Ken Kifer on Fitness

Courtesy :: kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/fitness.htm
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The discussions raised under "15 mph" and "fat cyclist" in newsgroup discussion caused me to check the web for additional information. I found a huge quantity of low quality information. Even after I restricted the results with four key words, the search engine still reported 1.6 million pages of information.

In particular, I couldn't find much specific about Kenneth Cooper, who started the aerobics movement -- jogging, it turns out, was started by someone else. There were numerous mentions of him -- especially by wellness groups who claim a connection, one short interview in German, and one article by him on the subject of antioxidants. Remembering his books, I can report that he once argued that the more frequent the exercise, the better the health, and the greater the success in life; for instance, he included studies that showed that children who exercised the most made the best grades in school. Then after Jim Fixx died, he began back-pedaling, suggesting that exercise should be limited to a few times a week for periods of only thirty minutes. Now that the good doctor is past his prime, he is peddling vitamins C and E plus beta carotene. As I have stated, although I think he has been a positive influence, he never understood cycling. The problem with running for an exercise is that the older the runner gets the greater the damage and the more the runner has to cut back.

In one article, formerly accessible on the web, Dr. Joseph Levy, Coordinator of the Wellness Centre at York University, Toronto, says that the whole fitness movement has been a failure. Rather than condemning the exercise itself, he says that the failure has been that most Canadians have failed to follow through. He denies that the "no pain, no gain" approach has any real value, and he states that it discourages people from exercising. He particularly dislikes the target heart rate requirements and suggests a pleasant walk can do just as much good. He says he is not opposed to exercise, that he walks 10 kilometers (6 miles) every day. He also makes no mention of cycling.

An even stronger attack on the idea of aerobics comes from a group of doctors who claim that Cooper and one of his leading researchers have admitted that they were wrong when they said that aerobics works. They believe that the ideal exercise is to slowly raise and lower a heavy weight. They say that the weight should be great enough to exhaust the power of the muscles within two minutes. They claim that statements about aerobic and anaerobic exercise are meaningless since both are taking place in all exercise. They say that it is silly and even dangerous to try to exercise the heart; if the muscles receive enough exercise (through weight lifting), the heart will be strong. Endurance is a genetic trait that cannot be altered. The best way to reduce fat is to grow muscle.

I still see Dr. Morehouse's book for sale at the grocery store. Morehouse claims that 30 minutes a week is all the exercise that anyone needs, and most of his exercise program has little aerobic benefit. He also sees no long-term benefit to exercise, saying that a person will lose 100% of any benefit acquired after 30 days confinement in bed.

So here is what my experience has taught me about staying in shape:

To put what I've said in a nutshell:
Ken Kifer's Rx for good health:
Take two bicycle wheels daily.



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