Training with Tim

There’s no denying it. It can really suck to leave your house and work out in the winter. You know what also sucks? Working out when it’s 95 degrees and humid. The point is there’s always going to be reasons not to work out. Don’t let the weather be one of them. “Just don’t make excuses,” says Lonnie Watts, program manager for group exercise with the Milwaukee YMCA. “If you are serious, be serious.” You can find more on this topic in (ahem) the new issue of Milwaukee Magazine. In the meantime, here’s some tips and ideas from Lonnie to…

The headline is self-explanatory – give or take a few dozen gifts. For this list I consulted a wide variety of friends, acquaintances and semi-strangers, a few of which I caught up with after they appeared in past Training with Tim columns. Let’s do this: Krista, Running shoe store manager 1) A Nike+ System for your iPod. “I got one last Christmas. Love it.” 2) A box of Gu energy gels 3) Some good socks. “FitSox are fabulous” 4) A bike trainer. “For sure.” 5) The Brooks Element Jacket. “Also fantastic.” 6) “Two words: FOAM ROLLER.” 7) Subscription to Runner’s…

My name is Tim and I’m a Tweeter. Over the last seven months, I’ve used the social network Twitter to connect with more than 600 others (and counting) who share my interests ranging from running to T-shirts to craft microbrews. We swap advice, ambitions, idle thoughts, occasionally what we had for lunch. All as long as it’s 140 characters or less. It’s like speed networking, but virtual. This is all part of that phenomenon called Web 2.0. According to that bastion of digital age information, Wikipedia, the term Web 2.0 describes new trends in Internet technology and design that aims…

I just finished reading a fascinating article about an eccentric code programmer who is trying to embed philosophy into video games. His games aren’t anything like the super-realistic blood splattering that’s become the norm in a $40 billion industry. They are short, simple pixelated story lines based around all-important choices. They have names like Regret, Immortality and Passage. Subtle themes are revealed to the player over the course of these games. These are revelations they had a hand in creating. “Here’s a game that made me cry,” declared one game designer at an influential video game conference. “It did. It…

My arms will not stop quivering. I’m still feeling the effects of a mere 16 minute workout, even though it was more than two hours ago. It rushed past in a blur of grunting, groaning and total muscle failure that comes back in flashes. But afterward I clearly remember my friend Graham sprawled out on his back saying he didn’t feel well. How did it come to this? How could such a short workout cause such…devastation? It started when a friend sent me a photo of a guy drinking a beer while doing a pull-up at a place called CrossFit…

Growing up, Matt Scott wanted to be just like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley or Isaiah Thomas. In other words, he was just like any other kid. I remember being absolutely convinced that I was going to make the NBA when I was growing up – before reality kicked in. Except Scott refused to give up on those hopes when others told him to grow up. And guess what? Matt beat the odds and is now a new professional basketball player. He also happens to be in a wheelchair. “Some may think that a kid growing up with a physical disability…

Just because she’s into yoga doesn’t mean Shari Comstock won’t plant you on your ass. There’s definitely two sides to her: There’s the intense Brewcity Bruiser known as Romaniac who thinks it’s fun to “ram into people.” And there’s the calm yoga devotee who strives to “live life more fully with more awareness of my body, mind and emotions.” Seriously? “They balance me out,” Shari tells me. “The two are very different in nature and I wouldn’t want one without the other.” Shari’s season just began with the Bruisers, whose next match is on Dec. 6th at the Milwaukee County…

I’ll admit it, a yoga studio was the last thing I expected to find in Alabama. But there it was, just a stone’s throw from the stuffed ‘gator heads and fried po’ boys of the National Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The place I stumbled upon, David’s Gallery & Yoga Studio, was the first licensed yoga studio in the state of Alabama. The center is a combination head shop, tattoo and piercing parlor, psychedelic t-shirt shop and, tucked away in the attic, a tiny yoga studio. How could I not try a class in this setting? And so I…

My workout is deeply flawed. And, no offense, but so is yours. I’m paraphrasing this thesis from A.J. Jacobs, who wrote an Esquire article exploring the deep-seeded biases, insidious fallacies, illogical assumptions, poorly or not-at-all thought-out habits and other garden-variety irrationalities of his unconscious brain. “It’s scary when you start to scrutinize it,” he writes. “Probably 90 percent of our life decisions are powered by the twin engines of inertia and laziness.” Sure, he wasn’t talking about workouts. Still, the article was eye-opening. No more merely going through the motions. I must rid my routine of prehistorically ingrained inefficiencies. I…

Great news! The economy sucks.No, really. A recent article in the New York Times suggests that a nation’s health may actually improve in times of economic downturn.The theory basically boils down to this: In boom times we’re busy working, stressing about our schedule and living it up when we’re not working. It’s like that Modest Mouse song “The Good Times are Killing Me.”Conversely, when the economy is bad we get back to basics like exercising, taking care of ourselves and our family and cooking at home instead of eating out. Like the old saying goes, “At least you have your…