Latest news with #LehmanCollege
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘Do you even lift?': Just 30 minutes can make you stronger
Spending just half an hour of weight lifting a day twice a week can make you stronger, researchers say. The findings may help people who are hoping to make gains at the gym, but don't have all week to do it. Most Americans don't get enough exercise and just around half are meeting federal physical activity recommendations. Even fewer people meet suggested benchmarks for aerobic and muscle-building activities. Lifting can safeguard against heart disease and premature death. 'The main reason people give is time,' Brad Schoenfeld, a professor of exercise science at New York City's Lehman College, told The Washington Post this week. Schoenfeld is the senior author of the research, which was published earlier this month in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. The study looked at the progress of 42 healthy adult men and women between the ages of 18 and 40 over two months. Participants, who had already done some resistance training before, were sorted into two groups that trained to failure on all exercises and another who lifted until they were tired but could still probably squeak out a few more reps. Before the study, they had been doing at least two or three sets of every exercise during their workouts. They performed a single set of nine upper and lower body exercises that targeted all major muscle groups, repeating each move eight to 10 times. The exercises included the popular leg and chest press, Smith machine squats, bicep curls, seated cable rows, front lat pull-downs, and shoulder presses. Even with the reduced number of reps, they saw success, adding mass and strength. The changes were seen among men and women in both groups. Schoenfeld said it's 'quite likely' but not certain that their results could apply equally to older people and other groups, with benefits that continue past two months. To see similar swole results, people can substitute other exercises. The key is consistency, but Schoenfeld advises leaving at least one day between sessions. 'The message, I think, is to find one hour somewhere in your week,' he said.
The Independent
30-04-2025
- Health
- The Independent
‘Do you even lift?': Just 30 minutes can make you stronger
Spending just half an hour of weight lifting a day twice a week can make you stronger, researchers say. The findings may help people who are hoping to make gains at the gym, but don't have all week to do it. Most Americans don't get enough exercise and just around half are meeting federal physical activity recommendations. Even fewer people meet suggested benchmarks for aerobic and muscle-building activities. Lifting can safeguard against heart disease and premature death. 'The main reason people give is time,' Brad Schoenfeld, a professor of exercise science at New York City's Lehman College, told The Washington Post this week. Schoenfeld is the senior author of the research, which was published earlier this month in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. The study looked at the progress of 42 healthy adult men and women between the ages of 18 and 40 over two months. Participants, who had already done some resistance training before, were sorted into two groups that trained to failure on all exercises and another who lifted until they were tired but could still probably squeak out a few more reps. Before the study, they had been doing at least two or three sets of every exercise during their workouts. They performed a single set of nine upper and lower body exercises that targeted all major muscle groups, repeating each move eight to 10 times. The exercises included the popular leg and chest press, Smith machine squats, bicep curls, seated cable rows, front lat pull-downs, and shoulder presses. Even with the reduced number of reps, they saw success, adding mass and strength. The changes were seen among men and women in both groups. Schoenfeld said it's 'quite likely' but not certain that their results could apply equally to older people and other groups, with benefits that continue past two months. To see similar swole results, people can substitute other exercises. The key is consistency, but Schoenfeld advises leaving at least one day between sessions. 'The message, I think, is to find one hour somewhere in your week,' he said.
Washington Post
29-04-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
Just a half-hour of weight training can make you stronger
How little weight training can we get away with? According to a new study of 42 healthy adult men and women, the answer seems to be about an hour a week. During the two-month study, participants gained significant muscle mass and strength from just two 30-minute sessions of uncomplicated resistance exercises each week. The findings 'highlight how powerful even a small amount of loading can be,' said Stuart Phillips, an exercise scientist at McMaster University in Canada who studies resistance training but was not involved in this research. In each session, the volunteers completed nine common upper- and lower-body gym exercises, repeating each move eight to 10 times, until their muscles felt fatigued but not necessarily exhausted. The routine was meant to be quick because so many people blame tight schedules for not lifting, said Brad Schoenfeld, a professor of exercise science at Lehman College in the Bronx and the study's senior author. 'We were interested in finding the minimum effective dose' of resistance training for most people, he continued. In other words, they wanted to see, 'how low can you go?' with lifting workouts, Phillips said. The results show 'just how small of an investment we need to make to reap some, in my estimation, substantial rewards.' Almost all of us, if we're capable of exercising, should be doing some type of regular 'muscle-strengthening activities' for our health and longevity, according to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Strong, healthy muscles help protect us against diabetes, arthritis and a range of other diseases, as well as frailty and premature death. But few of us lift. The CDC estimates, in fact, that barely 20 percent of American adults strength train even a few times a week. Why? 'The main reason people give is time,' Schoenfeld said. Many worry, too, that weight training requires complex equipment and arcane expertise about loads, reps and other lifting matters. So, for the new study, published in April in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Schoenfeld and his collaborators put together a speedy, simple, full-body, gym-based workout, with exercises focused on the shoulders, arms, legs, back and core. Then they rounded up a group of healthy men and women, ages 18 to 40, who already did some resistance training. This lifting experience was important because an effective, minimalist approach should be able to continue building muscle mass and strength, even in muscles that already are somewhat strong and buff. The scientists invited their volunteers to the gym twice a week, for supervised sessions, where everyone did the same nine exercises: At first, the researchers set people's weights so they could complete, at most, 10 repetitions of each move before they simply couldn't manage another, a condition known as reaching failure. Half of the volunteers continued to lift to failure every time. The other half backed off, lifting until their muscles felt challenged and tired but hadn't reached failure; they could've eked out a few more repetitions, if they'd had to. Among lifters, this is known as leaving reps in reserve. Perhaps most important for time efficiency, the volunteers completed only one set of each exercise, which, for many, represented a substantial reduction in volume. Most had been doing at least two or three sets of every exercise during their workouts, spending hours in the gym every week. Now they finished in a brisk 30 minutes. Even with this abbreviated routine, the participants added mass and strength, the researchers found. After two months, almost everyone's muscles were larger, stronger and more powerful than at the start. The magnitude of the changes proved to be similar among men and women and those who'd lifted to failure and those who'd left a few reps in reserve. 'You need to put in some effort,' Schoenfeld said. But you don't need to lift until your muscles are completely exhausted to show significant gains in strength and size. You also don't need to follow this study's regimen precisely, he said. 'There's nothing special' about these particular exercises, in this order. Substitute body weight exercises like pull-ups or push-ups for some of the exercises, he said, or ask a trainer at your gym to show you the machines there that work the shoulders, biceps, back, core and legs. If you're new to lifting, the trainer could be especially useful, Schoenfeld added, to teach you proper form. But the key to lifting for muscle health will always be simple consistency, he said. Show up twice a week and challenge your muscles. It's unlikely, based on this study, that most of us need more than two, short weight workouts a week, he continued, unless our goal is to become swole. (Mine isn't.) On the other hand, we probably can't get away with fewer than two sessions most weeks, he said, if we wish to keep growing stronger. As for scheduling those workouts, 'don't do them back-to-back,' Schoenfeld advised. Leave at least one day between each session, but otherwise Tuesdays and Thursdays, or Fridays and Mondays, or Sundays and Wednesdays, or whatever works for you should be fine, he said. This study was relatively short term, lasting only eight weeks, and involved mostly healthy adults. It's 'quite likely' but not certain that the results apply equally to older people and other groups, Schoenfeld said, and that the benefits continue past two months. He plans future studies of those issues. But for now, 'the message, I think, is to find one hour somewhere in your week' to lift, he said, which can be as much — and as little — as most of us need.
New York Times
18-04-2025
- Lifestyle
- New York Times
With a Long-Awaited Kiss, ‘the Crowd Went Crazy'
Gianna Isabella Lozano and Nicholas Benjamin Perla looked forward to their April 6 wedding with the same high hopes and excitement as many engaged couples. If their sense of anticipation was above average, that was because the two hadn't yet kissed on the lips. Ms. Lozano, 24, and Mr. Perla, 23, met in September 2021 on the way to a 5K race in Midtown Manhattan sponsored by their church, the nondenominational New York City Church of Christ. Both were members of the college ministry but in different locations. She lived in New City, N.Y.; he in Yonkers, N.Y. 'I had heard he drove some of my friends to church events in the city,' said Ms. Lozano, now a campus minister at the New York City Church of Christ's Bronx location. 'So I orchestrated a car pool.' The same friends Mr. Perla had been driving had thought the two would hit it off. They were not wrong. In the car, 'we had a simple conversation that turned into effortless laughter,' Ms. Lozano said. 'It was an instant connection.' [Click here to binge read this week's featured couples.] At the time, both were navigating the terrain between college and what might come after. She was soon to graduate from Manhattan University with a bachelor's degree in engineering. He was completing a bachelor's degree in exercise science at Lehman College. For her, the 5K was less about crossing the finish line than showing up for the event the college ministry had helped organize. Mr. Perla, now a technician at an orthopedic clinic in Harrison, N.Y., was more invested in the race. 'I walked and he ran,' she said. Their uneven pace along the Henry Hudson Parkway didn't undo a shared impression that their values and personalities were in sync. On subsequent car pools, their friends made a practice of leaving the front seat of his RAV4 S.U.V. vacant for Ms. Lozano, who was usually last to be picked up. 'They heard our conversations,' she said. 'I guess they thought we made a good pair.' For almost a year, they saw each other only in group settings. That suited them. Mr. Perla had joined the church with his parents, Luz Zuniga and Benjamin Perla, a few years earlier to fend off a creeping sense of purposelessness and was still immersed in spiritual self-discovery. Ms. Lozano, who had been attending with her parents, Beatriz Munoz and Giovanny Lozano, since she was 7, was in what she called 'a phase of, I don't want to be in a relationship.' 'Most of my friends were starting to date, and I wanted to be different,' she said. When Mr. Perla asked her to join him for dinner the Orangetown Classic Diner in Orangeburg, N.Y., in July 2022, he was hoping their connection would turn romantic. 'I had a growing interest in her,' he said. 'Gigi was very genuine, and she loved to let people into her life, which was something I didn't know how to do.' To him, the invitation was a date. She thought he was just asking for a more intimate than usual hangout. That perception changed a couple of months later on a bike ride around Central Park that he had arranged. 'He was really attentive,' she said. 'I realized it was a date.' In January 2023, over dinner at an Italian restaurant in Yonkers, he presented her with a bouquet of peonies and a heart-shaped cake. 'It had red icing and said, 'Will you be my girlfriend?'' They left the restaurant a couple, their new commitment sealed without a kiss. A peck on the cheek would come months later. The decision to forgo physical intimacy before marriage 'was just a choice we made' from the beginning, Ms. Lozano said. 'A lot of other couples kiss on the lips while they're dating and there's nothing wrong with it. We wanted to save our first actual kiss for something special, something sentimental.' By the time they got engaged, on Sept. 14, 2024, at the Scenic Hudson RiverWalk Park in Tarrytown, N.Y., abstaining from locking lips had become a challenge. 'It's been difficult,' Ms. Lozano said, just before the wedding. 'For me as well,' Mr. Perla said. Support among family and friends helped. Ms. Lozano's mother channeled hers into a prizewinning appeal to an audio guest book company running a wedding giveaway. 'I'm so proud of her,' Ms. Munoz told After the Tone earlier this year in her bid for the free audiobook. 'She can't wait to kiss her husband on the lips for the first time.' On April 6, Rob Novack, a pastor at the New York City Church of Christ, put an end to the wait. At the IronSpire Complex, a banquet complex in Adamstown, Pa., he pronounced Ms. Lozano and Mr. Perla married in front of 128 guests; almost all knew their first smooch as husband and wife would also be their first in general. When the two leaned in to make it official, 'the crowd went crazy,' Ms. Lozano said. 'People were shouting and screaming.' For the couple, one kiss proved insufficient. Before they left the altar, 'I had to kiss him again,' she said.
Forbes
11-04-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Yeshiva University And Lehman College Broke 141 Games Of Losing Streaks
On a blustery day earlier this week, on a baseball field at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey, history was made. Truth be told, before a single pitch was thrown, fans and looky-loos alike knew that they were about to witness something monumental. They simply didn't know in which direction. You see, taking the field for that day's double-header was Lehman College, based in the Bronx, living through a 42-game losing streak. On the other side of the diamond was Yeshiva University, based in Washington Heights, which had lost 99 games in a row. Barring some act of G-d, one team was going to break their streak and go home happy; and one team's futility would continue for at least another game. It should be noted that these two New York-based teams played these games in New Jersey, at a neutral site, not because of its historic nature; not because 'everything is legal in Jersey'; and not to avoid a Manhattan / Bronx border skirmish. Rather, it was because neither school's field was in playing condition after storms swept through New York last weekend. Yeshiva was the first to convince Fairleigh Dickinson to host the games at to the Naimoli Family Baseball Complex on its turf field, so they became the home team. In the first game, played under clear skies and at roughly 39 degrees in front of approximately 250 fans, the teams went back and forth. Yeshiva scored two in the bottom of the first, surrendered one in the top of the second, and then scored three more in the bottom of the second. Lehman struck back with three in the top of the third, but then surrendered one more in the bottom of the fifth. Going to the seventh (which would have been the last inning as double headers limit each game to seven innings), Yeshiva held a two-run lead and needed just three outs to break their 99-game streak. Since both of these of these schools are Division-III, they do not offer scholarships. These kids are playing for the love of the game. Most were not heavily recruited. In the case of Yeshiva, an Orthodox Jewish school, most of the students could not have played elsewhere, as college baseball is known for Friday nights and Saturday afternoons – said differently, during Shabbat – when they could not participate. As the game moved to the seventh, the players began to show what the pressure of two massive losing streaks can do to your psyche. The first Lehman batter of the seventh walked, and so did the second (after a pitching change). The third was hit by a pitch, which put the tying runs in scoring position and the lead run on base – all with no outs. After yet another pitching change, a double tied the game. Anyone in attendance at that moment could have sensed this game was over – Yeshiva had given up the lead, Lehman had two runners in scoring position and there were still no outs. But a comebacker to the mound, followed by a strikeout, and then a fly ball kept the game knotted at six. Yeshiva wasted a single in the bottom half of the seventh, and thus the game went to extra innings. In the top of the eighth, the first three Lehman hitters singled, loading the bases with no outs. [But, here too the stress shone through. Lehman's Argenis Sanchez dropped a bunt to move the runners up, but when the Yeshiva players converged to field the ball, no one covered first, allowing the batter to reach. It went down as a hit.] In the bottom half of the eighth, Yeshiva went strikeout, ground out, strikeout, giving Lehman their first win since their current head coach – Chris Delgado – was a player on the team in 2023. The loss pushed Yeshiva's record of futility into triple digits. Winning pitcher Justin Chamorro, a biology major who is going into a PA program after the season, threw a complete game, striking out a career-high thirteen. According to Michael Clair, who was in attendance for both games, Chamorro said the following after the game: And when asked about that winning feeling, Chamorro said it was 'a sense of relief, a sense of joy.' The second game of the double dip started about 20 minutes after the first. Maybe coming so close in time to an extra innings loss took all of Yeshiva's angst away; maybe actually hitting the century mark in consecutive defeats was a release valve; maybe having the sun beginning to set and the crowd thin to a reported 70 onlookers took the pressure off. Whatever it was, Yeshiva came out swinging, scoring thrice in the bottom of the first, and then four more times in the bottom of the third. When the Maccabees scored two insurance runs in the bottom of the fifth, they led 9-3, and looked well on their way to getting off their own schneid. A walk and a double in the top of the sixth made the score 9-4. And a wild pitch in the top of the seventh gave Lehman their final run. When Noah Steinmetz (whose older brother Jacob plays in the Arizona Diamondbacks' system as the only Orthodox Jewish player in the minor leagues, and whose father coaches Yeshiva's basketball team) struck out Sanchez, the streak was finally over. After fielding the errant strike three and tossing it to first to record the final out, catcher Jacob Canner hugged Steinmetz in front of home plate, and the team quietly celebrated their victory – as if it was old hat, and not something that hadn't happened since 2022. In some ways, the outcome on Tuesday afternoon was perfect. Both teams broke their streaks. Yeshiva ran theirs to a cool 100 before changing the tide. The Lightning Bug of Lehman gave their 26-year-old coach a boost of confidence as he continues to build his alma mater program, and the Maccabees of Yeshiva got to ride off into the desert of their Passover break on a winning note. When these two schools ventured to New Jersey on Tuesday afternoon, they were sporting a combined 141 consecutive losses. Dayenu!
