Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 Has a Workout Video

And it is awesome.



[Source: Punknews.org]

"P90X" Rhymes with "Really Nice Sex"

Sadly, my kindergartner is past his hardcore gangsta rap phase, and he's now groovin' to Top 40 pop (ugh). The silver lining: I got to hear a Bruno Mars song referencing P90X. Turns out he wasn't paid by Beachbody to do so -- which isn't surprising given what we've heard about the company's stinginess.

Although [Mars'] camp says he wasn't compensated for his reference to home exercise system P90X (he rhymes it with "really nice sex") in his hit "The Lazy Song," there's no question that he's getting a cut of another product mentioned on the same track: the Bruno Mars Snuggie, which you can buy for $25 on his website. The reference ("I'll be loungin' on the couch just chillin' in my Snuggie") slides seamlessly into the layabout anthem. "I'm not going to just take every dollar that's offered, it has to fit right with my brand," he says. "It has to be something I strongly believe in."

I love that there are people out there who "strongly believe" in Snuggies.

[Source]

Don’t Leave Me Hangin’: A Brief History of the High Five

What’s the first thing you do after finishing a heart-pounding workout at your CrossFit box (other than making sweat angels on the floor and gasping for air)? You give high fives and fist bumps to those who’ve suffered through the WOD with you, right?

If you don’t, you’re kind of a butthole. And there’s no better time to start slapping the damp, upraised hand of your fellow metcon warrior. After all, today’s the third Thursday of April, which means it’s National High Five Day. (Really.)

But what exactly is the point, you ask, of violently striking the palm of another human being? How did stinging hand pain come to signal camaraderie or congratulations? And what about the germs?

Here’s the backstory:

Before the high five existed, there was the handshake -- a sign of peace (bare hands = no weapons) dating back to ancient Greece.

In more recent centuries, the expansion of the British Empire popularized the use of handshakes as a form of greeting, celebration, and farewell.

But handshakes weren’t cool enough for the musicians of the Jazz Age. They came up with what we now call a “low five,” which soon made its way into blues and other musical genres. At the time, this was known as “slapping skin” or “giving skin” -- but celebratory low fives were viewed as a gesture used only in African American communities.



Case in point: In the 1941 Abbott & Costello movie “In the Navy,” the Andrews Sisters sing this little ditty:

If you want to shake my hand
Like they do it in Harlem,
Stick your hand right out and shout:
Give me some skin, my friend!

Over the years, the term “giving skin” evolved into “giving five,” and with greater exposure to black culture in popular media in the 1960s and 1970s, Americans of all racial backgrounds began slapping each other’s hands. Even Bob from Sesame Street got in on the action.

More after the jump, including gay baseball players, child endangerment, terrorism and cartoon superheroes...

"Pump the Dumbbells 'Til My Arms Look Ignorant"

This is stuck in my head:



Now who's going to step up and create a CrossFit rap video?

[Source]

Creating an Exercise Playlist

Now that we know that music can ease (some forms of) exercise, Lifehacker shows you how to put together the "ultimate" playlist for your workouts. (But only if your workouts involve long sessions of cardio.)

Music Makes You Work Out Harder (Sometimes)

A recent British study shows that generally speaking, music can prompt people to exercise harder. For participants in the experiment, "up-tempo music didn’t mask the discomfort of the exercise. But it seemed to motivate them to push themselves. As the researchers wrote, when 'the music was played faster, the participants chose to accept, and even prefer, a greater degree of effort.'”

This isn't the first study to find that music tends to ease exercise: "In a typical study, from 2008, cyclists who rode in time to music used 7 percent less oxygen to pedal at the same pace as when they didn’t align themselves to the songs."

However:

[T]here are limits to the benefits of music, and they probably kick in just when you could use the help the most. Unfortunately, science suggests that music’s impacts decline dramatically when you exercise at an intense level. A much-cited 2004 study of runners found that during hard runs at about 90 percent of their maximal oxygen uptake, a punishing pace, music was of no benefit, physiologically. The runners didn’t up their paces, no matter how fast the music’s tempo. Their heart rates stubbornly stayed the same, already quite high, whether they listened to music or not. 

That result, according to a 2009 review of research by Costas Karageorghis and David-Lee Priest, researchers who have extensively studied music and exercise, is likely due to the ineluctable realities of hard work. During moderate exercise, they write, music can “narrow attention,” diverting “the mind from sensations of fatigue.” But when you increase the speed and intensity of a workout, “perceptions of fatigue override the impact of music, because attentional processes are dominated by physiological feedback.” The noise of the body drowns all other considerations.

So while catchy new tunes by Ke$ha or Cee-Lo might help get you through a low- to moderate-intensity workout (e.g., a neverending mind- and leg-numbing hour on the elliptical trainer, treadmill, or on the roads), you might as well stow away your headphones when attempting a brief but brutally intense WOD or Tabata sprint session. Your Bieber Fever won't make a difference.

(Source: NYT)