When a quick painkiller fix leads to long-term woes

Ever had an annoying pain preventing you from working out at your full potential for weeks or months on end? I guess the answer is yes for most athletes. Injury in sport is as inevitable as tax and death. And when it comes to working out at the gym, opportunities abund to contract one of these pesky injuries that do not sideline you altogether but hamstring you enough that your 1-max rep is durably affected.

THE MAGICAL CORTISONE FIX
The vast majority of these injuries are muscular or affect tendons. In my own experience what has long been called "tendinitis" is the most frustrating type of injury as it often resists all conventional treatments such as the commonsensical "Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation" routine. To defeat such a stubborn enemy, one may be tempted to resort to an "industrial strength" treatment, which more often than not means using cortisone in one of its many forms.

Warming up after 40

The first goal I assigned to myself when starting working out on a regular basis more than 20 years ago was to avoid injury. I was haunted by several serious accidents sustained while playing soccer in my teens which cost me several lower limb surgeries, months of physical therapy and ensuing physical inactivity, not to mention considerable physical and mental pain.
I must confess that it took me years before I could meet this basic goal of minimizing injury time in my workout routine. In the first 5 years I thus sustained an average of about 2 injuries (typically subluxation-induced back pains or various muscle tears) per year, which kept me away from the gym for at least a couple of weeks annually.

WARMING UP IS TIME EFFICIENT IN THE LONG RUN
My experience has been that most workout-related injuries occur through an inappropriate warm up  (or a total lack thereof). In my case this would translate in something like rushing to the gym a bit too late at night with a

Squats and deadlifts after 40: it is a no-go

I am one of those persons who think that squats and dead lifts, two compound movements, should ideally be used as the foundation of any high-intensity resistance training program. Compound movements combine several large muscle groups as opposed to isolation movements (such as arm curls) which concentrate on a single muscle (or part thereof). For those of you who are not familiar with these two very popular exercises, you can refer to these Wikipedia articles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlift

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_%28exercise%29

UNIQUE BENEFITS OF WEIGHT-BEARING EXERCISES

Many believe that the benefits of squats and dead lifts go beyond developing the muscle groups specifically targeted by these movements, i.e. quadriceps (front leg muscles), gluteus (buttock muscles) and hamstrings (back leg muscles). The theory is that because these movements are the most intense of all resistance training exercises they induce the most hormonal response from the body, especially in the form of increased production of growth hormone. I would add that such movements provide the most intense workout in the least time and can therefore be considered as the most efficient of all exercises.

How to squeeze weight training and aerobic exercises into your busy schedule

Over the many years I tried to convince friends and family to join me in my exercise regimen, I have found out that the number one reason many have bailed out was a claimed lack of time in their busy schedule. I cannot reject this argument right off the bat. For those of you  who have a family, the combined demands of work and family life can exact a large toll on your discretionary time allowance.
THAT'S COMMUTE TIME STUPID!

The single most critical factor though that accounted for the most failures in sticking with a regular exercise routine was commute time. On average Americans commute about an

The Savannah man

Recent advances in genetics and anthropology have evidenced that our current genome is very similar to that of our ancestors who lived in the Savannah after the latest glaciation about 10,000 years ago. This was right before the invention of agriculture.

If this is correct, the logical next step is to question what kind of life these humans had in terms of nutrition and physical activity and see if this can teach us something about what modern days homo-sapiens should do to stay optimally fit. Given the very hash living conditions prevailing in those days, if our ancestors had been obese, suffered from high cholesterol or diabetes or simply have lacked sufficient physical fitness, they would have gone extinct long ago and we would not be here to talk about them.

The "it's my genes" myth

I could not count the number of times someone plump said to me something like: "You eat more than I do (which was probably true) but you manage to stay slender. You MUST have good genes".

Just to set the record straight: my father was obese till he lost a lot of weight after getting very sick and eventually passed away. My sister is obese but has never accepted to hear from me that she eats too much junk (highly processed) food and gets close to zero exercise.

The truth of the matter is that only about 2% of the obese have "defective genes" that can be blamed for their condition.

The Unfulfilled Promises Of Supplements

Like many fitness enthusiasts, there was a time when I bought fitness magazines on a regular basis. The most striking feature of those publications was the incredible number of ads for supplements they featured. As far as I know, nothing has changed since.

A basic fact of life of which everybody interested in fitness should be aware of is that the supplement industry is the single largest source of revenues for the fitness industry, surpassing even club membership fees. The second fact that you should keep in mind is that the supplement industry has been totally deregulated since the Bush area. In other words, no claim concerning a supplement needs to be scientifically substantiated. Last but not least, almost all fitness magazine belong to or have a stake in supplement manufacturers and vendors. Add these three pieces of information and it becomes easy to guess what ails the supplement industry.

To summarize the situation, the vast majority of supplements touted in these magazines (and elsewhere on the Internet) are totally inefficient at best and in some cases potentially harmful (remember the ephedrine scandal).

I do not contend to have tried all major supplement categories. My 20+ years experience has led me to believe though that very few supplements are worth the money you will spend on them over time (potentially hundreds of dollars a year, you do the math).

The No-Carbs Fallacy

Dr Atkins may have been dead for 7 years, many still consider that carbohydrates are the enemy when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight, let alone putting off some. The reality is somewhat more complicated.

First of all carbs are not all born equal. Foods as diverse as plain rice, white sugar, corn syrup or bread are all representatives of the wide carbohydrate family. However some are more healthful than others, partly depending on their glycemic index. As a rule of thumb all highly processed foods should be avoided, be it carbs or other categories.

For instance, not only is the glycemic index of white sugar among the highest but it also does not contain any other nutrients like fibers of vitamins. So the first rule for the carb-wary crowd should be: pick your carb carefully by staying away from all highly processed foods.

The "All-Aerobic" Myth

One of the most prevalent misconceptions about fitness ESPECIALLY after 40 is that this word is synonymous with “aerobic fitness”. Whereas running, bicycling, swimming etc is an indispensable component of any fitness program at any age, it is in no way sufficient to ensure overall fitness, especially after 40.
Sorry for all of you 40-something marathoners who are reading these lines thinking of yourself as the ultimately fit homo sapiens. You've only got part of the equation right.

My observation is that many people in their 40’s, especially males, tend to overdo aerobic training (marathoners) while totally ignoring weight training, whereas the human body gradually start losing muscle mass from the early 30s . This phenomenon, called sarcopenia noticeably accelerates after the mid 40s with potentially disastrous consequences such as a deteriorating metabolism (muscles greatly contribute to the control of blood sugar level), an increased risk of accidents because of weakened muscles (especially falls), postural imbalances and eventually an inability to live independently later in life.

Therefore even a "fit" mature individual following an aerobic-only exercise routine will exhibit unmistakable signs of aging in his gaunt appearance caused by a drastic loss of muscle mass. Sarcopenia is actually one of the hallmarks of old age from a cosmetic viewpoint.

The Fitness Tripod

Very early on in my fitness itinerary (I started working out at the age of 24) I became familiar with one of the most fundamental laws of fitness, which can be summarized in the tripod metaphor: in order to make sustained progress in your level of fitness you must constantly optimize three parameters: what you eat, your exercise routine and your sleep. If any of these three factors gets out of control, then it becomes a gating factor that will hinder any progress in your overall fitness.

My experience suggests that most newcomers in the fitness field tend to concentrate almost exclusively on one of those factors: the exercise component. Whereas this initial emphasis is justified especially when picking up a new exercise routine, not heeding sleep and food will inevitably result in bitter disappointment and more often than not giving up exercise altogether for lack of result.

Erase The Word « Diet » From Your Vocabulary

One of the hardest things needed to stay in shape past 30 or 35 is keeping control over your food intake. As your metabolism becomes less efficient with age, extra calories tend to translate even faster  into extra pound and body fat.

This basic truth has given rise to one of the largest industries in the US and the western world: the “diet” industry. This 60-billion dollar a year sector (one of out 3 woman and one out of four men are on a diet at any given time) rests on a shockingly incorrect assumption:
Dieting can make you thinner in the long run. The scientific truth demonstrates quite the opposite.

This misconception is based on a basic misunderstanding of the very word “diet”. In common parlance the word “dieting” means changing one’s eating habits temporarily in order to achieve weight loss and/or other health benefits.  If you look up the word “diet” in a dictionary, you will find something to the effect of “A regulated selection of foods, as for medical reasons or cosmetic weight loss” The point is that there is no notion of limitation in time in the very definition of the word “diet”.

Unconsciously or not, most people think that losing weight rapidly will magically induce a stabilization of their weight at a lower level than before starting the diet after they “quit” it.
Not only is this assumption false but a lot of people actually experience a permanent weight gain (from their baseline weight) after “quitting” a diet.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-yo_dieting

The Genesis of FitandWise

While working out at the gym one night in late 2009, I suddenly realized that I was one of the few persons over 40 training with the young crowd (and standing my own).

This realization did not come overnight. I had been working out at various gyms in France, the Unites States and Belgium for the last 22 years when this fact occurred to me. 20 or even 15 years ago, I had been one of these 20 something warriors full of energy and hubris wondering whether I would still be in a gym past my 40s.

The funny thing is that as I was getting older more and more people would spontaneously come up to me at the gym for advice. This happened so frequently that in early 2009, after more than 22 years of workout experience I decided to get a personal trainer certification, which I passed in December 2009 (I am now a NSCA-certified personal trainer).

Needless to say that the flow of advice-seekers has swelled further since then. Yet in spite of my experience and newly acquired credentials, I did not want to become a personal trainer in the traditional sense of the word. My goal was to be in a position to help (and receive precious feedback from) a lot more “mid-lifers” than I would ever be able to meet as a PT.
This is how this blog saw the light of day on June 11th 2009, the very day the 19th Soccer World Cup opened in South Africa (I am a European, so don’t start me on this…).

My goal with “FitandWise” is to help middle-aged males and females to restore or maintain a level of fitness they thought was lost forever when the big 40 hit. In doing so I promise to abide by a sacred rule:

Never misrepresent or over-hype facts and figures, a phenomenon all too common on websites dedicated to fitness. I’d rather confront you with unpleasant truths (e.g. no, there is no “quick fix” for this) and lose readers in the process than paint too rosy a picture, just like the one you can find in glossy fitness magazines systematically featuring outrageous headlines à la “get washboard abs in just 4 weeks”.

In doing so I hope to earn your trust and prompt you to become an active reader and contributor to this blog.