Mel Siff Asks if Fit People Are Healthier

ARE THE FIT HEALTHIER?

Siff M C "Facts and Fallacies of Fitness" 2000 Ch 6

Increasing numbers of medical authorities are voicing doubts about the
current emphasis being placed on physical fitness. They cite surveys which
reveal that as many as 50% of regular joggers and aerobics fans suffer from
injuries during the average year, with many instructors showing an even
higher incidence of injury.

For instance, Kenneth Cooper, father of the modern aerobics boom, states that
two out of three runners are injured badly enough to cease running
temporarily or permanently. Surveys by Dr Jeffrey Koplan and his colleagues
at the US National Centre for Disease Control reveal that there is a
one-in-three risk of being injured for American joggers and runners.

Besides the number of fatalities and serious neck and knee injuries in rugby
and American football, there are numerous injuries in golf, tennis, squash,
soccer, basketball, volleyball, baseball, cricket, hockey and most other
popular sports. Over 30% of the more than 21 million Americans who cycle
suffer from some injury or another, apart from those who are killed in
traffic accidents. Apparently superfit athletes such as the running
authority Jim Fixx, who died while running, may still suffer from serious
heart disorders or other debilitating diseases.

These facts have provoked scientists such as Dr Henry Solomon, professor of
cardiology at Cornell University Medical School, to condemn the current
overemphasis on exercise. In his book, The Exercise Myth, he contends that

the benefits of exercise are often illusory. He writes: "Virtually all the
claimed health benefits of exercise are untrue. . . Fitness and health are
two separate things. Fitness is really your capacity to do work, and health
refers to the presence or absence of disease. . . In specific reference to
your heart, you can be physically very fit - capable of enormous amounts of
physical activity - and yet be fatally ill with artery disease." He adds that
osteoporosis, or 'bone thinning' in younger women who exercise vigorously is
another cause for concern.

What also concerns him is the superior attitude of exercisers and fitness
instructors: "There are a lot of people who claim they feel good when they
exercise; I have no quarrel with that. What I do quarrel with is the

put-down of people who do not exercise. A lot of people out there are closet
'sedentaries' - people who do not feel good when they exercise, but are
afraid to say so."

Dr Rod Dishman, associate professor of physical education at the University
of Georgia, supports Dr Solomon's plea for moderation, stating that "We don't
have any studies that conclude convincingly that if someone gets fitter, or
highly fit, that he or she is healthier. But we do have evidence that
people who are active are healthier - and there is a distinct difference."

Some studies reveal that entirely non-aerobic, physically mild pursuits such
as yoga and Tai Chi have similar physical benefits to, and mental benefits
often exceeding those of strenuous exercise. Does this all imply that
exercise is a waste of time for the average non-competitive members of the
public? Probably not - it emphasizes the wisdom of the old adage:
"Moderation in all things", to which needs to be added the advice: "Man, know
thyself", especially when you join the ranks of the exercise generation.

A useful way of doing this is to keep a training diary or journal, in which
you keep a record, not only of what and how much you did, but also how you
felt before, during and after you did it. In this section, keep a daily
register of any pain, discomfort, illness or disability you may be
experiencing at that time. You will find that you eventually become very
adept at determining whether you are overtraining or not recovering
adequately from the stresses of training.

It might well be, too, that exercise which is done under duress is
potentially harmful to holistic fitness. After all, the major aim of all
exercise should be to produce 'a sound mind in a sound body'. One way of
assessing whether or not your exercise programme is achieving this goal is to
ask yourself and your close friends or family one question: "Is it raising
the overall Quality of my Life?". This Quality of Life Test may even be
applied to every individual exercise done in the gym or aerobics environment.
Try it and enjoy your exercise regime more fully.

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Dr Mel C Siff
http://www.drmelsiff.com

Dr Mel Siff
Author of Supertraining + Facts and Fallacies of Fitness
http://www.drmelsiff.com

Mel Siff Asks if Fit People Are Healthier

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