3 replies to this topic

[stocks]

According to Wares' doctor Jennifer Solomon, she isn't alone. Many baby boomers are experiencing this problem. She sees many patients with similar over-use injures at New York's Hospital for Special Surgery. "These are the people who did the aerobics classes five or six days a week, the high impact aerobics, the step aerobics with three tiered steps," said Dr. Solomon, a physiatrist. "These are the people who thought they were doing the right thing and following the trend of the '80s." Dr. Solomon says the repetitive nature of high impact aerobics has had an adverse affect on many of the once devoted Fonda fans like Wares. "They have knee problems," she said. "They all have early arthritis, or have terrible arthritis where they can't go up and down stairs." Today, Dr. Solomon said these high impact exercise techniques are basically defunct because we now know how to exercise smarter. "You go into any health club and take a look at their schedule you'll see that step aerobics is no longer there. High impact activity is no longer there," she said. "People are now into core stability and power workouts, which is less stressful on the joints."

[calmcookie]

Yes, "CORE" fitness is what's important. It's not really your weight that matters, but your WAIST. Fat stored in a pot belly is the most hazardous health risk. Women ... laugh and learn to love your hefty butt and thighs ... but dump that belly fat! C.C.

Edited by calmcookie, 29 August 2007 - 11:34 AM.

[stocks]

NEARLY one-quarter of gym-goers exercise at levels that can be dangerous to their health, new research shows.

A study of more than 200 gym users at the Brunswick City Baths, in Melbourne, revealed that 23 per cent of people exercised between six and 20 hours a week and had become dependent on their physical fix.

This group, defined as excessive exercisers, did more vigorous levels of exercise for longer periods than their

non-excessive counterparts, according to the study, presented in Brisbane last week at the Australian Psychological Society's annual conference.

Jane Fletcher, a psychologist and co-author of the study, said people who exercised excessively often did so when they were sick or injured. "Exercise is not bad in itself. It is whether it interferes with your work, social life and family life that may indicate whether you have a problem," she said.

http://www.smh.com.a...1091029959.html

[EntropyModel]

NEARLY one-quarter of gym-goers exercise at levels that can be dangerous to their health, new research shows.

A study of more than 200 gym users at the Brunswick City Baths, in Melbourne, revealed that 23 per cent of people exercised between six and 20 hours a week and had become dependent on their physical fix.

This group, defined as excessive exercisers, did more vigorous levels of exercise for longer periods than their

non-excessive counterparts, according to the study, presented in Brisbane last week at the Australian Psychological Society's annual conference.

Jane Fletcher, a psychologist and co-author of the study, said people who exercised excessively often did so when they were sick or injured. "Exercise is not bad in itself. It is whether it interferes with your work, social life and family life that may indicate whether you have a problem," she said.

http://www.smh.com.a...1091029959.html

This is very true, and there two reasons I'm aware for it -

1. There is still a mindset amonst the ill informed that 'more is better'. Its sort of intuitive to think that, society gives glory to endurance events like marathons, or 'iron man' triathlon.but its nonsense, and bad for people's health. I am 40 now, when I was 20 I was in a running team at college - we had guys from 400metre to marathoners - I was a miler to 10K events. We all trained together doing sprints to 10miles. This made me realize 'fitness' isn't about distance, and I started studying the science of fitness. The question to answer as who is fitter - a sprinter, a miler, or a distance runner? or how about cyclists or swimmers or weight lifters?

There are scientific answers to this question, which show endurance is only one small element of 'fitness', and done excessively is negative to health, but we apparently can't afford a few hours in 10years of schooling to educate people to some of these simple facts about their bodies.

2.Most people attracted to endurance are obsessive compulsive - we all joke about that.
It really is quite funny, and thought I'd share an anecdote. My wife and I have alot of training partners for thing like swimming, bike, running - the most 'compulsed group' are the iron man triatheletes, the rest of us are more concerned with fitness/health so we focus on intensity( going harder not longer) and recovery(getting adequate rest) . One of the iron men asked my wife how her bike training was going - oh she says, I'm upto 20mph for 30miles ....feeling good about her speed - not bad he said, why don't you come join our 100 miles rides....he chose to focus on the distance.


But excessive amounts of exercise is only one type of behaviour ''dangerous to health'
I would put the figure much higher than that, especially for guys its nearer 50-60% who's training technique's are risky such as -
Not warming up muscles correctly
Lifting weights too heavy for their supporting tendons and ligaments
Lifting weights too fast producing huge forces on joints at turning points.
Lifting weights with incorrect technique ( wrong muscle, using the back, forcing it)
Not warming down correctly.

It tends to be guys who are the worst offenders, because their male ego wishes to be seen lifting the heaviest weight possible, no matter if they end up lifting arm weights with their back!

Most of the so called exercise indusry is a fashion driven. I've watched the hilarious fashions come and go for 20 years - what happend to Tae Bo, plyometrics, spinning etc?

The latest fasion is another crazy dangerous one called HIIT - high intensity interval training. It involves doing 100% full out effort e.g. sprinting for 20-30seconds, rest, then repeat for 4-15minutes. This I wager will give Jane Fonda's nonsense a run for its money in the injury stakes.

This is a great training for ATHELETE's, but its incredibly dangerious for your average guy. Were mostly talking about sprinting here . That requires a full body careful warmup, and is best done on a track.

But mostly I read people doing this on treadmills, with little warmup - and many of these people are 100+lbs over weight so just imagine the forces on joints/ligaments/tendons - its crazy that but fashions take hold and people are always looking for 'magic' to solve their problems....I wonder about heart attack risk too, because this produces peak heart rates.

Mark

Edited by entropy, 03 October 2007 - 03:17 PM.