I’ve been predicting this for some time. American kids shaping up with trainers:
The Boston-based group’s latest figures, from 2005, show that 824,000 children between the ages of 6 and 17 use trainers — a figure that accounts for about 13 percent of trainers’ clients.
It’s not just Belgian Blue cattle, Flex Wheeler, and a German toddler who have muscle-building myostatin-related mutations. Now a similar rare condition gives a toddler super strength in Michigan, and he’s eating his adoptive parents out of house and home:
Liam Hoekstra was hanging upside down by his feet when he performed an inverted sit-up, his shirt falling away to expose rippled abdominal muscles.It was a display of raw power one might expect to see from an Olympic gymnast.
Liam is 19 months old.
But this precocious, 22-pound boy with coffee-colored skin, curly hair and washboard abs is far from a typical toddler.
“He could do the iron cross when he was 5 months old,” said his adoptive mother, Dana Hoekstra of Roosevelt Park. She was referring to a difficult gymnastics move in which a male athlete suspends himself by his arms between two hanging rings, forming the shape of a cross.
“I would hold him up by his hands and he would lift himself into an iron cross. That’s when we were like, ‘Whoa, this is weird,’” Hoekstra said.
Liam has a rare genetic condition called myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, or muscle enlargement. The condition promotes above-normal growth of the skeletal muscles; it doesn’t affect the heart and has no known negative side effects, according to experts.
Liam has the kind of physical attributes that bodybuilders and other athletes dream about: 40 percent more muscle mass than normal, jaw-dropping strength, breathtaking quickness, a speedy metabolism and almost no body fat.
In fitness buffs’ terms, the kid is ripped.
All this despite being born premature:
Liam was born four weeks early and had a small hole in his heart. He also had eczema, enlarged kidneys, was lactose intolerant and had severe stomach reflux that made him vomit several times each day, his mother said.No one knew then that the baby was among the few people known to have myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy.
Dana Hoekstra said her suspicion that Liam was physically different quickly intensified. Two days after he was born, Liam could stand up and support his weight if someone held his hands to provide balance, she said.
His heart and kidneys healed within a few months, but it took 18 months before he stopped throwing up daily.
Liam’s muscular thighs at 5 months of age gave him the appearance of a miniature Lance Armstrong. By 8 months, Liam was doing pull-ups and, a month later, climbing up and down stairs, his mother said.
What really amazed his parents was the way Liam fell.
“When he fell backward, he would land on his butt, but he never hit his head on the ground,” Dana Hoekstra said. “His stomach would tense up and he would catch himself before his head hit the ground. You could see his stomach muscles. He had a little six-pack.”
I was feeling fairly fit and athletic until I watched some Sports Acrobatics. I didn’t know humans could do that…
I was feeling fairly fit and athletic until I watched some Sports Acrobatics. I didn’t know humans could do that…
A recent New York Times fitness article, A Healthy Mix of Rest and Motion, is evidence that interval training is finally becoming mainstream.
In other news, schools are rapidly adopting Dance Dance Revolution for physical eduction classes:
While traditional video games are often criticized for contributing to the expanding waistlines of the nation’s children, at least several hundred schools in at least 10 states are now using Dance Dance Revolution, or D.D.R., as a regular part of their physical education curriculum.Based on current plans, more than 1,500 schools are expected to be using the game by the end of the decade. Born nine years ago in the arcades of Japan, D.D.R. has become a small craze among a generation of young Americans who appear less enamored of traditional team sports than their parents were and more amenable to the personal pursuits enabled by modern technology.
Incorporating D.D.R. into gym class is part of a general shift in physical education, with school districts de-emphasizing traditional sports in favor of less competitive activities.
“Traditionally, physical education was about team sports and was very skills oriented,” said Chad Fenwick, who oversees physical education for the Los Angeles Unified School District, where about 40 schools now use Dance Dance Revolution. “What you’re seeing is a move toward activities where you don’t need to be so great at catching and throwing and things like that, so we can appeal to a wider range of kids.”
A basic D.D.R. system, including a television and game console, can be had for less than $500, but most schools that use the game choose to spend from $70 to $800 each for more robust mats, rather than rip apart the relatively flimsy versions meant for home use.
In a study last year, researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found that children playing Dance Dance Revolution expended significantly more energy than children watching television and playing traditional video games.
Mediterranean diet wards off allergies:
Dr. Paul Cullinan of Britain’s Royal Brompton Hospital and National Heart and Lung Institute, and colleagues in Greece and Spain, studied 690 children aged 7 to 18.Children who ate the most fresh fruits and nuts were the least likely to suffer from breathing allergies, and those who ate the most margarine were the most likely to, they found.
The New York Times has a content-light article, Florida Girls Lift Weights, and Gold Medals, about how the Florida school system has embraced girls’ weightlifting — sort of.
It mentions clean & jerk, one of the two lifts contested in weightlifting, and bench press, one of the three lifts contested in powerlifting. Both are popular lifts for football players — perhaps they’re mixing and matching sports down in Florida?
Study shows why exercise boosts brainpower:
Tests on mice showed they grew new brain cells in a brain region called the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus that is known to be affected in the age-related memory decline that begins around age 30 for most humans.The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging scans to help document the process in mice — and then used MRIs to look at the brains of people before and after exercise.
They found the same patterns, which suggests that people also grow new brain cells when they exercise.
In Killer Workouts, Eugene Allen discusses rhabdomyolysis, the out-of-control release of muscle fiber contents into the bloodstream:
My interest in this topic peaked when a very close friend of mine spent a week in the hospital after I put him through his very first CrossFit workout. Brian was no couch potato who suddenly jumped into exercise, but he did have a long layoff from intense exercise for nearly two years before that fateful afternoon with me. He was a state champion wrestler from Iowa, an Army Ranger, and a pretty serious weightlifter and member of our department’s SWAT team. Although he was not working out hard he had not degenerated to full-blown spudhood. He was running and “staying in shape,” as he said, but he did nothing that could be described as intense. Until he came to my house.Our workout was nothing crazy hard, but the thing that did him in was the swings. His second set of 50 swings (an eccentric contraction to be sure) was difficult for him and proved to be his undoing. Afterward, he was unable to kneel in my driveway to change from shoes to boots and had to sit. He could barely do that and had to use all the force of his will to get on his Harley and ride home. No pain to speak of during this time, just complete muscle weakness. Brian thought his muscles were tightening up (in fact they were dying) so he put on a heat pad to loosen things up. Instead of relaxing the muscles, the heat released even more fluid and within two minutes the pain started. Excruciating pain. Pain is frequently quantified in the medical community on a scale from 1 to 10. Brian said the pain was way past 10. Once he was at the hospital, our SWAT team doc, who works at the emergency room Brian went to, worked his morphine dose up to 16 mg every two hours, and Brian said that only dulled the pain enough that he didn’t scream.
The primary diagnostic indicator of rhabdomyolysis is elevated serum creatine phosphokinase or CPK. The normal value runs below 200; rhabdo brings the CPK level to at least five times this level. When Brian was admitted to the hospital his CPK level was at 22,000. Within two days it peaked at 98,000. He was pumped full of fluids to help flush the kidneys and he puffed up like the Michelin man. His head looked like a big fat white pumpkin from all the fluid and the medical staff was very concerned about mineral imbalances, which could cause heart problems. Any movement brought suppressed screams of pain through gritted teeth. He was out of the hospital after six days but was off from work for two months. The muscles in his lower back had been destroyed and no longer functioned. He was unable to sit or stand without leaning backwards or he would fall over. He brought an empty cereal bowl to the sink one morning and when he reached slightly forward with his arms to put the bowl in the sink he started to fall and would have gone straight to the ground had he not had the edge of the sink to stop his fall.
The Role of Fitness in Historical Fencing describes the truly old-school fitness regimen recommended by Jean Le Meingre (Boucicaut), the marshal of France during the reign of Charles VI:
Now cased in armour, he would practise leaping on to the back of a horse; anon, to accustom himself to become long-winded and enduring, he would walk and run long distances on foot, or he would practise striking numerous and forcible blows with a battle-axe or mallet. In order to accustom himself to the weight of his armour, he would turn somersaults whilst clad in a complete suit of mail, with the exception of his helmet, or would dance vigorously in a shirt of steel; he would place one hand on the saddle-bow of a tall charger, and the other on his neck, and vault over him…He would climb up between two perpendicular walls that stood four or five feet asunder by the mere pressure of his arms and legs, and would thus reach the top, even if it were as high as a tower, without resting either in the ascent or descent…
When he was at home, he would practise with the other young esquires at lance-throwing and other warlike exercises, and this continually.
In Unhappy Meals, Michael Pollan reduces his diet advice to a few words:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
He then goes on to examine the history of nutritionism.
In Splendid Specimens, Randy Roach examines “The History of Nutrition in Bodybuilding” — and includes this Daily Menu for the Three Saxon Brothers, from more than a century ago, as an appendix:
Breakfast
24 eggs
3 pounds smoked bacon
Porridge with cream and honey
Tea with plenty of sugarDinner
10 pounds of meat
Vegetables
Sweet fruit (raw or cooked)
Sweet cakes
Salad
Tea
Sweet puddings
Cocoa and whipped creamSupper
Cold meat
Smoked fish
Lots of butter and cheese
Beer
Art De Vany has been saying this for some time now. Endurance sports may harm the heart:
Ventricular arrhythmia (VA), a disturbance that occurs in the ventricles or lower chambers of the heart, is a condition that can cause sudden death in top athletes who have had no previous symptoms of the disorder.After studying Dutch and Belgian endurance athletes with VA and other healthy sportspeople and volunteers, the researchers found that in the athletes with the problem the right ventricle (RV) of the heart was not functioning normally.
They believe VA, which could have many underlying causes, may be triggered by intense exercise or that endurance sports could promote the arrhythmia along with genetic or environmental factors.
Isometrics or Steroids? Exploring New Frontiers of Strength in the Early 1960s, from the Journal of Sport History Vol. 20, No. I (Spring 1993), looks at the early haphazard experiments by Dr. Ziegler with weightlifters, combining new isometric training routines, hypnosis, and little pink pills. The article’s conclusion is startling:
It was only in the latter stages of their experiment, by the most haphazard course of trial and error, that steroids were reluctantly identified as an influential agent in the enhancement of strength.
Sports Illustrated notes that Ford was one of the most athletic presidents:
His deliberate manner of speaking, some highly publicized mishaps and a recurring Chevy Chase bit in the early days of Saturday Night Live helped advance the notion that Gerald R. Ford was a bit of a bumbling stumbler.In fact, Ford was one of the nation’s fittest and most athletic presidents.
Ford, who has died at age 93, played center on the University of Michigan football team, where he was a three-year letter winner. His teams enjoyed consecutive undefeated, national championship seasons in 1932 and 1933. He was the Wolverines’ most valuable player in 1934 and, on Jan. 1, 1935, he played in a college all-star game known today as the East West Shrine Game.
Michigan later retired Ford’s No. 48 jersey.
During a 1934 game against the University of Chicago, Ford became the only future U.S. president to tackle a future Heisman Trophy winner when he brought down halfback Jay Berwanger, who won the first Heisman the following year.