City Coach | Coach Cane's Blog

But Wait, There's Less

No doubt it will come as a shock to learn that some advertisers make false claims. Sadly, I must report to you that exactly that the Federal Trade Commission has found Adidas/Reebok to have done just that with their claims about their Easytone shoes. The company claimed that their intentionally unstable shoes could help increase muscle tone, and that they had 20,000 hours of wear testing to prove it. But they never substantiated those claims, and the law suits started. Similar suits have been brought against Skechers and New Balance. 

Today the FTC settled with Reebok for $25 million, and the company has removed claims about the shoe from their website. It will be interesting to see how Skechers and New Balance respond. 

Personally, I feel that anyone who is naive enough to believe that simply wearing shoes will make you fit deserves to be ripped off, but I'm glad to see the FTC helping out. 

Berlin Marathon Results

Congratulations to Adele Laboz (3:38:20 with a 6 minute negative split), Iris Shalam (4:45:39) and Kevin Starkes (2:50:19) on their results at the Berlin Marathon this weekend. 

Sense About Science

The last time I professed my love for a blogger other than the one to whom I am married, it was the Parenting With Duct Tape lady who said "Curse the pansy parent who decided to make everyone a winner. In their misguided attempt to boost the self esteem of the children, they have stripped away the self worth of a whole up and coming generation. Created whiners the likes we have not seen before. Made it impossible to tell your kid, "Know what kid, you really aren't the best at EVERYTHING...We are not all winners in everything we do. We need to know that. Our kids need to know that. Mostly we are average and so are our goddamn kids. ... Stop with the false hopes. Stop with the making of kids who do nothing but whine when confronted with the fact that they may actually have to put effort in their lives once in while."

As we begin 2011, I have turned my affections to the good folks at Sense About Science, who examined some of the nonsense health advice endorsed by celebrities. There are some real winners in there. Even if you don't bother to click through to the link with the detailed listing of mythical mumbo-jumbo, remember the following words of wisdom.

Two old chestnuts:

1. Nothing is chemical free: everything is made of chemicals, it’s just a case of which ones.
2. Detox is a marketing myth: our body does it without pricey potions and detox diets.

Two new lessons from 2010:

1. There’s no need to boost: bodily functions occur without ‘boosting’.
2. Energy and fitness come from food and exercise: there are no shortcuts.

 

Null and Almost Void

Gary Null is one of the great snake oil salesmen of our time. He makes unfounded claims, has dubious credentials, and sells products that mostly do no real good, or in some cases do some real harm. According to today's New York Post Null was almost killed by one of his own nutritional products, and is now suing its manufacturer. 

Pause for a moment and take in the delicious irony. A fraud who almost dies from his own garbage.  And then still has the stones to sue the people who make it for him.  It reminds me of the guy who kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.

To read more about Null and his questionable claims, check out his profile at Quackwatch.

Imagine How Slow She Would Have Been If She Hadn't Walked

Back in June, the New York Times' Tara Parker-Pope wrote the following under the title "Better Running Through Walking".  "To train for my first marathon, I’m using the “run-walk” method, popularized by the distance coach Jeff Galloway, a member of the 1972 Olympic team. When I mentioned this to a colleague who runs, she snickered — a common reaction among purists."  Well count me among those purists.  Or at least among those whose minds are not so open that our brains fall out. 

Like many others, I posted a comment at her blog.  And like many others, my comment was shot down by the author, who has no background in exercise science or athletics.  While TPP may control her blog, I control mine and wrote about the topic without her editorial comments.  For those who can't be bothered to read what I opined at the time, I simply stated that while walking breaks are appropriate for those who are unprepared to run a marathon, the idea of a well trained runner going faster by incorporating walking breaks is in defiance of logic and science.  But the Galloway and his cult like to give bits of anecdotal evidence (some of which is accurate and some - like their claim that Ronaldo da Costa used Galloway's method in his marathon wins - is patently false) to support their argument.  Here's one they might want to leave out of the argument:

NYC MARATHON
November 1, 2009
Tara Parker-Pope
Finish Time:6:58:19

Pace:15:58/mile

As a postscript, it's interesting to note that TPP has now changed her tune.  She has decided that walking breaks are no longer the way to do your best marathon or go faster as she has previously claimed.  Now she says "The main benefit of the run-walk method is that it eases your body into exercise, makes marathon training less grueling and gives muscles time to recover, reducing the risk of injury. Walk breaks are an ideal way for new runners and older, less fit and overweight people to take part in a sport that would otherwise be off limits.

"The downside is that just as you are out on the marathon course about 50 percent longer than the average runner, your training time is much longer, too — four and five hours a weekend for long runs.

In other words, she is agreeing with what i said all along.

Exploding Myths

For the sake of those misguided souls who ignore science and choose to include "functional" and explosive training in their strength routines, I've posted this link to an article written by Ken Mannie, Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at Michigan State University.

"The subject of explosive weight training is one that has been in the center of a maelstrom among strength and conditioning practitioners for quite some time. Many individuals and some associations advocate the use of so-called explosive weight training movements, which purportedly offer trainees a distinct advantage in speed and power development over those who choose to incorporate more controlled movements".

read more at baye.com

Watch Your Tone

One of the most persistent and baseless myths in the world of muscle physiology is the "high reps/low weight builds defined and 'toned' muscles."  Everyone from the gurus in Muscle and Fiction Magazine to the Jane Fonda aerobics types, to the Pilates peeps continue to spew out this myth.  All the Pilates in the world won't build a long, sinewy muscle.  Muscles have an origin and an insertion.  They're attached to tendons that are attached to bones.  You can't change that.  Muscles aren't really that smart.  They know how to do one thing, and one thing only - grow.  If you work them hard enough, they get bigger.  So the woman in the corner of the gym doing outer thigh exercises all day is either completely wasting her time, or making the muscles in her outer thighs a little bigger.  In most cases, not a whole heck of a lot bigger, but bigger nonetheless.  You don't suppose that the guy doing biceps curls is hoping his guns shrink, do you?  Remember - five muscles enough stimulus and they grow.  Otherwise they don't.  End of story. 

The main difference between defined and not is body composition.  Take a fat dude and have him do crunches all day and he'll have a fat dude with strong abs obscured by a big layer of fat.  If you want a six-pack you need to have both muscle, and a lack of fat obscuring it.  Think of it this way - if you could burn fat around a muscle or make it more defined by exercising it, you could chew gum all day and have a chiseled jaw. 

Flex This

As I was flipping channels from TMZ to The Real Housewives of New Jersey (I love the way they tawk), I accidentally stumbled upon CNN.  Some talking head said something about a senator "flexing his political muscle".  Since I obviously have no concern for national politics, you're probably wondering why this caught my attention.  Because you can't flex a muscle.  You contract a muscle, and you flex a joint.  I suppose Mr. TV Guy can be forgiven, but if you want to see that little vein in my temple bulge, sit me next to a so-called health professional who misuses the term. 

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

As I mentioned yesterday, the good folks at New York Road Runners have on more than one occasion caused my hair to hurt.  Though they're not as consistent in their ability to agitate me, the paper of record - the New York Times - is doing their best.  They've gotten me with ridiculous hyperbole in articles suggesting that the average gym denizen and casual runners need to worry about overtraining.  They've gotten me with the inability to understand research methods and statistics when they promoted the idea that treadmills burn more calories than other gym equipment or that you don't lose weight swimming. Now they've upped the misleading and misguided ante with "Why Walk Breaks Help You Run".  The author, Tara Parker Pope, shows a remarkable combination of arrogance and ignorance as she parrots Jeff Galloway's and spews them as if they are fact. 

Considering the fact that Galloway's methods are dismissed by most running coaches and sports scientists, perhaps the title of the NY Times article did not need to be so definitive. (Then again, when did the Times last allow for an opinion that differed from theirs?)  Galloway and the article's author provide nothing but anecdotal evidence to support their claims that the walk-run method can lead to faster times or decreased injuries.  Making matters even worse, the author chimes in and criticizes any and all attempts to refute her with online comments, yet still refuses to provide proof.  She (and Galloway before him) have been asked to substantiate their claims with more than anecdotal evidence, but as usual they provide none. 

If you wonder why I am so offended by Galloway, here's a little background.  When asked about the benefit of running on softer surfaces than concrete, Galloway wrote "Asphalt is softer than concrete and treadmills are softer than both.  FICTION.  While some people say they feel the difference among the surfaces, after coaching more than 250,000 runners, I haven't seen any difference in rate of injury or fatigue when running on asphalt, concrete or treadmills.  You can reduce the impact on your body on any surface by taking enough walk breaks from the beginning." So he claims to have coached a quarter million runners, and to not notice the difference between surfaces, but we're supposed to treat him as credible.  (Guess which surface I'd like to drop him on.)  (For the record, I understand the argument that running on soft surfaces may not be best for all runners, and there seems to be some scientific as well as anecdotal evidence to suggest that asphalt is better for runners with soft tissue injuries.)

Galloway always dodges the science that clearly proves that walking slower and then having to overcome that by running faster is less efficient than running at a steady intermediate pace.  Pete Pfitzinger explains it well.  "The most efficient way to run a marathon is to run at very close to an even pace, because running portions of the race much faster than an even pace causes a build-up of lactate (hydrogen ions are the actual culprit) and other metabolites that make you slow down. If you run a portion of the race slower than the optimal pace, then by necessity you must run another portion faster than the optimal pace (which causes a build-up of metabolites that make you slow down), so the net result is a poorer performance. Walking a portion of a marathon would require you to run other portions of the race much faster to run a given total time, so it would be detrimental to your result. While this may seem obvious, apparently there have been quotes attributed to Jeff Galloway suggesting that walking would somehow improve elite marathon performance."

Galloway even claims that even elite runners can benefit from his method, though only MOP and slower runners seem to be available to back him on this.  A while back he claimed that Ronaldo da Costa used walking breaks in one of his marathon wins.  That sound you hear is Mr. da Costa laughing and refuting Galloway's lies. 

A while back I slammed Galloway's hyperbole at another message board and was quickly rebuffed by one of his defenders who said that since I've never run a 2:16 marathon like Galloway, I'm clearly not as knowledgeable as he.  Being a fan of irony, I appreciated that comment, since Mr. Galloway didn't take any walking breaks in his Olympic marathon.

Burn This

Nothing makes my hair hurt quite like listening to some guy who's heavier on biceps than brains sharing his "wisdom" about working out.  Last week I wrote about the myth of "the pump" and its role in gym lore.  A related issue is "the burn".

The burning sensation during certain resistance training is due to the accumulation of acid in the fatiguing muscle. Anaerobic glycolysis uses carbohydrates and produces water and acid, or free hydrogen ions. When blood flow is limited (as described in last week's post) the acid accumulates.  All that acid creates a burning sensation but is not indicative of fat burning, muscle growth, or the effectiveness of an exercise, though it does impede the muscle's ability to contract further.

One other factor that is well explained by our friends at exrx.net is the fact that "it can also be misleading to judge an exercise's effectiveness on a particular muscle group based upon local muscular fatigue. For example, a common misconception is that leg raises exercise the lower abdomen since most exercisers feel a burning sensation in this area."  In fact, the muscles involved in producing the movement (hip flexion) are not your abdominals.  Your abdominal muscles are contracting isometrically in order to stabilize you, but they're not causing the movement, and as such  - even though they're hard, and even though you "feel the burn" - leg lifts are not good for much other than getting you better at doing more leg lifts.