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No,
the headline is not about what you think it is. It's about a variation
in weight-training technique that increases the intensity of your
workout and stimulates greater muscle growth. Regular readers
of this column may recall my mentioning that it is useful to keep
varying your exercise routine. In the past Treadmill has talked
about super-setting and circuit training. Super-setting involves
doing a set each of two exercises that target the same muscle
group with no rest in between, while circuit training is a non-stop
series of sets of different exercises for different muscle groups.
Supersets and circuits both increase the intensity of workouts
but there's another way of boosting your workout: strip-sets.
If you're tired of doing the same workout day after day or seem
to have reached a plateau where you aren't able to see improvements,
it may be a good idea to shake up your routine with a few weeks
of a stripping schedule.
You could say stripping is super-setting
with a twist. Also known as drop-sets, supersets involve weight
stripping through the course of a set. Here's how it works. You
start bench-pressing with a weight that you can lift 10 times.
Do 10 repetitions of presses; then have a partner take off some
of the weight as you continue doing more reps. Say, you begin
with a 25-lb plate and two 10-lb plates on either side of the
bar; do as many reps of presses that you can till failure; now,
get someone to strip off one 10-lb plate and, without stopping,
do as many reps as you can; then get the second 10-lb weight off
and carry on; repeat the process with the 25-lb weights stripped
off by bench pressing till failure with just the unloaded barbell.
Thus, what happens in stripping sets is that the muscles are subjected
to repeated failure. The typical cycle goes like this: a series
of presses followed by muscular failure, followed by another series
of presses with reduced resistance followed by muscular failure
and so on till the lifter can barely hold up an unloaded barbell.
The basic idea of a stripping set is the
same as that of a super-set: to keep the targeted muscles working
at one's relative maximum intensity for a prolonged duration.
Relative because growing fatigue as you proceed through the set
will prevent you from working at your absolute maximum level-for
example, if you can lift 45-lbs for a maximum of 10 reps, you
cannot possibly do 20 unless you reduce the weight you're lifting.
So, in a stripping set, you are challenging your muscles to work
as hard as they can for as long as they can, thus providing the
greatest stimulus for them to grow stronger.
As you may have guessed, stripping sets can
be exhausting sessions. That's why a day's workout involving stripping
sets has few exercises. For instance, if you're targeting your
chest muscles on a particular day, you may need to do just two
exercises-say, an incline bench press and a flat bench press.
If you're targeting your back muscles on another day, you may
do just bent-over rows and lat pull-downs. That may seem like
not too much work in the gym, but give it a try and you may then
think otherwise!
-Muscles
Mani
write to musclesmani@intoday.com
Caveat: The physical exercises described
in Treadmill are not recommendations. Readers should exercise
caution and consult a physician before attempting to follow any
of these.
ALL
ABOUT SINUSITIS
Have
you ever had a cold or allergy attack that persisted for weeks
together? The symptoms of bacterial sinusitis often mimic those
of colds or allergies, and many sufferers never see a doctor for
proper diagnosis and treatment.
What Is It: Sinuses are moist air
spaces within the bones of the face around the nose. Sinusitis
is the swelling and irritation in sinuses due to bacterial, fungal,
viral, autoimmune or allergic infections. These infections usually
follow colds or bouts of allergies. Sinusitis can be acute (going
on less than four weeks) or chronic (going on for eight weeks
or more).
Symptoms: Symptoms of sinusitis include
headache, toothache, facial pain, loss of sense of smell, heaviness
in upper jaw, and occasionally a high fever. Says Dr A.K. Monga,
Senior ENT Consultant, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital: "Sometimes
sinusitis produces a swollen face followed by a stuffy nose and
thick discharge of mucus." Swelling and watering of eyes
is a serious sign.
Causes: The infection can occur in
nose, throat, and upper respiratory tract. Says Dr Monga: "The
disease is frequently caused by allergy from poor air quality,
changes in temperature, dehydration, polyps and obstruction in
nasal cavity." However, using decongestant nasal sprays for
long time can also cause sinusitis.
Treatment: Antibiotics and steroid
inhalers may be used as first line treatment. While an affected
person can also opt for a breakthrough treatment, known as balloon
sinuplasty, which opens sinus cavities the same way doctors open
clogged arteries in a balloon angioplasty. "It is important
to allow the mucus to drain adequately. Steam inhalation with
eucalyptus oil may help reduce the problem," adds Dr Monga.
Nasal surgery (known as septoplasty) is resorted only in severe
cases.
-Manu
Kaushik
PRINTED
CIRCUIT
(Home) Movies For All
youtube.com
 Web
2.0 is what it's all about today, we are told by net-gurus. An
easier way of expressing it would be that the net today is all
about interactivity, all about creating content, and all about
sharing it. Higher bandwidth capabilities of carriers and cheaper
storage rates are the two things that have made the Web 2.0 revolution
possible. A recent Web 2.0 offering is YouTube (www.youtube.com).
This has the potential to be to videos, what Flickr was to pictures
(like Flickr, it's free too). What YouTube allows a person registered
on its service to do is to upload any digital video (it supports
several formats); it then converts the video and plays it through
a Java-based video player which allows anyone, anywhere in the
world, and with a reasonably 'decent' internet connection watch
it. There's more: users can embed videos from the site onto their
blogs or websites. The site doesn't allow porn or copyrighted
matter to be uploaded, but you could very well use it to upload
the video of your marriage, so those cousins of yours who couldn't
come down from the US can view it (and you don't need to hog bandwidth/inboxes
mailing it to everyone personally). Today, almost all mobile phones
priced over Rs 10,000 come with a video camera, so YouTube can
change the way people share or consume entertainment.
Register for free at: www.youtube.com
 Cheap
Shot
Sahara 5SC1
Going
digital is getting better and cheaper. South African hardware
price warrior Sahara Computers, which has been present in India
for some time has introduced a digital camera, the 5sc1, which
boasts a resolution of 8-megapixel. Now, eight is quite a bit
for a standard point-and-click digicam. At Rs 14,999 it really
isn't expensive. Then, if you knock Rs 3,000 off the price you
can get a fairly reasonable 6-megapixel camera from Sahara as
well.
Sole-food
iSquuze
 No,
this doesn't have 'sexual harassment' written
all over it. Instead, we're talking about a new toy from
osim (the guys who make that nice massage
chair) which gently rubs your feet and ankles and
also doubles up toning your calves. If your feet
are dog-tired, they could appreciate the iSquuze.
It is quite a nice way to chill out after a hard day,
but the price is a steep Rs 22,000.
 Double
The Pleasure?
Sony Vaio VGN-SZ18GP
You can get a
laptop that does everything this one does for quite a bit less
than the Rs 1,24,900 sticker price on this Sony Vaio machine.
That said, the sz18gp comes loaded with a Centrino Duo Core processor,
dvd writer, Biometric security, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and over five
hours of battery life (the downside is that it has a smaller 13.3-inch
screen). Then, you don't buy a Sony Vaio just because of its features,
you also buy it because it's a Sony Vaio, which means that it
is über-cool. On that front this machine does not disappoint.
-Compiled by Kushan Mitra
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