December 2021 Resistance Training That’s Good for the Heart Resistance training (RT: weightlifting) has been recognized as an important component of a general exercise and wellness program for over 30 years now. The current federal guidelines for physical activity (Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans) recommend 2-3 days/wk of muscle-strengthening exercise for nearly everybody. Long recognized for itsRead More
Heart Health
REAL News – March 2019
March 2019 Old Folks’ Drop-Out Rates & Predictors Matter A multi-national study followed 1514 male and female Norwegians (avg. age 72) participating in a structured exercise program for 3 years. All subjects were tested for cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, body mass index (BMI), and mental and physical health, including medications. One half was offered 2Read More
REAL News November 2017
November 2017 Little Blue Pill Helps Some Swimmers, Too A rare swimming disorder that affects only some open-water distance swimmers (military recruits, triathletes) may benefit from the same drug many middle aged men use medicinally and recreationally. SIPE – swimming-induced pulmonary edema – presents as shortness of breath, a cough that has bloody secretions,Read More
King of Hearts: The One Bet That’s Well Worth It
Last summer I went to the American College of Sports Medicine (www.acsm.org) Annual Meeting in Denver where I sat in on a lecture about the dangers of overexercise. The doctor who presented it was from a Midwestern City University where he’d seen many patients come in with cardiac troubles from shoveling snow. His basic thesisRead More
REAL News October 2017
October 2017 The ‘Obesity Paradox’ Paradox What if a paradox is demonstrated to not be so paradoxical after all? Can a paradox be a double negative? The “obesity paradox”, developed in 1999 from observations that patients undergoing dialysis for end-stage kidney disease had lesser mortality if overweight or obese (BMI of 25-29.9 and 30-34.9, respectively)Read More
How athletes age – like the rest of us
The NYT fitness writer added some more fodder to the aging well discussion with an article that summarized the results of a study of elite athletes from 50 years ago. As one might expect, these old coots were still pretty fit, retaining higher-than-average aerobic capacities compared to others in their now-older age group. But they stillRead More
REAL News September 2017
September 2017 Specificity: Neuromuscular Adaptions Depend on How You Train There are two main principles to fitness training that determine your outcomes: overload and specificity. Overload refers to making the body do more than it’s accustomed to doing, be it lifting, running, stretching or what not. Specificity refers toRead More
Athletes’ hearts, Lean Obesity and Single-payer Healthcare
You’re probably thinking I was trying to get a bunch of keywords into the title so Google will spot me. You’re probably thinking, how in the hell is he going to link three disparate health and fitness issues into one coalesced blog post? And you’re probably thinking I’ve been drinking. But you must read thisRead More