Why is Creatine Suddenly Trendy and Should We Be Taking It?

 

You've probably seen them too: those jars full of mysterious creatine powder in health food stores. They usually sit in what I think of as the "boys" section, where products often feature the word "Gain" instead of "Lose." Of course I know that's sexist of me. Because it's no longer just beefy lads still sweating from their Crossfit workouts who go in search of quick, easy ways to get more jacked after weightlifting, or to get some modest performance gains in intense excercise situations. These days more and more women want to be Biggest Gainers too, not just Biggest Losers.

But I was never that tempted myself. Mild performance gains didn't seem worth the money or hassle, especially since I am not a competitive athlete. Competitive athletes are those who perform athletics among and against other people. Wheras I would prefer that other people not exist while I am exercising. Competitive athletes are known to challenge themselves to the max, and endure a great deal of pain and suffering in order to squeeze out every last watt of power from their well-crafted bodies. And, well, screw that. A hard pass on optional suffering.

So why am I now dutifully ingesting a heaping teaspoon full of creatine powder every day? Is there more to it than cosmetics and a mild performance boost?

Three Annoying Questions For: Jen Sinkler!

photo: the unquiet librarian

Interview By Crabby McSlacker

"Three Annoying Questions" returns as we ambush the awesome Jen Sinkler!

I've been a fan for years--Jen was the Editorial Director at Experience Life, one of the few non-crappy Health and Fitness magazines out there.  Her articles were my faves, as she was generally way ahead of the curve and yet had a no-bullshit down-to-earth take on fitness trends.   You can get her "Thrival Guide" free over at her site, and with that comes a newsletter that is actually something you want in your inbox as there as always cool stuff in there.

More details on what Jen's been up to at the end, but meantime, please welcome Jen and stay tuned for her Three Annoying Questions!--Crabby

Confessions of a weight-lifting wimp

Note: the names have been changed to protect the pusillanimous. Any resemblance between the narrator of this story and the blogger writing this post is absolutely, positively, and in all ways completely and utterly spurious and coincidental, and any insinuations of a putative resemblance will most probably be referred to the Cranky Fitness lawyers, who haven't been fed for awhile and are definitely not vegetarians. So there.

Insert stereotypical lawyer joke here... if you dare...

The "back" story

Where I work, there's a break room with a filtered water dispenser. They call it a "water cooler," though the water's not all that cool. Still, the guy comes and delivers huge clear plastic jugs that weigh ... well, a lot. People wander in to the break room and fill up their tea cups or water bottles and wander off to pretend to work. As the day progresses, the amount of water available gets lower and lower until it's gone. It's like some kind of lottery, to see who's going to be the one faced with the empty water bottle.

If you lose the water cooler lottery, you have to replace the jug of water with a full one. Full ones are heavy. They are also on the floor.

To replace the empty water jug, you have to pick up a full one and then, while holding it at waist level, rotate the heavy jug 180 degrees and place it on a pedestal. I tried doing this once, long ago. The lifting-the-heavy-jug-from-the-floor part went fine. When I tried to rotate the jug, which involves the use of my arms, my back convinced me it was a very bad idea. I figured it was because I was a wimp. So, I played the feminine card, waiting until someone of the male persuasion walked by and batting my eyelashes plaintively until he replaced the water jug for me.

The moment of truth

That worked fine until one day when I was waiting for a handy man to walk past, and this tiny female co-worker walked into the break room. "Oh, is the water out?" she asked, and quickly upended a full jug and put it in place.

Now, not only is this woman several inches shorter than my 5'3, she compounds this offense by being very nice, very thin, very fine-boned and several months pregnant. I was put in my place, but good. (Not by the very nice co-worker, by my conscience.) It was time to find some exercise that would strengthen my back.

Push ups don't strengthen the back

Fast forward a few months. I've completed the 100 push up challenge, albeit in the modified 'girly' form. (Hey, I do what I can do.) And lo, there came a day when the water jug was completely empty, as was the break room. "Hell," I told myself. "I can lift this body 100 times with my arms; I can raise this water jug. So I did. And my back complained for several days afterward.

So what can I do to strengthen my back?

The 200 sit up challenge would strength the muscles around the waist/abdomen area, but what hurts is higher up, above the waist where the ribs start. What challenge would help with that?

The back says "Ow!" right where the polka dots meet the skin :(

I've looked at weight lifting sites. I even looked at the Body for Life book. Got kinda scared. I mean, all the people who take the Body for Life 12 Week challenge do end up fitter by the end, but they also seem inexplicably to become very blond and tan -- to the point of being orange. That scares me. People may laugh, but Tanorexia is becoming prevalent among the celebrity set these days. And where the celebs lead, people follow. I'm expecting next to open a magazine and read that the new trend is... orange babies...



Are there any exercises out there that are specifically designed to strengthen the part of the back that's just above the waist?

If so, could someone share them with me? Without charging $24.99 a month in three easy installments?

Runners: More Dense than Weight Lifters?

I love this picture. It perfectly captures how I feel about weight lifting.

Mind you, I feel that way about running too. So while I might have a bias in this post, at least I'm equally biased about both running and lifting weights.

And about parents.

My mother called me up on the telephone, and said the following: "I just got back from a visit to the doctor, and I'm afraid I have some bad news."
Gulp. "Okay, what's that?"
She said, sadly, "In another 20 years, you're going to have to worry about osteoporosis."


After I'd recovered my breath, I wanted to shake her.

20 years? Loads of time. I can take calcium, lift weights, buy a house that doesn't have steep steps. I mean, that's one of the benefits of having older relatives, to alert you to what's coming in your future. In each generation, we learn. My grandmother was terrified to walk down even a few steps due to a fear of falling and fracturing her fragile bones. My mother prepared by eating right and exercising, and so has only a much mild version of the disorder.

These days, there is such a proliferation of research on ways to maintain bone density that there's no excuse not to do what I can to strengthen my bones.

Much as I loathe exercise, it's top of the list. The good news is that there's a lot of research into how bone density is affected by different types of exercise.

The illustrious Dr. Mirkin quotes a study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, March 2009, that finds sprint cyclists have denser bones than long distance cyclists, who in turn have denser bones than sedentary control subjects.


And another study finds that runners are even further along in the bone mineral density scale, even more so than weight lifters.

It always impresses Crabby when I put research into chart format, so here's my summary of these two studies. (Not done to scale.)



I wish the studies had gone into more detail about the comparisons between weight lifters and runners, or whether it made a difference what type of runner you are. But the comforting thought here is that as long as I get off the couch, I'm making progress.

And to be thorough, I thought I should include another chart:



I mean, are these studies really going to change your mind? You've already got a workout routine that you enjoy don't mind doing. Would you change your workout as a result of a couple of studies?




Weight lifting photo courtesy JonTunn.

What the hell is a Kettlebell? Sarah Lurie's Workout DVD

[By Merry]A product review? On Cranky Fitness?

Yes, I know. I do product reviews about as often as I say something nice about... well, about pretty much anything. I made an exception in this case because I was intrigued by the name. What the hell is a kettlebell? Something that rings when it's made a pot of tea?

What the hell is a kettlebell?
Turns out it's a hand weight with a luggage handle on top. Cute as the dickens.

Don't knock the power of 'cute'! Hand weights are like people: both are much more likely to get picked up if they're cute. The son of Charlotte (from The Great Fitness Experiment) named her kettlebell 'Tinkerbell'.

What are you supposed to do with it?

Hey, it's a hand weight. You do the math.
(Sorry. I always wanted an excuse to use that expression.)

Okay, in case you're as mathematically challenged as I am, there is help. Sarah Lurie has put together some fitness DVDs showing how to get a workout with a kettlebell. What's really cool is that her DVDs combine working out aerobically with lifting weights. To someone like me, who would rather clean house than lift weights, this idea out-wows sliced bread.

The DVD I was given was called Kettlebell Basics, but Gofit.net has a list of several different DVDs that you can choose from.

Reasons to use a kettleball
1 - It's fun. Doing something different spices up a workout routine, which means I'm more likely to keep exercising.

2 - It's a workout. For several of these exercises, you hold the kettleball with both hands, thus using more muscles than you would with holding a weight in just one hand. Kind of like using a snowboard rather than two separate skis. With a snowboard, you end up using more core muscles because you're desperately trying to stay vertical.

3 - While it's nice to use muscles I wouldn't ordinarily put into play, even nicer is the idea of lifting weights while getting a cardio workout. Sarah Lurie guides you through a series of exercises that have you doing lunges, squats, and such like while raising and lowering the kettlebell. (The handle makes it much easier to swing the weight around than it would be to swing a regular hand weight.)

Things I didn't like so muchTo be completely fair and unbiased, there were a couple things I didn't like.

- Between exercises, the DVD lists key bullet points about form, things to keep in mind. Which would probably be useful if the font weren't so small that I couldn't read the text from 4 feet away.

- One of the exercises involve grasping the kettlebell with both hands, swinging it between my legs and then up to above my shoulders. These people have great faith in my ability not to accidentally lose my grip on the kettlebell and send it flying across the room. [Some manual dexterity is required to use a kettlebell.]


To read another review of Sarah Lurie's Kettlebell Workout DVDs, check out Workout Mommy's blog.

What about you? Have you tried using one of these things before, and if so did you like it?


P.S. My apologies to Nitmos. Here at Cranky Fitness, we are keenly aware of the robust necessity of remaining dynamically sensitive to our readers' needs. However, this is a serious product review, and it would be totally inappropriate to work in any gratuitous Martina Navratilova references. Besides, I could not find any indication that she had ever used this product.