2 . Fitness Magazine recently ran an article titled “Five Reasons to Thank Your Workout Partner.” One reason was: “You’ll actually show up if you know someone is waiting for you at the gym, ” while another read: “    1    ”   With a workout partner, you will increase your training effort as there is a subtle (微妙) competition.

So, how do you find a workout partner?

First of all, decide what you want from that person.     2     Or do you just want to be physically fit, able to move with strength and flexibility? Think about the exercises you would like to do with your workout partner.

You might think about posting what you are looking for on social media, but it probably won’t result in a useful response.     3     If you plan on working out in a gym, that person must belong to the same gym.

My partner posted her request on the notice board of a local park. Her notice included what kind of training she wanted to do, how many days a week and how many hours she wanted to spend on each session, and her age. It also listed her favorite sports and activities, and provided her phone number.     4    

You and your partner will probably have different skills.     5     Over time, both of you will benefit—your partner will be able to lift more weights and you will become more physically fit. The core (核心) of your relationship is that you will always be there to help each other.

3 . Race walking shares many fitness benefits with running, research shows, while most likely contributing to fewer injuries. It does, however, have its own problem.

Race walkers are conditioned athletes. The longest track and field event at the Summer Olympics is the 50-kilometer race walk, which is about five miles longer than the marathon. But the sport’s rules require that a race walker’s knees stay straight through most of the leg swing and one foot remain in contact (接触) with the ground at all times. It’s this strange form that makes race walking such an attractive activity, however, says Jaclyn Norberg, an assistant professor of exercise science at Salem State University in Salem, Mass.

Like running, race walking is physically demanding, she says, According to most calculations, race walkers moving at a pace of six miles per hour would burn about 800 calories(卡路里) per hour, which is approximately twice as many as they would burn walking, although fewer than running, which would probably burn about 1,000 or more calories per hour.

However, race walking does not pound the body as much as running does, Dr. Norberg says. According to her research, runners hit the ground with as much as four times their body weight per step, while race walkers, who do not leave the ground, create only about 1.4 times their body weight with each step.

As a result, she says, some of the injuries associated with running, such as runner’s knee, are uncommon among race walkers. But the sport’s strange form does place considerable stress on the ankles and hips, so people with a history of such injuries might want to be cautious in adopting the sport. In fact, anyone wishing to try race walking should probably first consult a coach or experienced racer to learn proper technique, she says. It takes some practice.

5 . If you are already making the time to exercise, it is good indeed! With such busy lives, it can be hard to try and find the time to work out.     1     Working out in the morning provides additional benefits beyond being physically fit.

Your productivity is improved. Exercising makes you more awake and ready to handle whatever is ahead of you for the day.     2    

Your metabolism(新陈代谢) gets a head start.     3     If you work out in the mornings, then you will be getting the calorie(卡路里) burning benefits for the whole day, not in your sleep.

    4     Studies found that people who woke up early for exercise slept better than those who exercised in the evening. Exercise energizes you, so it is more difficult to relax and have a peaceful sleep when you are very excited.

    5     If you work out bright and early in the morning, you will be more likely to stick to healthy food choices throughout the day. Who would want to ruin their good workout by eating junk food? You will want to continue to focus on positive choices.

There are a lot of benefits to working out, especially in the mornings. Set your alarm clock an hour early and push yourself to work out! You will feel energized all day long.

6 . People refer to never forgetting how to ride a bike or throw a baseball as examples of “muscle memory”, the result of a motor learning.     1     It is a phenomenon that previously trained muscles acquire strength after a period of disuse.

Previous research has shown that the changes actually persist in the muscles themselves. In one study of mice, the results suggest that after nuclei in muscle cells multiply in response to an overload of training, those extra nuclei aren’t lost during subsequent periods of inactivity. They are retained (保留), essentially waiting to be reactivated. If you fell off the fitness wagon (马车) during the pandemic, don’t be frustrated. Once you have got additional nuclei, you are banking the capacity.     2     In fact, a recent study revealed that less than eight weeks of retraining were needed to regain your former fitness. It depends on how fit you were initially, how long the layoff was, how old you are and how long you’d been exercising.

    3     It means you still have a distinct advantage when it comes to regaining your former level of fitness. And the principle applies to both resistance training and endurance training. The best way to regain your muscle memory is to start at a level below what you were accustomed to doing, and then gradually increase in terms of duration, frequency, then intensity.     4    

Ultimately, muscle memory is a payoff for all the past work you put into learning a sport.     5     You will never know how much muscle memory you may have until you start training again.

7 . Before there was the written word, there was the language of dance. Dance expresses love and hate, joy and sorrow, life and death, and everything else in between.

    1    We dance from Florida to Alaska, from north to south and sea to sea. We dance at weddings, birthdays, office parties and just to fill the time.

“I adore dancing,” says Lester Bridges, the owner of a dance studio in Iowa. “I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.” Bridges runs dance classes for all ages. “Teaching dance is wonderful.     2    It’s great to watch them. For many of them, it’s a way of meeting people and having a social life.”

    3    “I can tell you about one young couple,” says Bridges. “They’re learning to do traditional dances. They arrive at the class in low spirits and they leave with a smile.     4    ”

So, do we dance in order to make ourselves feel better, calmer, healthier? Andrea Hillier says, “Dance, like the pattern of a beating heart, is life. Even after all these years, I want to get better and better.    5     I find it hard to stop! Dancing reminds me I’m alive.”

8 . Although most games have winners and losers, the goal of sports is not to win every game. The real goals include getting exercise, having fun, and learning important social skills, like sportsmanship.

Good sportsmanship is all about respect. Good sports (有体育精神的人) respect their teammates and also their opponents. They respect their coaches, and they also respect the referees or other officials involved in their games.     1     They shout at their teammates and they talk back to coaches or referees.

Kids usually learn sportsmanship good and bad from the adults in their lives.     2     If parents and coaches show disrespect for other fans, referees, or each other, kids will likely act the same way on the field.

    3     Some of them are very basic and easy to do, like shaking hands with other players before a game. Other examples may take a little more courage, such as acknowledging a great play made by the opposing team.

Learning good sportsmanship is important because it helps you develop an attitude of graciousness (礼貌) and respect that will carry over into all the other areas of your life.     4     Being a good sport in the classroom will eventually lead to being a good sport in the workplace.

So be a good sport in whatever you do!     5     When others see you acting in a way that makes it clear that winning isn’t the most important thing, you can move on to focusing on the important things, like having fum, getting exercise, and improving your skills!