Derek Jeter to Play Shortstop for Yankees Tonight

My favorite team is the New York Yankees so it would only be natural that my all-time favorite baseball player would be Derek Jeter. I have watched him play for the Yanks for virtually my entire life and have religiously followed his career in pinstripes.

It was hard for me to watch last year when Jeter was injured in New York's ALDS series to the Detroit Tigers last season and it only became worse after Detroit bounced the Yanks from the playoffs.

Jeter had to overcome his broken ankle from October and hast battled back. He was able to rehab and workout in order to be able to play his first start at shortshop tonight for the Yankees since his injury.

I am thrilled to see Jeter return especially considering how the Yankees have been hit hard by the injury bug. New York has seen OF Curtis Granderson and 1B Mark Teixiera going down to injury and will miss some extended time after knowing they'd be missing the bat of 3B Alex Rodriguez for a good chunk of the 2013 season.

The Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies will square off tonight in some Grapefruit League action.

Miami Heat Look to Extend 19-Game Win Streak

You might be wondering why the NBA's Miami Heat would be featured on a fitness blog. The Heat have won 19-straight games and play tonight against the Philadelphia 76ers in Philly.

Miami is led by all-star forward LeBron James who has been playing some of the best basketball of his career this season, playing a key role in his team's recent hot streak. James has often ran into criticism in the past especially for his announcement in "The Decision." However, LeBron has been answering critics throughout his career especially last season when he led his team to a title.

LeBron James has been praised for his workout routine and thought it might be helpful for those Heat fans who look to emulate the MVP.

Courtesy of totalprosports.com

Healthy Lifestyle More Important Than Dieting

Spring break is fast approaching myself and other University of Florida students.

It is important to maintain a healthy diet while on vacation. However, Americans have been doing a better job of eating less fast food. But our food intake is still much higher than it should be according to the Centers of Disease Control. The CDC says maintaining a healthy weight is not about dieting but adopting a healthy lifestyle.

It is important not to stray away from the healthy habits you have learned while enjoying some time off.  If you are going somewhere exciting for spring break, you might be worried about what you are going to eat. Chances are those delicious meals probably might be making you feel a tad bit guilty after you finish dining. However, there are a few easy steps to avoid this guilt trip and to enjoy your mealtimes while you are kicking back somewhere and relaxing.

If you aren't able to hit the gym, there are some workouts you can do without weights or access to a fitness center.

I will try to implement this workout while also going on some distance runs while I enjoy my time off with family and friends.

Run Fit: Rest Days and Running Hills

Being busy with class, work, and station duty sort of forced my hand but it also gave my body enough rest from my last run. I really want to be better at giving my body ample rest so I don't get injured.

After running six miles yesterday, I plan to give my body a few days off and to hydrate and eat properly for my next run hopefully on Friday.

Lisa Tamati will share the importance of getting the most out of your running program by giving your body rest and changing up your pace and your course in order to get maximum results in this short and sweet video.

Running Tips : How to Stretch Before & After a Run

After taking a few days off, I went for another distance run yesterday morning. I was really proud with my six mile run because I decided to do that rather than take a two hour nap. Half of the battle of running is just getting the motivation to go out there and run. I listened to my body and was careful not to over due it after giving my body a few days off.

It is really important to stretch before and after a run. I hope this YouTube video can help give you a routine and get you in the habit of stretching in order to prevent injury.

Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

“Don’t make me think” reinforces the point that when web site makes you stop and think about what you’re doing, it is making your life more complicated, and chances are isn’t designed to get the most out of it.

Generally speaking, no one usually wants to carry a heavier load than is necessary. That could mean overloading your cart at a supermarket or trying to download too many files at once from your computer. So why should we do this to our brain? Things that stop and make you think add to your brain’s workload, which really drives the point home that being clear in what we want to articulate. A clearer message prevents people from getting lost and feeling unsure on how to react.

I have really found this to be true in my own experience. I regularly look up sites related to sports and news. I have a game plan on what I want to find and sort of have a list of sites that I routinely go to ESPN in order to get up to date on the latest breaking news.

Steve Krug offers some food for thought on how people use the web. Krug points out most people don’t read a web page in it’s entirety, but skim it for the first thing that looks appealing, and then follow the link they were attracted to. He adds people really don’t mess around trying to get an in-depth feel of a web site. I will again use my example of ESPN. Usually ESPN has a featured story that they have a video to, I'll usually play the video and follow the various links they send me to.

Krug really tried to emphasize the importance of designing your website for scanning, not reading. He gave tips on how to make your site friendlier to the eye like clearly defining portions of a page and what is clickable and not "clickable." I really think ESPN does a good job of this. They list the stories they have in short headlines that give you the story and the option of pointing and clicking to get more detail about stories that interest you. 

He also urged to keep writing for the web brief and make the page easy to navigate.  Page names are important and should match what you click to get there. Tabs should be your best friends of navigating because they are hard to miss and well, make the site look more legit.

Krug spoke about a method he liked to use called the “trunk test.” He explained as if you’ve been blindfolded and locked in a car truck, you should still be able to answer certain questions about a site immediately once your blindfold is taken off. These questions include: What site is it? What page am I on? What major sections does this site have? Where can I go from here? Where am I in relation to the rest of the site? Where can I go to search?

I can answer all of the "trunk test" questions. The site is ESPN. I'm on the home page. The site is divided by all of the sports stories of the day or by each individual sport. You can find headlines of stories that grab your attention and follow them to other mediums. The search bar is located in the top right hand corner of the page.

You can’t navigate with an effective home page. They should allow you how to get what you want from the site and to sort of push you to things that you really didn’t intend to find once you found the site. Home pages should include taglines and welcome blurbs in order to get the person to avoid going back to their search engine.

Krug was also devoted to get his message a cross with a list of “Do’s” and “Don’ts.” Like telling people what they want to do and making the site as user friendly. Some of the don’ts where to not hiding information potential users wanted to find and don’t get too bent out of shape with fancy features, which serve mainly as distracters.

I found the book to be very helpful and guide I intend to use and share with some of my friends. Its to the point, filled with useful info, and pictures which add to Krug’s delivery.

Latest Workout

I was able to find time today and go to the gym. I worked out my upper body and worked on my abs.

I did six sets of fifteen repetitions of my dumb bell bench press using fifty pound weights in order to work on my chest. Whatever you do for chest I also made sure I worked out my back in order to maintain balance.

Following those workouts, I worked on shoulders with a shoulder press using thirty-five pound dumb bells. I did five sets of twelve repetitions.

I did some bicep curls also using dumb bells but raised the weight I was using to thirty five pounds. Since it has been a while I have been at this weight I only did three sets of eight in order not to strain my muscles too much. I then wrapped up my upper body routine with some triceps.

I finished off with some abs and did some planks to cool off a little bit. Looking forward to drinking some protein to recover for my next gym session.