Muscles

As technical director of the annual Boston Marathon, Dave McGillivray spends every race day dashing from one crisis to the next. Then as nightfall nears and his duties are wrapped up, he heads back to the starting line, checks the knots on his shoes and begins his own run along the 26.2-mile course.Bothered by Achilles tendinitis in both heels, McGillivray needed 4 hours and 31 minutes this year to complete his 99th marathon. Among the 100 or so people there to greet him was his massage therapist, with a table set up right there at the finish.

A dry mouth, creaky knees and muscle soreness that lasts for three days. These are signs the body wasn't meant to run a marathon, said Dr. John Senatore, chief of podiatry and a sports medicine physician at Union Memorial Hospital. That may be affirmation for couch potatoes, but the number of marathons and the number of people willing to run 26.2 miles keep growing. About 410,000 people finished one of about 300 U.S. marathons last year, up from 25,000 three decades earlier, according to Running USA, a group that promotes fitness and tracks trends.

You say you're ready to step up your fitness program? Well, strike while the iron -- or, more accurately, the temperature -- is hot. Summer is the ideal time to take your walking to a higher level.Walking remains one of the best aerobic activities around. Inexpensive, easily accessible and low impact, walking can provide a terrific cardiovascular workout for individuals of all ages and fitness levels.To add a little more oomph to your workouts, try the following tips:* Shave a few seconds off your per-mile pace.

As temperatures continue to drop, it becomes even more important to warm up properly before your workout and stretch adequately after. Maintaining your flexibility is a key component of injury prevention.A proper warm-up lasts from five to 10 minutes and should include gentle movements that gradually raise your heart rate and resemble the movements you will be doing more vigorously later on.When your workout is complete, your cool-down should include plenty of stretching. However, poor technique can actually leave you stretching the wrong muscles -- and straining to do so.The following tips will help you reap the maximum benefits from your flexibility exercises.

The letter, unsigned, showed up in a local newspaper last month. Its stark message stung Betty Ann Krahnke: Isn't it time Krahnke gave up her seat on the Montgomery County Council?"

Successful basketball teams normally are built upon pressure defense.So even though young Centennial lost 58-44 to Westminster yesterday, the fact that the Eagles created 25 turnovers by the Owls left the home team feeling it had done a lot of good things and that down the road it will start to put together more complete performances.Nevertheless, the visiting Owls, with no starters back from last season, scored their first win of the winter after two losses.They towered over the Eagles in a 1-3-1 zone with 6-6 Nick Hoehnwarter (14 points)

Give Dylan Schlott an opportunity, and it's over.Whether it's a close-range shot or a spot in Johns Hopkins' starting lineup, Schlott simply takes control and finishes the job.Just zip a pass in front of the goal and observe Schlott at work. Don't worry about the defenseman with his stick in Schlott's chest. And the other defender behind him is irrelevant.Muscling past a stick in the throat and a hit to his back, Schlott focuses on the catch and powers in another goal for the No. 3 Blue Jays.

ONCE THE barbell appeared in the basement it was only a matter of time before there was a chin-up bar wedged in an upstairs doorway. That is the way things can go in a household when fitness strikes. One piece of muscle-building equipment tends to attract another. You know members of your household are in this stage of life when their conversations begin to be sprinkled with words like "pecs," "lats," "quads" and "abs."These, I am told, are muscles that, if worked sufficiently, will become strong and firm and prominent.

What could be more frustrating? You trained hard even when you didn't feel like it. You ate for peak performance. You were at the top of your physical game. Then, wham! Immobilized by injury. There isn't an athlete or fitness buff alive who can't relate to President Clinton's no-golf, no-jogging, fear-of-weight-gain agony.For a fitness-oriented adult like the president, sudden consignment to a sedentary lifestyle means he should cut 700 calories a day from his diet because of the inactivity.

When their 30-year-old son was diagnosed with a debilitating illness, Ed and Alana Combs might have had a brief minute of self-pity, but it faded quickly.The Westminster couple immediately went to work, trying to raise the $150,000 needed to pay for an experimental treatment that could prolong life and advance research into Becker muscular dystrophy. The progressive, genetic disease usually affects young adult men, destroying muscles and eventually the lungs. Life expectancy is about 40 years.

Christina Marie Morganti, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine with the Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Center, explains "tennis elbow" - also known as lateral epicondylitis - and how to take care of it. * "Tennis elbow" is a tendinosis of the wrist and finger extensor muscles that occurs where they originate on the outside of the elbow. This area is where the tendons of the four to five muscles on the back of the forearm coalesce into one "common extensor tendon." Similar to this is "golfer's elbow," or medial epicondylitis, which refers to tendinosis of the wrist and finger flexor muscles on the inside (medial side)

Many athletes train by the old concept of "no pain, no gain," and now sports apparel company Under Armour thinks it has a way to make that pain go away a little faster. The Baltimore company is introducing a first of its kind, two-piece body suit this summer that it says will help athletes and exercise enthusiasts recover more quickly from the aches and pains caused by tiny tears in the muscles that follow a strenuous workout. The fitted, long-sleeved suit, which covers the body from chest to foot, is to be worn for 24 hours after a workout and pushes excess water from the muscles and into the bloodstream to reduce swelling and help the micro tears heal more quickly.

The holiday season brings plenty of reasons to celebrate and with them the temptation to eat and, perhaps, drink a little more than is wise. As we all know but sometimes forget, drinking too much inevitably leads to headaches, loss of energy and generally feeling rotten. But there's only one sure way to avoid a hangover, says Tyler Cymet, a doctor of osteopathic medicine and an emergency room physician at Northwest Hospital. And we know what it is, don't we? Is alcohol something that people should avoid?

What better time than fall, with its cool, crisp weather, to begin an exercise program that includes walking? Indeed you can walk your way to weight loss and better health, says Kelly Sullivan, a physical therapist with Physiotherapy Associates at the Merritt Downtown Athletic Club. But, as with any new exercise program, it pays to take a few precautions so that you can avoid injuries. What are some of the benefits of walking? Walking is low impact, particularly in comparison to other cardiovascular exercises.

Back pain is the bane of millions, but some simple exercises might help prevent and alleviate those aches and twinges. These maneuvers don't just target the muscles surrounding the spine; they also include the abdominal and oblique muscles on the sides of the trunk. Shoring up all the muscles around the back not only makes lifting heavy loads easier, it also allows for less pain during daily tasks such as gardening, getting in and out of the car or even sitting for hours in front of a computer.

Mashers are people who walk on your body to help work out stubborn kinks and knots. If you're five-time U.S. Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, your mashers are experienced massage therapists. But you might have an amateur masher like mine: a 30-pound preschooler who thinks it's fun to stand on your neck. Fortunately, the good old $20 foam roller can be an inexpensive alternative. These log-shaped tools, which cost between $18 and $40 and are generally 6 inches wide and 3 feet long, can help break apart adhesions in the connective tissue.

Ravens linebacker Robert McCune doesn't go to beaches. He usually doesn't wear tank-top or sleeveless T-shirts. Because when he does, it causes a lot of commotion. McCune has earned a lot of nicknames from his teammates. Some call him "Swoll," short for swollen. Some call him "Rock." Others call him "Herc" or "Muscles." In a business in which bodies are chiseled and molded every day into human mountains, McCune probably has the best in the NFL. There are estimates that he has only 6 percent to 8 percent body fat. Even his muscles have muscles.

A dry mouth, creaky knees and muscle soreness that lasts for three days. These are signs the body wasn't meant to run a marathon, said Dr. John Senatore, chief of podiatry and a sports medicine physician at Union Memorial Hospital. That may be affirmation for couch potatoes, but the number of marathons and the number of people willing to run 26.2 miles keep growing. About 410,000 people finished one of about 300 U.S. marathons last year, up from 25,000 three decades earlier, according to Running USA, a group that promotes fitness and tracks trends.

So, your body never quite got ready for bathing suit season. Be glad for second chances: Fall yardwork has arrived. Lurking in every overstuffed gutter, stranglehold of weeds, mountain of leaves and unwinterized swimming pool may be the keys to a buffer bod. Richard Johnson of Center Moriches, N.Y., knows something about this kind of seasonal shape-up. "I have a new home, so I've been working since spring, trying to get this place presentable on the outside," he said. But Johnson, 54, is not your average hose-heaving homeowner.

So you spring out of bed, eager to meet the day, but a sharp pain -- which seems to shoot straight into your heel -- stops you in midstride. Ouch. It's enough to make anyone want to go straight back to bed. According to Dr. Stuart Miller, a foot and ankle orthopedic sub-specialist at Union Memorial Hospital, the diagnosis could be plantar fasciitis -- an inflammation of the plantar fascia, a band of tissue that extends along the bottom of the foot from...