Core: Are You Phoning it In?

This is just a quick post, a new experiment here at Cranky Fitness, land of the 10,000 word digression-filled ramble.

Anyway, I have recently discovered a kickass way to get more serious about core work that I wanted to share.  Not that I'm necessarily gonna get more serious, but at least I discovered an intriguing new way to do it.

Giveaways, Grouchiness, and Silly Stuff

(Yes, I used this drawing by Dylan before. I just like it!)

So it's Friday, which means things are all a bit random here in Cranky Land. However, if you click enough links you'll discover we're hosting a poetry (!) contest with a very cool prize for the best poem, haiku, limerick, or full length opera. We've also got an Especially Annoying Health News Item, followed by some Very Fine Fitness Links (including a video featuring the awesome MizFit in a totally different setting than usual). And there are some other Random Funny Things at the end of the post! So even if you're excited about the poetry Contest and Prize, I hope you remember to come back here for the rest of the stuff.

Shall we begin? First up: the Annoying News Item.

Exercise: Dissed Yet Again!

So Time Magazine recently featured an article called "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin." It doesn't just suggest that the impact of exercise on weight loss has been exaggerated--no, the article goes much further. Since exercise can make one hungry, and some people overeat because they feel entitled to scarf extra calories after exercising, the article concludes:

"You should exercise to improve your health, but be warned: fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain. I love how exercise makes me feel, but tomorrow I might skip the VersaClimber — and skip the blueberry bar that is my usual postexercise reward."

Oh gosh, me too!! I'm gonna skip boot camp class; it will probably just make me gain weight. Because obviously if I go out and get some vigorous exercise, I will then have to make stupid-ass food choices the rest of the day. Why should I let a bunch of other studies, common sense, and a several decades of personal experience convince me otherwise?

Hand me my slippers and the TV remote, gosh darn it! I want to lose weight!

Actually, this article came out almost a week ago and I wasn't in the right cranky frame of mind to jump on it. It wasn't all that long ago that I came to the defense of physical exertion after I read another unfair anti-exercise article by a major media outlet. By now, you've all probably read all about this. But in case you haven't, there are some great posts about the Time article over at Truth 2 Being Fit, Feed Me I'm Cranky, and Weight for Deb.

And over at the L.A. Times blog, Booster Shots, they have a very thoughtful analysis and critique of the Time Magazine article that left me realizing anything I had to say would be just be superfluous.

Which doesn't usually stop me from going on for a few thousand words anyway! But perhaps I'll just leave it at this: to say that exercise won't help you lose weight (if you eat a whole bunch of extra food afterwards to compensate) is like saying that hammering a bunch of boards together won't help you build a barn (if you set fire to it once you're done).

Er, maybe you better go check those other links for a better analysis.


Go see MizFit be adorable!

It was Core and Abs week over at the Juice, and guess who showed up in one of the core videos to give some tips? The Amazing Mizfit! (As well as the awesome Jenn from Fit Bottomed Girls, and a couple of other fitness bloggers I hadn't been aware of before, but they're fun too). Go see it, MizFit's on first! Plus there's the official Juice video with a knowledgeable boot camp instructor giving more great core tips. Oh, and because of the grocery store $100 giveaway (ends this Sunday) I offered up some tips on avoiding fake grocery store bargains. I learned a lot from writing that post! For example, if you forget you're not on your own blog and use the word "crap" in boldface type on a corporate-sponsored site? They won't necessarily fire you! (Yet).

(What word would you suggest I test them on next week?)


So Where's The Poetry Contest and Giveaway?

It's over on the Cranky Fitness Product Page. You could win a cool music player thingy which comes pre-loaded with 1,000 songs from top selling artists, gives you the ability to read minds, and has an FM tuner. (And two of the three claims in that last sentence are actually true!)


And What About the Funny Stuff?

I have kind of a blog-crush on Sarah Haskins, because why else would I post a video about doofy husbands? I do not own one myself, and doofy husbands are not a fitness-related topic. (Unless perhaps you want to bench press yours, or use him as a kettlebell).



And speaking of "making fun of husbands who are only trying to help," there was a great post over at Jennsylvia about the fine art of photographing celebrities (and their buttocks). And I could totally relate to Jen's poor husband Fletch and his difficulties taking pictures! Have you noticed there are rarely photos on this blog unless they are downloaded from elsewhere? Well, there is a good reason for that.

Got any thoughts on exercise causing weight gain? Or on the whole doofy husband issue? (And don't forget to go to the product page for the contest!)

More Studies I Plan To Ignore

Sometimes I come across health studies that are perfectly legitimate... but they don't persuade me to do anything differently.

For example, there was that study that says raw broccoli is much better for you than cooked broccoli. Or another one that said room-temperature watermelon has more antioxidants in it than if it's refrigerated.

Well, I say the heck with those studies! I hate raw broccoli and like my watermelon cold and so I'm going to barely glance at the details.

However, if you are someone who likes warm watermelon or raw broccoli, these studies are not lame and ignorable, they are great discoveries! So I realize that one persons "health news" can be another person's "health snooze." (Sorry... that was really awful, wasn't it?)

So in the spirit of "I can't think of anything the least bit interesting to blog about today" "we're all different and isn't that wonderful," here are some recent studies that for various reasons, I didn't want to know much about but you very well might!

As it turns out, there are many different reasons to blow off health studies. So I've grouped these in Crabby-centric terms: why I didn't want to look much beyond the headline.

1. Because I know I'm Not Gonna Bother:

Cooking carrots before you cut them preserves about 25% more falcarinol, an anti-cancer compound, than if you cut the carrots first and then cook them.

Well, when I cook carrots it's mostly in soups or stews. And I do not want to start cooking the damn things whole and then fishing them out all hot and drippy and messy and then cutting them up. I'll just assume that that the sneaky little falcarinol stuff is now hiding in the soup. And if you scientists happen to know that it doesn't work that way? Don't tell me, ok?


2. Because I've heard the opposite thing too many times:

The New York Times Health Page has been torturing me lately with their "guess what, everything you ever heard is wrong" reports. Remember when they said exercise isn't all that good for you? Well, this one is equally annoying but more specific, and has to do with strengthening your core.

So you know how all the exercise experts always tells you the same thing: be sure to pull in your stomach as you work your abs. This is so that you can strengthen the "transversus abdominis" muscle which will help prevent back injuries.

In fact, exercise expert Rupal over at 101 Exercises just recently explained the importance of activating the deep abdominal muscles. And she's very convincing!

So now there's a smarty-pants New York Times article calling this into question. According to them: "There’s growing dissent among sports scientists about whether all of this attention to the deep abdominal muscles actually gives you a more powerful core and a stronger back and whether it’s even safe."

Well dagnabbit. I hate when exercise advice changes!

But to be fair, there are some good alternative core exercises they suggest, like side planks, bird dogs, very-very-modified crunches, and something called "stirring the pot." The video is pretty darn helpful as this stuff is hard to describe. (And thanks to reader Lulu for drawing this article to my attention!)

But I think my favorite source for Core Workouts? Still gotta be Bossy:


3. Because some new statistic pisses me off and/or depresses me.

A new study about teens and contraceptive use says that: "After major improvements in teen contraceptive use in the 1990s and early 2000s, which led to significant declines in teen pregnancy," contraceptive use declined between 2003 and 2007. And it's not because there's been any decrease in teen sexual activity.

"Teens are still having sex," one of the study's authors said, "but it appears many are not taking the necessary steps to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections."

The report suspects the reason might be faltering HIV prevention efforts and "more than a decade of abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education that does not mention contraception unless it is to disparage its use and effectiveness."

Which of course is what most of the health educators and experts predicted would happen. But we got federally funded "abstinence only" sex ed anyway.

I do not have a teen, so that's another reason for me not to spend too much time pondering the why's and wherefores. (And if I did, rather than take the high road and try to educate them myself, I suspect I'd send them over to the Midwest Teen Sex Show and let the fabulous Nikol school them on condoms and other sex ed topics. (Caution, graphic language and very NSFW).

4. Because it's a silly study.

Did you know that if you participate in a research study you think is about choosing colors, and the researchers offer you some soup for lunch, but don't tell you that they've rigged up your soup bowl to re-fill automatically...

...that you'll end up eating more soup than someone with a regular bowl?

Er... duh?

It's true that the people who didn't have sneaky self-refilling bowls had servers visibly refilling them, so the study does say something about how lame we are at telling just from our stomachs how "full" we are. But is this really a surprise???

And this study just seemed doofy on all kind of levels. Doesn't the whole "let's stop and have soup for lunch during our research study on colors" cover story sound kinda unconvincing? As a suspicious crab, I'd just assume they might be watching what I was eating and I'd try to control myself--though I suppose it would be the same weird artificial experience no matter which kind of bowl you had.

Anyway, I thought it was dumb use of research money. We haven't yet found cures for cancer and MS and all the other awful diseases out there. But we have money to rig re-fillable soup bowls to confirm the obvious fact that people use visual cues to tell them how much to eat?

Note: to add an additional embarrassing level of irrelevancy, this study was posted on the well-respected blog Cognitive Daily less than a week ago. But it turns out it's a rerun from 2007! Science blogs are allowed to have reruns? Crap! Why do I always notice the dates on studies after I write them up? Anyway, sorry, next time I'll check more carefully, and try to bring you recent silly studies, not old ones.


So, any studies or advice you've seen lately that you've chosen to ignore?