Fitness Reads: Yoga for turkey day detox? Strength training for kids?

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

• The answer to the age-old question of strength training versus cardio? Do both, according to the Mayo Clinic. This story also reports strength training helps increase bone density and focus in older adults. It raises your lean muscle mass, which makes it easier to maintain weight.

• Speaking of strength training, this article reports it should be the foundation of workouts in order to get faster. We’ve been pretty stagnant in the marathon personal record department, but since we’ve incorporated weight training this past month we’ve noticed we’re picking up the pace on run days so we’re believers.

• We’re probably all still waddling because we’re full of turkey. We’re also wondering just how much health damage we may have done with all that pie. It’s not too late to get back on track and drop some of that poundage before Christmas. Check out this story that reports every little bit counts — 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there might be all you need to avoid a holiday health disaster.

• In other turkey detox news, this story reports yoga is a great way to recover from T-Day. It gives you a step-by-step instructional guide on how to detox after the holiday by revamping your eating plan and incorporating cleansing yoga.

• The elliptical trainer has been popular since its inception, but there are common mistakes folks make while using them that detract from the workout. This Huffington Post story pinpoints those mistakes and tells you how to avoid them. The moral: If you can watch TV and not sweat while on the elliptical, you’re doing it wrong. OK, we admit! We did it wrong a few times last week, but in our defense we were into a really good book.

• You caught us. We’re wearing yoga pants right now … in our defense they’re comfortable and you never know when the urge for a lunchtime workout will strike. We feel a little better after reading this Daily Mail story that said yoga pants might be the new jeans. The story reports that the increased focus on living an active lifestyle and a fascination with fashion are leading to people purchasing more workout clothes — especially yoga pants. Even the top fashion designers have released lines of fitness clothing.

• Being relatively new to the world of yoga classes, we were happy to find this story on yoga etiquette and the rules all yogis should follow. Some of them seem like common sense, but we guess some folks need to be told not to walk their nasty feet over other people’s mats. Others, like not posting up in your favorite spot time and again and not laughing — even at yourself — were not.

• Last week we read a story about how kids these days are less fit than their parents were at the same age, but this week we found this hopeful story about how kids who participate in some form of strength training are more active. Though a contentious issue, there were no children injured in strength training group of the study. Make sure, though, to teach your children proper form and if you can’t to find somebody who can. Check out this strength training for kids guide.

• CrossFit is wildly popular, but there are people who will never embrace it and will find any way to stir up fear in and deter people from trying it. It’s dangerous, you’ve likely heard. Check out this story that has a rebuttal to that statement. The moral: People are just afraid of change and CrossFit is a different approach to fitness.

• For a long time, some ladies were fearful of weight lifting because they thought they might end up accidentally being mistaken for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s muscular twin sister. Fear no more. This story reports that strength training will just make us leaner versus bulky.

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