Game for learning? Not Monday morning in the Pittsburgh schools

Game for learning? Not Monday morning in the Pittsburgh schools

Steeler Nation, as we all know, is no nanny state. So why do Pittsburgh Public Schools students need a two-hour delay the morning after the Super Bowl?

The reason, the district said, is "for the safety of our students."

A spokeswoman said Thursday, "As you know, with the Super Bowl comes a lot of Super Bowl parties and such. We just feel it's best not to have our students out very early with people who have been up late." The people she was referring to were those "on the road who may be out early after having a very late night."

While some Pittsburghers have been known to celebrate a Super Bowl victory with excessive gusto, it's easier to imagine their recklessness in public between midnight and 2 a.m. than at 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. We can't help but wonder if the real reason for canceling the first two hours of class Monday is to give adults -- parents, teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria staff, etc. -- more time to get on their game face for work. If so, for shame.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11036/1123120-192.stm?cmpid=news.xml#ixzz1DHfLfVcW

Sports are games of space, time and relationships.

The Steelers and all our sports teams are hard workers, and sports teaches us that. But it is also a prime teacher of and platform for building relationships. We are Pittsburgh. We know Coach Tomlin. We feel for the players and the team and the organization and the city and the region and each other. This is a time to travel, to network, to be in community. And this time and these lessons are not presented every week nor every lifetime.

We take an extra two hours to insure that we value and invest the relationships of community.

Then there is one other reason. Those that work hard, rest hard. Recovery is part of the wellness factors. To study and learn in school, we have to be prepared.

The NFL gives the teams an extra week to prepare for the SuperBowl. We can provide an extra two hours to prepare for the Monday classroom. That's our time to shine and we want to be there -- ready to do the heavy lifting of learning.

I'm glad we had an extra two hours today. Next time, I'll ask for a two and a quarter hours -- just for good measure as I'm still running a tad late.

Go to school!

Colin Delany's book on politics and use of the internet

Colin wrote:

I just put out a completely updated version of the Epolitics.com Online Politics 101 guide to using digital tools to, well, change the world! The new version (2.0) has 22 chapters covering the tools and tactics of online politics (including a new one on Twitter), and is rewritten from beginning to end to reflect the changes in online advocacy since 2008. Since initial publication in 2006, the earlier versions have been downloaded over 50,000 times and have been used as a roadmap by campaigns around the world. Best of all, it's free! More info:

Blog post with announcement and details
http://bit.ly/e1KhPr

Direct link to the PDF download page (the guide can also be browsed by
chapter on Epolitics.com)
http://bit.ly/fezMzb

Obviously, please help spread the word! Pass it along to anyone you think might benefit -- that's what it's here for. Oh, that and to give people a reason to buy me drinks.

Colin Delany
Epolitics.com -- dissecting the craft of online political advocacy
http://www.epolitics.com
cpd -at- epolitics -dot- com
http://www.twitter.com/epolitics
202-xxx-xxxx - cut by blogmaster.

Education Week: An Open Message to President Barack Obama

Education Week: An Open Message to President Barack Obama

President Obama, when you were elected in 2008, teachers, parents, and most of us with an abiding faith in the public school envisioned a new era of school support and renewal in accord with the hopes and promises engendered by your election campaign. Instead, the centerpiece of your education program so far, the Race to the Top, reinforces, expands, and intensifies the No Child Left Behind Act of President George W. Bush and the America 2000 manifesto of President George H.W. Bush—all of which have embraced nationalized high-stakes testing as the instrument of accountability imposed upon children and teachers.

Another challenger for Kraus

Another challenger for Kraus

The slate is getting crowded for Bruce Kraus's South Side City Council seat.

Kraus is already getting challenged for the Democratic nomination by SS Chamber of Commerce president Gavin Robb. Yesterday Democratic committeeman Jason Phillips joined the fray, saying in a statement that the "crux of his campaign focuses on our need to fix our roads, improve snow and ice removal from our secondary street, pick up garbage, demolish blighted homes, eradicate graffiti and most of all, provide Police, Fire and EMS services to our residents. Mr. Phillips invasions a City Council tenure where constituent services rank highly."

The Inflation Intifada: Hunger And Revolution In The Third World - Jerry Bowyer - The Great Relearning - Forbes

The Inflation Intifada: Hunger And Revolution In The Third World - Jerry Bowyer - The Great Relearning - Forbes

The point is that with economic power comes economic responsibility. With the status of economic super-power comes the burden of economic super-responsibility. The U.S. dollar, at least for now, is the reserve currency of the world. When we explicitly tinker with its value we implicitly tinker with the currency values of the world. When we force food into gas tanks, large swaths of the world starve. When western elites fiddle, the cities of the world burn with revolution.

Thinking about the Pittsburgh Promise

Wouldn't it be nice if the kids that graduate from Pittsburgh Public Schools (or Pgh Charter Schools I guess) that attend out-of-state universities for undergraduate education (and hence can't get Pittsburgh Promise funding) could:

+ Use the Pgh Promise for grad school (Medical, Law, Dental, etc.) within PA. Pay up to $10K per year to not exceed $40k.

+ Use Pgh Promise funds for home ownership of primary residence within the city if under the age of 30. Pay up to $10k per year and not to exceed $40k total.

I'd rather see the students that attend out-of-state schools get the same funding as those that attend in-state schools, but the above options mentioned above seem to push for the desired results and offer another level of 'gracious fairness' to the formula.

Diocese to sports fans: Behave yourselves

Sportsmanship concerns: Diocese to sports fans: Behave yourselves

Diocese to sports fans: Behave yourselves
Thursday, February 03, 2011
By Kaitlynn Riely, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Parents and coaches in the Pittsburgh diocese's 100 Catholic elementary schools received a letter recently warning that those who do not control their tempers would be banned from Catholic school sports.

The letter, written by Ronald T. Bowes, assistant superintendent for public policy and development and the athletic director with Pittsburgh Catholic Schools, was prompted by two recent though separate incidents in the diocese's Catholic school basketball league.

Without going into detail, Dr. Bowes' six-paragraph letter mentions "serious incidents" that involved "conduct unbecoming Catholic school students, coaches and parents."

In a phone interview Wednesday, Dr. Bowes declined to name the elementary schools involved but said that in both incidents one student accused another of using a derogatory term. The two incidents involved separate teams and separate players, and after the accusations were made, parents and fans yelled and argued.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11034/1122594-455.stm#ixzz1CuC6M62A

Meanwhile, in other sportsmanship news in Pittsburgh, we've got this action on the ice.

Goalies fight between the blue lines.

Fate of Civic Arena debated

Fate of Civic Arena debated

Franklin Toker, an architecture professor and the author of "Pittsburgh: A New Portrait," argued that the arena "is, historically, the most representative building now standing in the city of Pittsburgh," more so than the Cathedral of Learning, the county courthouse or the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

He said the arena's planning and construction "coincided exactly with the most exhilarating, most creative and most ambitious moment this city has ever known: the Pittsburgh renaissance."

Read more: http://post-gazette.com/pg/11034/1122591-53.stm#ixzz1Cu8yZh2V

Go Professor Toker!

Egyptian army starts rounding up journalists: News24: Africa: News

Egyptian army starts rounding up journalists: News24: Africa: News

Friday, is designated "departure day" for Mubarak.

Good spam

Spam was something to eat, and it wasn't the worst we'd get. But, those were the good old days. Here is some spam that is a message from the old folks to the youngsters.

If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd

Meeting Notice for nonprofits doing open source software for Saturday

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: "Terence J. Golightly" <vze27hs6@verizon.net>
Sender: wplug-announce-bounces+mark.rauterkus=gmail.com@wplug.org
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2011 22:39:22
To: mark.rauterkus@gmail.com<mark.rauterkus@gmail.com>
Reply-To: Announcements only <wplug-announce@wplug.org>
Subject: [wplug-announce] Meeting Notice

Hello,

WPLUG is hosting a general user meeting on Monday February 7th from
6:30pm until 8:00pm at the Panera Bread on Centre Ave. in Shadyside.
This meeting will be a "Techno Salon" which is a small group discussion
forum about a current topic in Free Software. This Techno Salon topic is
"Free Software in use by Pittsburgh nonprofits and beyond". Special
guests will be Johnny Qwalick of Goodwill, Dave Sevik of
computereach.com and Susy Robison from The Homeless Children's Fund.
For more information about this meeting please click on the following links:

http://wplug.org/wiki/Meeting-20110207

http://wplug.org/wiki/Panera_Centre

Please rsvp to events@wplug.org. Seating is limited. Preference will be
given to Members.


Sincerely,


Terry Golightly
Vice Chair Your WPLUG
info@wplug.org



_______________________________________________
wplug-announce mailing list
wplug-announce@wplug.org
http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug-announce

Dallas dreams different sports dreams for the future.

------Original Message------
From: SI com Alerts
To: mark@rauterkus.com
ReplyTo: cnnalerts@cnn.com
Subject: 2004 Athens Summer Games News
Sent: Feb 2, 2011 4:34 PM



Alert Name: 2004 Athens Summer Games News

Frank Deford: Even during the Super Bowl, Dallas has its eyes on the Olympic Games
02/02/11 02:09 PM, EST
Even as Dallas bursts its buttons, hosting the Super Bowl for the first time in Jerry Jones' new American coliseum, the city has developed an even greater itch it wants to scratch.
Read the full story at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/frank_deford/02/02/dallas.olympic.games/index.html

______________________________________________________________________

Receiving too many alerts?
Visit manage your alerts to narrow your topic further. Add words or
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your delivery frequency to "daily" or "weekly" to receive your alerts to fit
your busy schedule. To edit your alerts, visit the manage alerts page:
http://audience.cnn.com/services/si/alerts/manageAlerts.jsp?source=si

______________________________________________________________________

2011 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company.
All Rights Reserved.


Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

EPLC Regional Workshops for School Board Candidates

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

---

From: Ron Cowell <cowell@eplc.org>

Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 18:07:47 -0500

To: Ron Cowell<cowell@eplc.org>

Subject: EPLC Regional Workshops for School Board Candidates

 

EPLC 2011 REGIONAL WORKSHOPS FOR SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATES

 

The Education Policy and Leadership Center, with the Cooperation of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) and Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO), will conduct A Series of Regional Full-Day Workshops for 2011 Pennsylvania School Board Candidates.

 

Incumbents, non-incumbents, campaign supporters and all interested voters are invited to participate in these workshops.

 

Registration is $40 and includes coffee/donuts, lunch, and materials.  For details and registration information, please go to http://www.eplc.org/SchoolBoardCandidateWorkshops.shtml

 

Philadelphia Region

Saturday, February 26, 2011 – 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, 1605 West Main St., Norristown, PA 19403

 

Lehigh Valley

Saturday, March 5, 2011 – 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Catasauqua Area School District, District Administration Office, 201 N. 14^th St., Catasauqua, PA 18032
(Organized by the Children’s Coalition of the Lehigh Valley)

 

Pittsburgh Region
Saturday, March 12, 2011 – 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Doubletree Hotel Pittsburgh/Monreville, 101 Mall Blvd., Monroeville, PA 15146

Harrisburg Region
Saturday, March 19, 2011 – 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Pennsylvania School Boards Association Headquarters, 400 Bent Creek Blvd., Mechanicsburg, PA 17050

 

Registration Fee - $40

Registration fee includes coffee/donuts, lunch, and materials.

 

AGENDA

8:00 a.m. – Registration & Coffee

8:30 a.m. to Noon – Morning Sessions

PART I – Legal and Leadership Roles of School Directors and School Boards

PART II – State and Federal Policies: Implications for School Boards

Noon – Lunch & Discussion

12:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. – Afternoon Sessions      

PART III – Candidates and the Law

PART IV – School District Finances and Budgeting

 

Register at http://www.eplc.org/SchoolBoardCandidateWorkshops.shtml

 

 

 

A guide to developing a local outcomes framework for culture and sport

A guide to developing a local outcomes framework for culture and sport: "A guide to developing a local outcomes framework for culture and sport

One of the modern challenges to public services is to be able to demonstrate that investment and action are improving people’s lives.

Culture and sport, perhaps now more than ever before, must demonstrate the contribution the sector makes to better outcomes for individuals, communities and places.

This web resource provides guidance for councils and their partners on how to create a local outcomes framework for culture and sport. This will help you measure and evidence the difference your service makes and its contribution to local priorities. It will also help you make the case for continued investment of public money."

I was the 10th person to view this video.

Goodbye for Uncle Douggie - a memorial

A Memorial - "Reflections Of Doug's Life" will be held at the Holiday Inn - McKnight Road - Thursday, Feb. 3rd from 1 to 3 p.m. Come share your memories of Doug Hoerth.

The above info came to me via the Lynn Cullen Facebook page.

Property Tax lawsuit in Philly

Dear Friends -- Below are links to today's Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer and Saturday's Philadelphia Daily News articles on the lawsuit we filed Friday afternoon on behalf of 18 property owners from throughout the City. If the links don't work, copy and paste them into your browser.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20110130_Group_sues_to_force_new_Phila__tax_system.html

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20110129_Group_sues_city_over_planned_property-tax_increase.html

As with any reporting, the articles reflect the views of the writers and cannot give a full picture, so I urge you to read the entire complaint when you get a chance. You can obtain copies of the 36-page Complaint and its exhibits by visiting www.FixPhillyTaxes.org and scrolling to the bottom of the webpage. If you have any trouble, email me and I can send the legal docs to you in pdf format.

You can help to keep the momentum going by forwarding this to your friends, colleagues, neighbors, neighborhood associations, civic groups, etc. and by clicking on the Inquirer article and writing a comment about the suit.

We have never claimed to have all the answers to the many tough policy questions that must be addressed in resolving the long-standing illegalities plaguing our beloved City's assessment system, BUT we have to got to talk about and face them in order to make progress. If nothing else, the lawsuit should help to kickstart and motivate these discussions.

Thanks for your support of this important reform effort.

Rev. Ken Metzner

Apples to Apples. Go figure

(posted by me at another blog in a thread about the SI article about Aliquippa.)

Think again.

The PIAA and high school sports are NOT about districts, but rather about schools (for classification only) and teams from schools and athletes from schools. The district is not REALLY a factor in athletics.

I am not mixing the apples and oranges -- nor making bad analogy defenses.

Team to team comparisons are what matters in sports the most, then it is school to school. District to district, not so much.

As per talk of ALL OF THEM -- as in All Schools -- then talk about the LEAGUES, the WPIAL, the District VIII, the PIAA.

"Do you think you are fooling someone?" No. Do you?

Teachers do not NEED to be faceless. It is a choice. Anonymous is fine. Posters don't need to be bullies either. What you surmise and what I do are different. BTW, I surmise that you are him too, but just with a different handle, again.

Ready....

Apples = students;
Apple bushel buckets = teams;
Apple trees = schools;
Apple orchards = leagues;

One orchard (DVIII) is right in the middle of another orchard (DVII = WPIAL).

The school district could be represented as various farmers with certain choices of fertilizers, ambitions and options. Some farmers might only have one apple tree. Others a few. Farmers would also have other realms to care for (say oranges, livestock, etc.).

Competitions in HS sports are among student to students and among teams to teams. That's apples to apples and bushels to bushels.

An orange, go figure, could be a musician -- or -- a student in a calc class -- or -- some fully different asset to a farmer.

The head farmer, say Farmer Lane, could choose to focus 100% of the efforts on the chickens, a stable of horses and other fields and gardens and leave the apples to their own -- out of sight, out of mind. Ripe, rot, no worries.

Meanwhile, we're still waiting for you to deliver some analogy and any value for moving the conversation in the wake of the SI feature.

Open Knowledge Foundation Blog Blog Archive � Open Public Data: Then What? - Part 1

Open Knowledge Foundation Blog Blog Archive Open Public Data: Then What? - Part 1: "We tend to assume that the opening up of public data will only produce positive outcomes for individuals, for society and the economy. But the opposite may be true. We should start thinking further ahead on the possible consequences of releasing public data, and how we can make sure they are mostly positive."

Interesting doping theory about a cyclist suspension

Posted on the Supertraining public list and worth repeating as a theory.

----
Clenbuterol

Posted by: "wreckless61a" Johan.Bastiaansen@pandora.be  

I don't know how much information about the Contador case got through to the US. But here's the rumour from Europe.

First of all, Alberto Contador was found to have very low levels of clenbuterol in his blood. The amount found was 400 times less than what a WADA accredited lab must be able to detect. It is strange that a lab used such an accurate and expensive test. Unless they had a reason.

Anyway, that's what he was accused of.

He then claimed it was a very low dose (true) and he got it from eating tainted beef that was wrapped in plastic. This was either given to him as a gift, or a cook bought it on the local market. Both explanations are highly unlikely, but what's interesting is the explicit mention of the plastic wrap.

The most likely scenario is this. Contador was using micro dosages of clenbuterol early in the season during training. Also he was tapping his blood to be used for blood doping later in the competition. Perhaps they had the blood tested but it wasn't flagged because of the low levels.

Riding the Tour de France he used this blood. The lab initially didn't find the clenbuterol. What they did find however were plasticizers in his blood, a sure evidence of blood being stored in plastic bags and injected in his bloodstream.

So now they knew he was dirty, but they didn't have anything to charge him with, since this test was not accepted by WADA.

That's when they turned around and took a closer look at his blood. And that's when the low levels of clenbuterol were found.

To me, this is a very likely scenario, because it explains why Contador mentioned the plastic wrap of the meat, and it also explains why the lab would use a test that is 400 times more accurate than required.

Regards,
Johan Bastiaansen of Hasselt, Belgium
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Fir for how long now?

The below may be of interest:
http://well. blogs.nytimes. com/2010/ 12/29/phys- ed-if-you- are-fit-you- can-take- it-easy/.

...a number of newly published studies offer compelling reasons to get out and exercise on the one hand, as well as new estimates of just how little we can do and still benefit on the other.

The most sobering of the recent studies, published last month in The British Journal of Sports Medicine, looked at a large group of retired elite male athletes, most now in their 50s. Some had remained physically active, although they were no longer competing. Others had taken fully to sloth, avoiding almost all exercise. When the researchers examined the health profiles of the two groups, they found, to no one's surprise, that the sedentary ex-athletes had a much higher risk of metabolic abnormalities, including insulin resistance, than their more active counterparts. Training hard and often in their youth had not conferred lifelong health benefits on the athletes as they aged, not if they now sat around all day.

Similarly, although in a more compressed time frame, a study published earlier this year found that when a group of world-class kayakers completely quit training (at the end of a competitive season), they rapidly lost strength and endurance. After only five weeks of not training, according to one measure of strength, they'd sloughed off about 9 percent of their muscular power and 11 percent of their aerobic capacity.In other words, being almost completely inactive, whether for a short or prolonged period of time, inexorably de-tones muscles and compromises health. The benefits of regular activity don't last long.

But there is a loophole. In these same studies, as well as others, relatively small amounts of activity allowed participants to maintain much of the health and fitness they had previously gained. In the kayaking study, for instance, some of the athletes didn't completely cease their training at the end of the season; they merely cut back, limiting themselves to one weight-training session and two endurance workouts per week (a fraction of their full-season training) and consequently lost barely half as much of their aerobic power as the kayakers who stopped exercising altogether. Five weeks "of markedly reduced training in a group of elite athletes seems effective for minimizing the large declines" in conditioning "that take place by completely stopping physical training," the authors wrote.Even more relevant to those of us who aren't world-class athletes (and aren't, therefore, likely to reduce our training to three sessions a week), a study just published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise suggests that visiting the gym only once a week may be enough for young and older athletes to hold onto past strength gains.

For the study, researchers with the University of Alabama at Birmingham recruited one group of adults in their 20s and 30s and another in their 60s and 70s and had both groups undertake a four-month program of fairly strenuous weight training, with thrice weekly, multiset sessions at the gym. By the end, all of the volunteers were dramatically stronger and had added considerable muscle mass.The researchers then randomly assigned the volunteers to different groups for the next eight months. One group quit all exercise. Another cut the number of their training sessions by two thirds, showing up at the gym only once a week. The final group not only reduced the number of their gym sessions to once a week, but completed only a third as many exercises during that session, for a total reduction in exercise volume to one-ninth.

At the end of the eight months, the groups' muscle size and strength varied markedly. The volunteers who stopped all exercise, whether they were young or old, had lost most of their newly acquired muscle mass, as well as a large portion of their strength. Those who'd continued to train once a week, however, had maintained much of their muscle mass, as well as their strength. The younger volunteers had even added muscle mass with the once a week full sessions (although not with the shortened bouts). Older volunteers hadn't augmented their muscle size during the maintenance routines, but they had lost little of their strength gains, even when their exercise volume was reduced to a ninth. A "once per week exercise dose was generally sufficient to maintain positive neuromuscular adaptations," the study authors concluded.

There are caveats to these encouraging findings, of course. You must have a baseline level of fitness to maintain, for one thing. Before they moved to the once-a-week routine, the weight trainers completed four months of three-times- a-week sessions. If you have no fitness base, resolve now to build one. The latest studies also did not pin down just how long you can maintain a reduced level of exercise, without the vestiges of fitness finally slipping away. The maintenance portion of the strength-training experiment lasted eight months; the kayaking study stretched only to five weeks. At some point, you probably have to return to a full exercise program. But for now, a little may be enough.