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For
those who find running outdoors impractical-lack of a proper jogging
track or a park, bad traffic on the roads, air pollution or plain
bad weather-a treadmill is the best indoor option. But there are
some common errors in treadmill running, errors that can cause
or increase the risk of accidents and injuries. The obvious difference
between running on a treadmill and running on the ground is that
in the former you are moved by a belt in motion. It is from this
that the commonest mistakes can occur. Here's a dos and don'ts
list for running indoors:
Don't lean forward. In treadmill running,
keep your body upright because unlike running on the ground, you
don't need to lean forward because the belt of the treadmill pulls
your feet backward. Keeping your body upright and not leaning
forward helps you to avoid keeping your feet in contact with the
belt for too long-a mistake that can make you trip and injure
yourself.
Always run at an incline. Running with a
zero inclination on a treadmill is the same as running downhill.
Set the inclination at between 1 and 3 to simulate running on
the ground. That way you not only burn more calories but also
get the most out of your workout on the treadmill.
Run/walk faster. Whether you run or walk,
on a treadmill you should set the speed a bit faster than if you
were running or walking over ground. The reason is simple: you
don't have to overcome wind and air resistance indoors like you
have to outside. So to get the same effect on calorie burning,
you ought to move a bit faster. How much faster? Well, anything
between 0.5-1 kmph, perhaps. But the best way is to find your
own rhythm over time.
Monitor your heart-rate. As a rule you shouldn't
exceed 75 per cent of your maximum heart rate (mhr). A simple
formula for calculating your maximum heart rate is: mhr=220-XY,
where XY is your age. Some suggest a separate formula for women:
mhr=200-XY. A common mistake is to crank up the speed on a treadmill
to the point where you have to cling on to the side bars while
running or walking. That is neither safe nor desirable as it can
make your heart rate shoot to dangerously high levels.
Be in control. While running or walking on
a treadmill you should stand erect and swing your arms as you
would over ground. Speed and incline should be under control;
you should not be forced to run or walk faster than what you can
do comfortably; your shoulders should be relaxed and your gaze
should be upwards and not looking down at the display.
-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.
SIX
WAYS TO BEAT STRESS
No
matter what job one holds, stress is that unwanted "perquisite"
that comes along with it. But with smart habits, one can lead
a healthy life. Here's how:
Get enough exercise: Exercise improves
blood flow to the brain, bringing additional sugars and oxygen
that may be needed during deep thinking. Try to breathe in and
out gently through the nose. Your upper chest and stomach should
be still, allowing the diaphragm to work more efficiently.
Sleep well: Says Dr Rajashekar Reddi,
Senior Consultant, Max Super Specialty Hospital, New Delhi: "A
good night's sleep allows you to tackle stress better. Lack of
sleep can leave you feeling sluggish, irritable, forgetful, making
it difficult to concentrate." Sleep for 7-8 hours every night.
Eat right: "A well balanced diet
is crucial for preserving health and helping reduce stress. Eat
foods rich in antioxidants (like vitamins A, C and E). Drinking
too much coffee, tea, or coke can amplify stress levels,"
says Dr Reddi.
Massage therapy: Massage relaxes tense
muscles, eases stress, relieves pain and usually helps people
to sleep well. It also helps you keep your temper under control.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation: This
is a deep relaxation technique based on the simple practice of
tensing, or tightening, one muscle group at a time followed by
a relaxation phase to release tension. It can be learnt by anyone
and requires only 10 to 15 minutes of practice everyday.
Watch your posture: Says Dr Reddi:
"A good posture cuts back strain on your body muscles."
Squeeze your shoulder blades together and down to strengthen upper
back area. Also, keep the computer monitor at eye level so you
don't have to look up or down too much.
-Manu Kaushik
FLOTSAM
A Blogging Unconference
India's biggest blogging meet had the feel
of a college fest-cum-corporate jamboree, writes Vaishna
Roy
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| Bloggers are not as famously uncommunicative
outside their PCs as I had once thought. In fact, they seem
to quite revel in all the attention |
A crowd of geeks,
showing unusual animation outside the virtual world, is waning
and waxing excitedly in one corner of the large auditorium. I
wonder idly if a new super-pc has just been unveiled. But no,
I see emerging the short, dapper, familiar figure of Sunil Gavaskar.
The cricket legend has managed to endear himself to these geeks
with his latest cut-a cricket podcast on Yahoo India. And he has
just finished his talk at blogcamp.in.
Billed as India's biggest "blogging
unconference", the event, held on September 9-10, has the
feel of a college fest-cum-corporate jamboree. As the autograph
hunters and coffee-drinkers straggle back towards the centre,
the next talker comes on. Most in the audience are equipped with
laptops. Many are logging in live accounts of the session on to
their blogs. As for the rest, one end of the auditorium is lined
with a bank of pc terminals, provided free by Sify, the broadband
sponsors of the event, and a stream of participants is moving
in and out of this zone. Several are clicking on digicams or phones
for instant uploads.
I move around, peering at notice boards bandaged
with yellow Post-its announcing speakers and sessions. At an unconference,
anybody can speak at any time, but so many want to that the organisers
are forced to ask them to take short 10-15 minute sessions only.
Bloggers then are not as famously uncommunicative outside their
PCs as I had thought they were. In fact, they seem to quite revel
in all the attention. Well, of course, a blog is a public diary
after all, that lovely oxymoron spawned by the internet.
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| Medianet: Start-ups promote products
at the unconference |
The room is crawling not just with bloggers,
but also with a large complement of start-up promoters, who are
here to promote their products. There are representatives of blogstreet.com,
an Indian site along the lines of digg.com, an aggregating service
that lists blogs based on viewer votes. Then there's Zoho, which
provides bloggers with easier widgets. Says Venkat, 24, a blogger
since last year: "I am here to learn how to use my blog more
and how to podcast."
Bloggers have come down from all parts of
India. There's Aparna from Kolkata, who not only blogs on newsmericks.com,
where she makes up limericks on news items but also has a Bengali
language blog called khola jaanla (open window), and she talks
about the technical problems faced by regional language bloggers.
The variety in profiles takes me by surprise: Ashwan, 27, is a
science professor from Mumbai who passionately follows science
blogs across the globe. Sandhya is a 19-year-old Chennai student
who writes her own blog and also earns pocket money by contributing
to chennaiist.com, a group blog run by New Jersey-based Jai Shankar.
Then there's Sriram, 26, an employee of Cognizant and amateur
composer who blogs on films and music. He wrangles a 10-minute
slot for himself and introduces blogswara, where amateur lyricists,
composers and singers collaborate on music.
Phew... I had heard blogs were buzzing, but
this is still a surprise. I sit in on sessions, catch speakers
when they are done, talk to bloggers between clicks. Then, I tentatively
pop into the second, smaller, venue on the first floor where the
tone threatens to be more technical-PHP, Mysql, Ajax, SEM... duh....
Thankfully, while I am there the sessions are fascinating and
non-tech. Particularly riveting is a talk on open content strategy,
by Prayas Abhinav from Creative Commons. It seems to distil the
essence of the net-why what you share is what you are. He is talking,
for instance, of several people from across the globe, cinematographer,
actors, director and a guy with money, collaborating online to
make a movie. He's talking of the problems of copyrighted cultural
material, of open content licences like Creative Commons, which
has moved from the 'all rights reserved' era of traditional copyright
to the 'some rights reserved' era of the net; of the legal issues
involved and the growing number of open content projects in India.
Hands are up for questions, and the debate hots up.
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| Sponsored@Sify: Bloggers file live accounts |
Meanwhile, it's lunchtime, and I am chatting
with Amit Agarwal from Agra, whose talk the previous day I had
missed and whose biz card instructs you to google him on the "I'm
feeling lucky" button. Amit has a son named Google, and has
given up a career as programmer to take up professional blogging...
Yup, he earns his living this way...
After an ice-cream, I can concentrate better
on what Osama Manzar has to say. Representing the Digital Empowerment
Foundation, Delhi, Manzar's mission is to find how ICT can be
used to connect meaningfully with people, including in rural areas.
"I am always on the lookout for the latest on the digital
information front," says Manzar.
The biggest sign that blogcamp has arrived
is the very visible presence of Yahoo India. As one of the show's
largest sponsors, not just are its executives all over the place,
Managing Director George Zacharias is also floating around, escorting
Gavaskar, hob-nobbing with bloggers, keeping an eye on the competition.
Zacharias, himself an anonymous blogger, says of Yahoo's interest:
"The key is to find ways to support people who are trying
to expand the net market in India." Zacharias reads about
40 blogs a day, and often gets the latest info and news from here.
In eminently correct fashion for an unconference,
nobody is laying claim to being 'organiser', although one imagines
a team of dedicated Chennai bloggers (Kiruba? Varun? Sunil?) has
been killing itself getting the show on the road. That's as it
should be. As I prepare to slip back out to the unvirtual world
of traffic jams, I can already hear them saying things about moblogging.
Google it?
PRINTED
CIRCUIT
Faking It
The E61 offers great
e-mail plus the voice quality and ease associated with Nokia.
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| Nokia E61; Price: Rs 21,249 |
The
first thing that you think when you see an e61 for the first time
is: when did Blackberry start making phones in colours other than
black. And then you notice the surprisingly small Nokia logo at
the top. One would have thought that with so much space, Nokia
could put in a bigger logo; after all even in the downright el
cheapo phones, the Nokia logo just screams out. Or maybe, this
phone is just screaming out to be mistaken for something else.
But there are just enough hints to realise
that this phone is not a Blackberry. It isn't that rounded for
one, and the straight keyboard layout feels rather awkward to
the regular Blackberry user, used as he is, to the slightly tilted
keys for easier two-thumb operation.
That said, when you take a look at the Blackberry
8700, you will realise the inspiration. Then, there are the few
extra keys here and there, including that now familiar menu button
and some other familiar Nokia touches. Nokia has of late not been
averse to "inspired" designs for its phones (the 3250
looks a bit SonyEricsson-ish, for example); after all, several
of its own designs and its killer user interface were copied by
so many other companies.
But looks are only skin deep. How is the
e61 to use? Well, for a person not exactly overly fond of "qwerty"
keypad phones, the e61 is not half bad. But I've become so used
to its sibling, the Nokia 6708, that switching over to the e61
was worse than changing cigarette brands.
I fumbled around, trying to set up the e-mail,
and to its credit, the phone does come pre-configured for some
of the most popular free e-mail services. I set up my Gmail operation
and despite a few hiccups, courtesy a congested network, I finally
managed to send a mail from my phone. Yay! But, honestly, with
access charges as usurious as they are on my network, e-mail on
my handset didn't seem like a very good idea.
The e61, however, does have a few upsides,
not least of which is the good voice quality on the phone. The
second is the device's large and surprisingly bright 2.8-inch
screen, something which, on the wider format of the e61, looks
really nice. Somehow, I began thinking "Mobile TV",
but that is just daydreaming-at least till the regulatory issues
are sorted out.
Now, there is a very good reason that the
e61 looks like a Blackberry. Your service provider (right now,
only Airtel) can set up Blackberry Connect on your e61. And then,
you suddenly realise why the e61 was developed. There are enough
people across the world who want e-mail on their phones, even
if I do not count myself in those ranks, and in some cases, they
even want Blackberry. But they are paranoid about giving up their
Nokia handsets (I know that feeling).
Blackberry devices have poor-to-downright-awful
voice quality; several people I know carry a Blackberry for e-mail
and another device for voice. The e61 is that device that offers
the best of both worlds, Blackberry's addictive e-mail service
on a Nokia handset.
However, what is really funny is that a week
or so ago, Blackberry actually launched its first candybar phone-The
Pearl-which is slimmer and more attractive than any Blackberry,
including the 7130. It comes with a camera and from all reports,
it has very good voice quality as well. Bring it on!
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