Indoor vs outdoor exercising: Which is more productive?

People tend to lean heavily on the gym when it comes to exercise. The gym is just an easy concept: you go and the machines are right there. You get the workout done and you leave. But maybe that’s the problem.

Is it better for your body, health and fitness goals to work out in the open air     1     conditions vary? It depends on so many factors, but the short answer is yes: Science says it is, in fact, better to exercise outdoors.

Take running, for example. In a study     2     (look) at runners who covered the same distance on a treadmill (跑步机) and outdoors, the group that ran inside were said     3     (consume) less energy than the outside group. This is because of terrain changes and wind speed, which you don’t face in the controlled climate of gym. Your body     4     work harder, and thus you burn more calories.

Another consideration that     5     (make) exercising outside tougher, specifically in warmer months, is temperature. In most gyms, the air conditioners are blowing during the open hours to keep a cool and comfortable environment, meaning you’re consuming less energy and sweating less than you would if you were doing the same activity in the great outdoors.

In addition, a systematic study on the effects of physical activity outside in a natural environment versus indoors revealed the fact     6     among people doing the same activity, the outdoor exercises showed “greater feelings of refreshment and positive engagement; decreases in tension, confusion, anger and depression; and     7     (increase) energy” afterward.

    8     many advantages, working outside has its limitations. From changeable weather to safety concerns, it’s not always     9     option. The bottom line? Switch up your workout and get outside as much as you can, but don’t bother about it if the gym is a     10     (practical) choice for you. Doing any workout is amazing for your body and health.

8 . E-sports: the world’s biggest performance you’ve never heard of

Whoever said you’re wasting your life away playing video games obviously had no idea how big e-sports were going to get.

E-sports has become huge business over the past five years, with professional video gaming tournaments offering more prize money than some of sport’s biggest events.     1     The League of Legends championship last year was watched by more than 27 million people when broadcast on ESPN, eclipsing the audiences for last year’s baseball World Series (23.5 million viewers) and NBA Finals (18 million). With big popularity and big money involved these days, more and more people across the world are considering professional gaming as a genuine career.

While some gamers have been making a living off their skills since the late 1990s, it wasn’t until 2010’s Star-craft II that things really changed. One of the first games built with e-sports squarely as its focus, Star-craft Ii became a true spectator sport.     2     “We knew we were building an e-sport and the competitive nature combined with streaming coming into its own really helped catch viewership in Europe and North America.” the game’s executive producer Chris Sigaty told an Australian news agency.

    3     In Australia, the biggest challenge is basic facilities. Countries like South Korea and the USA have high-speed broadband that allows competitors to play and practice without the limitations of Australia’s relatively slow connection speeds. As more money is brought into the sport, it’s hoped traditional media companies and sponsors will invest money to help bring world class facilities to Australia’s shores.

But even if that does happen - will e-sports be able to truly claim it is a “sport”?

Fans argue that e-sports have all the excitement, skill and competition of a basketball game. On top of that, e-sports have teams, star players, sponsors and millions of dedicated fans across the world.     4     But e-sports cannot escape the argument that it lacks the athletic aspects of other professional sports.

How I Tricked Myself into Enjoying Healthier Foods and Exercise

Most of us would like to think that when we reach a certain age or point in our careers, we automatically evolve past the point of worrying about our appearance. Body image and self-confidence, or our lack of confidence, is something that we never really talk about for fear of drawing attention to our     1    .

But the truth is that our body image issues affect us more than we’d like to     2    . Over the last eight years I’ve worked hard to     3     my business. My main focus has been my work—writing books, creating products, launching products, growing my team—and I’ve dedicated long hours to my company’s success. My diligence has definitely paid off and my business is thriving, but all of that hustling has come at a(n)     4     cost. I’ve spent long hours at the computer and little time exercising or eating     5    . I tried to ignore it and I told myself that no one noticed, but my weight steadily crept up.

As a result, my confidence slowly decreased, and I retreated from the     6     —both personal and professional—that I loved. I stopped going out with friends, stopped sharing photos of myself on social media and avoided media interviews. Even if I didn’t want to admit it, I knew that the underlying problem was that I just didn’t feel     7     about myself. I had to make a change. I started by getting clear about my goals, which included getting into the best shape of my life, changing the way I ate and running a 10K on my 40^th birthday. But more importantly, I got honest with myself about why those goals were so     8     and then I asked the people that I trust the most to hold me accountable. From there, I had to make the daily decision to     9     through.

It wasn’t easy. In fact, there were many     10     that were downright painful. But I’m succeeding, and I’m happy to see that I’ve made changes and am now leading a healthier life.

10 . The tennis ball is such an unassuming object in our lives that we take its appearance for granted. Who hasn’t stumbled upon one of them, forgotten, in the far corner of their closet or garage? Despite its passive presence, one of the most crazy internet debates of 2018 centered on its distinctive color: Is it actually yellow, or is it green? The shade in question originates from an unlikely source: David Attenborough, the legendary British documentarian known internationally for his Planet Earth series, played a central role in how we see the tennis ball today.

The sport of modern tennis was born out of the English game of lawn tennis, which by most accounts was invented in the 1870s. Lawn tennis was an outdoor adaptation of the indoor racket game “real tennis,” which itself was an adoption of the French pastime jeu de paume, or “the palm game.” After many iterations (迭代), including balls made of cork, wool, and even human hair, the tennis ball found what was then its ideal form: a ball made of a rubber core encased in white or black melton, a tightly woven and felted fabric.

For nearly a century, tennis balls were white or black. It wasn’t until 1972 that tennis balls took on their bright neon colour. At the time, Attenborough was working as a studio controller for the BBC. In the late 1960s he had led the charge for the BBC to broadcast Wimbledon, perhaps the most iconic of tennis tournaments, in color for the first time ever.

Broadcasting tennis in color brought the matches to life, but it made tracking the ball on screen difficult—especially when it fell near the white courtlines. So the International Tennis Federation undertook a study that found that yellow tennis balls were easier for home viewers to see on their screens. An official 1972 ITF rule change required that all regulation balls have a uniform surface and be white or yellow in color. However, Wimbledon did not change the ball color to yellow until 1986.

In 1991, the Chicago Tribune ran a story about white tennis balls making a comeback. In reality, most manufacturers never stopped producing white balls in smaller quantities. Grant Golden, a former United States clay court champion, declared that the comeback of white tennis balls would “go right down the toilet” because “the yellow ball is perfect.”

The unmistakable shade of the tennis ball is officially called “optic yellow” by the ITF. The next time a tennis ball comes rolling out from the recesses of your closet, take a moment to regard the power of its humble design.