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<p>Yes, most people (athletes or otherwise) do not maintain their fitness and health over their lifetimes. The result is that most older people become weak and frail (e.g. cannot get out of a chair, osteoporosis, etc.), as well as getting metabolic problems from low muscle / high fat (even if their weight remains in the normal range). But it does not have to be that way if you maintain your fitness and health over your life.</p>
<p>Looks like even the US Army is listening to Stuart McGill and ditching sit ups:</p>
<p>[Army’s</a> new fitness tests add taste of battlefield - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_army_new_fitness_test]Army’s”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_army_new_fitness_test)</p>
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<p>Here’s a question for you smart fitness types. What happens to large muscle mass when one discontinues the activity that caused the massive muscles? I’ve heard that it “turns to fat” or “turns to flab” but I’m skeptical. My younger D was a gymnast and is now a competitive cheerleader. She’s a skinny little thing with these big chiseled thighs. What happends to those thighs later in life?</p>
<p>Stretch marks.</p>
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<p>Substantially all bodybuiders and weightlifters from the 1970s forward built their body mass using steroids. Arnold was the first big name steroid bodybuilder.</p>
<p>The same is also true of substantially all NFL players over the last several decades. I’m not even sure the sport is clean now, or if they just have more sophisticated doping regimes to beat the tests.</p>
<p>Anyway, athletes who bulk up and then cut their training at retirement without drastically cutting their calories get fat just like the rest of us. Even when steroid assisted, building large muscle mass requires consuming massive calories. That’s why the concern over getting “muscle-bound” from strength training is overblown. You have to work really hard to eat enough to seriously bulk up from weight training. If you do strength training without the massive caloric intake, you’ll more likely tend to get more skinny/ripped/muscular – like Zuzanna or like iPod nazi who is rail-thin, but is strong enough to do chinups all day long. </p>
<p>There is a limit to skinny/strong. Past a certain point, you have to start eating more and putting on weight to get stronger. That certain point is pretty far out there relative to what any of us geezers might consider attainable. If I ever got at strong as iPod nazi, I would be more than happy to call it a day!</p>
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<p>Fat comes from eating more calories than you are burning, almost regardless of the level of activity. Yes, being physically active helps burn more calories, but I could work out three hours a day and still get fat if I eat 4000 calories a day. There are plenty of big ol’ fat guys in the NFL who are working out hard.</p>
<p>All things considered (and unless we are talking about ridiculous extremes), it’s always better to be stronger and more muscular. Muscle burns more calories and makes it easier to keep from packing on fat.</p>
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<p>Less exercise => muscle shrinks.
Less exercise and smaller muscle => lower metabolism.
Lower metabolism and not reducing eating => get fat.</p>
<p>In other words, muscle does not turn to fat, but loss of muscle and the less exercise that leads to loss of muscle allows fat gain if one is not careful to reduce eating.</p>
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<p>Keil, your question got lost in the shuffle. You have a few options here.</p>
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<li>Eat less at other times. Figure out how much extra the splurge is and try to cut back on other meals. (It might be as simple as one egg instead of two at breakfast for example.) </li>
<li>Get the equivalent amount of exercise. (This is generally much harder.) If you are eating 400 calories too many (almost any snack at Starbucks) then you’ll need to run four miles or the equivalent.</li>
<li>Reduce the frequency of splurging. (I always thought this was hard because it was the social act of going out that was important.)</li>
<li>Reduce the calories of the splurges. Share desserts, ask for a half portion of whatever is being served. If the calories are never put on your plate you will be much less tempted to eat them.</li>
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<p>nMinn:</p>
<p>Oh, a gym full of new kettlebells would be fun. There are just a few really classic kettleball lifts that are better to do with kettlebells than with dumbbells. The name you want know in kettlebells is Gray Cook – a very influential physical therapist from Virginia who has been a leading proponent and great teacher of kettlebells. This guy is a living legend in the fitness field today. He developed the simple testing system that everyone from Mike Boyle to Alwyn Cosgrove to NFL team strength coaches use to evaluate their trainees. He has exercises named after him, like the Cook Hip Lift. He came up with the exercise I posted as yesterday’s exericise of the day. If you want to do something the right way, take this guy’s stuff to the bank.</p>
<p>So here are a couple of, um, articles from Gray Cook:</p>
<p>[Gray</a> Cook on the Kettlebell Dead Lift](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>[Gray</a> Cook on the Turkish Get Up](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>And, nobody teaches a kettlebell swing as well as, or as entertaining, as Dan John:</p>
<p>[Dan</a> John on the Kettlebell Swing](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>And that is why I stick to the treadmill. I simply cannot start a method of exercise that takes you tube videos to learn how to do correctly.</p>
<p>^^ One of my very experienced running friends just managed to fall off of a non-moving treadmill! It caused quite a splash at the gym! I’m not sure exactly what she was doing, but she was pretty embarrassed.</p>
<p>I pretty nearly came off one over the weekend trying to grab for my ipod when it went flying when my arm hit the cord. Dumb. (But I gather not too uncommon – my doc prohibited treadmills as too hazardous for 6 weeks after wrist surgery.)</p>
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<p>Both and men and women are overweight–but I think that women are more likely to obsess over food and beat themselves up if they aren’t the perfect weight. Geneen Roth says that something like 45% of American women are on a diet at any given time. Plus, women are more likely to suffer from eating disorders than men. I’m not an expert, but it’s fairly obvious that there are all kinds of societal messages that contribute to women striving for some unobtainable “ideal weight”. I think that’s the reason Geneen Roth focuses her seminars/retreats on women. It’s not to say that men couldn’t use the help. I’m sure many of them could.</p>
<p>Kettlebell class is on hiatus for two weeks–will try to work on my own. Instructor recommended checking out a guy named Pavel T (Russian kettlebell guru). Signed up for 4 weeks of a TRX class, which starts next week. I’m probably someone who would be diagnosed as ADHD if I were in school now–I hate doing the same stuff over and over, which is one reason I like doing different types of training. I don’t mind the kettle bells–it takes time to really learn how to do the moves the right way.</p>
<p>That Pavel fellow is a co-author with Dan John I linked up above.</p>
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<p>TRX class will be a lot of fun. Very challenging.</p>
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<p>I think women have it tougher than men on the weight issue simply because the spread is so much smaller between the calories they need to stay alive and the calories that will lead to gaining weight. Easier to eat too much and gain weight; harder to diet into enough of a deficit to quickly drop pounds. I do think that many women get into a perpetual diet mode that is self-defeating. They would probably have an easier time eating a little more and exercising a little more intensely. I think it’s really hard to sustain a diet that feels like you are forcing yourself to not eat. There’s an art form of consuming carbs that are labelled “diet”. Fruit, whole grain waffles, whole grain English muffins, more fruit, whole grain bread, whole grain cereal with more fruit. Fruit smoothies. Whole grain wraps. Frozen fruit bars. I’m like, “have a pork chop and a salad, and feel full, for god’s sake…”</p>
<p>I haven’t had a problem with cords with since getting my Sennheiser headset.</p>
<p>I was using a cordless headset until the seals broke letting in sweat. I can use it but then I have to wait a week for it to dry out.</p>
<p>Ran 2.75 miles - felt better than it has in many weeks. I didn’t have any congestion before and during the run but had some after doing weights. I bumped up some of the weights by 5 pounds and the curls by 2.5 pounds. Felt good to work out and I’m going to do some more stretching and floor work at home tonight.</p>
<p>Looking a recommended exercise program/ “coach” that is downloadable to an Ipod. Who/what is
Ipod Nazi?? Thanks…</p>
<p>But shiny fur was the least of its benefits. Indeed, in heartening new research published last week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exercise reduced or eliminated almost every detrimental effect of aging in mice that had been genetically programmed to grow old at an accelerated pace.</p>
<p>[Can</a> Exercise Keep You Young? - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/can-exercise-keep-you-young/]Can”>Can Exercise Keep You Young? - The New York Times)</p>
<p>I guess that I just need a large, metal wheel to run around in.</p>
<p>ipod nazi is my name for the iPod coach who started me on this “move more” journey. I liked his stuff on YouTube, bought his beginner program (12 weeks of workouts in three phases that I stretched into 6+ months):</p>
<p>[Link</a> to Yuri Elkiam’s program](<a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/5s2vlsd]Link”>http://■■■■■■■.com/5s2vlsd)</p>
<p>I think it’s a really terrific program. Comfortable for a beginner. All you need is a stability ball, some dumbbells, and some kind of cardio (exercise bike, treadmill, elliptical, or jumping jacks…)</p>
<p>You just hit play on the iPod and follow along from warmup through the workout to cool down. Here’s a sample with the soundtrack from the second day:</p>
<p>[Sample</a> workout](<a href=“What the Heck is Fitter U? - YouTube”>What the Heck is Fitter U? - YouTube)</p>
<p>Does it work? I’ve lost 75 pounds since I started with this program as a big ol’ fat guy who couldn’t walk to the mailbox without huffin’ and puffin’ 12 months ago. It’s worked for me. Might be the best $99 I’ve ever spent, actually.</p>
<p>It’s a good solid foundation that builds on core exercises, the basic strength training movements, and high-intensity interval training. Excellent fat loss or general fitness program and it’s served me well moving into some other programs. It’s a very safe program. My only quibble might be with the stabilty ball crunches, but he has you do them with very little motion, more like a McGill curlup.</p>
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<p>Isn’t that called a treadmill? :)</p>
The metal wheel doesn’t require external power.