Tagged: running
Another WTF Fitness Industry Moment
It’s not often I post twice in a week, but I just read something on my Facebook that was both sad and alarming at the same time. In a nutshell, one of my acquaintances who is training for a fitness competition posted that after her leg workout, she got the shakes and threw up – for the second time.
This wasn’t the most alarming thing. Throwing up after a workout is just stupid, unhealthy and totally unnecessary, and anyone should know that. It should also be a sign to you that something might be seriously wrong, and posting it on Facebook in order to seem hardcore is bad enough. Let’s not also mention that you already did it once, and then chose to do it again. What was even more alarming were the comments, likes and things that people were saying to actually ENCOURAGE this behaviour and make the original poster feel GOOD ABOUT IT.
“Very proud of you.” ?????
“That’s awesome! I want to do that workout!” ?????
“Inspirational!” ?????
Are you fucking kidding me?
Let’s step back and take a reality check here for a second. If this person pukes, it’s really cool? This is a good thing? Vomiting is basically your body telling you that it is so overloaded that it needs to vent anything else it is doing in order to make you lie down. It is telling you that it can’t take care of a simple process like digestion because you have totally destroyed it. This is an incredible stress on your digestive and nervous system. You can also die from it, or it might result in a trip to the hospital. People vomit when they are having concussions, brain aneurysms and have ingested toxins. However, you can also vomit from intense pain or emotional stress. Any way you cut it, this is not something to be celebrated.
At least the coach posted that the volume was obviously too much and that it was counter productive, but then proceeded to “like” the girl replying that she felt like a champion. After vomiting. Good job, champ. Maybe if you do it enough you’ll get a shiny medal or a piece of paper that says you’re a “pro”.
The reason I’m writing this is because this is one of the serious problems with the fitness world as a whole. Competitors use diets, drugs and whatever method they can to get into the condition they want to be in without any regard to what it is likely to do to them down the road. Being a fitness competitor or bodybuilder isn’t healthy in the slightest, but for some reason society pictures ripped abs and big biceps and aspires to be that way, not realizing that 90% of these people are sick, feel terrible and have massive health issues before long most of the time. And I’m not even touching the mental issue side of the industry. Want to find people with eating disorders and massive body image problems (both men and women)? Look no further than your local gym or Instagram fitness profile. This weekend is the Arnold Classic, where guys (and many girls) who have done amounts of steroids you can’t even imagine are celebrated with acclaim by millions of fans. Supplement companies all vying to be the next big money maker packing booths with people wanting the promise that if you just take this, you can look like (or date) the girl handing it to you! I promise! Just don’t read the ingredients because it might amaze you what people ingest these days in the hopes of looking “fit and healthy”. Looking it is about all that’s going on, unfortunately because if you looked inside these people, there isn’t an ounce of health there.
You can look great, perform at a high level and have a good quality of life without resorting to these things, but once you’re part of the club then look out. If you don’t push yourself that hard then you aren’t hardcore enough to be a champion! Blood, sweat and iron! Whatever it takes! Sacrifice your health and well being and you can have your picture taken by a photographer (that you paid) and photoshopped and then market yourself as a fitness expert because you look good with an airbrush.
And people believe it. And they wonder why when they turn 40 they can’t move their joints, have long term health issues or have to be on piles of medication. But hey, look at those pictures from 10 years ago, right? Remember that show I did? Remember when I used to be able to make myself puke? That was awesome.
The ironic thing is that under the circumstances of this particular person’s life she should be one of the last people to ever push herself that hard, knowing what could possibly happen. But for some reason beating herself into the ground with weights and intensity to the point of collapse and vomiting makes her feel good about herself.
And maybe that’s what we should really be talking about in the first place.
Join My 30 Day Challenge!
After reading about the latest company promoting a 24 day challenge that guarantees amazing results and can totally change your life, I realized that I have been really missing the boat. Obviously if you can create a program that causes people to feel better, lose weight and inches quickly and also make money at the same time it’s going to be a huge success. Therefore I decided to put together my own 30 Day challenge to provide people with an amazing new revolutionary way to do all of these things. I don’t know if I should just release this to the general public, but since I am typically a generous soul I decided to share my amazing new secrets with the public and give them the help that they need in order to be fitter, healthier and happier. Are you ready for this? It only takes 30 days and you will be a totally new person!
Okay, Step One:
Go into your cupboards and fridge and throw out everything that is packaged, didn’t at one point have eyes or wasn’t grown or made from something from the ground. You may find that your cupboards and fridge have suddenly gotten really empty. This is a tough challenge, but you don’t have to spend two hundred dollars a month or sign up for auto ship – just throw it out once, which is basically the same thing. So that leads us to Step Two:
Go to the grocery store. See those different coloured things called vegetables to your right as you walk in? Buy lots of them. So many that you can’t even see the bottom of your cart. And lots of different colours too. Then go to the butcher section and buy a bunch of that stuff too. Watch the butcher actually cut it up in front of you. Buy some white stuff, some pink stuff and some more white stuff. If it had a beak or gills at one point it’s a bonus. Then, go to the checkout aisle without going anywhere else. Can you do it? Can you make your cart turn left before the cookie aisle? I know it’s tough, but you wouldn’t have signed up unless you were totally committed and amazing, right?
Oh, and you have to do this more than once a week. So if you don’t have time then watch less TV or don’t post on Instagram for an hour and go back to the grocery store. You might actually have to go twice or three times in a single week. That’s why I said this was a challenge.
Step Three: Cook stuff. Don’t cook it in a microwave; don’t pull it out of a box and plastic wrap. Put it in an oven. Or slow cooker. Or barbeque. Or steamer. Leave it there for a bit of time. Or don’t cook it and eat it raw (not the butcher stuff though). Oh, you don’t have to do this every day – if you are smart about it and cook three days’ worth at once. I promise it won’t kill you. Put it in that cold thing in the kitchen that is designed to store things and keep them fresh.
Step Four: Eat the food. Eat a bit of animal stuff and a lot of vegetable stuff. For every meal, even breakfast. I know – your body might explode if you don’t have cereal or toast for breakfast, but I want you to take that risk because you’re hardcore and fully committed. Oh, and if you don’t eat breakfast now, eat it anyway. I know it makes you feel sick to actually eat before noon, but push yourself! You’re awesome! Oh, and you have to take stuff to work too. It might make your bag really, really heavy but that’s all part of the challenge!
Step Four: Don’t drink anything that isn’t water or coffee or tea coloured. And no, that doesn’t mean water coloured paints or Coke or whiskey because it’s brown. There are rules here. Drink until you have to pee. And it’s not a dark colour. Keep drinking until you’re peeing a lot. See, even your bladder is getting into the challenge!
Step Five: Exercise. Put on those things with soles that sit by your front door and go outside. If it’s -25, go to the mall. Walk there. Hell, walk up and down your stairs. Set a timer for 30 minutes and just keep doing stuff that involves movement until it beeps. I know, I know, it’s another 30 minutes you could be pretending to do work at your desk. But this challenge is meant to separate the committed from the uncommitted. I know you’re committed! I know you can do it!
If you have a gym membership, actually walk into the door. Once you’re there, pick some stuff up and put it down. Then do it again until you’re tired. You can use the black things, the long skinny things and even the really complicated looking big pieces of stuff.
Okay, so we’re at the end of Day 1. Having fun yet? Okay, now your challenge is to do this. Every. Single. Day. For 30 days. I know it sounds totally incredible that regular people like you can actually do this. At the end of it, you won’t believe your eyes! Then you can help me sign up more people for this amazing program.
Does it sound simple? Does it sound ridiculous? Does it sound like anybody can do it? Not just anyone can do this, it takes a special breed of person, but I know that you are definitely that person. That’s why I’m sharing this amazing new program with you, and only you. Feel free to PayPal me $50 to paradigmfitnessottawa@gmail.com if you want to sign up and learn more about this amazing offer!
#yesthisissarcasm
The Cleaver Vs. The Scalpel
I’ve written before many times on how easy it is to kick someone’s ass physically. In fact, I wrote about it previously under “Anyone Can Kick Somebody’s Ass” if you care to check it out. Many times in my industry clients fall victim to trainers pushing them far too hard, or people are victims themselves by putting themselves through a workout that they have no business doing, especially over a period of time. Due to the theory of “no pain, no gain” people think wrongly about forces and how they are applied to the body, imagining that the harder they work the faster things are going to move. In fact many times the opposite is true, and you’re doing yourself far more harm than good by trying to stimulate the body past what it is capable of dealing with.
I was in my local butcher the other day watching a guy cut up various bits of meat while my order was being prepared, and I couldn’t help but think that the instruments he was using wasn’t too far off from what some trainers try to use when trying to mitigate change. For some cuts there was no precision at all, just a big cleaver that hacked up everything as fast as possible for the sake of getting it done. Now, these guys are probably better at using a cleaver than anyone because of experience, which can also be the basis for a skilled trainer to be using force like that. They can hack through a joint without thinking about it because they have done it 1000 times. They know just where to strike in order to separate things without having to do it again, possibly dulling the blade in the process.
However, then I saw a more delicate operation being done on a fish, which was a very precise series of cuts with a razor thin blade in order to remove bones, which if not done properly completely ruins the meat in both look and feel. This is the other side of the equation. If you use a cleaver to debone a fish, you’re going to get a big smelly mess on the floor and the precision that you need just isn’t there. If you use a scalpel to hack up a chicken, you’re likely to not only take forever but get really frustrated when you try to cut through a joint. When I’m dealing with a serious injury case, it needs to be precise, focused energy devoted to doing exactly what I want to have happen, otherwise I’m going to potentially make the person worse, not better. However, if I’m dealing with a person who needs to be able to generate a lot of force for a specific physical act, then maybe they need a different approach.
So does the desired result dictate the tool or the other way around?
In my experience too many people think too much about the outcome and not how they are going to get there. They are so focused on the goal and willing to do whatever it take to get there they forget about the tool, and that in the physical world there is an endless amount of tools at their disposal in order to achieve that goal. This is where real skill as a trainer enters the picture. Just like a master chef, a really good trainer can pull out a variety of tools in order to create the desired outcome that they are looking for, whether it be simple movement, higher amounts of force, or even something like changes to lifestyle for a client. Some people need a cleaver because they need to have things completely changed – and they can handle the force. Some require a bit of a finer touch and just some very precise modifications in order to keep their progress moving forward. Many clients prefer the cleaver, thinking that the best approach is just to smash everything, when the scalpel is often what is needed, especially at the beginning of an exercise program, or a change to what you are trying to accomplish. The ego can easily get in the way.
So the next time you are evaluating your exercise program, ask yourself – what tool do you need in order to make things the most effective for what you are trying to achieve at that moment? And on top of that, would you be better off using another tool at that point because the one you really want to use or are used to using doesn’t do the right thing? This requires thought and constant evaluation. The benefit of working with someone who knows how to do this is that it takes the guess work out of it for you. However, even if you are working on your own just remember that tools are just that – tools. It is the person behind them performing the movement or coaching you through the movement that is actually causing the change. Make sure that you are using the right ones. And that the person you are trusting with your physical health has as many tools as possible in order to get the job done.
And if anyone in Ottawa needs a good butcher, just let me know.
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Therapy and Exercise Refined 