Time redeems itself
If we consider food through its entire life cycle, from seed to table to disposal, it becomes clear that we’re living on borrowed time and money. “Penny wise, pound foolish” applies also to what we eat, and it’s increasingly obvious that looking for the lowest prices hasn’t done us any favours…
Oral contraceptive use = teh suck in the gym?
From ScienceDaily by way of a couple of helpful Stumptuous readers:
Many active young women use oral contraceptives (OC) yet its effect on their body composition and exercise performance has not been thoroughly studied. A team of researchers has now examined the effects of OC on female muscle mass, and found that oral contraceptive use impairs muscle gains in young women, and is associated with lower hormone levels.
Fighting for the Right to Fight article series
Now that women’s boxing has been added to the roster for the 2012 Olympics, and now that one of the first sanctioned women’s MMA bouts has occurred, the question of women fighting will move increasingly into the public eye. Researcher David Mayeda has penned an unusually thoughtful and informative treatment of the subject in this article series, which is well worth reading for anyone interested in women’s MMA/fighting as well as women’s participation in male-dominated sports generally. MMA/fighting is a bit unusual in that it has a long-established tradition of things like ring girls and ritualistic displays of machismo, but nevertheless it does reflect familiar challenges.
Young women consistently exercise less than young men
Despite mounting public health concerns about obesity and persistent social pressures dictating that slim is beautiful, young women in their ’20s consistently exercise less than young men. And young black women showed significant declines in exercise between 1984 and 2006, according to a University of Michigan study to be published in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
The study is one of the first to analyze long-term patterns in weight-related activities, and to assess how these patterns vary by gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The disparities in health behaviors the study reveals are consistent with disparities in the prevalence of obesity, particularly among women, according to Philippa Clarke, lead author of the study and a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).
Photo o’ the day
A beautiful shot of Canadian hurdler Priscilla Lopes-Schliep as she jumps for joy after winning a medal. Looka those powerful legs! Those are squattin’ legs!
Take that, you boobs!
As a member of Stump Nation y’all know that weight training cures everything from hangnails to mother issues. New research shows that contrary to previous medical advice, weight training helps breast cancer recovery. Read on, MacDuff…
Looking for losers
I’m posting this on behalf of a colleague who is looking for study participants. She’s looking in particular for successful weight losers who’ve lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for >1 year. (Not surprisingly, she’s having a tough time.) Here’s her call for participants — please contact her directly at the info below.
Why exercise won’t make you thin (and other idiotic tales of mass media reporting)
ZOMG! EXERCISE IS A LIEEYEEE!! THOSE MEAN JOCKS MAKE US DO STUFF AND IT DON’T WERK NOHOW!
This wasn’t the headline for Time magazine’s recent piece, but it might as well have been…
It’s not just a doughnut. It’s a DEVICE OF DEATH!
Continuing with our DEVICE OF DEATH theme, a Florida doctor is in the doghouse after declaring that donuts will kill you as sure as strychnine. Considering that this doctor served in Iraq, and thus has some comparative concept of things that will kill you, that’s pretty heavy shit. This dude must be serious. In any case, Big Donut got his ass fired.
Single vs multiple sets: Finally, the answer! (We hope.)
Oh, how the debate has raged over the years. Single sets to failure? Multiple sets? How many?
Leaving aside the fact that the body is not great at counting, which often invalidates many of the Baroque mathematical elaborations of bodybuilders, and forgetting that we should just lift the damn heavy thing until it isn’t as heavy and then go find a heavier thing, the question of whether single sets of exercises is better than multiple sets is actually kind of a good question for folks seeking optimal efficiency and results from their workouts.
Well, here’s the answer. We think. A meta-analysis concluded that “2 to 3 sets per exercise are associated with 46% greater strength gains than 1 set, in both trained and untrained subjects.”
There you have it. 46% more — that’s nearly half — and that’s good enough for me.
Krieger, James. “Single Versus Multiple Sets of Resistance Exercise: A Meta-Regression.” The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research.
