What’s
up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m
interested in biomechanics to avoid injuries. I read « Sport
Medicine Media Guide » and I learned some good stuff.
Sudden
cardiac death (SCD) is an extremely rare event. The most common
reason for cardiac death related to sports is the cardiomyopathy
hypertrophic, an abnormal enlargement of cardiac muscle. It’s a rare
heart disease that predispose a person of SCD because of physical
exertion.
Commotio
cordis is another reason for SCD. It’s a direct trauma to the chest
at a specific moment in the cardiac cycle and this trauma triggers a
dangerous arrtyhmia (abnormal rhythm) of electrical system of the
heart. A commotio cordis usually arrives in sports where a blunt
projectile, such as baseball ball or hockey puck, hits the athlete’s
chest.
Treatment
Cardiac
arrhythmias that threaten the lives of young athletes are very
difficult to treat. The immediate use of AED (automated external
defibrillator) can provide an advantage.
Prevent
Unfortunately,
the only way to prevent death from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is to
identify the disease and recommend the athlete avoid any strenuous
activities. Cardiac ultrasound can diagnose this condition. Some
experts have called for the screening of athletes with ultrasound or
electrocardiograms (EKG), although this screening is controversial
because of the high cost and scarcity of this condition.
However,
athletes with cardiac symptoms such as dizziness, fatigue, shortness
of breath in relation to physical activity, palpitations, convulsions
and especially syncope (fainting) must stop the competitions and must
do deeper tests.
In
addition, a family history of cardiac abnormalities justifies a
complete cardiac evaluation. Especially a known parent with
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or a history unexplained sudden death in
a family member.
There
is the creation of different forms of protection for the chest and
pads, but unfortunately no method has prevented this tragic event.
The rules regularly change in the sport and some times to try to
avoid commotio cordis. For example in baseball and softball, it’s the
limitation of the use of aluminium bat. This rule can protect the
pitcher by decreasing the speed of the ball after contact with the
bat. There are other rules too, such as using a softer ball and
teaching players to turn their chest when the ball is hit by the bat.
Stats
Fortunately, SCD is extremely rare in the sport. For the majority of people do sports to cardiac benefits.
In young athetes, the most common causes of SCD are 25-30% hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and 20% commotio cordis.
Coronary artery abnormalities are the cause of 14% of SCD in athletes.
Marc-Vivian Foe, a Cameroonian soccer star had a sudden cardiac death during a match in 2003.
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-Steph
P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here .
What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m interested in biomechanics to avoid injuries. I read « Sport Medicine Media Guide » and I learned some good stuff.
Physical exercises are for everyone, including the mature population. Exercises allow older people to keep a healthy body and maintain their independence. The main health problems of the mature population are arthritis, high blood pressure, heart disease, lung disease, depression and hearing and sight loss. With the exception of hearing and sight loss, all these health problems can be serious decrease with an adequate workout program.
All mature athletes should have a complete medical and musculoskeletal assessment before starting any workout program. Having a complete medical examination, medical advice and a workout program helps to avoid serious injuries and health accidents. These 3 things should meet the needs of a mature athlete to avoid disease, increase endurance, strength, body image and competitiveness.
Exercises are beneficial
It’s important that a qualified personal trainer create a specific workout program to improve strength, endurance, balance and flexibility. If the workout program includes sports such as golf or tennis, the technical knowledge of the golf/tennis instructors is helpful to avoid injury and improve performance. For results, workout programs must be consistent for at least 30-45 minutes, 3-4 days a week.
If physical conditions require correction, a cardiac or pulmonary rehabilitation program or physical therapy may be helpful before starting a workout program. These rehab programs should be taught to mature athletes at a fitness level where they could continue with their own workout program.
Exercise type for the workout program
An athlete should use types of exercises based on his/her desire, pre-existing conditions and his/her ability to exercise without pain. For an athlete with lower extremity joint problems such as arthritis or instability, it’s recommended to avoid exercises with repetitive impacts like running. For athletes with an unstable shoulder, it’s recommended to avoid overhead exercises such as military press and pull-ups.
Using several types of exercise to improve strength, can allow better recovery of muscle and tendon tissue. If a mature athlete wants to make a sport that can aggravate a pre-existing problem on a muscle, tendon or bone, that athlete should be in a good condition before doing this sport. It’s recommended to decrease this sport’s frequency to reduce the painful symptoms.
What equipment to use
Having shoes that fit with the exercise and/or the sport is beneficial. If the person has a foot with significant deformity such as flat feet (fallen arches), using orthopedic shoes helps to reduce stress on the entire lower extremity. The symptoms of arthritis in the knee may be decrease by the use of specialized braces.
Prevent injury or discomfort during exercise
If there is discomfort during or after physical exercise, this should be analyzed to prevent it from starting again or getting worse. Over-the-counter painkillers and anti-inflammatory can be used in the short term if there is no interference with other medical conditions. It’s important to know that the use of ice, heat, massage and flexibility programs can decrease several symptoms caused by exercise.
There is more aggressive treatment with narcotic analgesic and/or cortisone injections but this should only be used to treat a specific lesion. This shouldn’t be used to allow an athlete to complete in the short term.
Summary
Creating a customized workout program with a medical professional and/or a qualified personal trainer helps a mature athlete to :
Keep independence
Increase physical abilities
Prevent injuries
Improve the quality of life
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-Steph
P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food. Click here.
When I’m in gym, people tell me why they started to train. There are several reasons, lose weight, gain muscles or to be in shape for a special event. There is a golden rule to have result in strength training, it’s eat clean and lift heavy.
Everybody says it, eat clean and lift heavy but what does that means ? I think it’s time to go back to the source.
Why
The life is easier when we’re stronger, did you notice it ? By exemple, to carry bags from supermarket, to carry a piece of furniture, to run to be in time, etc. Everything is easier.
Strength training is extremely efficient to build muscle and burn fat. Whether to lose 6kg (15lbs) or 45kg (100lbs), it’s the same thing.
Strength training help to build muscle and lose fat but it also help to stop or even reverse sarcopenia (it’s skeletal muscle reduction with aging). Train our skeletal muscle allow us to be independant (therefore avoid nursing homes) and live longer.
The profits list isn’t finished yet.
A nice athletic body
Strength training help you keep your muscles while you’re in calories deficience and losing weight.
Strength training allows you to have a better oxygen consumption than aerobic exercices. After training your body needs to make a lot of efforts to recover and return to the normal state so the state you had before the training. Scientific studies have shown that your metabolism‘s level increase for 38 hours after your training.
Strength training increase your metabolism, increase your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) because your body needs more calories to keep your muscls than to keep your fat. It’s estimated that for each 4.45kg (1lbs) of muscle, your RMR increase of 30-35 calories.
Improve your health
Strength training help you to improve your balance and coordination, improve cholesterol’s rate, help to control blood sugar, stop muscle loss, improve blood flow, reduces your resting blood pressure, build a stronger heart and increase bone density.
Feel better
It’s clear with strength training you have more self-confidence, your have more energy, a better mood, less anxiety and less stress . It also improves the quality of your thoughts, a scientific study has shown that this increases the cognitive function .
It’s not advisable to do a strength training 1 hour before sleeping. On the other hand to train early in the day helps to prevent sleep apnea and insomnia.
Prevents diseases and degenerative diseases
You notices that many men and women die because of cardiac disease. Stength training helps to solve problems that are factors of heart disease such as inactivity, diabets, obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol. Cardiologists begin to advise strength training to people who have heart attack.
Strenght training helps to reach your goals whether an effective training of 20 minutes to have a good naked body or to do a sports competition. It’s fun to see our progress because it’s like increase level in a video game. If you want to be better in a sport like badminton or rock climbing, strength training is a good choice.
People who shouldn’t train
The only people I’ve found who shouldn’t train are people who have an injury and it’s a break that doesn’t last long. We’re human being and it’s natural to carry things and move. Strength training is recommended for pregnant women , children and teenagers and even paraplegics .
Obviously, it recommanded to see his/her doctor before beginning a strength training program to adjust the training program.
Basic objections
But I’m too old, it’s not reasonable
When people between 30 and 60 years old tell me that they’re too old, I laugh because it’s a lie. It’s like say : « I don’t have time » and later I see a messsage on Facebook like : « Yestersay, Game of the thrones was epic ! ». Scientific studies have shown that people between 70 and 90 years old had impressive results in 10 weeks .
Other scientific studies have shown that this helps to avoid dementia and to delay Alzheimer’s .
People who think they’re too old to train are exactly people who should train.
But I just want to be better for a sport and I want to stay fit
Strength training improve your muscle’s endurance, scientific studies have shown it. Resistance exercices help to increases overall muscles endurance , fix nervous system problems and increase activation of motor units within your muscles.
I don’t want to bulk too much
It’s a great strength training’s myth, it’s not in 1 year than you’ll have the bodybuilder’s body no matter wheteher you’re a man or a woman.
For women, here 2 exemples of moms who have become strong and fit without having a bodybuilder body. This is the story of Veronica and Bronwyn .
Have a the body of a famous bodybuilder doesn’t happen in one night. Naturally we don’t have the amount of homones to have the body of a famous bodybuilder. We need to eat a huge amount of food (8 000 – 10 000 calories per day) and a huge amont of drugs (no, no, it’s another type of pharmacy, it’s true).
I’m fat, I want only lose weight
I’m fat, I want only lose weight
It’s a good reason to start strenght training. By losing weight, you surely want to keep your muscles. I mean, yout want to keep your muscles while you lose fat. With strength training you lose quickly centimeters (inches) in different body’s parts. It’s true that the overall weight loss may seem slow, that’s why is important to track your measurements. With strenght training when you eat with a caloric deficit, it’s increase your metabolism so you lose fat.
It’s boring
What I like with strength training, it’s we can see our progress quickly. It’s like increase level in a video game. I think people get bored when they expect nothing to do between 2 sets. This is why I advise people to have headphones to listen to their own music selection or an audio book to increase motivation.
Muscles and strength training
Don’t be fancy, it’s interesting to understand how our muscles work to avoid failling into the Matrix’s trap. What I mean is that the only person you gave to impress is yourself and not the others.
It’s our muscle fibers that are small muscle cells that build up our muscles. Our muscle fibers are long, cylindrical and have the size of a strand of hair. Our muscle fibers are composed of myofibrils surrounded by sarcoplasm. I really summarized that but if you want to see it in detail, click here .
We have around 642 skeletal muscles that work together to make move our body. Imagine, when you bend your arm, your biceps contracts and your triceps does the opposite (elongates) to let the elbow bend. Every muscle of your body work as a team to make you move.
We have different type of muscle fibers :
Slow twitch (Type 1 fibers)
Slow twitch fibers are used to convert oxygen into energy for a long period of time. They don’t move quickly to be resistant to fatigue. These are the fibers we use most for marathons.
Fast twitch (Type 2 fibers)
Fast twitch move quickly so they’re not resistant to fatigue. Our body has 2 categories of fast fibers. The type 2A fiber has an endurence characterisitc used for long sprints. The type 2X fiber has « super fast » characterisitc used to short sprints or lift weights. I really summarized that but if you want to see it in detail, click here .
Each individual has a different percentage of slow and fast fibers. It’s for this reason that people are naturally better to run long distances or sprints. It’s funny because we can see it in strength training with people who are better to do sets with high or low repetitions.
It’s the end of the first part and the second part is event more interessting.
Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.
In the world of nutrition, we can find contradictory things. It depends of the point of view of people about food :
I’m Paleo and I eat only meat, vegetables, fruits and nuts.
My diet is based on my macros (protein, carbs, fats). Paleo is ridiculous.
Fool, a calorie is a calorie. You can lose weight by eating less.
I have a good physique and I eat pizza. I’m weird
Each person has his/her vision about « eat healthy ». It for this reason that this theme is confused with a lot of contradictory scientific studies.
What’s this
A calorie is a unit of energy
This is the equalent of 4.184 absolute joules (that is different of 1.21 gigawatts.
Here what is means : 1 calorie of food is equivalent to 1 kilocalorie that is the amount of energy required to increase the temperature of 1gr of water from 15C° to 16C°.
In a certain way we can say that a calorie is a calorie but what is interrests us is « does different kind of calorie affect our body differently ? »
Is what 1000 calories of cookies is the same as 1000 calories of grass-fed steak and vegetable ?
Does our body treat these foods differently or it’s only energy in and energy out ?
Does the type of food affect our body other than just to lose weight and gain muscle ?
These questions create a lot of debates and on internet everything is amplified with people who show scientific studies. Internet is good to debate but we’ll go deeper.
First step
It doesn’t matter the « nutritional philosophy » you have, but something is obvious. How you eat is responsible of 80-90 % of your success ou your failure.
You can improve you cardiovascular heath by running a lot but if your goal is to transform your body, how you feed your body will play an important rôle.
Training (exercices) have a role of support of maintenance of the body.
When we talk about pure weight loss, eat less calories that you burn each day is the key of the equation.
But we want do everything to avoid to have heart disease and diabetes. It for this reason we need to focus on the food’s type that we eat and the amount of food that we eat.
Calories are equal to loss weight
A person eat around between 3000 and 3500 calories per day of everything he/she wants. And now, he/she wants to lose weight.
This person decides to eat 2200 calories per day by eating less. This person doesn’t change what he/she eat but change proportions.
This person see that he/she loses weight, it’s good and it’s possible that he/she feels unhappy because he/she decreased drastically his/her normal amount of calories. Yet, it’s a good step in the right direction.
When we consume on average less than 500 calories per day, we burn 500 calories that we have in excess in our body. We can combine this with exercice and we can lose aound 0.45kg (1lb) of body mass per week.
As quoted on Examine.com , « a net negative energy balance…is responsible for weight loss ».
You noticed, it says « lose weight » and not « lose fat ».
It’s at this point that the big problems begin. People eat less and it’s enough for them.
We know our body react differently to certain types of food like sugar. Certain food fill the stomach more than other without have a lot of calories (vegetable). And others fill us less the stomach with a lot of calories (soda, cookies and candy).
Remember that all processed foods are scientifically created so that you are always lacking this type of food as a drug addict.
Use small plates is very effective to help to eat less. A study from Cornell University found that if they gave people a large tub or a medium tub of popcorn, and then gave them stale popcorn, the size of the tub mattered far more than the staleness of the popcorn in determining how much people ate !
We’re not rational creatures. Some food are dense in calories and low in nutrients and make us hungry all day.
Compared to a diet of vegetables and meat, it’s the opposite. It’s food low in calories and dense in nutrients and we have a sensation of satiety. Which make it easier the reduction of calories to lose weight.
If you have a lot of weight to lose, eat less to start to be in the good direction.
Now if you want an athletic body, it’s a little bit different. There is 2 type of food that affect the composition of our body and our athletic performances.
Eating for health and success
To have an athletic body, you must take care about your macros (a certain amount of fats, carbs and protein).
It’s clear that 100 grams of vegetables carbohydrates is not equal to 100 grams of candy :
Consideres that sweets and processed food are created for you to eat and buy more like a drug addict.
Look the difference of micronutrients between vegetables and candy
Pay attention of your energy after eating vegetables and sweets/candy. With which you have the most energy ?
We searching a way to eat that allow us to have a good look/appearence and to feel good. A diet that takes us away from the hospital and allows us to enjoy life.
Look, if you like the idea to eat less but you don’t like the idea to count calories and macros each day, you can hack something. Stay focus on a type of food : Real food !
Instead to count calories
At each meal, have 1-2 vegetables in your plate (or the half of the plate) and have a great source of protein.
Not aim to lose weight for a few weeks
Track your calories and macros for few days or 1 week to analyze what you eat. Take note, note the size of portions and do the total of the quantity of the day. This allows you to plan your meals during the day and during all the year.
We know that eat less and to more physical activity, help us to lose weight and we are still overweight. Eat less isn’t a permanent solution because there is also the element of behavioral psychology.
Real food
It’s simple, our body is a complex machine. And even if a calorie is a calorie is a simple equation to lose weight, each « health » factor can be affected by the quality and nutrients of this calorie.
For this reason, I want you eat real foods, decrease sugar and think long term (new habits) rather than the 12-weeks formulas.
What methods you used and that didn’t work ?
What are your goals ?
-Steph
P.S. Do you want a free training program ? Click here
There is a interesting book « Antifragile : Things that Gain From Disorder » of Naseem Taleb.
The concept is to rebuilt our body and our environment to become antifragile, getting stronger and more resilient as more chaos is introduced.
Do you want be strong like your movie’s hero or your comic’s hero ? Read the next !
Antifragile
In all domains in life, there is 3 types :
Fragile
This object must be handled with care. This object could break if there is a variation in handling. This object must be out of danger to survive.
Solid
This object doesn’t need to be handled with care. This object can be throw or hit, it will not change. It’s well built and resistant. If it breaks, it will be rebuilt exactly in the same way.
Antifragile
This object doesn’t handled it wiht care ! This object can be throw, broke, throw in chaos, it becomes stronger. It’s like Hydra’s myth, you cut a head and two heads apprears. In fact, an antifragile object become weak when it handled with care.
Did you believed like me that human being was a « fragile » type ?
Nature like chaos and use it to make corrections and make change to survive like an ecosystem. Disasters, climat changes and others elements erase « fragile » members of a species. Stronger and antifragile members of a species survive.
The good new is we can become antifragile. Look :
When you take something heavy, your joints, muscle and bone rebuild themselves to become stronger in cas where there would be more chaos. This is the basis, if we don’t do physical activity, our muscles and bones can atrophy and weaken.
When we have a disease in our body at a certain dose, our body built a resistance et become stronger against it.
When we’re children, we learn than pans on the stove are hot, animals bite and life is difficult. We learn all these little pieces of chaos to prepare us to survive when we become adult.
Because we’re antifragile creature, we need chaos and failure in our life or we will die.
Do you remember how are humain being is the move « Wall-E » ? Humain beings are without muscles and are unable to take care of themselves. Don’t get out of you comfort zone and you become like them (and like my father) !
Antifragile body
If we want be ready to survive in the unknown, we need to constently get out of our comfort zone, challenges and chaos in our body.
In summary, it’s :
Enough chaos to force our body to rebuilt itself to become stronger.
Chaos in a specific amount of intensity
Enough time to our body to recover after chaos (training)
If you walk the same distance with the same speed every day, your heart will adapt to use less energy to do this until there is too much chaos like a very stress day at school/work.
When you feel this distance is easy, walk faster or another challenge. Transform your heart to become stronger and more resilient to manage some chaos more powerful.
There is another way to put chaos in your body, training :
if you do a deadlift at 90kg (200lbs) a time, your body is forcing to adapt in different way to lift 68kg (160lbs) several times (reps).
By forcing your body to adapt to lift heavy weight, your bones, your nervous system, joints and muscles need to adapt to become more antifragile to lift weight heavier. Talibe say we must force our body to adapt to the maximum level of chaos (heavy weight training) to go beyond our limit differently than medium weight or sets with a lot of reps.
Antifragile diet
The construction of an antifragile body can be totally destroyed by an « fragile » nutrition like fast foods (Nutrisystem, microwave meals, etc ).
To have an antifragile diet, we need to learn to cook ourselves and don’t be afraid to try new ingredients. Cook isn’t a thing we have to afraid or to be ashamed, it’s something good and important to have a good health. Embrace it. There is a lot of healty meals on internet, it ‘s cool.
Chaos in your diet ? Eat more meals training days and skip a meal non-training days. Don’t become a maniac to count calories or to have the perfect number of hours between meals. As long as you eat 4-6 meals per day, it’s ok.
You want to the next level : grow your food. If you can grow vegetables and raise animals, it’s great my friends. Some resources here and there .
Here are the basics to build an antifragile body prepared to any amount of chaos and a nutritional strategy to have the energy needed to cross each chaos.
What is your first step to become antifragile ?
-Steph
P.S. Do you want a free training program ? Click here
You have already heard you should avoid eating foods with cholesterol because they can clog your arteries. Only white egg, no egg yokes !
You have already heard if you want stay healthy you should reduce your cholesterol’s consumption. Margarine, no butter.
You have already heard you should reduce your meat’s consumption because meat has cholesterol. Meat can kill you !
If you’re like me, you heard all these arguments about cholesterol. 99 % of doctors advise us to reduce our cholesterol’s consumption when our cholesterol rate increase. All medias advice us to avoid cholesterol. Of course, we believe it.
In a PDF of nutrition for athletes, I discovered egg yolk benefits. After read this, I ask myself why everybody say cholesterol is bad ?
Attention I’m not a doctor or dietician, I did some research because I like to analyze (I’m a software writer) and I explain what I found. Use this article to discuss with your doctor about your diet. It will make me happy.
Cholesterol
Cholesterol is an organic lipid (fat) that exist in all animals and it is there to execute body functions. Cholesterol is produced naturally by the body and have a important part to keep us in alive. It is in each cells of our body.
It makes up the bile acids that work to digest food in the intestine.
It allows the body to make Vitamin D and hormones (like estrogen in women and testosterone in men)
Seriously, these functions are really important ! Now to be sure than our body has enough cholesterol to manage all these functions, our liver create a lot of cholesterol each day.
Cholesterol is so important that our body produce more than 1000mg of cholesterol per day.
Now if our body produce a lot of cholesterol, what’s happen with the cholesterol we eat ? Add more cholesterol in our body can be bad ?
« Dietary cholesterol content does not significantly influence plasma cholesterol values, which are regulated by different genetic and nutritional factors that influence cholesterol absorption or synthesis ».
Translation : Cholesterol from food is poorly absorb by our body and rapidly excreted. It means that the amount of cholesterol you eat is very low than the amount of cholesterol in your blood stream.
And our liver regulate the level of cholesterol in the blood stream by increase or decrease cholesterol production.
Cholesterol angel or demon
There is 3 type of lipoprotein associated with cholesterol. Usually your doctor talk about 2 types when you see him/her :
High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) : They’re billowy transporters that take cholesterol from your blood stream to deliver to your liver. Our liver use cholesterol to make bile. The majority of doctors say it’s good to have a lot of HDL. HDL is a good thing.
Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) : They’re also transporters. They take cholesterol from your liver and deliver cells. The majority of doctors say it’s good to have few. They’re bad cholesterol even if it’s more complex that that.
Very Low Density Lipoprotein (VLDL) : They were discovered recently. They have a lower density of lipoprotein than the LDL. The majority of doctors say it’s a priority to reduce the VLDL in our blood.
We just see that cholesterol is very important for body functions, we need it to survive. All cholesterol are not create equal but most of them are good and important !
Doctor
The story of hat for cholesterol is long and shitty. The medical community in the quest to minimize heart diseases had desperately need a scapegoat.
Long time ago, doctors discovered than cholesterol was one thing who clogged arteries. So they said that cholesterol was the cause and food with cholesterol should be avoid.
« Tests in the fifties initially showed an association between early death by heart disease and fat deposits and lesions along artery walls. Because cholesterol was found to be present in those deposits (of course it would!) and because researchers had previously associated familial hypercholesterolaemia (hereditary high blood cholesterol) with heart disease, they concluded that cholesterol must be the culprit ».
So cholesterol is bad, case closed ! Unfortunately mommies are not agree with these doctors.
Go in the past in era of Tutankhamun and Cleopatra. In Ancient Egypt, they had same problems that we have today : heart disease and hardened arteries !
It’s funny because some articles like this one say that the only way for Egyptians to have a high cholesterol rate and clogged arteries is that they had a « fatty diet ».
Egyptians had a « fatty diet » ? They didn’t have fast-foods or supermarkets. Egyptians had a vegetarian diet . The cholesterol hypothesis is invalid !
Well, we’re beginning to see that the cholesterol is very more complex that we thought. Mmmmmh !
Conclusion
Cholesterol is not the root of the problem but just a risk factor among others. Take care about your cholesterol like you check your car’s oil level.
Cholesterol is a complex subject. Take a pill rather than change the lifestyle is not a solution. Before to decrease your consumption of cholesterol advised by your doctor, I encourage you to do your own research and have a conversation with your doctor to talk about these points and ask if change the lifestyle is a option.
Educate yourself rather than blindly follow someone’s advice even my advice. Question everything.
Do you have stories to share about improving health with a change in lifestyle or diet ?
-Steph
P.S : Do you want a free training program ? Click here
President John F. Kennedy was a major supporter of fitness and health-related benefits to United States citizens. He continued the Presidential Council for Fitness Club Youth naming Bud Wilkinson as head of the council. The name was also changed to the Presidential Council on Physical Condition. Kennedy spoke openly about the need for the United States citizens to improve their fitness levels including with writing an article in « Sports Illustrated » magazine titled « The Soft American ». He said: « We are under-exercised as a nation ; we look instead of playing ; we ride instead of walking ». Kennedy has prompted the federal government to be more involved in the promotion in national fitness and launched fitness pilot programs for children. Kennedy’s commitment to fitness can be summarized in one sentence that said : « Physical fitness is the basis of all other forms of excellence ».
Dr. Ken H. Cooper, widely recognized as the « Father of the modern fitness movement » is generally known to encourage more people to train as any other individual in history. Cooper advocated a philosophy that has abandoned the treatment of disease by preventing the disease. « It is easier to maintain good health through exercise, diet and emotional balance than to regain once it is lost », he said. Early in his career, Cooper stressed the need for epidemiological data to support the benefits of regular exercise and health. Data from thousands of individuals have become the foundation for his aerobics concept. Aerobics released in 1968 sent a powerful message to United States citizens – to prevent the development of chronic diseases, we must do regular exercise and maintain a high fitness level throughout life. The message, programs and ideas of Dr. Cooper created the template from which the fitness proliferated until modern times.
The Lessons of History
The history of fitness depicts fascinating themes that are closely related in the 21st century. A common feature is the strong association of military power and politics with fitness throughout the progress of humanity. In many ways, this shows the impact of our world leaders can have on health and fitness.
The mind-body concept has had a precarious development. Sometimes some cultures prescribe spirituality at the expense of the body, while others, such as the Greek society, confirmed the idea that a healthy mind can only be in a healthy body.
Another interesting development from history is the concept of the exercise for the body and music for the soul. Fitness programs today have developed this concept harmoniously, music has became a distinctive element to the exercice experience.
It seems that societies become too enamored of wealth, prosperity and self-entertainment so that fitness levels drop. Also as technology progressed with humans, fitness levels declined. So, this is a resolution with which we are challenging societies today: Maybe using all the extensive research on the health and fitness combined with the creative minds of the fitness industry today, we can now solve this part of the fitness puzzle.
This is the end of our journey through time. Personally I learned a lot and I see fitness differently (it changes Photoshop’s delirium). I hope it was the same for you.
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