Weight Training

Free health fair to be held March 17 The Howard County Muslim Foundation will sponsor a free Community Health Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 17 at the Bain Center, 5470 Ruth Keeton Way, Columbia. More than 30 physicians, dentists and other health care professionals will provide information and clinical tests, including blood tests; mammograms; cancer screening; blood pressure monitoring; and screening for stroke, vision and glaucoma. Dental screening will also be available. Door prizes are planned.

LEO TOTTEN IS ONE enthusiastic person.His passion: weight training. His mission: to get you in shape, regardless of your age, shape or condition.Totten, a weight training coach for the 1996 U.S. Olympic Team and a competitor in weightlifting until recently, is athletic director at Francis Scott Key High School.He and Key football coaches Mike Coons and Carroll Seiler conduct a summer weight training clinic in the well-equipped weight room at Key.The clinic is sponsored by Union Bridge Area Recreation Council, and more than 150 attend the sessions to lift, grunt and groan to good health.

DETROIT -- The Orioles aren't getting older. They're getting buffed.Now in need of a fountain of youth more than a fifth starter, many of the defending American League East champions have committed themselves to finding the elixir inside the weight room.Joke at your own risk. The Orioles, who had the best eight-game start in baseball at 7-1, say that this year will be different. A lightning start will not be overlooked because of a geriatric finish such as last season's 13-16 September and six-game loss to a seemingly inferior team in the American League Championship Series.

Increasingly in the past few years, it has become easy to find the most dedicated athletes, regardless of their sport. They're in the weight room.Scientific, as well as athletic journals detail the advantages of weight training when done properly. More people are understanding how muscles are used in the performance of their sports.In the past, many people wrinkled their noses at the sport of weightlifting. Weightlifters attracted attention in Olympic years, but otherwise usually went unnoticed.

Alice Campbell has lost 10 pounds without dieting. Barbara Carr has regained 8 percent of the bone mass she lost after menopause. Golfer Cecille Friedler can now drive a ball 30 yards farther than before.What each of these women, ages 55 to 72, share is a twice-a-week weight-training class. As its benefits become known, older women are lining up at gyms to use free weights and weight machines that used to be considered strictly guy stuff.The number of women doing weight training doubled between 1987 and 1995, according to the Fitness Products Council.

The salesman argued that a pellet stove would save me from toting the firewood for a wood-burning stove."Strong women stay young," I retorted, "so I don't mind a little built-in activity."Before I started weight training, I'd have bought the easy-is-best routine. I had little energy, so I didn't want to waste any. Whether building a cozy fire, packing a picnic or doing daily chores, everything was too much trouble.Now that's changed. And research on the health of older adults backs up my personal discoveries.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- He'd play flag football, fall in a patch of dirt and that would be it. Another asthma attack. Another trip to the hospital. Another shot of adrenalin.This was life for the young Pete Incaviglia. He wasn't always a 230-pound slugger with a size-52 jacket. Heck, he might never have grown to those proportions if he hadn't started lifting weights at the age of 10.That's too young for most children, but Incaviglia's doctor and father saw it as the best hope for Pete to lead a normal childhood.

I have remained in good shape at age 66 by jogging regularly for the past 10 years. A recent magazine article indicated that I might benefit from adding weight lifting to my exercise program. Is that true?More and more studies have shown that sarcopenia -- loss of muscle mass -- is a common and serious problem that accompanies aging, and that this loss can be prevented and even reversed by weight training. In both men and women muscle mass peaks between ages 30 and 35 and then begins a slow decline.

They threw out all the stereotypes about girls not lifting weights or throwing the shot at Old Mill High long ago and got on with the business of winning indoor and outdoor track championships.When 300 girls and 736 boys signed up for weight training at Old Mill in 1988, the school was featured in the Bigger, Faster, Stronger national magazine with a two-part, 14-page article that appeared in back-to-back months.The article stated that Old Mill had more boys and girls in weight training than any high school in the United States.

On this side of the room, 100 teen-agers are huffing and puffing to the beat of the music, the smiles gone from their shiny faces.On the other side, a woman more than twice their age bounces and struts with ease as she urges the youngsters to keep up with her."If an old [person] like me can outlast them, that's saying something," says Charmaine Gordon, a veteran aerobics instructor conducting a class at Howard High School in Ellicott City.Although Gordon is light years away from being over the hill, what it's saying is that America's teen-agers need to get it together.

Football Undefeated Forest Park quietly leaving a 'legacy,' coach says With eight undefeated football teams remaining in the Baltimore area, there's sure to be one that gets overlooked. That one is Forest Park. The Foresters are quietly rolling along in Baltimore City's Division II, turning last season's 2-8 record into this season's 7-0 start. With no big stars and no huge victory margins, the Foresters are winning in true team fashion, and that's just the strategy first-year head coach Damon Bomar is looking for. Friday's victory over Southwestern was their closest yet, 18-12 in triple overtime.

At one point during summer 2007, the volume of mail arriving at Bailey Webster's Towson home so overwhelmed the postal carrier that she knocked on the door asking to meet the person getting so much mail. When the door opened, she met the No. 1 volleyball prospect in the nation, a 6-foot-3 powerhouse of a hitter for St. Paul's. More than 200 coaches initially recruited her, inundating her with letters and media guides. "At one point, we were getting 25 to 30 pieces of mail just for her a day, and that doesn't include e-mail," said her mother, Cedrina Webster.

Free health fair to be held March 17 The Howard County Muslim Foundation will sponsor a free Community Health Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 17 at the Bain Center, 5470 Ruth Keeton Way, Columbia. More than 30 physicians, dentists and other health care professionals will provide information and clinical tests, including blood tests; mammograms; cancer screening; blood pressure monitoring; and screening for stroke, vision and glaucoma. Dental screening will also be available. Door prizes are planned.

Peer Support Program seeking facilitators The SPRING Peer Support Program is recruiting peer facilitators for its group programs. SPRING (Senior Peer Resources, Individuals, Networks and Groups) groups provide a confidential, comfortable setting in which men and women share their concerns, insights and ideas. Programs are held at senior centers and other venues in the county. An eight-week series of weekly two-hour training sessions is to begin March 30. The volunteer facilitators will be placed in a group and must make a one-year commitment; they must also attend continuing training provided by SPRING.

What is the appropriate age for children to begin a weightlifting program? I have been told that if you start too early, it may stunt their growth. - Faye Sherman, Moorefield, W.V. DEAR FAYE / / I was raised in an atmosphere that didn't understand the value of weight training. My Dad shared a philosophy of the day that baseball players need "long, loose muscles, not short tight muscles." Obviously, as I got older I realized that this mindset was outdated and I, along with most everyone else, see the benefits of weight training.

Meg Harrington took the tortoise approach to fitness when she decided to shed pounds after her third child was born: She started slow, lifting weights, but not the traditional way. She is using a slow-motion training technique that she and others say is difficult, but effective at building muscle, promoting weight loss and developing strength. Her SuperSlow workout has produced results: She's 7 pounds lighter and 4 inches trimmer. "It takes every ounce of strength that I have," says Harrington, 39, a homemaker and business consultant in Sterling, Va. "After about six or eight weeks, I got to the point where I hated it, and it felt like labor, but you know, when my 18 minutes were up, I was really proud of myself."

Your teen-age son or, increasingly, daughter announces that he or she wants to start strength training - lifting weights, pumping iron. Many parents' instincts to feel alarm are correct, because lifting weights improperly can cause serious injury. But, according to two county physical education teachers with long experience in weight training, given basic instruction for the athlete and understanding on the parents' part of what is involved, working out with weights is not a bad thing.

LEO TOTTEN IS ONE enthusiastic person.His passion: weight training. His mission: to get you in shape, regardless of your age, shape or condition.Totten, a weight training coach for the 1996 U.S. Olympic Team and a competitor in weightlifting until recently, is athletic director at Francis Scott Key High School.He and Key football coaches Mike Coons and Carroll Seiler conduct a summer weight training clinic in the well-equipped weight room at Key.The clinic is sponsored by Union Bridge Area Recreation Council, and more than 150 attend the sessions to lift, grunt and groan to good health.

Increasingly in the past few years, it has become easy to find the most dedicated athletes, regardless of their sport. They're in the weight room.Scientific, as well as athletic journals detail the advantages of weight training when done properly. More people are understanding how muscles are used in the performance of their sports.In the past, many people wrinkled their noses at the sport of weightlifting. Weightlifters attracted attention in Olympic years, but otherwise usually went unnoticed.

DETROIT -- The Orioles aren't getting older. They're getting buffed.Now in need of a fountain of youth more than a fifth starter, many of the defending American League East champions have committed themselves to finding the elixir inside the weight room.Joke at your own risk. The Orioles, who had the best eight-game start in baseball at 7-1, say that this year will be different. A lightning start will not be overlooked because of a geriatric finish such as last season's 13-16 September and six-game loss to a seemingly inferior team in the American League Championship Series.