Let's kick off the week with more random links to explore:
- According to this Daily Beast photo gallery, you'd need to have sex for 3 hours and 40 minutes to work off a Chipotle Steak Burrito. On the plus side, everyone knows that steak burritos are an aphrodisiac.
- Here's a great list of 9 things to do when you're all banged up (from exercising, not working off a steak burrito).
- Are you meeting these basic strength standards?
- Another write-up about CrossFit -- this one featuring this pithy and accurate description by an affiliate owner: "Anyone out there who wants a spa environment, this is not the gym for you. Intensity is not comfortable."
- Despite appearances, the low-impact elliptical trainers hogging up all the space at your neighborhood globo-gym aren't doing any favors for your lower back.
- Can Lady Gaga can do yoga without costume changes between poses?
- Are your fitness goals (or, for that matter, any other goals) specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely? (And just what is the difference between "attainable" and "realistic" goals?)
- Training for marathons can "cause formerly healthy people to develop cardiovascular problems like increased blood pressure and stiffness in the aorta, a new study found." I guess this isn't all that surprising, given that the word "marathon" comes from the ancient Greek legend of Pheidippides, a soldier who ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the defeat of the Persians in the Battle of Marathon -- only to collapse and die upon arrival.
- The New York Times reports on the challenges of designing, marketing and selling clothing for plus-sized women:
The most formidable obstacle lies in creating a prototype. If you already have a line of clothing and a set system of sizing, you cannot simply make bigger sizes. You need whole new systems of pattern-making. “The proportions of the body change as you gain weight, but for women within a certain range of size, there is a predictability to how much, born out by research dating to the 1560s,” explained Kathleen Fasanella, who has made patterns for women’s coats and jackets for three decades. “We know pretty well what a size 6 woman will look like if she edges up to a 10; her bustline might increase an inch,” Fasanella said. “But if a woman goes from a size 16 to a 20, you just can’t say with any certainty how her dimensions will change.”
