Ok, I know that swimming like Michael Phelps, or any of the other Olympic athletes is no small feat. There are ways though you can gain an edge without spending 8 hours at the pool or consuming 12,000 calories.

• Don’t Breathe - You shouldn’t have to breathe in a 25 meter race, but you can significantly improve your times the longer you successfully hold your breath.
• Don’t Look Around - Every glance left or right disrupts your form, creating more water resistance and subconsciously causes you to slow down ever so slightly.
• Respiratory Training - In a pioneering study, subjects who followed a resistance-breathing training protocol (breathing load) improved their respiratory muscle strength. Subsequently, swimmers can improve their swimming endurance and breathing capacity through targeted training of the respiratory muscles, researchers at the University at Buffalo have shown.
• Try Some Baking Soda - researchers in the UK have discovered that supplements containing sodium bicarbonate reduce the amount of lactic acid produced by exercising muscles. The swimmers taking sodium bicarbonate supplements in the study shaved an average of 1.5 seconds off of their times.

Using the techniques above you can effectively shave 3-4 seconds off your best times by actually doing less. It might not take you to the Olympics, but you might fare better at your local community recreation center.

The other day some of my usual medicine balls at the gym were missing so I had to go for some a few pounds lighter. I realized as I was wildly flailing them around that going light forced me to focus on my form.

Once you get into a lift regimen it’s widely known that varying the duration and intensity of a workout can improve your results and prevent injuries. Going ultra light will relieve you of the burden of heavy lifting and really allow you to focus on perfect form.

Focusing on perfect form readjusts your muscles to moving without making mistakes due to heavy weights. The key is to do the exercises slowly and using little force to ensure that the motion is smooth and proper. An ultra light workout will give your muscles a chance to recharge leaving you more energy when you get home and for the next day. You’ll also get a refreshing chance of pace at the gym and enjoy some lazy time even when you’re working hard.

[photo by: heffalump_hieu]

I’ve been having some major, and I mean major coding issues here with the site and well…been too lazy to fix them. Until now!

The one month hiatus is over and posts resume today. Be Lazier is a little baby in progress but has already been blessed with some popular posts about napping, Firefox tabs, and the benefits of daydreaming.

I’ll try to keep up the lazy content without being so lazy. Posts resume today.

[photo by: Xose Castro]

It turns out that Prozac isn’t very good at warding off your depression or anorexia if you’ve got that. The drug though may help children who are visually impaired.

A team of Finnish and Italian researchers announced that the drug, when administered to rats with impaired vision, played a role in correcting their eyesight. Even better, they think it could have the same effect on the two to three percent of humans who have amblyopia, or lazy eye, the most common cause of visual impairment among children.

Prozac doesn’t help adults with the same conditions however, or depression, anorexia, or craziness - so why does anyone take it?

[photo by: txkimmers]

A group of scientists got together and decided to measure intra-vaginal ejaculatory latency (the time after you “stick it in”) and find out duration satisfied participants (aka. fuckers) most. Women were asked afterwards what they considered “too short”, “adequate”, and “desirable”.

When it comes to time and vaginal penetration and ejaculation, the average for “too short” was rated as 1 to 2 minutes. “Adequate” was 3 to 7 minutes. “Desirable” was 7 to 13 minutes. And “too long” was 10 minutes to 30 minutes. What we concluded is that intercourse that lasts from about 3 to 13 minutes is considered the norm.

Foreplay wasn’t measured since the scientists couldn’t figure out how to quite define it. Both men and women tended to respond the same way and reported 33-37 minutes of total sex to be ideal. So fuck off, just not more than 13 minutes please.

[photo by: Paolo Dallorso]

In my attempt to fix some coding errors over here I accidentally destroyed much of the database filled with Be Lazier…and since we’re lazy here (hence the blog name) I hadn’t run a backup in a while. I learned a great lesson today - take backups, but automatically.

Cause that way you won’t have to do shit when shit gets fucked up. Now I’m drained, back with new material on Friday.

Gobs of hand sanitizer are good at quickly reducing the number of germs on hands but not in hospitals.

He also said hospital workers shouldn’t wear rings and should trim their fingernails even more than the CDC recommendation of no longer than a quarter of an inch. Rupp said bacteria showed up when nails extended just beyond the fingertip.

Hand sanitizer is still faster and more effective than washing your hands and can even be used to treat bug bites. Just don’t count on it to keep you from getting hospital flu.

[photo by: jacknickhole]

Members of both sexes can look more attractive to each other (which ever way you swing) but simply smiling and looking directly at each other.

One of the paper’s authors, Dr Claire Conway, said: “People prefer faces that appear to ‘like’ them, showing that attraction is not simply about physical beauty.”

That’s a good thing if you’re ugly. But what about you women out there? It turns out that men base much of their decisions about dating you on your looks. Better to stay (or pretend) to be confident, it works.

Just think Adrian Brody.

…in the Czech Republic.

It seems to be sleep-week here on Be Lazier, but who doesn’t love sleep? Helen Emsellem, author of “Snooze…or Lose! Ten ‘No War’ Ways to Improve Your Teen’s Sleep Habits” lists some of the best ways to catch some quick Zzzzs.

Coffee and a Nap Turns out that a cup of joe won’t ruin your nap, it will enhance it. A 2003 Japanese study found that you can alleviate sleepiness by combining a short snooze with coffee. Sound counterintuitive? Here’s how it works: caffeine takes about 20 minutes to a half-hour to kick in, just enough time for you to nap. That way, if you’ve had a coffee-primed nap, the benefits are twofold: you’ve rested and you’re ready to go when you wake.

A good nap is anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes Emsellem writes, and the ideal hour to take one is about 3pm. I like her other big point - consistent napping. By beginning a napping schedule you can alter your body circadian rhythms to expect a little jolt during the afternoon slump. As research mounts that naps can boost productivity and morale, they may finally be taken seriously and allowed at the workplace.