Saturday, February 02, 2013
Silliest "study" of the week
One more idiot "study" on the "benefits" of super-expensive exercise. Amazingly this "study" hasn't hit the TV news yet. I'm sure it will. It's definitely stupid enough.
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Instead of long stints in the gym and miles of running in the cold, the same results could be achieved in less than a third of the time, according to new research... The current recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UK Department of Health is that people of all ages should do three to five hours of endurance training per week to increase health and fitness and prevent chronic diseases and premature mortality. However, most people find it difficult to set aside this much time in their busy lives.What the fuck is Endurance Training?
This study has taken existing research to a new level to prove that replacing endurance training with two types of interval training, High intensity Interval Training (HIT) and Sprint Interval Training (SIT), can make a massive difference to our health and aerobic fitness. In two articles in the 1 February issue of The Journal of Physiology, the researchers describe their recent discoveries that three sessions of SIT, taking just 90 min per week, are as effective as five sessions of traditional endurance exercise, taking five hours per week, in increasing whole body insulin sensitivity via two independent mechanisms.Oh, I see now. Endurance Training is like Interval Training. What the fuck is Interval Training? What the fuck is "increasing whole body insulin sensitivity"?
LJMU researcher Sam Shepherd describes: 'SIT involves four to six repeated 30 second 'all out' sprints on special laboratory bikes interspersed with 4.5 minutes of very low intensity cycling. Due to the very high workload of the sprints, this method is more suitable for young and healthy individuals.'Repeated 'all out' sprints. HIT and SIT. Yes, that must be almost as much fun as medieval torture. Special laboratory bikes! Oh boy! Torture in a lab setting! Even more fun!
However, anyone of any age or level of fitness can follow one of the alternative HIT programmes which involve 15-60 second bursts of high intensity cycling interspersed with 2-4 minute intervals of low intensity cycling. HIT can be delivered on simple spinning bikes that are present in commercial gyms and are affordable for use at home or in the workplace.'Oh, I see now. You can get tortured at home if you don't like the laboratory setting. What the fuck is a "spinning bike"? Is that sort of like the big gyroscope thing that astronauts had to endure? Where the skin on their faces got plastered against the bones? Oh boy! Just what I always wanted! Getting flattened out like clothes in an extractor! No thanks. I'll just keep walking a mile each day. It doesn't require a laboratory or a torture chamber or a giant centrifuge. = = = = = Sidenote: I'm especially grumpy because I didn't get my walk today. Weather is nominally fine: around 32, no wind or snow, streets appear to be mostly dry. But a thin layer of freezing fog made the streets absolutely unwalkable. Got dressed, stepped onto the pavement, ZZZZZOOOOPP! Tried three more steps, and ZZZZZZOOOOOPP! with every step. Managed to avoid a complete fall, turned around, went back in, sulked.
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