agree wholeheartedly with Blake's comment about motorists being less tolerant of skaters on the road in front of them than cyclists, but I wish we had become the sweeps on Saturday also. And for the first time in several decades I found myself wishing I had a bike to ride so I could have kept those four or five company who abandoned the ride when the sweep got about half a mile ahead of them.

In this country people are so darned sedentary, or sit-entary, since we have to sit wherever we go. Exercise is mostly socially approved if it takes place on a machine that doesn't go anywhere inside a gym, and we journey to these gyms by sitting in our vehicles. So whenever anybody wants to go outside to get in shape, it makes me want to shout from the rooftops, or help them by accompanying them so they don't give up. Sweeping kindness was extended to me when I was a beginner skater, by various members of either the Atlanta Peachtree Roadrollers, or the Atlanta Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training skaters. These speed-skate veterans donned their old rec skates for the occasion (newbie 'group training session', or 'Monday night beginner skate', as I had seen advertized on their website). On their rec skates were the most ratty, worn-out and miniscule wheels ever. This made it much harder for them to be 'fast': i.e. the newbies didn't lose heart and nobody ever, to my knowledge, was abandoned. They switched back to their speedskates of course for their own intense and vigorous training sessions.

When I first started taking part in downtown group roadskates, I yearned to be as fit and fast as the others, and even to look half as competent and stable as they did. Knowing that at that point I was far from it, led me to feelings of inadequacy and fear of not fitting in. Without the sweeps and patient souls encouraging me for many months, I may very well have given up, deciding 'well this isn't for me...who did I think I was, coming out here all flabby...and look at them, all fit...' :-)

Yes to Caution with Strollers and Skates

In reply to Postpartum Skateum: Exercise Advice for New Moms:

Yes, eebee, you're right to point out the dangers for other than very good skaters who also have had experience with running strollers. While northinsouth is and excellent skater with a lifetime of experience on ice and pavement, others with less experience should take it easy.

If not willing to wear a helmet and have baby do so as well, this is probably a bad idea;
If you haven't gained experience running with an exercise stroller, skating with a stroller is probably a bad idea;
Yes you'd want a stroller with a brake and excellent skate braking skills; and
Start slowly and build slowly.

Northinsouth always wears a helmet as eebee and I do, and baby also does baby at all times. Still I don't have the skill for a lap at Country Park with the stroller, even though I did go back and forth slowly on the flats while northinsouth was doing a lap. I definitely want to stress the need for caution, and not just for the children...I worry just as much or more about adults out exercising, especially when making kids wear helmets but not wearing them themselves.

I think kids are less likely to be injured than adults, but it's just easier to make laws that make kids do things. Yes I think kids should wear helmets. My point is I think adults should too. Whether that needs to be by law, I don't know!

Skating + Jogging Stroller = Controversy!

In reply to Postpartum Skateum: Exercise Advice for New Moms:

Some people think that pushing jogging strollers whilst inline skating is an irresponsible and dangerous thing to do. I'm not even going to get into the US Constitution here, or my rights to 'sit beside my baby in my jogging stroller with a shotgun if I wanted to'. However, I've had the chance to push somebody else's baby in a jogging stroller whilst skating, and decided pretty quickly that I wanted no part in causing her untimely demise, after a near-disaster involving a sharp turn and a body of water! Having said that, I'd probably still push my own child in a jogging stroller whilst skating if it were the only way I'd get to skate.

Some advice: Get a stroller with a brake. Use skates with a brake. Be able to use those brakes. Make the baby wear a helmet without fail. Better still, just leave the baby at home or on the park bench with a baby sitter.

My advice for new Moms, who aren't already inline-skaters: Take up inline skating! Check back here for beginner's advice and sample training schedules, plus info about 'races', skate tours and events you can take part in throughout the year, to give your skating a schedule and a goal. It'll be the best gift you ever gave yourself. Let's face it, jogging and running just plain hurt after a certain age. Replace it with hundreds of miles of skating. Believe me, you'll be able to eat like a horse and not put on a pound, plus your kids'll be in awe.

Booties/preferences

In reply to Slide board training:

I prefer the nylon booties to the wool socks, and I use them over my sneakers. I don't have the mentioned problem with my feet, and the booties are easier to get on and off vs. wool socks.

Also, I cut my melanine board to stand up and tuck away underneath my kitchen counter, about 38". I think I would be looking down a lot if my board were 2' wide. I like to look up into something reflective so that I can watch my form. Additionally, I backed it with plywood.

slideboard bumper angles

In reply to Slide board training:

Yes - the bumpers were angled so that the feet took less abuse when hitting them. It'll certainly work with the bumpers at 90-degrees. I think for me, the balls of my feet would take too much abuse with straight bumpers though. Or I'd have to change my slideboarding technique -- probably rotating my body such that my feet hit at a better angle.

You could always start out with straight bumpers and, if they bother you, make them angled instead. You don't want an excessive amount of foam, since it will absorb too much of your push. Absorbing the impact is good, but you want to be able to get a good push too. So getting the angle right allows you to use less foam.

- SM -

Thanks for the slide board info!

In reply to Slide board training:

That's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! The old one I used to have was very similar, only we used plywood and covered it with formica. I'll have to look for melanine this time around. The bumpers we had were covered in carpet instead of foam, but ironically, I have a ton of that jigsaw foam in my basement just sitting around, and that would work even better. Thanks! I love picking other people's minds for ideas.

Just curious, any reason why you have it angled? I found that the one we had worked fine since we had so much padding around it, and those boards weren't angled. Do you angle it to compensate for the shape of your feet? (That's what I'm assuming)

building a slideboard

In reply to Slide board training:

I made one a couple years ago and it worked pretty well... But I found that I didn't really like slideboarding, so it pretty much gathers dust now. It's pretty easy to make one, but it'll be of the large bulky variety...

Home Depot sells 4'x8' sheets of "melanine" particle board. This is a fairly slick surface, so works well for the slideboard. The bonus is you don't have to do anything to it to make it slick. (Other people use plywood, then put formica or something else on it to make it slick.) Anyway, have the helpful people at Home Depot cut the board in half lengthwise, so you'll be left with two 2'x8' pieces. If you have a friend that wants a slideboard, split the cost with them...

Get a 2x6 that's 8' long and cut it into 4 pieces that are exactly the width of your slideboard. (Ideally, this should be 24", but it may not have been cut exactly in half at the store...) These chunks are going to be your bumpers, 2 for each end.

Now the tricky part -- you want your foot to hit the bumpers at an angle. So you could just attach the 2x6 chunks at an angle. Or, what I did was cut the chunks so that the inside edge was at approximately 15-degree angle. This lets the outside edge be flush & square with the board, but still give you the correct "strike angle" on the inside. This is just a cosmetic thing, but I think it does look better.

Clamp the bumpers to the end of the board. Get a long drill bit and drill through both 2x6's and the melamine. I used carriage bolts and a nut & washer to attack everything together. I think I used 4 bolts per side.

Now you'll want to pad the bumpers. Home Depot sells high-density foam rubber mats that have "jigsaw" edges. They're usually in the flooring section I think. They come in a pack of 4 and are multi-colored. Take some of that and cut it so that it covers your bumpers. Use liquid nails or some other industrial-type adhesive to glue it to the wood.

That's pretty much it. Get some 100% wool socks and some Pledge. Spray the board with some pledge, put on the wool socks, and you'll be sliding away.

If anyone wants more details on any of this, let me know... This is just what I remember off the top of my head. Certainly the only tricky part was making the angle cuts with the table saw...

Oh - and if anyone wants a slideboard, but doesn't want to build one, I could probably be convinced to sell mine since it's just gathering dust... :)

- SM -

Fat vs. Metabolic Syndrome

In reply to Argh! You're not fat - you have 'metabolic syndrome':

Skatey-Mark,

At first I thought it was odd that you would link an article to your post, but then upon reading, I completely understood. As someone who has struggle with a 25 lb. weight fluctuation, I always knew that it was my choice to eat or not to eat; my choice to eat wisely or poorly; my choice to exercise or not. My choice, my choice, my choice . . .

Call it fat, Metabolic Syndrome, or my choice . . .

clairem

I Asked My Doctor

In reply to Argh! You're not fat - you have 'metabolic syndrome':

I like to sit on the porch and throw empty beer bottles at passing cars and pedestrians. I used to be a sociopathic idiot. Now I have Projectile Dysfunction.

Dr. Phil-in-the-Blank

In reply to Argh! You're not fat - you have 'metabolic syndrome':

OK, I used to be a grouchy old bastard. Now I have Attitude Polarity Reversal Syndrome. When do I get my f****** pills?

I have (fill in the) syndrome

In reply to Argh! You're not fat - you have 'metabolic syndrome':

Hey! This could be a tension-relieving way to poke fun at one's own inadequacies (c'mon c'mon! We all have them)...

Mark: You're on to something. You should definitely write a book!

I would do it, but I think I have Dysmotivational Syndrome, which pertains to my inherent laziness and chronic lack of focus. Wait, isn't that Attention Deficit Disorder?

Tuna as protein

In reply to Skating and weight loss:

I would pretty much agree with you on using tuna as a high protein source for the $$$. The only problem I've heard with using it frequently is its mercury content. I think it's fine in moderation, but I'd look to egg whites and tofu to stretch the amount of time in between tuna meals. Both are also cheap.

Restaurants

In reply to Skating and weight loss:

I wonder about the eating out business myself. I used to go to restaurants a lot, but with passing time (and diminishing available income) I've been doing it less and less. And my attitude about it these days is that they're in the business of putting things in food that I would never put there myself while I pretend that I don't know about it (like a quarter stick of butter in an entree) and giving me much bigger portions than I would ever make for myself.

I know that it supports local business and creates work opportunities for students and the like, but health-wise it seems like it's probably pretty much a disaster. McDonalds get the bad press, in "Supersize Me" and the like. But eating exclusively at Ruth's Chris would probably have the same effect, though at a much higher cash price.

Good Points About Protein

In reply to Skating and weight loss:

Your comments about training and getting adequate protein ring true for me. A nugget of nutritional pseudo-wisdom that I picked up somwhere was that the typical American diet contains much more protein than we really need. But when I was doing marathon running training, I eventually figured out that this wasn't even close true under those conditions. Because of the beating that leg muscles take from running and the amount of repair that was always going on when doing a lot of miles, I found that I needed all the protein I could get. The 0.8-1.5 grams of protein per pound of weight guideline, which I learned from some bodybuilding source or another, was what I was going for too. And that's somewhat tricky to do using ordinary foodstuffs without eating a huge amount of total calories at the same time.

Interesting discovery related to that: A can of tuna is pretty close to being pure protein. For maximizing protein without getting a lot of fat and other calories included in the deal, it's pretty tough to beat. It's a lot cheaper per gram of protein than any of the fitness store protein powder or drink products, and it tastes a whole lot better too!

Weight loss

In reply to Skating and weight loss:

My diet, since 4/4, has consisted of giving up snacks. Absolutely no in between meal indulgences. How was I able to do this? It was not by shear will-power, but rather it was because I got braces! It is impossible to munch on something and then turn around and talk to a small group. Knowing that food would be stuck between my teeth while I was attempting to teach a group of 6th graders corrected my eating misdeeds. It's very simple. I can't eat, unless I can immediately brush. That's how I lost 20 lbs.!

Computer program

In reply to Skating and weight loss:

I have used Dietpower in the past www.dietpower.com which is a pretty cheap program that does just what you described monitor food in verses exercise and adapts base metabolic rate based on results. If you are religous about inputting it works and for data freaks amongst us gives a bunch of statistics to monitor and take your mind off being hungry!

more things I thought of

In reply to Skating and weight loss:

Great suggestions regarding nutrition, etc... I'll be the first to admit my knowledge of sports nutrition sucks, and I probably could get better results if I read one of the several books on the subject that are currently gathering dust on the bookshelf!

I did think of another benefit, too... Money! I am amazed at how much less my grocery bill is while I'm on my diet -- and my "eating out" bills are drastically decreased too... Alot of that has to do with cutting out the alcohol and desserts of course. But when I eat at a restaurant now, it is rare that I'll eat more than half an entree, so it ends up being at least two meals. And I've been eating a lot of soup or small microwaveable meals at home, which are very inexpensive...

So if you're looking to lose a few pounds and need to save a few bucks, go ahead and start that diet... :)

Just my 2 cents

In reply to Skating and weight loss:

Great post, Mark! I just wanted to add that I have been pretty cautious about my fitness in the last couple of years and I could add some thing from my experience:

1. As you outlined, muscles means faster metabolism so putting on muscle is a sure way to burn more calories. However, you need to give your body enough building material to grow muscle fibers. Thus, you should consume about 0.8-1.5 grams of protein per pound of weight when you are in the muscle building phase.

2. You should always get adequate rest to allow your body to recover. Remember that the worst state you can get your body into is overtraining. It takes weeks or even months to recover. How do you know if you are overtrained? The easiest way is to take your resting heart rate every morning when you wake up. If the heart rate jumps over 10 beats over your normal - you might be getting overtrained. However, I personally just try to listen to my body whenever I am in a gym... If I am really dragging the workout and just don't feel like doing anything I take it easy or just skip the workout altogether as this is one of the signes of getting overtrained.

I also, try to take at least one week off after six weeks of working out to get my muscles rested.

3. When you start your cardio and endurance training you need to bring up your carbohydrates intake and lower your protein intake (to keep overall calories in check). Remember that cardio burnes a lot of glycogen in your muscles and without sufficient replenishment your body may start burning muscle for energy (protein is the second fastest source of energy after carbohydrates your body has. muscles are protein). I try to get my protein intake down to about .6 grams per pound of weight and switch to more carbohydrate rich foods. I still try to avoid simple carbohydrates (sugar, refined flour, etc.) and try to stick with complex carbs (whole grain foods, some fruits, etc.) as much as I can.

I hope this helps :-)