Kevin unpacks the meaning and origins of the term "Fitness" and how it's changed today.
Kevin unpacks the meaning and origins of the term "Fitness" and how it's changed today.
Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Kevin Don. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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This is Kevin Don, the Get-Fit Guy. Welcome back regular listeners and welcome to new listeners. I thought I would reintroduce my ideas for ‘fitness’ and the show.
I understand that in the popular vernacular, there are many words that have lost their meaning or taken on new meanings. One of these words is ‘fitness’. The oldest record I can find for this word is from 1570 and means ‘the state of being suitable’. This would tie in with one way to use this word: being fit for task. Suitable for a task. Fitness is biological terms means the ability of a species to survive long enough to be able to pass on genetic material to continue ones species. Most people have heard the expression ‘survival of the fittest’. This really means the species in an ecosystem that survives is the one best suited to staying alive within that environment to ensure the species continues. So what does this mean for fitness in humans? I’d wager that most people listening to this are doing so driving their cars, walking on treadmills or cleaning their houses. They aren’t doing so whilst out hunting, gathering and avoiding being hunted by a lion.
This doesn’t mean, though, that we cannot still strive to be fit for the purpose of our lives. Now, as I have mentioned a few times before, this is a general and not specific podcast. So I cant really do an episode on fitness for firefighters. Because, although that requires a special kind of ‘fit for purpose’ when compared to another life situation, its not useful for a general podcast. So I have to spread the information out in the widest possible way. This means I need to give the advice that will be the most impactful and that can be implemented in the minimum time. Which also means that if there are ‘influencers’ out there advising that you drink your own pee or sun your perineum, then because this is neither impactful nor an efficient use of time, I should dispel these myths.
SO, this is why you will find episodes here about why not to do a certain fad and why other things work better. If you want a podcast about an interpretation of fitness as how to get shredded in 6 weeks before your annual trip to the Jersey shore, then this wont be it because a crash diet to lose weight in time for summer is not healthy and therefore not contributing to making you fit for purpose. What you’ll find here is how to get stronger, how to be more aerobically fit, how to improve mobility, and how to improve health markers such as blood pressure, visceral fat levels, hormonal profiles and bone density. Therefore, I will address things that do not move you towards those. The goal here with fitness is moving the needle from sickness to wellness. Having large biceps and a J-Lo butt won’t be helping anyone with health. Therefore unlikely I will be covering that.
If you are a regular listener, then apologies for the fact you will have heard all this before. But for those of you listening for the first time or those of you that missed it first time around, what is there that I can address that impacts everyone and not special populations like firefighters? Well, there is definitely one thing that is affecting all humans without exception. That is aging. Since the start of the episode to this point now, you have all aged. Probably by about 4 to 5 minutes. I therefore spend most of my time here referring to protocols that help the aging phenotype. Which just so happens to be everyone. The bigger impacts on our body of aging are:
Sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass)
Osteopenia (loss of bone mineral density)
Telomere shortening (these are areas in DNA at the end of chromosomes that shorten as we age affect many cellular processes)
Oxidative stress (oxidants stress and damage DNA, proteins and lipids)
My main concern will be covering the best ways to resist these hallmarks of aging and also debunking new fads that claim to help but don't. Why? Well, because I want to help everyone be more healthy and avoid wasting time and money.
So, to briefly cover the first two or the aforementioned (sarcopenia and osteopenia), what are the protocols? Well, the body is an adaptational system. It adapts to stresses applied over time. For example, if you go out in the sun for a few minutes everyday, your body will adapt by secreting melanin and darkening the skin to offer protection from burning. If you do bicep curls and across 6 weeks, increase the load, then your biceps will increase in size to meet the new demands. Adaptation works both ways though. If the stress goes away, then so does the adaptation. Athletes that stop training lose their abilities to perform athletic tasks and a few weeks after your summer vacation, your tan fades. This is the difference between an adaptation and an evolution.
If we want to have an adaptation to the fact that as we age, we lose muscle mass, then we need to create stress on the muscles. And we need to do so with appropriate selection. For example: it is more common than not that we find elderly people falling, tripping up and so on. A loss of muscle mass in the glutes and hips make it harder to balance and harder to recover a stumble. So if we avoid any and all leg and glute training in aging populations, then we won't mitigate this problem. We should do full body strength work to ensure a full body adaptation. This is because of the SAID principle (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands). So, it is equally the case that if one only trains legs, that one wont gain the ability to get a box out the top shelve of the cupboard. So, I would advise a full body strength regimen. Why strength? Well, because we are a system of levers and pulleys (bones and muscles), when we move external loads, we use aspects of both tension and compression.
Tension is where a muscle is being pulled longer by a load. Think about when you carry a suitcase. Your arm, your shoulder and upper back and all being pulled down towards the ground by the load. To resist this, you shorten the muscles. This is tension. Tension resists being pulled and it is resisted by the soft tissues, so muscles and tendons.
Compression is where we are being squashed or crushed. It is usually a result of top down loading. If you carry a rucksack on your back, your lower body is being compressed by a greater load and will respond. Think about the size difference between the legs of an elephant and the legs of a gazelle. An elephant’s legs are supporting a larger, heaver torso. Therefore, they are bigger and stronger. You dont get animals with tiny bodyweight relative to size that have big legs. Compression is resisted, not by soft tissue but by hard tissue, which is the bones. Once your bones are exposed to loads compressing them, they remodel and become more dense.
Since moving loads involves both tension and compression it makes it an ideal way to improve both. The adaptation comes in because they are progressively loadable. You cant increase the load of a walk. The only way you can is to add load. Walk with a weight vest, a rucksack or carrying an object. A barbell is a great way though because its trackable and repeatable. You can add 5lbs a week to a squat. Its harder to keep adding 5lbs a week to a rucksack across months.
I hope this has answered any questions anyone has about why I talk about things like not drinking pee and why I talk about things that may be outside the common understanding of fitness. As usual, feel free to send me an email if you have any questions, getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com
Get-Fit Guy is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to the team at Quick and Dirty Tips Morgan Christianson, Holly Hutchings, the director of podcasts Brennan Goetschius and Davina Tomlim. I’m your host, Kevin Don. If you have a question for me, leave me a voicemail at 510-353-3104 or send me an email at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com.
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