Did you ever see stock photos of personal trainers? Sure you have. They usually look like the picture above, or some variation of it.
Here are the main problems as I see it.
Category: Fitness
To Be Or Not To BMI
Someone recently shared an article with me (What Everyone Is Afraid To Say About Obesity) that is mostly about obesity and the Body Mass Index (BMI). It slams the BMI as being clumsy and inaccurate, failing to "differentiate between fat weight and muscle weight". And it's true. (Briefly alluded to here in The Planet way back in 2012.)
But the article uses three specific examples--Shaquille O'Neal, Muhammed Ali, and Sonny Liston--who are hardly "average" people. They're all professional athletes! (And all African American males.) The article does acknowledge this with the phrase "these elite athletes" but what is the context for all of this? It's about how the results of a national program to combat obesity won't be accurately measured by the BMI.
Warm-ups: Part 2
The last post, Warm-ups: Part 1, discussed the two broad categories of warm-ups: passive and active. And the two categories of active warm-ups: general and specific. Here in Part 2, we'll take a closer look at warm-ups, especially active warm-ups.
Warm-ups: Part 1
With the onset of winter (it's almost here), the importance of a good warm-up before a workout increases. It's also more important for the over-40 crowd who tend to have less joint fluid and muscle elasticity.
Let's start with a one-question quiz: What is the primary purpose of a warm-up?
Push-ups: Core and Resistance
Push-ups are usually considered an upper body exercise that develops the chest, shoulders, triceps, and upper back. But when done correctly, they are a very much a core exercise, too.
The top of a push-up is a "pedestal" plank which is a variation of the more popular plank done on the forearms. This makes a well-done push-up an excellent way to work the core.
Quick Question: Is Heart Rate Formula Accurate?
There's a popular formula for calculating your maximum heart rate (MHR). The formula is simply 220 - Your age and today's Quick Question: Is it accurate?
The quick answer: probably not. I actually wrote a longer piece about this in the old StrongFast Planet newsletter.
But let's take a step back. Why would anyone want to know their maximum heart rate anyway?
Thanksgiving Run
Way back in 2008, I set a goal for myself to run a 6-minute treadmill mile before the end of the year. (I've never been a big runner, so this was a good challenge.) Tweaking my knee in the summer set me back, but I kept on working the program, spending more time running at 10 mph (a 6-minute mile pace).
Then along came Thanksgiving Day, November 27th, 2008.