Teresa Weatherspoon is a familiar face on the basketball courts at the 92nd Street Y. She is an original member of the WNBA and the author of Teresa Weatherspoon’s Basketball for Girls, which contains advice on improving basketball skills for young girls.
In advance of Memorial Day, we’re feeling a little summery so here’s Teresa Weatherspoon’s Slow Simmered BBQ Chicken from the 92nd Street Y Cookbook.
“I enjoy this Sunday country meal with mashed potatoes and gravy, or macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, cornbread and a green vegetable.”
—Teresa Weatherspoon
1⁄2 to 1 chicken, cut up in sectional pieces
1 large Vidalia onion
1-2 medium peppers, red and green
1 bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce
Garlic powder, rosemary and seasoned salt to taste
1 tbsp. honey or mustard
Season cut chicken pieces with you favorite spices, which can include a basic seasoning salt, garlic powder, pepper and a tad of rosemary. Season underneath the skin, as well as on top. Cut a combination of green peppers and onions and cover the bottom of a large cooking pan. Lay the chicken pieces on top of the onions and peppers completely covering the area. Add a 1⁄2 cup of water to the pan (not covering the chicken) and then place the lid on, making sure it is a snug fit. Simmer over a medium to low flame until the chicken is nice and tender and thoroughly cooked, about 1 hour. Take your favorite barbeque sauce, homemade or otherwise and add whatever spices you desire—honey/Dijon mustard, pineapple, hot peppers, honey, etc. Mix the ingredients together in a bowl and pour the sauce over the cooked chicken, making sure all pieces are coated. Let simmer for another five minutes. Serve as is, or put it on the outdoor grill or in the oven under the broiler, until it gets a nice crisp coating.
Don’t Miss:The All American BBQ on Jun 5 at the Y with Danny Meyer of Union Square Café who founded the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party; Food Network star Bobby Flay, the chef/owner of seven restaurants, including New York City’s Mesa Grill; and Chris Lilly, the winner of 10 world barbecue competitions and vice president of Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q, the “best barbeque in Alabama.”
Dr. Atul Gawande: Complex Medical Care, For Better or Worse
Atul Gawande, MD, a general surgeon at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health, wrote an exhaustive essay about intensive care for his widely referenced Annals of Medicine column in The New Yorker this past December.
For every drowned and pulseless child rescued by intensive care, there are many more who don’t make it—and not just because their bodies are too far gone. Machines break down; a team can’t get moving fast enough; a simple step is forgotten. Such cases don’t get written up in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, but they are the norm. Intensive-care medicine has become the art of managing extreme complexity—and a test of whether such complexity can, in fact, be humanly mastered.
On any given day in the United States, some ninety thousand people are in intensive care. Over a year, an estimated five million Americans will be, and over a normal lifetime nearly all of us will come to know the glassed bay of an I.C.U. from the inside. Wide swaths of medicine now depend on the lifesupport systems that I.C.U.s provide: care for premature infants; victims of trauma, strokes, and heart attacks; patients who have had surgery on their brain, heart, lungs, or major blood vessels. Critical care has become an increasingly large portion of what hospitals do. Fifty years ago, I.C.U.s barely existed. Today, in my hospital, a hundred and fifty-five of our almost seven hundred patients are, as I write this, in intensive care. The average stay of an I.C.U. patient is four days, and the survival rate is eighty-six per cent. Going into an I.C.U., being put on a mechanical ventilator, having tubes and wires run into and out of you, is not a sentence of death. But the days will be the most precarious of your life.
On April 24, Gawande comes to the Y to discuss his bestselling new book, BETTER: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. With riveting accounts of medical failure and triumph, he provides keen insight into how success is achieved in the complex and risk-filled medical profession.
The “elderblogging" trend (bloggers over 50) we mentioned last year shows no signs of slowing down, just like the age group itself. The recent launch of Wowowow.com, Women on the Web, has upped the ante with its impressive list of co-founders—Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Mary Wells and Joni Evans—getting boldface name contributors like Candice Bergen, Joan Juliet Buck, Whoopi Goldberg, Marlo Thomas, Lily Tomlin, Joan Cooney, Judith Martin, Sheila Nevins, Julia Reed and Jane Wagner.
This independent spirit is the backbone of the 92nd Street Y’s Baby Boomer programs. On April 6, we are hosting our annual day-long symposium, Healthy, Wealthy & Wise: Life After 50, with renowned professionals in the medical, lifestyle and financial planning fields. Watch the video above for a teaser (boomer sex, anyone?) and get more information here.
I am a gym rat with a capital “R”, so when I told my uncle I was going to Crunch while in NY he insisted (more like demanded) I join him at the 92nd Street Y. “You’ve never seen a gym like this”, he touted as we walked over (Sheez, I’ve been in LA for so long I’ve forgotten about walking. In the street. Without being arrested for soliciting.) And, no, I certainly hadn’t. My uncle, a retired, handball playing man about town, LOVES this place. He gave me the grand tour, even though I was thinking, “ok, just show me the free weights please!” I saw the auditorium, a few musicians rehearsing, the b-ball court, the locker rooms, the snack bar, the elevators, the lecture series board, oh, and the stairs. Finally we made it to the check in desk. My uncle forgot his guest passes. “No prob”, the nice man at the desk said after learning that I was from LA (where he was from) and we have a couple friends in common. I dumped my things (Whaddya need all that crap for? as my uncle put it) in the lovely locker room that could easily put SportsClub LA to shame. People were friendly. No one tried to kick me off the treadmill after a half hour. They didn’t try to run you over in locker room. Some even struck up a conversation over joint primping in the mirror, and it wasn’t just a clever ruse to get more mirror space. I liked it. I will be back.
May Center Fitness Open House Party is Tuesday, January 8. It’s a free event open to everyone that features classes, fitness assessments, games and prizes including jetBlue tickets. Lots of new winter/spring classes and programs are available for both May Center members and non-members.
Whether you are trying to shed some extra winter weight or get in shape for a hiking trip to the Rockies, interval training can be an effective method to help you reach your fitness goals. It is a great way to raise energy output, which increases the number of calories expended during an exercise session. Depending on your fitness level and your physician’s recommendations, there are several ways to interval train.
One way is to increase your pace on the treadmill for up to 30 seconds, then follow up with a recovery period at a less intense pace. Repeat this cycle of increases and decreases throughout your cardio session. This will gradually increase your fitness level as your body gets used to greater demands. Another method involves alternating your cardio exercises with your strength training exercises. You will exhaust both your aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (without oxygen) energy systems in shorter, more manageable bursts. Doing this may also reduce the boredom of long, monotonous exercise sessions.
A workout might include 10 minutes on the treadmill followed by dumbbell rows and squats then another cardio interval on the rowing machine. Not only will you gain lean body mass and build endurance, you may even save some time by combining the two different types of exercise. Using cardio as a recovery for your weight exercises decreases the amount of time you need to spend on your workout, making your trips to the gym more manageable. Don’t forget that you still have to make time for an adequate warm-up and cool-down and that everyone’s exercise routines vary based on individual health and goals.
Interval training is an effective way to increase endurance and control weight, while making workouts more challenging and interesting. To experience a customized, supervised interval training workout, speak to any of our certified trainers about a private session.
May Center Fitness Open House Party is Tuesday, January 8. It’s a free event open to everyone that features classes, fitness assessments, games and prizes including jetBlue tickets. Lots of new winter/spring classes and programs are available for both May Center members and non-members.
Whether you’re contemplating going wheat-free for the holidays for mandatory health reasons or not, now is the time to plan ahead and investigate what you are putting in your body. Many people are unaware of their personal allergies and food intolerances. Even worse, a recent study shows a disturbing trend among college students who ignore known problems. Reported on WebMD yesterday:
A new study of college students shows that about half of those reporting a history of food allergies continue to eat foods that they are allergic to. Among those who reported physician-diagnosed food allergy, 42% said they will still eat food they know contains an allergen.
When students were asked why take the risk of eating food containing an allergen, researchers were given answers such as: “I thought I could eat around it,” “The food item did not contain enough to cause a reaction,” “I knew it could be treated,” or “I’ve outgrown my allergy, says Matthew Greenhawt, MD, a pediatrician and fellow in the division of allergy & clinical immunology at UMHS.
Just as worrisome, the students were unprepared for an emergency. Only 22% of students who reported a history of allergic reaction said they possessed a self-injectable device, such as an EpiPen or Twinject, to treat a severe reaction. About 28% of those who have one say they always carry it with them. Of the 55 students reporting a severe reaction to a food allergen in the past, 27 of them did not have the device, which delivers a quick dose of medication to counteract a potentially fatal allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis.
This Sunday, get a crash course on the latest information firsthand from Dr. Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University, and a panel of leading nutrition and immunology experts at the Y.
Here’s (almost) everything you need to satisfy your appetite for knowledge about leading addiction expert Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.
Winners of the 2007 Quill Awards—"the only book awards to pair a populist sensibility with Hollywood-style glitz [and] the first literary prizes to reflect the tastes of all the groups that matter most in publishing: readers, booksellers and librarians"—were recently announced on WNBC and The Today Show by Al Roker and Ann Curry. The top honor in the Health/Self-Improvement category goes to Dr. Jerome Groopman (above) for How Doctors Think. As the Dina and Raphael Recanati Chair of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of experimental medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, he brings his wealth of doctor knowledge to the 92nd Street Y on October 16.
Other 2007 Quill winners and finalists who have been at the Y or are coming this season:
The Nest Baby is a newish website from the makers of The Knot for new parents and parents-to-be, and their “New York Mom” blogger has very high praise for our Polliwogs swim class for babies:
My other favorite class is the Polliwogs Swimming Class at the 92nd Street Y. We all know how important it is for our children to learn how to swim and how daunting those first steps into the pool can be. Nobody does it better than the Y. Yes, the pool is cold but it is a small price to pay for a positive first swim experience. For instructors, I love Terri, she is sweet and calm and reassuring. She can handle babies who were born fish and the most frightened little ones. The requirements are: babies must be in the rubber swim pants (they sell at the Y shop) and and everyone (moms too) must wear a swim cap. The locker rooms are clean and family friendly. It’s also nice to be able to stop into the cafe after your class and have a snack—you will both have worked up an appetite. 1395 Lexington Avenue (at 92nd Street) 212.415.5500.
Read more here. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. The next Polliwogs class starts July 29.
May Center Tips from the Trainers: What Is Functional Training?
By Eleanor Day
Functional training is an exercise method in which the body is trained for a specific movement or action rather than solely focusing on isolated muscles.
Whether you’re swinging a tennis racket or hauling groceries, real-life activities usually rely on complex movements that are often overlooked by traditional training methods. Functional training focuses on mimicking these motions, which allow the body to develop entire muscle groups, as well as strengthen the body’s core musculature, creating one strong unit.
Traditional weight training serves a purpose in a healthy lifestyle but it does not guarantee creating practical muscle tone or mass. For example, performing a seated shoulder press may build lean body mass and create shoulder strength in that seated position, but there are not many occasions outside the gym where this specialized, specific movement occurs. If you are able to lift a particular weight on the seated shoulder press but have not trained the shoulder stabilizing or core muscles, this strength may not be nearly as effective in a standing position.
Functional training for sports can enhance performance and reduce injuries by targeting all the muscles that are called into play for a particular activity. A tennis player can mimic his or her forehand by using a pulley setup and doing repetitions with resistance. This exercise will incorporate core, rotational and stabilizing muscles as well as the larger muscles needed for the movement, all of which translates into a more comprehensive workout than just focusing on individual muscles.
Because sports activities and daily life depend on compound motions involving varied muscle groups, the advantage of training your body in a way that imitates these motions can have substantial benefits on the playing field and in everyday life.
Programs/classes open to May Center members (additional free activities for members available here) and non-members starting next week:
Shavuot begins tonight and we hope you’ll be able to join us for a free all-night celebration of discussion and fun to commemorate the day the Jewish people received the Torah on Mount Sinai. Most of the Y’s operations will be closed Wednesday and Thursday but if you’re a May Center member, holiday hours are posted here.
Last Sunday, May 6, 92nd Street Y fitness and wellness director Mirabai Holland and NYU bone-density specialist Dr. Loren Greene (above) shared tips about how to maintain good bone health at our Osteoporosis Update and Skeletal Fitness Workshop. Osteoporosis is a debilitating bone disease that affects an estimated 1 in 3 women and 1 in 12 men over the age of 50 worldwide. But you can help prevent it with simple exercises, and you don’t need to spend money on expensive equipment. Photographic proof after the jump.
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“Interval Training: An Effective Way to Shape Up for Spring” by Eleanor Day of the 
By Eleanor Day
