Fitness Reads: Let’s NOT move? Smart T-Shirts?

What did the SNEWS team read that other industry insiders might find interesting? Read on to find out.

• In case you were wondering if young people are engaging in the recommendations of the Let’s Move campaign the answer is — not really. According to this story, only one in four kids aged 12 to 15 meet the hour or more of daily moderate to vigorous activity recommendation. This is a trend to be concerned about, experts say.

• There are a lot of myths about CrossFit. It’s so popular and all the people depicted in CrossFit promotional items are super fit and cut, so naturally it seems intimidating to people who might not be so fit. This story breaks down all the common misconceptions of CrossFit and assures readers that it’s for everybody, not just the workout beasts.

• T-shirts that can measure your heartbeat, remind you to pick up the kids and tell you if you need a drink of water are coming and undoubtedly will invade the outdoor and fitness industries soon. The Wall Street Journal takes a peek into the future at the Consumer Electronics Show. 

• Apparently heavy and lean females have a different reaction to images of exercise, according to this New York Times story. A recent study found that our attitudes toward exercise are shaped by our weight, so the leaner we are, the more pleasant we find exercise and the heavier we are the less desirable exercise is to us. The study also found that the overweight women believed exercising would result in embarrassment.

• It’s never too late to start strength training. The author of this story was influenced to research this topic after he read a story on a 98-year-old man who got into strength training after his wife died. The article reports that whatever your age, you can increase your muscle mass and reap the benefits of strength training. Some of those benefits, especially for older folks, include lowering cholesterol and blood pressure.

• Hitting the weight room is intimidating for some people — especially those of us severely lacking in bulging muscles or off-the-charts levels of testosterone. Those people are sometimes runners. This Competitor story stresses the importance of strength training for runners, including injury prevention and efficiency, and gives them some tips on how to navigate a strength workout on the same day as a hard run. The mantra is to keep your hard days hard and your easy days easy.

• Fitness trackers seem to be all the rage, but which one is right for your customers? This Time story recommends trackers that look and feel good, sync automatically and work with all your customer’s current devices. It also ranks the top 26 fitness gadgets on elements like price, smart rating, ease of syncing, battery life, compatible platforms and additional features. At the top of the list is the Fitbit Force.

• If your customers are looking for a treadmill to execute their New Year’s resolution, then check out this story that recommends the top treadmills from 2013. The article gives love to the Landice L7 and the LifeSpan TR1200-DT5 for those customers who want to multitask while walking.

• We recently got over a nasty stomach flu complete with muscle aches that kept us away from our daily routine for a day. It looks like we made the right decision, according to this story, which reports if you work out when you’re sick you might be doing more harm than good. Working out with minor cold symptoms, like runny nose and sore throat, is ok, but exercising with anything below the neck, like body aches or chills, will prolong the sickness and keep you out longer.

• The Christian Science Monitor is recommending some products that won’t cost your customers a ton of money. Some of the products recommended in this story include a yoga mat, a medicine ball with handles, resistance bands and a set of weights, among other things. Now you know what products to highlight in your New Year merchandising.

Did you read anything awesome this week? Email us because we want to read it, too.