Month: September 2009

Gym Junk: Ditch the Machines and Get Fit

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Boot camps and non-machine exercises are the gist of the New York Times Fitness Column for September 23, 2009.  The article notes the growing popularity of fitness boot camps and group training.  Frequent features of such classes are low-tech whole-body movements such as squatting, lunging, push-ups, pull-ups, jumping, running, crawling.  These are the movements of life.  Such movements are very effective for anyone wanting to improve not only their physique but also their ability to function in real life.  The emphasis here is on movement and not on individual muscles.  (Guess what, when you pull, you use your biceps, your back and shoulders.  When you push, you use your triceps and/or your chest, and/or your shoulders.  When you squat or lunge, you use your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves.  There’s no need to think about all those little body parts when you move!)

In contrast, what do we typically see in gyms?  Oceans of chrome coated weight-stack contraptions designed to work individual body parts.  How do these machines work?  First, typically you sit or lay down.  (That’s nice and easy and very comfortable right?  It’s also a great way to conserve energy—which is exactly what you don’t want to do when you exercise.)  Then you have to figure out how to adjust any number of seats, back rests, chest rests, foot rests and/or handles.  Confusing stuff.  If you don’t adjust the machine properly then at a minimum you get a poor exercise; at worst you risk injury.  So after sitting or laying down, adjusting a bunch of confusing pieces you then get to move one body part in one plane of motion only.  Wow.  A big, heavy, complex machine and you get one little exercise out of it…  Meanwhile what does real life require of us?  We must bend, reach, pick up, put up, throw, catch, pull, push, climb and sometimes even crawl.  No gym machine really allows for much of this stuff.

In contrast, if you use your own trunk and limbs to run, lunge, crawl or climb—or if you get really wild and pick up a dumbbell, or a kettlebell, or a barbell, a medicine ball, a rock, a log, a sandbag, a chain or whatever in the world that’s heavy and just lying there—then a universe of movements is available to you.  These movements look a lot more like real life.  Through these types of movements the body is conditioned in an integrated fashion: arms working with legs and all of them working with the core while you stabilize yourself.  You’ll use more energy.  You won’t get the same workout twice and you’ll have a lot more fun.  The article’s writer says it well:

“While such rough-hewn techniques and gear may look old-fashioned, they comport with a modern shift away from developing individual muscle groups and toward so-called functional fitness, which refers to overall strength and comfort in performing everyday activities, like lifting, walking and reaching, along with cardiovascular health.”

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Exercise is Medicine

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Exercise is medicine.  Jake “Body by Jake” Steinfeld writing for the Huffington Post offers three points of advice to help improve the health of the nation.  His advice goes to the point that above and beyond anything else, our personal choices have the greatest impact on our health.  More than doctor visits, cutting edge disease treatments or the latest medicine we have the greatest power to either stay healthy or get sick.  We decide what food to eat.  We decide whether or not to exercise, and we decide whether or not to smoke.  Those are the big three and that’s where health care begins.

Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food puts it very well in his op-ed piece for the NY Times:

“But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.”

So there it is.  We’re using tax dollars to subsidize a food industry that poisons us, while at the same time we’re looking to send our tax dollars to treat the resulting illnesses.  Might it make sense to cut food subsidies so that we then can reduce spending on health care?  And to the point of personal responsibility, if through our own actions we can avoid illnesses such as diabetes altogether–and thus never treat them at all–then isn’t that the best version of health care available?

(BTW, if you haven’t read Pollan’s In Defense of Food then you should go get it right now and start reading.  As well, he was interviewed by Bill Moyers interviewed Pollan a few months ago.  Go to PBS to watch it.)

Politicians very rarely suggest that we bear the most responsibility for our health.  To do so would point out that we as a nation are failing miserably at controlling ourselves.

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Running in Groups

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The Sept. 16 New York Times Personal Best column discusses the benefits of group running.  Several top runners and coaches are quoted as saying performance improves among athletes who train in groups.  Advocates of group training say that athletes train harder with a group compared to training alone.  Tim Nokes explains in Nokes’ Lore of Running that group training is a key component Kenyan runners—the best distance runners in the world.  Kevin Hanson, coach of the Hanson-Brooks Distance Project notes that runners in dominant distance running nations train in groups.

There’s actually scant scientific evidence that group training provides any benefit over training alone. (There are simply too many variables for which to account to do a valid scientific study.)  The experience of athletes and coaches however, and the results at the finish line gives strong suggestion that group training pays off.

Be careful though.  Group training tends to be more intense.  Too much intensity may lead to injuries such as shin splints, knee pain, or Achilles tendon irritation.  Intense training must be balanced with appropriate rest and recovery.

The article has some interesting information but I’m also a little confused about certain parts.  Both Dathan Ritzenhein and Kara Goucher referred to injuries they had sustained prior to running with a group.  The article seems to imply that they resolved their injuries simply by training in a group.  How did that happen?  The article also mentions the need for recovery and the possibility of training too hard due to the competitive dynamics of group training.  So what’s at work here?  Group training can help.  It might also hinder, but the issue of the runners’ injuries is never explained.  I’d like to see exactly how Ritzenhein and Goucher overcame their injuries.  Did running in a group have anything to do with the process?

Anyhow, here’s a list of Denver area running groups:


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