Sports

A lot of things in life involve planning, including tests and vacations.

Even exercise soundtracks require preparation. After all, what you listen to and when you listen to it can affect both the productivity and efficiency of your workouts.

Going for a bike ride?

Try listening to your favorite rock album. According to a study at Nottingham Trent University in England, cyclists who listened to upbeat music while biking were able to pedal longer than those who listened to slow music, slow-to-fast music or no music at all.

You have four weeks to get in shape for Spring Break. That's 16 workouts, which equates to about one day of solid training before you hit the beach.

Unfortunately, I'm not a miracle worker. I'll do my best to guide you on this rocky stretch, but we're not going to be losing 100 pounds in four weeks or turn your average Joe into an Austrian Oak.

You've got to want it. You have four weeks to get in shape. Every workout counts.

If you're looking to lose weight, you're going to follow a four-week nutrition schedule adapted from Muscle and Fitness gurus Chris Aceto and Eric Velazquez.

The men's club rugby A-team (1-1) will try to upset Tennessee this Saturday as it rallies for a bid to the National Championship in April.

The game will kick off at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Intramural Fields.

The two teams last faced off in March of 2006, when the Volunteers crushed the Bulldogs in a 68-0 victory.

"We're a whole different team this year. They don't know what's gonna hit them," said Sam Pennel, a sophomore from Calhoun.

Georgia has four Rugby Union All-Stars, including Nick Burgess, Sean Catlett, Harrison De Jarnett and Michael Thompson.

Imagine walking into the gym at 4:30 p.m stretching for a minute and walking out at 4:45, utterly exhausted but having completed a four minute workout for tone, fat-loss, cardiovascular health and lean muscle development.

Named after Japanese researcher Izumi Tabata, the Tabata method consists of eight 20 second intervals of non-stop repetitions of a single exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest.

For example, if you were squatting you'd perform as many squats as you could for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds and repeat. After four minutes feel free to leave.

I feel like women's fitness at the University has confined itself to the ellipticals, the abductor-adductor machines and that glute machine in the middle of Ramsey.

Don't misunderstand me. Cardiovascular training, when coupled with a nutritious diet, is essential to weight loss and muscle definition. However, a common misconception is performing free weight exercises suddenly will transform you into a female version of the Incredible Hulk.

This is far from the truth.

There are a lot of myths when it comes to fitness. It's time to squash these myths before they stop you from realizing your potential or achieving your goals. Let the debunking begin.

Myth: There's no such thing as spot-training

While tentative, the results of a University of Copenhagen study show that spot-training is at least possible.

Here are 10 things not to do when working out:

1. Don't lock out on leg presses, or any other kind of press including the shoulder and bench press. It's terrible for your joints. This doesn't include triceps exercises, by the way, such as pushdowns or dips.

2. Don't lift your lower back off the incline bench or flat bench. There's a reason they have the bench there.

3. Don't swing on barbell curls. I know a lot of people have heard of the "cheat curl" through Arnold Schwarzenegger. Still, even he'd tell you the cheat curl doesn't excuse the full body jerk.