Interesting...hiking up a hill and down a hill are different

Bob M wrote:
||
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/diet.fitness/01/07/exercise.ups.downs.ap/index.html
||
|| The synopsis: "The researchers were surprised to find that hiking
|| downhill removed blood sugars and improved glucose tolerance, while
|| uphill
|| hiking mostly improved levels of fats called triglycerides."

I know from walking hilly terrain that difference muscles are definitely
involved. In fact, I find when doing down hill that it is often more
difficult to do as you don't need your butt muscles much and the fronts of
your calfs take a beating. It seems like it takes a lot more concentration,
too, to keep up any pace when doing downhill.

One of hte ways I do my HIIT is to walk quickly up one side of a steep hill
and then down the other, then back up and back down, repeatedly for 20
minutes. I get good blood sugars and really low trigs (under 50 in fact),
while low carbing.

Bob M wrote:
||
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/diet.fitness/01/07/exercise.ups.downs.ap/index.html
||
|| The synopsis: "The researchers were surprised to find that hiking
|| downhill removed blood sugars and improved glucose tolerance, while
|| uphill
|| hiking mostly improved levels of fats called triglycerides."

I know from walking hilly terrain that difference muscles are definitely
involved. In fact, I find when doing down hill that it is often more
difficult to do as you don't need your butt muscles much and the fronts of
your calfs take a beating. It seems like it takes a lot more concentration,
too, to keep up any pace when doing downhill.

One of hte ways I do my HIIT is to walk quickly up one side of a steep hill
and then down the other, then back up and back down, repeatedly for 20
minutes. I get good blood sugars and really low trigs (under 50 in fact),
while low carbing.

Bob M wrote:
||
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/diet.fitness/01/07/exercise.ups.downs.ap/index.html
||
|| The synopsis: "The researchers were surprised to find that hiking
|| downhill removed blood sugars and improved glucose tolerance, while
|| uphill
|| hiking mostly improved levels of fats called triglycerides."

I know from walking hilly terrain that difference muscles are definitely
involved. In fact, I find when doing down hill that it is often more
difficult to do as you don't need your butt muscles much and the fronts of
your calfs take a beating. It seems like it takes a lot more concentration,
too, to keep up any pace when doing downhill.

One of hte ways I do my HIIT is to walk quickly up one side of a steep hill
and then down the other, then back up and back down, repeatedly for 20
minutes. I get good blood sugars and really low trigs (under 50 in fact),
while low carbing.

Roger Zoul said:

I know from walking hilly terrain that difference muscles are definitely
involved. In fact, I find when doing down hill that it is often more
difficult to do as you don't need your butt muscles much and the fronts of
your calfs take a beating. It seems like it takes a lot more concentration,
too, to keep up any pace when doing downhill.

Retarding acceleration is usually more difficult, and more athletic, than
increasing acceleration.

One of the best tests I use for determining explosive movement capabilities
is the ability to absorb not generate force. Or, more specifically, to make
the transition between force absorption-generation limiting time and loss
of energy.

Your attention may be drawn to the concentric contractions in these two
movements (up/down) but the entire system is stressed.

MU wrote:
|| On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 12:08:05 -0500, Roger Zoul wrote:
||
||| I know from walking hilly terrain that difference muscles are
||| definitely involved. In fact, I find when doing down hill that it
||| is often more difficult to do as you don't need your butt muscles
||| much and the fronts of your calfs take a beating. It seems like it
||| takes a lot more concentration, too, to keep up any pace when doing
||| downhill.
||
|| Retarding acceleration is usually more difficult, and more athletic,
|| than increasing acceleration.
||
|| One of the best tests I use for determining explosive movement
|| capabilities is the ability to absorb not generate force. Or, more
|| specifically, to make the transition between force
|| absorption-generation limiting time and loss
|| of energy.
||
|| Your attention may be drawn to the concentric contractions in these
|| two movements (up/down) but the entire system is stressed.

Good points.

This is interesting. Anyone in VT/NH? come join me for a hike!

--
Diane

"Roger Zoul" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

MU wrote:
|| On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 12:08:05 -0500, Roger Zoul wrote:
||
||| I know from walking hilly terrain that difference muscles are
||| definitely involved. In fact, I find when doing down hill that it
||| is often more difficult to do as you don't need your butt muscles
||| much and the fronts of your calfs take a beating. It seems like it
||| takes a lot more concentration, too, to keep up any pace when doing
||| downhill.
||
|| Retarding acceleration is usually more difficult, and more athletic,
|| than increasing acceleration.
||
|| One of the best tests I use for determining explosive movement
|| capabilities is the ability to absorb not generate force. Or, more
|| specifically, to make the transition between force
|| absorption-generation limiting time and loss
|| of energy.
||
|| Your attention may be drawn to the concentric contractions in these
|| two movements (up/down) but the entire system is stressed.

Good points.

Different types of exercise affect fat and sugar metabolism
differently.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FIT-Exercise-UpsDowns.html

Downhill Exercise May Be a Good Thing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 7, 2005

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- If exercise is too much of an uphill battle, you
may
want to try the downside. A novel study of hikers in the Alps made the
intriguing discovery that different types of exercise had different
effects on fats and sugars in the blood.

Going uphill cleared fats from the blood faster, going downhill reduced

blood sugar more, and hiking either way lowered bad cholesterol.

Both types of hiking are beneficial, but one may help diabetics more
than the other, said Dr. Heinz Drexel of the Academic Teaching Hospital

of Feldkirch, Austria, who reported the research at a recent American
Heart Association conference in New Orleans.

His was a most unusual study, involving steep mountains and lifts at a
ski resort.

``If you think about this in practical terms, it's pretty hard to
imagine how any human being could just go one way and get back to where

they started unless they happen to live near a cable car, which was
used
in this study,'' said Dr. Raymond Gibbons, a cardiologist at the Mayo
Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who had no role in the research.

Still, Dr. Gerald Fletcher, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in
Jacksonville, Fla., said the findings could be applied in the real
world: People who work in office buildings, for example, could take the

stairs one way and the elevator the other, depending on what their
exercise goals were.

Hiking uphill is concentric exercise, where muscles are shortened,
which
happens when you bend your arm or step upward. Going downhill is
eccentric muscle work, such as extending your arm or actively resisting

stretching, which happens when you step down.

The Austrian researchers tested both forms of exercise on 45 healthy
people who normally exercised very little. For the study, the
participants took three to five hourlong hikes each week. For two
months
they hiked uphill and rode the ski lift down. The next two months they
took the lift up and hiked down.

Their blood sugar and cholesterol levels were checked before the study
started and after each two-month exercise segment. They also were given

tests to see how quickly and well their blood removed fats and sugar
after each exercise phase.

The hikers made no changes in their diets, so that the effects of the
exercise could be isolated.

The researchers were surprised to find that hiking downhill removed
blood sugars and improved glucose tolerance, while uphill hiking mostly

improved levels of fats called triglycerides.

This could be good news for diabetics, who often have trouble with
concentric and many types of aerobic exercise, Drexel said. They may be

better able to tolerate downhill hiking, and may get more out of it,
too. It also might be a good way for people who do not exercise now to
get started, Drexel suggested.

One problem with going downhill a lot is pressure on the knees.
Fletcher
said more gyms need exercise machines that work downhill muscles
without
stressing knees.