Umair Yasin

I rode my recumbent to Santa Teresa Park in south San Jose to do a jaunt with my hiking meetup. We hiked up the steep way to Coyote Peak, then back down the gentler way. My favorite way to do it. On the way home I did some sprints on the ‘bent. Pretty stiff tailwind on the way back, so I was glad so for some electric assist. Overall a challenging but fun workout. Our hiking route Mama cows and their half-grown calves on the boundary trail on the way up. Some of the calves were to the left of the trail and Mama to the right. Knowing it’s not a good idea to between a Mama and her calf, we worked our way past slowly while gently reassuring the Mamas. They just stared at us and chewed their cuds so I guess they’re used to humans coming by On Coyote Peak, San Jose is in the background . Our group leader, Roya, is holding Mollie, a little Yorkie-poodle m ix who walked most of the way, but was carried by her owner (taking the picture) up some of the steeper bits Mollie enterta...

Both aerobic training and strength training are typically recommended for health, but strength training is often mentioned as an afterthought. Aerobic provides many health benefits and it is recommended to do it for 30 minutes a day several times a week (or several shorter, more intense sessions). The importance of strength training is mostly mentioned for maintaining muscle mass as we age. It also contributes to maintaining bone density. These reasons are important in themselves. For these purposes, it is recommended to strength train, covering major muscle groups, a couple of times a week. But there is another equally vital reason to strength train. It turns out our muscle cells contribute to our metabolic health by producing molecules called “myokines”. To see some ways they play a part in our health, check out references 1 and 2 ( here and here ). Ref 2 emphasizes that aerobic training and anaerobic training (such as intervals or strength training) both help, but in different ...

I did a group ride in the hills East of Gilroy on a cold and windy day but it was still fun. It was probably about 20 mph average, gusting maybe to fifty, so not much compared to what folks are going through in other places like the UK. Last night I got woken up about two O’clock by a funny tapping on our windows. It’s been so long since it has rained I thought, “what’s going on, is someone throwing pebbles at our windows”, then I realized it was raining and got excited because we sure need it. This was just scattered showers, but still welcome. It was still raining on and off in the morning but was supposed to clear up in time for the ride so we went anyway. I rode to the start at Mendoza ranch and could tell it was cold on the way. Fortunately, I had my neck gaiter for face protection. The sun kept peeking in and out of the clouds so it was still quite beautiful. We got sprinkled on intermittently, then about halfway through it started to come down harder, and we could tell we were h...

“Round the Reservoirs” is a classic loop from Morgan Hill, very typical of the scenery near many of California’s inland coastal valleys. If you climb up to the foothills West of town, you run into Oak Glen Ave which takes you past Chesbro reservoir. It then runs into Uvas road, and heading south you pass Uvas reservoir. These are part of the Santa Clara County Water district’s efforts to keep our Groundwater recharged. These are all beautiful country roads, lightly trafficked on a Saturday morning. I added in an out-and-back on Redwood retreat road. It was an invigorating workout. GPS doesn’t show my return from Gilroy to home because I accidentally put my watch in “indoor mode” for that leg. First part of the ride, up and over Willow Springs road then round the reservoirs, and out and back Redwood retreat road. Last Part of the ride. I accidentally had my watch in “indoor” mode so it didn’t record GPS. I started with a big walk up the foothills West of Gilroy. I need the pra...

Jeff Rothschild, who has the website eat.sleep.fit (nutrition advice for active people), co-authored an interesting paper [1] on nutrition strategies to get improved fitness and health benefits from exercise. It turns out it is very helpful to try to increase signaling from the enzyme AMPK (short for the mouthful “5ʹ adenosine monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase”). This improves metabolic health as we age, including insulin sensitivity, as discussed here , here , and here . The paper discusses how nutrition affects the amount of AMPK signaling during exercise. The paper is pretty technical, but Jeff gave a 16-minute youtube summary of it. It turns out one of the most important factors is the amount of glycogen left in your muscles at the end of your exercise session, or how empty your fuel tank is. The emptier, the better, for producing the AMPK benefits. So doing a long relatively easy workout in the fasted state is one good approach. I was already doing this for the purp...

I was sure glad I had electric assist today, as I rode 38 miles on the Coyote Creek trail. The wind was strong and gusty from the north, it would have been really challenging making progress in that direction without the help of the motor. The upside is that it made the air incredibly clear during my two-hour and 15-minute outing. One of the lakes along the trail with Loma Prieta in the distance Nice panorama of the Santa Cruz mountains, Loma Prieta to the left, Mt. Umunhum to the right, and a still-working farm’s barn in the foreground Rest stop in Metcalf Park in San Jose from BionicOldGuy https://ift.tt/haLxuZ4 via IFTTT

I went for a romp on a nice day on my recumbent. I took the back way to Watsonville Road, then over to Sycamore which took me to Oak Glen and Paradise Valley. Then around Chesbro reservoir to Willow Springs Road, and back home, for about a 90-minute pleasant outing. The path through the flood-control area along Little Llagas creek , on the way to Watsonville Road Nearing the top of the hill on Sycamore road, before the descent into Paradise Valley Turning on to Oak Glen Ave Newly chip-sealed section of Oak Glen with Chesbro reservoir on the left . Re-paving will be done soon. Descending Willow Springs towards the main (Santa Clara) valley Heading down Santa Teresa Boulevard on the way back to Morgan Hill. The land to the right is newly acquired for habitat preservation from BionicOldGuy https://ift.tt/XZnJm8i via IFTTT

Runner’s World this month (Feb. 2022, available online here ) had an excellent article “The Dangerous Lie of the Perfect Running Weight”, which echoes a lot of what was discussed here previously under the topic focus on health, not weight. It profiles four runners of various weights. The first is a young woman who was a competitive runner through college. She was told to stay at a certain weight by her high school coach, who had no training in exercise physiology, because it was her “perfect running weight”. This happened to be her weight when she was 13! So at an age when girls should be going through a major growth period, she was trying not to let her weight go up. Fortunately, later on her better-trained college coach told her there is no perfect running weight and got her to eat more. But the damage was already done, she had gone for years with Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport ( RED-S ), and now at 38, still suffers from shin problems. To prevent RED-S, you definitely need ...

A good discussion on Clarence Bass’s website, “ Think Yourself Young “, and an article in the Guardian “ Can you think yourself young ?” called my attention to this topic. There has been quite a bit of scientific research indicating that the answer is “yes”, and conversely, with a poor attitude, you can make yourself age faster. It is not a small effect. For example, From the Ohio Longitudinal Study of Aging and Retirement, those who answer no to the question “Are people less useful as they grow older” will live on average almost 8 years more than those who answer yes. Salsa dancer Paddy Jones, the world’s oldest Acrobatic Salsa dancer, in her 80s. This fits with my experience. People I know who are cynical about aging do not age as well. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They have accepted the ongoing decline rather than treating it as something that can be fought off. Certainly, I continue to get slower with age. But I continue to find appropriate challenges to inspire me....

My meetup group did a two-hour plus hike at Rancho Canada Del Oro open space preserve. I rode my electric-assist recumbent to meet them, so between the ride and hike I did about 3 1/2 hours. I was pretty wiped out afterward but had a good time. Rancho Canada Del Oro backs up against Calero County park, there are many miles of trails available. It’s amazing how remote you can get this close to San Jose City limits. We did a little over 6 miles with 1400′ elevation gain. At the highest point of the hike, there is a great 360 view here. The highest peak behind us is Mt. Hamilton (4265 feet), you can’t quite make out the white buildings of Lick Observatory because there was a bit of fog not burned off Calero Reservoir in the distance below Nice single track, with lots of Oaks and Madrones Group effort at a slippery creek crossing. I was pleased to not be balanced-challenged here so able to help, I guess my balance exercises are working Some of the wildfires in bloo...

I have just completed an ebook “Healthy Aging and Long Healthspan” and made it downloadable here . Pretty much all of the material in it appears elsewhere in the blog, but it can be hard to track it all down, even though I’ve tried to organize my blog with the “contents” tab. So the book is intended to consolidate useful information, and I hope it will serve as an introduction for new readers. Enjoy! I’ll be modifying the main menu so an “ebooks” tab appears. I intend to add ebooks on other topics in the future. from BionicOldGuy https://ift.tt/foJVSr7 via IFTTT

More motivation to stay active as we age so we don’t fatigue easily… Health Secrets of a SuperAger How fatigued certain activities make an older person feel can predict the likelihood death is less than three years away, according to research published in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences by University of Pittsburgh epidemiologists. It is the first study to establish perceived physical fatigability as an indicator of earlier mortality. Older people who scored the highest in terms of how tired or exhausted they would feel after activities were more than twice as likely to die in the following 2.7 years compared to their counterparts who scored lower. Fatigability was assessed for a range of activities using the novel Pittsburgh Fatigability Scale . Photo by Vlad Cheu021ban on Pexels.com “This is the time of year when people make—and break—New Year’s resolutions to get more physical activity,” said lead author Nancy W. Glynn, Ph.D., associate professor in the ...

Today was my first group ride since my vertigo incident in December. I was cleared to ride a few weeks ago, but my favorite group rides on Tuesdays and up till now I’ve always seemed to have Doctor visits interfering. I’ve finally made it through that and it was nice to be back. We rode about 30 miles, mostly on the Coyote Creek trail, then went for lunch to the grill at the Coyote Creek golf course clubhouse. It was a great day, but super windy on the way out, which gave us a nice tailwind on the way back. Rest Stop at Coyote Creek Visitors Center Smokie, the mascot kitty on the hearth at Coyote Creek Clubhouse from BionicOldGuy https://ift.tt/0Gbr2u8on via IFTTT