How much does it cost to work out?

From Straight to the Bar:

The fitness industry constantly pushes you to work out, with the tacit message that it is free and accessible for you to do so. When anyone challenges this, saying something is too expensive, the end-all salesman comeback is “How can you put a price on your health?” But money is a legitimate issue. I respect people who raise this as a concern, despite how callous to it I was trained to be as a salesman – I mean, personal trainer – by the gyms I worked for. I hate to think that this marketing axiom is driving people away from developing that part of themselves to which they are naturally entitled – and by which, biologically required…

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Va. Man, 107, Finds Blessings And Burdens In Longevity

From the Washington Post: Ask Larry Haubner for the secret to living 107 years, and the Fredericksburg man flexes his biceps, flashes a mostly toothless smile and growls. “Nutrition!” he bellows. “Exercise! I think we should all exercise more than we do.” Haubner, who was born June 14, 1902, is blue-eyed and bald and answers […]

Exercise and women with disabilities

New study out for any of you interested in women and disabilities:

Rolfe, Danielle, et al. “Negotiating Participation: How Women Living With Disabilities Address Barriers to Exercise.” Health Care for Women International 30, no.8 (August 2009): 743 – 766.

Abstract

Exercise participation among women living with disabilities can be limited as a result of pain, decreased muscle strength, and limited mobility. More “disabling” than these symptoms, however, is a lack of accessible exercise facilities in women’s communities. Our study explores how material and social structures and functions existing and operating within women’s communities and at community-based exercise facilities affect their participation. Interviews with 15 women living with disabilities were conducted and qualitatively analyzed. Participants discuss the benefits of their exercise participation, in addition to how they experience and negotiate structural and attitudinal barriers within community-based facilities.

How do I know if I’m sensitive to grains?

A reader asked this elsewhere on the site and I thought it worth answering here as well, since many of you may be suffering unknowingly. Grain intolerance — or more precisely, an inflammatory response to the proteins in grains, which can touch off a host of autoimmune symptoms — is relatively common. Unfortunately few affected people realize it, because the symptoms aren’t always stomach-based, and/or typically appear hours after consumption. And since most North Americans’ diet is grain-based, people with intolerances find themselves just chronically, generally ill from multiple ongoing exposure.

Here are some typical symptoms…

The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Rippetoe

Strength training commands a certain mix of brutal honesty, humility, and humour. Funny and stupid shit happens in the process of getting strong, and there are certain intractable truths that do not go away for wishing. If strength training had a slightly more foulmouthed and proletariat Mark Twain it would be Mark Rippetoe. Here are a few of his choice insights.

Dumbass Diets, Part 135: The Red Bull Diet

From the No shit — ya think this might be bad? files:

A 23-year-old Auckland mother who lost 45kg in eight months by drinking nothing but energy drink Red Bull says she has ongoing health problems because of the diet.

Brooke Robertson told the Herald on Sunday she shrank from 105kg to 60kg drinking nothing but 10 to 14 cans a day, often accompanying them with nothing more than a handful of dry Honey Puffs.

Full story

She should have kept going and won a Darwin Award for this one.

Free access to EJCN issue on trans fatty acids

Yes! FREE! WOW! Now you too can learn all about trans fatty acids! Shazam!

This supplement to the May 2009 issue of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition contains some review articles as well as the World Health Organization’s position statement on TFAs. Worth reading if you’re nutritionally minded. Of note is the WHO’s recommendation, based on new international data:

to significantly reduce or to virtually eliminate industrially produced TFA from the food supply… by the virtual elimination of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in the human food supply, replacing them with healthy cis-unsaturated fatty acids.

Globe and Mail series on sodium

This week until Friday the Globe and Mail is running a series on sodium in our diets. The average person needs about 1500 mg daily. Our average intake? More like 3600. Like sugar, this shit is in everything — even Cheerios. Check out the Salt-O-Meter to find out where this crap lurks.

A harsh lesson about processed foods for younger people who are now suffering hypertension, even in their teens.

Saturday the 20th: Hypertension at age 14 (full article and video)
The taste of things to come
Monday 22nd: Hunting for the “salt gene” and ethnic disparities in sodium tolerance

Check it out all week and find out how to say Na+ Na+ Na+ Na+, Na+ Na+ Na+ Na+, hey hey hey, good bye.

Moah Powah

Do you want MORE POWER? Do you want to be a TOTAL NINJA? Do you want to run as fast as KENYANS? You’ll be as fast as KENYANS!

It’s like adding chocolate to an electrical storm!

Or, you could just buy Coach Randy Hauer’s e-book More Power. It’s a smart, sensible guide to starting Olympic weightlifting. If you’ve ever entertained thoughts of throwing a bar over your head, get this little gem.