After Nora, my first child, was born I was terrified of hurting her. She was so small and so cute. I wouldn’t even let my husband walk with her in the jogging stroller until she was “older." I never gave him a definite age he could put her in the jogging stroller and kept saying, “When she’s older.” I finally felt comfortable with her in the jogging stroller when she was six months old.  
 
Fast forward to my second child, Asher. After I’ve realized that children won’t break at the drop of the hat, I was very curious why some people say to wait eight months before running with a baby. I wanted to do more research for myself and took to the Internet. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of scientific research out there on when to run with a baby in a jogging stroller. What my searches were pulling up was Internet gossip on baby forums. So I decided to make a list of reasons why Internet gossip said you can’t run with a baby in a jogging stroller.  I then took each of these ‘reasons’ and researched what was needed to cause them. For example, one woman said you couldn’t run with your baby in a jogging stroller because it would cause a detached retina. So I researched whether a detached retina was possible. If so, what conditions are needed to cause it? My research uncovered that a detached retina is possible, and the force needed to cause it was equivalent to shaken baby syndrome.

by Angel 

Are you a numbers person? If so, tune in…you might enjoy this.
I recently had the opportunity to do an Active Metabolic Assessment. The goal of this assessment is to find out how your body burns fuel and how to make it burn more efficiently during your workout. From this assessment, you will gain data such as your VO2 Max, what your workload is in each target heart rate zone, how many calories you burn per minute in each heart rate zone, and whether they come from fat or carbs.
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I scheduled the appointment, nervously. I am going to run on a treadmill wearing what? This beauty right here…

The process itself was not as terrible as I had anticipated. There is no right or wrong; you just do your best. I got to pick my cardio…the treadmill, naturally. The gist is that you run (or whatever you opt for) until exhaustion, increasing your pace every two minutes until you simply cannot go any longer. During this time, you are wearing the mask that measures your oxygen consumption and a heart rate monitor. You also are providing feedback on your level of perceived exertion (think smiley face chart at the doctor’s office).
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Once complete, I went for a snack (because I had to fast for this) while the trainer completed his end of the data. I returned to a lovely print-out of how my body functions at various levels of exertion. This information provides you with an idea of how hard you need to work in order to efficiently burn fat, how hard to work in order to increase endurance, what levels are ideal for recovery days (for instance, my current ideal recovery pace is 11:19)…a whole lot of concrete information in one little chart. 

The VO2 score shows how much oxygen your body can use at once. This can be an important tool in training if you are trying to increase speed and endurance. While your muscles can be trained to move quickly, you must have the oxygen circulating to fuel the muscles. The higher your score, the more speed and endurance potential your body has.

Your VO2 capacity can be increased through various methods of interval training. One example is to do hill repeats; the hills need to be a couple of minutes long. Complete a warm-up jog for about 10 minutes. Run up the hill for 3 minutes, recovery jog downhill, and repeat four to six times. During the uphill interval, you are pushing hard, breathing hard (this would be Zone 3 in the Metabolic Assessment). You want the effort to be difficult but not all out.  

These numbers are helpful because some of us don’t know exactly how to manage a workout (raising my hand…that’s me!).  Some workouts may call for running at percentages of max speed, 30 seconds faster or slower than average pace, or lots of other numbers that are difficult to measure based on feel. The results of this assessment are interpreted through heart rates, perceived exertion, and actual speed…you can use any of these that you are able to measure when you apply this to a workout. For instance, I know about what my exertion level is when I am running a 10-minute mile. I know that I am working at about conversation pace, and I am comfortable. I now know that this is the pace at which I most efficiently burn fat. So, if I don’t have a Garmin or heart-rate monitor with me, then I can run at a comfortable pace, and hit my target for fat-burning mode. When I need to work on speed or increasing endurance, I will insert intervals in the higher zones of effort like the hill workout described above. This can also be helpful if you're training for a triathalon or cross-training due to injury. The same data applies to workouts in the pool, bike, or other medium for cardio exercise. ​
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What does all of this mean? It means there is another tool out there to help you take the guesswork out of your workouts. It helps you get familiar with your own body. It’s more information you can have should you want it (at a cost of course, at least $100 you’ll shell out at a local gym). While it’s certainly not necessary, I find it kind of fun…but I’m one of those numbers people. I feel like I have personal information to tailor my workouts for various results.
 
Have any of you tried this out? Please, please share! We would love to know how it was for you, did you find it helpful, and have you seen desired results from knowing this information?