What They Are
Amino acids are the building blocks that make up protein. They are essential for your body to make hormones, antibodies, enzymes, neurotransmitters, DNA, RNA, etc. For most people, adequate dietary protein will take care of this. Of the 21 amino acids, three of them (leucine, isoleucine, and valine) are classified branched chain amino acids (BCAAs). These three amino acids play a special role in muscle protein synthesis, especially after a hard workout.
Why They Matter
Approximately one third of your skeletal muscle consists of BCAAs. After intense weight training (or a long, intense cardio session), your muscles are in a catabolic state. In short, the muscle tissue is being broken down. This is where otherwise-adequate protein intake may not be enough to feed your starving muscles. Taking BCAAs before and after your workout gives your muscles the raw materials they need to repair and restore themselves. Post-workout muscle breakdown is natural and normal, but proper diet and supplementation will start the rebuilding process faster, helping you to come back stronger.
Are they right for you?
It depends on your goals. For general fitness, BCAAs aren’t necessary. If you’re just looking to shape and tone, or lose a few pounds, stick to a smart nutrition program and you’ll be in good shape. If you are just going to the gym for a light workout or some medium-intensity cardio, don’t waste your money. But if you are really training hard, and you’re serious about getting stronger and building new muscle, then consider BCAAs. For people looking to gain mass, speed or endurance, BCAA supplementation is proven to achieve these goals.
Wii vs. The Real Thing
Is Wii Fit actually good exercise? Or just another excuse to stay glued to the TV? To answer this question I turned to some research by The American Council on Exercise. ACE tested five different sports, comparing the real version to the Wii version. They looked at calories burned, heart rate, oxygen consumed, and perceived exertion level.
The Findings
ACE compared boxing, tennis, baseball, bowling and golf. Not surprisingly, Wii boxing burned the most calories, while Wii golf burned the least (just as in real life). In fact, boxing was the only Wii game intense enough to improve cardiorespiratory endurance, burning 7.2 calories per minute (actual boxing burns 10.2 calories/minute). Tennis came in second at 5.3 calories/minute (8.1 for real tennis). Baseball and bowling nearly tied for third at 4.5 and 3.9, respectively (real thing: 7.3 and 7.2). Dead last was golf. At 3.1/min (3.9), you might as well be playing Super Mario Brothers.
On average, Wii Fit sports burn 66% of the calories of their real-world counterparts. Data for heart rate, oxygen consumption and perceived exertion were similar to the data for calories burned.
Bottom Line
Playing Wii Fit games definitely get you moving versus traditional video games. While not as good as the real thing, but better than sitting on your couch.
How much does that plate weigh?
You know, that incremental weight you add to the weight stack when you’re not ready to go a full plate heavier. Even if it’s labeled, there’s still only one correct answer: it depends.
It depends on where you put it
Let’s say you’re doing a chest press on a cable machine. And the weight stack goes up in 10-pound increments. But you only want to go up by five pounds. So you grab an ‘incremental plate’ and throw it on top of the stack, and VOILA…you just went from 50 to 55. Or did you?
The plate says 5 LB. And it weighs 5 pounds in your hand. But when you put it into a system of cables, pulleys and levers (like every machine in your gym) you may have effectively added only 2.5 pounds to your chest press.
Here’s Why
This part’s geeky, so pay attention. If the cable screws directly into the weight stack, you get all the weight in your hand. But if there is a pulley attached to the weight stack, you get only half of the weight. Picture the following typical configuration: the handle is attached to a cable that runs to the top if the machine. It goes through a pulley and then runs straight down to the weight stack, which has another pulley attached to it. The cable runs through that, then goes back up to the top of the machine, where it is fastened. If the weight stack is 100 pounds, the handle gets 50 pounds of force and the machine body (where the cable terminates) gets the other 50 pounds. So when you add 5 pounds, you’re splitting it with the body of the machine. 52.5 pounds of force is essentially wasted.
What the hell???
Why is there a 100-lb stack if you can only lift 50 lb of it? Because this configuration gives you twice as much cable length. If it weren’t designed this way, you’d run out of cable a lot of exercises. (Or the machine would need to be 20 feet tall). So if you can’t see the machine’s inner workings, but the cable is really long, there’s probably a pulley system that’s cutting real weight in half.
FYI: Most machine makers label their weight stacks correctly. So if a plate is labeled 10, you’re lifting ten pounds.
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