Tag: fitness

Treadmill Punishment

Inventor William Cubitt subscribed to the “no pain, no gain” philosophy. His “Tread-Wheel,” which was described in the 1822 edition of Rules for the Government of Gaols, Houses of Correction, and Penitentiaries (published by the British Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline and for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders), was presented as a way for prisoners to put in an honest day’s labor. Prisoners used treadmills in groups, with up to 24 convicts working a single machine, usually grinding grain or pumping water, sometimes for as long as 8 hours at a stretch. They’d do so “by means of steps … the gang of prisoners ascending at one end … their combined weight acting upon every successive stepping board, precisely as a stream upon the float-boards of a water wheel

this explains a lot.

Exercise Pills

Everyone knows that exercise improves health, and ongoing research continues to uncover increasingly detailed information on its benefits for metabolism, circulation, and improved functioning of organs such as the heart, brain, and liver. With this knowledge in hand, scientists may be better equipped to develop “exercise pills” that could mimic at least some of the beneficial effects of physical exercise on the body. But a review of current development efforts ponders whether such pills will achieve their potential therapeutic impact, at least in the near future.

Lifting Men

I thought it was hilarious at first when Mallory declared in a comment thread that it was her fitness goal to be able to pick up and lift a grown man over her head. Afterwards, I started noticing that other Toasties were declaring this in a tongue-in-cheek way, and I started thinking, “well, why not?” The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn’t any more ridiculous or unlikely than any headline or superlative you catch on a mainstream fitness magazine, like “Get Amazing Abs in 16 Minutes!” I figured any program written to help a woman pick up a man and lift him overhead was going to lead to better overall health and fitness than any program written to “reveal your abs” in short period of time. The scenario I gave everyone was this: any woman, trying to pick up a 84 kg man any way she can, lifting him overhead any way she can. I chose 84 kg somewhat arbitrarily: although 90 kg men seem very normal to me, I spend a lot of time in powerlifting and olympic weightlifting gyms and realize that my concept of “normal” is very skewed. Also, the median weight class for men in those sports seem to float around 84 kg.

Runner’s High

Although the full intricacies of the endocannabinoid system’s role in motivating and rewarding exercise is not yet understood, it seems obvious that the cannabinoid-deprived mice were not getting some necessary internal message. Typically, the endocannabinoid system “is well known to impact onto central reward networks”. Without it, exercise seemed to provide less buzz, and the animals didn’t indulge as much.

Gluteus Medius

The role of the gluteus medius is to help steady the pelvis so it does not rotate downwards or sag when the opposing side is lifted or not supported with the other leg. It also assists with lateral movement away from the midline of the body, i.e. moving the thigh outward with hip straight. It lies on the side of the hip directly above the larger, “meatier” gluteus maximus. The gluteus medius can be somewhat neglected in the quadriceps-dominant activities of running, which primarily involves forward movement in a straight line, and in cycling. Sometimes knee pain can be caused by overusing quadriceps muscles when glute muscles are not “carrying their proper burden.”

crucial for good running posture

Fitness is a Lie

Who cares if you put on more muscle than you really want? Or if you suck during a few weekend soccer games because the squats are hammering your legs? You’ll be on a journey, at long last, learning how to own the gym, how to make your thrice-weekly health-club sessions into a confident, focused process invulnerable to bullshit. You’ll begin walking right past all the muscle-isolation weight machines, feeling a little sorry for all the guys who still think those are a good use of their time. You’ll start heading right back to the barbells instead, back in the gym’s darkest distant corner, and seeing them only as tools for your own ends, your own sports and goals. Once that happens, you’re on your way.

free weights good, machines bad.

Death By Exercise

The highest death rate is among those who exercise long and hard, and is much higher than that of those who exercise short and hard. Worse, those who do hardly any vigorous exercise had a lower death rate than those who do the most.

can’t be too long now when even jock rags wake up to the marathon silliness.

Nutrition is Aging

I wanted to compare my body mass, strength, lipid and hormone profile to the 28 year old experienced weight trainers studied in the NJM article I discussed earlier this week. I want to show that the conventional wisdom that aging causes a decline in muscle mass, increased obesity, a fall in testosterone, and an unfavorable alteration of blood lipids is not true. Aging research is flawed; it is not the aging process but the poor eating and lack of exercise that is responsible for the general decline we often see with aging.

this is the most convincing yet for evolutionary fitness / diet: at 70, he kicks the ass of 28 year olds.