Beware the Blissfully Ignorant Personal Trainer (BIPT)
Reducto ad absurdum: The reduction of a weak argument to absurdity
Reducto ad ovum: The presentation of an invincible argument
Jogging is the coin of the realm when it comes to aerobic-related fitness training. I think starting an unfit individual on a jogging regimen is quite dangerous, potentially injurious and totally unnecessary. The irreducible goal of cardiovascular training is to systematically elevate the heart rate and there are a hell-of-a-lot safer and equally effective ways for the unfit to elevate their heart rate without resorting to jogging.
Someone new to fitness, someone dramatically overweight or out-of-shape needs very little in the way of sustained exercise effort to cause the heart rate to skyrocket; someone untrained will have tendons, ligaments and muscle insertion points tender as new buds and sprouts on a spring plant. To subject out-of-shape, physically fragile neophytes to jogging or running, straightaway, on day one, is playing with fire. What could be more devastating to delicate hip, knee and ankle body parts then the thunderous impact of slam-step jogging? For the unfit, running is begging for injury. Imagine 200-plus pounds of bodyweight crashing down on virgin knees and ankles with every stride-step?
This collective blind-spot within the fitness industry needs to be addressed. Those that blindly prescribe jogging as the base aerobic activity are putting overweight individuals at risk. The weak 'pro-jog on day one' argument needs to be reduced to absurdity. Making the overweight and out-of-shape run is dangerous advice masquerading as cutting-edge orthodoxy. Jogging is uniformly recommended by the uniformly uninformed for use by the uniformly unfit. Reducto ad absurdum.
Jogging for the heavy or out-of-shape individuals is completely unnecessary.
Fitness experts love to jam round pegs (clients) into square holes (their system). Personal trainers love to jog and run as part of their own fitness regimen; so naturally they have a favorable bias towards running. Normal people just starting out on their fitness journey are capable of generating an elevated heart rate with the greatest of ease - so why push past the cardio redline? The collective industry blind-spot is rooted in the ignorance of a critical element of the cardio equation: cardio intensity. All cardiovascular exercise has three benchmarks...
Duration:
Frequency:
Intensity: How long is the session?
How often are the weekly sessions performed?
How hard does the heart work during the session?
The most dangerous breed: the BIPT (Blissfully Ignorant Personal Trainers) How ironic is it that the same anal-retentive personal trainers that insist trainees log every set, notate every rep and poundage, demand individuals working under their auspices jot in a nutrition log every bite of food and every sip of a beverage - purposefully ignore how hard a person's heart is beating when subjected to exercise they prescribe?
➢ If an out-of-shape woman can generate 85% of their age-related heart rate maximum walking briskly - wouldn't that information seem important for a fitness professional writing an exercise prescription?
➢ If the dramatically out-of-shape individual's heart rate soars to 85% when asked to walk quickly, what heart rate do you suppose they generate when mindlessly forced to jog on Day I at 90% to 100% to 115% or more of their age-related heart rate maximum? Is this not maximally dangerous? How about tender body parts?
➢ When the human heart is pushed passed it's redline limit, stress-related heart attack, heat stroke or total physical collapse lie just around the corner. We haven't even touched on the injury potential of repeatedly slamming those Clydesdale feet down with elephantine steps.
➢ If the BIPT were to strap the new client up with a heart rate monitor they would see the shocking truth of how high the client's heart raced when made to jog. There is no accurate way to determine exercise intensity without the use of a heart rate monitor.
Anytime a groupthink mentality takes root, an echo chamber comes into being. In this case the echo chamber consists of fitness experts and personal trainers nationwide reaffirming to one another that having totally untrained overweight and out-of-shape clients jog - on day one - is A-OK. Jogging is an accepted industry standard for cardio. Making a person with zero fitness experience (someone who gets gassed carrying a sack of groceries from the car to the kitchen) suddenly begin jogging, borders on malpractice.
With each jog step the totality of the obese person's massive bodyweight comes crashing down on one foot/leg/ankle/hip; tendons, ligaments and connective tissue around the knee, ankle and foot are slammed on the ground with terrific force with each excruciating step. Untrained people do not glide when they jog, they slam-step; each crushing stride creating another opportunity for tender tendons or ligaments to be ripped away from insertion points.
Meanwhile the BIPT exhorts the untrained obese person to "Move faster! Lift up those knees! Pick up the pace!" The human heart is the size of a person's clenched fist. When the under-used heart pump is suddenly required to propel a huge mass of flesh across the landscape, the heart-pump struggles mightily to keep up. The intensity of jogging is way past anything the tiny pump has known or is used to.
Imagine a 1966 61-cubic inch, 40-horsepower VW Bug engine placed in a 5,000 pound 1965 Cadillac El Dorado body. Now imagine that little engine in the monstrous body is forced to race for 30-minutes. Imagine taking your family minivan to Daytona speedway and suddenly and without warning, mash the accelerator pedal to the floor and keep it there for the next 30 minutes as you zoom around the banked speedway. In each case the engine is jeopardized by the intensity of the work. The analogy is totally appropriate and dramatically highlights the jeopardy to the untrained jogger.
BIPTs continually confuse exercise mode (jogging) with the exercise goal. The goal is to systematically raise the trainee's heart rate to a preordained rate. The goal is NOT to become adept at jogging. Jogging is a tool, not a goal.
No one debates that cardio is a really good thing for an obese individual to practice on a systematic basis. Where the idiocy takes root is when personal trainers mindlessly insist on certain modes that may be inappropriate. What is the rationale behind jogging? I nominate Herd Mentality and lockstep groupthink: most personal trainers, being mindless followers, couldn't identify an appropriate heart rate for a client if asked. Or if they did it they would say something inane, such as "I want my clients to stay in the fat burning zone." But that's a subject for another time. If you ever have the misfortune to fall into the clutches of a BIPT and they demand you jog - tell them "No jogging for me Jack! Reducto ad absurdum!"
Everybody wants to make a buck on the plight of the overweight. There is an obesity epidemic in America. A recent New York Times article pegged the number of obese people in this country at 30% of the general population. Over the age of 50 the number of clinically obese rises to 40%.
The military reports that 40% of potential enlistees are refused because of obesity.
➢ A 200-pound obese person holding a 30% body fat percentile carries around 60-pounds of body fat.
➢ A 200-pound obese person holding a 40% body fat percentile carries around 80-pounds of body fat.
Imagine having to haul around 80 pounds of fat? Hold a pair of 40-pound dumbbells in each hand and walk around a bit: this gives you an idea of how much weight this represents.
Here is an evil statistic: amongst poor people, for the first time in the history of civilization, the number one plight of the poor is not starvation or malnutrition, but obesity.
How best to melt adipose tissue off the obese individual is the subject of great controversy; within the fitness community there exist widespread collective insanity as to causation and solution.
One irreplaceable element of the obesity solution is the use of cardiovascular exercise. Forcing the cardio-challenged body of an obese person to suddenly work at 100% (or more) of capacity is asking for big trouble.
The 60 Second Heart Rate Drop: Faster is better
Here's another aspect of cardio exercise nearly all personal trainers are unaware of: the rate of decline in heart rate after spiking to a high point during intense exercise.
To ascertain the 60 second drop, exert maximally in a cardio activity. Now stand still for sixty seconds - how many beats per minute does the heart rate drop?
If the heart rate drops 12 beats or less in 60 seconds then that person is in danger. They should avoid stressful exercise until they see a doctor. A well conditioned athlete will drop 15, 20, 30 beats (or more) in the sixty second test.
Out-of-shape people that spike their heart rates often have a difficult time getting their racing hearts to calm back down. People in average physical condition will experience a 15 beat drop.
You can use the sixty-second test to periodically test your level of conditioning. If, for example, you were to power walk up a steep hill and your heart rate spiked to say 158, and after standing still for 60-seconds, your heart rate dropped drops to 140, that would represent an 18 beat per minute drop.
Log that information along with the date, locale and bodyweight. If two months later you hit the same hill and this time you spike up to 162 beats per minute and in 60 seconds drop to 138, you have generated a 24 beat per minute drop. You can rightfully view that as real progress and an indicator that you are on the right track. A heart that recovers quickly from being spiked is a real indicator that the fist-sized pump is working well. As you become lighter in bodyweight, your drop rate will improve.
Anyone interested in phone training with Marty can contact him at mgso@embarqmail.com - he works with dozens of individuals worldwide and his methods are geared towards eliciting tangible results for normal individuals. "If you are motivated and tired of being out-of-shape, I have a commonsense method that generates real results for regular people."
