Are you a one-dimensional trainer plying their trade in a three-dimensional world?
10 April 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Most people are biased towards one or another of the three legs of the fitness triad: progressive resistance training, cardiovascular training and nutrition. How many folks try and lose weight by dieting and dieting alone? Ever wonder why people who lose a lot of bodyweight rapidly still look fat? It’s because they still are fat. When the human organism perceives starvation primordial hardwiring triggers and the body seeks to preserve body fat (the last line of defense against starvation) at all costs. Dieting alone can result in weight loss but as much (or more) muscle as body fat is lost – a result of cortisol dumped into the bloodstream as a direct result of crash dieting. The results of a prolonged crash diet can be scary. I had a self-indulgent buddy who ballooned up from 185 to 350 over a ten year period. He ran into health problems and eventually went on some sort of weird fad crash diet and lost from 350 back down to 200. He looked terrible weighing 200…haggard and jowly, he resembled a blood hound having a bad day…loose skin hung everywhere and he still retained a lot of body fat. Though he weighed 165-pounds less he still packed a 30% body fat percentile. To make matters worse he was now a ‘diet expert’ and told me and anyone else within earshot how stupid they were to follow any diet other than the one he’d used. He still couldn’t catch a ball or walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded, but in his mind he was an Adonis. Diet alone can trigger weight loss but results are far, far better when a sound nutritional game plan is synced-up with a kick-ass resistance and cardio regimen.
At the other extreme I knew a really good long distance runner who was thin. He lived on carbs and carbs alone and eschewed resistance training and protein consumption. His theory was that extra muscle would make him slower and protein was meat and meat was murder. He was an aggressive fruit and berry guy that would drink imported beer or expensive wine. He and I liked each other and hung out and razzed each other over drinks. Eventually he became anemic and emaciated; the combination of too many running miles, too many carbs (in meager amounts) and too few calories combined to produce a physique that resembled an Ethiopian famine victim. His immune system was beaten to a pulp and he became highly susceptible to germs and infections. Lifting weights to his way of thinking would add “useless” muscle and this would make it harder for him to haul around his body. To his shortsighted way of thinking, muscle would have the same negative impact as running while wearing a backpack with a 10/15-pound plate in it. By the time he got to his mid-thirties he started experiencing carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive motion knee and ankle injuries. He had arthroscopic surgery on both knees and was routinely hobbled with ankle and ligament damage. He had eternal shin-splints and eventually gave running up altogether. High impact cardio such as running on hard surfaces can wear down human body parts; people who use one cardio mode to the exclusion of all others radically increase chances of incurring some sort of repetitive motion injury. Cardio is critical but let’s vary the modes. Seek aerobic activity that involves all four limbs as this spreads the physiological impact.
My third example of bias gone wild is that of a former national level powerlifter; a man who set numerous regional records and purposefully grew gargantuan. Once a powerlifter leans the technical ropes, the bigger they get the stronger they become. As my old Zen Coach used to say, “Kid, when all else fails, eat your way through the sticking point.” If a powerlifter is 5-10 and weighs 179 one way to get a hell-of-a-lot stronger is push your bodyweight up to 200, adding muscle in the process. Become bigger become stronger, is the age-old adage of power. If the young powerlifter pushes his bodyweight up to 250 they become significantly stronger than when weighing 200. In the stark world of leverage and bio-mechanics, pure lifting ability is determined by muscle density in relationship to height. My buddy pushed his bodyweight to 350 at 5-10. He could squat over 900-pounds and deadlift 750. He couldn’t walk around the block without getting gassed. He ate everything in sight and had to quit lifting altogether when he developed circulatory problems. I remember asking him what it felt like to squat 930 and take second place at the nationals to the great Mike Hall. His wistful answer surprised me, “For two days a year, the day of the national powerlifting championships and the day of the world championships – it’s great to weigh 350! – the other 363 days it sucks!”
Each of these three individuals took one particular leg of the fitness triad (nutrition, aerobics, resistance training) to an extreme. Too much of a good thing ruined the results. Overemphasis can ruin the body; too much of any one leg of the fitness triad can morph into a nightmare. Let’s not turn the pursuit fitness into the opposite of fitness. Better to practice a little of each leg of the triad than to emphasize one aspect to the exclusion of the other two. Manic bias runs the risk of sabotaging the entire fitness effort. Extreme examples bring consequences into bold relief…
Fitness Day Camp: Now that the weather is improving, I am getting barraged by requests for information on the infamous Fitness Day Camps. In a nutshell, folks travel to my house and we sit and discuss where they are at physically and where they want to get to. We access aspirations and provide a reality check. Achievable goals are established and we devise a custom game plan based on available time, work and family circumstance. All the variables of modern existence are accounted for. We discuss eating strategies. Then we train: I put participants through a progressive resistance session, a cardio session (using the Polar heart rate monitor) and finally we prepare a quick, easy, nutritious meal. We make a great meal inside fifteen minutes incorporating “legal” foods the participants favor. While we eat, we discuss training, nutrition, planning and any and all related questions. The whole deal takes four hours. I don’t do groups as this dilutes the impact; I will work with a few people at a time. My wife Stacy helps and by the time the individual leaves they are equipped with the knowledge they need to succeed. If you are interested in scheduling a day camp date, contact me as MGSO [at] supernet.com for dates, rates and additional info.
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