H.E.A.T. Blog

Photo Credit: Cynthia "TLC" Reilly

In hilarious sports news, here's a great NPR piece on one man's search for the "world's dumbest competition." Named Sports Writer of the Year eleven times, ESPN's Rick Reilly traveled around the world in search of sports that are "dumb to everybody except to those people who actually played them" for his new book, "Sports from Hell." What he found (and also actually participated in) were games including:

• The World sauna championship -- Are you willing to let your inner organs boil? Players in Finland stepped into a sauna set at 261 degrees. The person who stayed the longest won(12 minutes, in the case).
• The rock, paper, scissors championship -- In Las Vegas and Toronto, there are actually "professional rock, paper, scissorists" who use serious logic and instincts to predict what another person will throw. There's even a world RPS president.
• The Chess boxing championship -- This game (pictured above) consists of two guys boxing, then the ref brings in a waterproof chessboard. They both whip off one glove and play speed chess for 4 minutes, then go back to boxing, then go back to chess, and so on. (Picture blood all over the chessboard.)

• The defacto world target-vomiting championship -- These people drink food coloring, run a mile, paddle a surfboard a mile, chug a 6-pack of warm beer in 15 minutes and then projectile vomit on a specific target (like a bystander's elbow or chest. Says Reilly, it looked like a "fire hydrant out of Willy Wonka."

For more details on your new favorite "sport" -- or to find out the rules so you can suggest that we incorporate chess boxing into the next Saturday workout, read the rest!

How much coffee do you drink every day?

Nothing tastes better than your first cup in the morning (why do you think I always show up to camp, Starbuck in hand?!), but apparently the black stuff has been tricking us all these years. According to a new study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, even though 8 out of 10 adults admit to drinking coffee (and reveling in its life-giving effects), it turns out that caffeine doesn't really give us the jolt we crave. It basically just gets us back to zero after a night of caffeine withdrawal.

Though it's technically not an addiction, caffeine dependence can cause you to get a headache when you try to quit cold-turkey, as well as make you jittery when you drink too much. But despite all this, the health experts still say we can keep our java. (We were going to anyway). A little caffeine -- 3 or fewer cups a day -- can actually boost the power of painkillers and treat migraines. So pour yourself some more and read the rest!

With the long weekend coming up, I'm sure many of you will get in at least a few workouts (as well as a little partying) before I see you again. Keeping that in mind, I thought it was a good time to discuss stretching, a commonly overlooked but really important activity that can prevent injuries, make you faster and stronger, and even make you feel better.

Think about it this way: Whether you've worked out or not, every day you bend, sit, walk and repeat many of the same movements over and over again. Studies have shown that regular stretching -- versus the occasional stretching I'm guessing a lot of you do -- reduces your chances of developing repetitive stress syndrome, keeps your joints limber, helps you find muscle imbalances, and relieves stress. Stretching is for every day! {Read the rest}

If you're like a lot of people -- especially if you're young -- you probably don't think much about your cholesterol. The thing is, your cholesterol level (which is reported in milligrams of cholesterol per deciliter of blood, or mg/dL) is a good indication of whether your diet and exercise regimen is working for you.

This month's issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter looks at how lifestyle choices can affect "good" and "bad" cholesterol levels. The article doesn't say all cholesterol is bad (it actually helps with digestion and hormone production), but too much cholesterol can narrow blood vessels and put you at risk for heart attacks and all sorts of other icky things. Being active and eating foods that are low in cholesterol -- and high in fiber -- can make a big difference to your body.

The point isn't that you should be in your doctor's office every week asking for a reading, but it's definitely a good idea to get it checked every once in a while, and it helps remind us that the choices we make on a daily basis are affecting more than what we see in the mirror in the mornings. For more info, read the rest -- or check out another great article on the top 5 foods that will help lower your cholesterol.