Guest contributor: “Dr. J”

Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he relaxes by running 50 miles a week and flying his Cherokee Arrow 200.

This is not to be misconstrued as actual medical advice from a doctor — although I am one. You know the drill: this is the Internet and all that legal stuff. Just think about what I have to say and maybe it will improve your life — or not!

Is it useful to do a line (or circuit) of machines, as is popular at fitness centers?

Everyday at my local fitness center I see very overweight people doing the line of machines. I assume they are trying to add muscle and lose weight at the center.

I have seen many of them for months or even years. Few if any of them are losing weight doing the line of weight machines.

Because of this, I think a new type of weight machine line for weight loss needs to be developed. Since I believe that one’s time away from the fitness center or workout routine is what determines success at weight loss, I suggest a new type of line. A line that will teach these people useful skills as well as give them a workout.

I believe the line needs these machines for these exercises:

1. The two-handed food parry, exercising the biceps and triceps, done alternating with each hand to the outside
2. The vertical press-your-fork-and-knife-to-the-table lat machine
3. The push-away-from-the-table chest press
4. Immediately followed by the vertical two-handed lift-yourself-into-the-air-and-out-of-the-chair-press, to keep your heart rate elevated
5. The turn-away-from-the-buffet-and-walk machine, which can be done on an incline.
6. The left-right-say-no neck turn
7. Finishing up with a full facial stretch of “No thank you, I’ve had enough”

 
I believe this fitness routine will give people the results they are looking for.

How does weight affect balance?

 
In my early pilot training the critical importance of weight and balance was stressed. There is a reason for limits placed on the weight and location of luggage that we are allowed to take on a commercial flight. In smaller private planes, the onus is on the pilot in command to insure proper weight and balance to prevent the intended flight from ending up digging a large hole in an unpredicted location.

Recently, an event made me reflect on the importance of balance and weight in health and fitness. Unfortunately, a dear friend of mine, who is at least 150 pounds overweight, lost her balance while descending stairs and severely broke her leg.

As in flying, the length of the lever arm from the center of mass adds to the tipping force on the object. A frequent cause of plane crashes is the situation where a twin-engined plane loses power in one engine and now has a very large weight, far from the center of gravity, no longer helping maintain balance.

Perhaps wider is better with a four wheeled vehicle, but with a two legged person, the more mass lateral to the center of balance, the more likely it will tip over, and stairs are not a good place to tip.

There is a trend now at fitness centers to add balance strengthening training with various balance disks, pads, pods, BOSU, and dome devices. I strongly recommend this to everyone. With advancing age and weight gain, balance becomes more of a challenge, and as in all areas, prevention is the key.
 

I hear that fat people live longer. So what’s wrong with carrying a little extra weight?

    
Fat people do not live longer. The studies that reached that conclusion are wrong! Those studies included cachectic (physical wasting; think anorectic “on steroids”) and sick people who were underweight due to medical problems. That’s why they reached their erroneous conclusion on BMI and life expectancy.

Like the BMI measurement or not, a normal BMI individual has the best chance for a long, healthy life.

(Send your questions for Dr. J to calorielab@gmail.com or leave a comment. If your question is used by Dr. J, CalorieLab will send you a $25 Dining Dough restaurant certificate — limited to U.S. residents. More Dr. J posts can be read in our archives.)

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 27th, 2007 and is filed under Diet humor and wit, Dr. J will see you now, Exercise and fitness. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Permalink.