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.
Why Jack LaLanne is The Man and always will be
“People don’t die of old age, they die of neglect.” — Jack LaLanne
At 93 this dude still makes us all look like sniveling blobs. We should only age so well…
It’s not just a sedentary life. It’s a DEVICE OF DEATH!
Data from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study suggests that fitness level was a significant predictor of mortality — one follow-up study of 40,842 people suggests that poor fitness level alone was responsible for 16% of all premature deaths in both men and women. The ongoing study began in 1970 and includes more than 80,000 patients. Read more…
Why mainstream health reporting is crap
Over 22 months, media researchers rated 500 health news reports from major newspapers, the Associated Press wire, and three TV networks according to how well they fulfilled certain quality standards. They concluded that 62 to 77% of stories didn’t adequately address costs, risks, benefits, the quality of the evidence, and other treatment options when covering healthcare products and procedures…
Reader mail 8
“I was unfit my entire life and avoided the gym for years, convinced that it was going to be just like High School gym. In my late 20s, I went through a rough patch and got seriously depressed. My weight ballooned to the point that when I turned 30 things were at their worst and I weighed 315 lbs. A few years ago I finally decided that I had to stop ‘waiting’, and get to it…”
In Which Scarlett Johanssen Does, Verily, Bring It Upon the Buttocks of the Mass Media
In the Huffington Post, Scarlett Johanssen opens a can of whupass on critics and tabloids who make up BS about celebrities…
Inspired by Shaky Man in the Gym? Donate to Parkinson’s research
Fans of Shaky Man in the Gym: If you’re inspired by Neil’s story, as I was, consider making a donation to the Unity Walk NSW 2009 for Parkinson’s NSW (Neil’s page — with a gym photo!), or a donation to the Parkinson’s foundation of your choice, such as: