Following the leadership of metabolic specialist Jason Kennedy, Heart Zones Level 1 Certified Personal Trainer, ACSM Health Fitness Instructor, the Bellevue Athletic Club has joined other health clubs in America that have chosen Heart Zones Training as their club standard.

All personal trainers who work at the club are certified in Heart Zones Training. The club has grown its exercise fitness testing (metabolic assessment program using a VO2 testing protocol) using the Heart Zones Threshold training program.

All personal trainer sessions now include the application of the Heart Zones 10-Step Program, full-color threshold training charts are used in workout areas, and classes are taught using heart rate monitoring technologies. For more information on how to add Heart Zones Training programs to your health club contact Jocelyn Young, Director, Heart Zones Cycling and Heart Zones Personal Training. Telephone: (916) 481-7283; Email: staff@heartzones.com

Does technology or nature most improve the quality of our lives?

Curious if nature provides more relief from low- level stress, researchers at the University of Washington connected participants to heart rate monitors. They wanted to compare the cardiac response to nature with the response from technology.

The scientists had participants look out window at nature, look at same scene on a high-definition plasma screen or look at a blank wall. They then measured their recovery heart rates after each viewing. The results: Those who looked at nature through the window recovered the best. Looking at the television view of nature had no more effect than looking at a blank wall.

If you want to lower your stress, looking at nature great way. And don't be fooled thinking you can replace nature with technology - we can't live without nature. Replacing nature with television shows of nature or technological nature, doesn't replace the experience of nature.

The study detail shows the importance of nature in human lives and at least one limitation of technological nature. Technology is good. It can help our lives. But to thrive, we need to experience nature - sleep under the night sky, experience animals in the wild and feel waves crashing on a beach.

We each have some control over our futures by the actions we take now. When you intentionally choose joy and health, rather than allowing bad habits to rule, you've taken a big step forward for you and everyone you know. Answer these questions to test out how you feel about your commitment to living a healthy and active lifestyle:

• On the final day of your life, would you say that you had lived a mentally, emotionally and physically healthy life?
• On the final day of your life, would you say you helped to bring health and lightness into the lives of others?
• If your final moment were like running under the final finish banner of life, what would you like inscribed on the banner?

Take action today to live every day fully in order to intentionally create more joy and better health in your life.

Ready to improve your pacing on the bike, the swim and the run? One of the best ways to improve your speed is doing long interval workouts mixed with HIT or high intensity training. Long interval training or doing the "L Word" get you tons of aerobic improvement and burns tons of calories. You can do L Word workouts indoors on any piece of cardiovascular equipment - rower, Wave, elliptical, treadmill or outdoors.

• Modification: Modify your workouts by first decreasing or increasing the intensity by 5-10 percent or next by changing the duration of the workout by 10-20 percent in time.
• The letter "L" stands for long as in "long intervals" which is what you do on this run - long intervals.

• October 25, 2008 - Westborough, Massachusetts
• October 24-25, 2008 - Chesterfield (St. Louis), Missouri
• November 7-8, 2008 - Chicago, Illinois
• November 15, 2008 - Denver, Colorado
• January 24, 2009 - Sacramento, California

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