Workouts

SARASOTA, Fla -- It's finally here. After 10 days of workouts and instrasquad games, the Orioles get to see another uniform. The Grapefruit League season opens this afternoon with a 1:05 p.m. game against the Twins at Ed Smith Stadium. Gate will open at 11:05. In advance of the opener, Sun columist Peter Schmuck and I talked a little bit about what to expect from the first few Grapefruit League games. (See video above.)

When the NFL owners' lockout was first announced, there was fear that some of the league's biggest players would get bigger, because they wouldn't have the discipline to remain fit without the various mini-camps. But the Ravens' Haloti Ngata has shrunk. The giant defensive tackle out of Oregon has lost 25 pounds, down to 325. He is faster, stronger, quicker and poised to have a third straight Pro Bowl season. And the strike has helped. "I've used the time off to spend more time with my family," said Ngata, who is living Salt Lake City.

Carol Chidester of Edgewater was a swimming coach to her final days.Chidester, the Navy Juniors senior age-group coach who died Monday at age 49 after a long battle with cancer, was directing workouts as recently as three weeks ago. She worked with Navy Juniors head coach Mike Schofield for nine years and previously coached summer youth teams for more than 10 years."

Most workouts are built on the concept of getting fit, but they often lack a certain edge that distinguishes them from other routines. Jazzercise — a mixture of dance, resistance training, Pilates, yoga and kickboxing — combines exercising with an element rarely incorporated into workouts: fun. According to Jazzercise member Karen Slack, the added fun helps make make it "a great experience and an awesome workout. " How it got started: Founded in 1969 by Judy Sheppard Missett, Jazzercise is a global program that holds classes in over 30 countries.

When I'm feeling myself getting sick, is it all right to hit the gym? If so, what kind of exercise is best? Should you run a marathon when you're feeling under the weather? Definitely not. But should you hole up in bed, pull the covers over your head and avoid the gym altogether? Nope. Unless you're running a fever, light to moderate cardiovascular exercise can actually help your body fend off a bug. Easy workouts on the treadmill, bike, stair climber or elliptical trainer are all potential immune-boosters.

Defensive end Pernell McPhee cleared up the mystery regarding his absence in recent offseason workouts, conceding that he has been dealing with an injury. But McPhee said the setback won't prevent him from being ready to participate in next month's training camp. “I'll bounce back,” he vowed. McPhee collected six sacks in his rookie campaign last season, and with the departure of starter Cory Redding, McPhee is competing with third-year player Arthur Jones for Redding's old spot.

The day after you exercise intensely, expect to feel sore and unable to exercise as comfortably as you did the previous day. Will you recover faster by exercising at a relaxed pace or by taking the day off?You recover faster from a particularly hard workout by taking the day off, but athletes training for competition don't usually do that. They exercise at a relaxed pace because it helps their muscles handle harder workouts in the future.Training for all sports involves the hard-easy principle.

AFTER SIX DAYS of poring over heights, weights, medical reports and drug tests and asking thousands of questions, NFL executives and coaches still need more information about the nation's top college football players. They couldn't get it done at the scouting combine that ended Monday night in Indianapolis. It seems the nation's elite took the advice of their agents, and a lot of them chose to take the physical examinations and engage in 15-minute interviews but skip the workouts because of the private ones they will schedule later.

It's probably safe to say that Charles "Chaz" Chester, a 48-year-old trial lawyer from Bethesda, is the only vice chairman in the history of the Governor's Council on Fitness to have done more than 40 triathlons. He's definitely the only state appointee who attends Tuesday night track workouts at the Gilman School in Roland Park. "A lot of this involves getting out of your comfort zone," says Chester. Way out. It's like being back in gym class, building speed and healthy bodies the old-fashioned way: by zipping around in circles, by alternating full-throttle runs with brief rests or cruise-control jogs.

Perhaps by 8 tonight, Shaun Livingston's young life will get a sense of regularity back to it and he'll know where the next three to four years of it will be spent. If nothing else, a month's worth of running, literally, from one NBA practice gym to another will stop long enough for Livingston, a 6-foot-7 high school guard from Peoria, Ill., and a host of other hopefuls to learn their immediate fate. On this day, less than a week before tonight's draft, Livingston paused outside the Washington Wizards' practice court at MCI Center to ponder the toll the pre-draft process has taken on him. "It's real cutthroat out here," Livingston said.