Isegoria

Scientists link weight to gut bacteria:

In one of the two studies in Nature, Gordon and colleagues looked at what happened in mice with changes in bacteria level. When lean mice with no germs in their guts had larger ratios of Firmicutes transplanted, they got “twice as fat” and took in more calories from the same amount of food than mice with the more normal bacteria ratio, said Washington University microbiology instructor Ruth Ley, a study co-author.

It was as if one group got far more calories from the same bowl of Cheerios than the other, Gordon said.

In a study of dozen dieting people, the results also were dramatic.

Before dieting, about 3 percent of the gut bacteria in the obese participants was Bacteroidetes. But after dieting, the now normal-sized people had much higher levels of Bacteroidetes — close to 15 percent, Gordon said.

ESPN asked a panel of experts to judge which sports are the most difficult, and according to their Sport Skills Difficulty Rankings, the most difficult sport is boxing. Here are the criteria:

ENDURANCE: The ability to continue to perform a skill or action for long periods of time. Example: Lance Armstrong
STRENGTH: The ability to produce force. Example: NFL linebackers.
POWER: The ability to produce strength in the shortest possible time. Example: Barry Bonds.
SPEED: The ability to move quickly. Example: Marion Jones, Maurice Green.
AGILITY: The ability to change direction quickly. Example: Derek Jeter, Mia Hamm.
FLEXIBILITY: The ability to stretch the joints across a large range of motion. Example: Gymnasts, divers.
NERVE: The ability to overcome fear. Example: High-board divers, race-car drivers, ski jumpers.
DURABILITY: The ability to withstand physical punishment over a long period of time. Example: NBA/NHL players.
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: The ability to react quickly to sensory perception. Example: A hitter reacting to a breaking pitch; a drag racer timing acceleration to the green light.
ANALYTIC APTITUDE: The ability to evaluate and react appropriately to strategic situations. Example: Joe Montana reading a defense; basketball point guard on a fast break.

How do you know that your gym is Not a Hardcore Gym? Here’s one sign:

Some gyms forbid hogging machines and or wearing flip flops. At one gym, grunting is grounds for expulsion. Albert Argibay of Beacon, N.Y. was escorted by police officers from a gym this week for grunting — which is against Planet Fitness’ rules for maintaining a non-intimidating atmosphere.

“Perhaps I grunted, perhaps I didn’t. It’s open to interpretation,” said Argibay, a 40-year-old corrections officer. He said he had his headset on when he was lifting 500 pounds on a squat machine at the gym in Wappingers Falls, about 80 miles north of New York City.

Planet Fitness, which has 120 locations across the country, markets itself as a place where anyone can feel comfortable in its “Judgment Free Zone.”

Its rules, posted around the gym, state members cannot wear bandanas, grunt or bang weights on the ground. When an offender is spotted, a “lunk alarm” sounds to warn the member.

Another clue:

The heaviest dumb bells at Planet Fitness are 80 pounds, meaning it’s a place geared toward the general public, Palazzolo said.

You’ve probably seen any number of amazing parkour roof-to-roof jumps, if only in ads and movie trailers.

Perhaps you’ve wondered what a failed roof-to-roof jump might look like.

(I hope he came out OK.)

In Food for thought, William R. Leonard explains how humans likely evolved to eat energy-dense animal foods to support their metabolically expensive brains:

Across all primates, species with bigger brains dine on richer foods, and humans are the extreme example of this correlation, boasting the largest relative brain size and the choicest diet [see 'Diet and Primate Evolution,' by Katharine Milton; Scientific American, August 1993]. According to recent analyses by Loren Cordain of Colorado State University, contemporary hunter-gatherers derive, on average, 40 to 60 percent of their dietary energy from animal foods (meat, milk and other products). Modern chimps, in comparison, obtain only 5 to 7 percent of their calories from these comestibles. Animal foods are far denser in calories and nutrients than most plant foods. For example, 3.5 ounces of meat provides upward of 200 kilocalories. But the same amount of fruit provides only 50 to 100 kilocalories. And a comparable serving of foliage yields just 10 to 20 kilocalories. It stands to reason, then, that for early Homo, acquiring more gray matter meant seeking out more of the energy-dense fare.

Mariko Takahashi’s Fitness Video is so surreal that I cannot prepare you for it. Seriously.

Darshak Sanghavi explains that the crucial health stat you’ve never heard of is something called NNT, or number needed to treat:

Researchers in Scotland reported a 31-percent reduction in the risk of heart attacks among men taking the statin pravastatin, sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb under the brand name Pravachol. Due in part to this study, Pravachol became one of Bristol-Myers’ most profitable drugs and now grosses more than $2 billion in sales per year.

A 31 percent reduction in heart attacks, after all, seems impressive. Yet this pervasive way of describing clinical trials in medical journals — focusing on the “relative risk,” in this case of heart attack — powerfully exaggerates the benefits of drugs and other invasive therapies. What, after all, does a 31 percent relative reduction in heart attacks mean? In the case of the 1995 study, it meant that taking Pravachol every day for five years reduced the incidence of heart attacks from 7.5 percent to 5.3 percent. This indeed means that there were 31 percent fewer heart attacks in patients taking the drug. But it also means that the “absolute risk” of a heart attack for any given person dropped by only 2.2 percent (from 7.5 percent to 5.3 percent). The benefit of Pravachol can be summarized as a 31 percent relative reduction in heart attacks — or a 2.2 percent absolute reduction.
[...]
In the end, 100 people needed to be treated to avoid two heart attacks during the study period — so, the number of people who must get the treatment for a single person to benefit is 50. This is known as the “number needed to treat.”

Instead of a 31-percent relative reduction in heart attacks, we get this:

To a savvy, healthy person with high cholesterol that didn’t decrease with diet and exercise, a doctor could say, “A statin might help you, or it might not. Out of every 50 people who take them, one avoids getting a heart attack. On the other hand, that means 49 out of 50 people don’t get much benefit.”

Another article notes that the Dutch are the world’s tallest people:

Most of us are taller than our parents, who probably are taller than their parents. But in the Netherlands, the generational progression has reached new heights.

In the last 150 years, the Dutch have become the tallest people on Earth — and experts say they’re still getting bigger. It is a tale of a nation’s health and wealth.

Prosperity propelled the collective growth spurt that began in the mid-1800s and was only interrupted during the harsh years of the Nazi occupation in the 1940s — when average heights actually declined.

With their protein-rich diet and a national health service that pampers infants, the Dutch are standing taller than ever. The average Dutchman stands just over 6 feet, while women average nearly 5-foot-7.
[...]
The Dutch were not noted for their height until recently. It was only in the 1950s that they passed the Americans, who stood tallest for most of the last 200 years, said John Komlos, a leading expert on the subject who is professor of economic history at the University of Munich in Germany. He said the United States has now fallen behind Denmark.

Many Dutch are much taller than average. So many, in fact, that four years ago the government adjusted building codes to raise the standards for door frames and ceilings. Doors must now be 7-feet, 6 1/2-inches high.
[...]
In 1848, one man out of four was rejected by the Dutch military because he was shorter than 5-foot-2. Today, fewer than one in 1,000 is that short.

George Maat, an anthropologist at Leiden University Medical Center, cites a study done in 1861 correlating the height of conscripts to the availability and price of rye, then the main food crop. One year after a poor crop, the number of men rejected as too short shot up.

Height appears to come naturally with the territory. Two thousand years ago, the men of the Low Countries stood about 5-foot-9 — tall for the age — and were enlisted as guards for the Roman emperor, Maat said.

Average heights declined over the next 1,800 years as food supply failed to keep pace with population growth and people moved into disease-ridden cities, said Maat. He spoke from his office, cluttered with leg bones and skulls, overlooking a grassy quadrangle that is the burial site of thousands killed by plague in 1635.

Even during the 17th century, when Amsterdam was the world’s richest city, wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few merchants and average height did not increase.

It took until World War I for the Dutch to regain the 4 inches they lost over two millennia.

From Busy Americans flocking to circuit gyms:

It’s no surprise that circuit workouts — cheap, low-key and easy to understand — are popping up in strip malls coast to coast. About a third of the country’s estimated 30,000 health clubs are now express workout facilities, according to IHRSA. While Curves found an audience among middle-aged and older women, the spinoffs are branching out to other groups.

Cuts Fitness for Men, which opened in 2003, now has 90 locations across the country. With a tan-and-blue color scheme and “Cheers”-like camaraderie, founder John Gennaro said members are typically between 30 and 60 and often watch a baseball game together after their workouts.

The Blitz, a boxing-themed circuit gym, has 75 locations nationwide. This fall, president
Scott Smith is planning a foray into the 18 to 35 market with a coed, military-themed version called “Commandos.”

Even major chains like 24 Hour Fitness and Gold’s Gym have rolled out circuit workouts.

One circuit gym in southern California invites the entire family to work out. At Family Fitness Express in LaCanada, Calif., members are encouraged to bring along the kids, or even grandma and grandpa.

Britain’s kids sweat it out in new mini-gyms:

“I just want to get fit,” she says.

She goes to the gym five times a week.

She is nine years old.

Bradley’s parents suggested she join this gym in Potters Bar, southeast England, to help make new friends when they moved into the area.

She is now one of a growing band of children across Britain — some as young as five — who have been bitten by the gym bug.

With child-sized treadmills, exercise bikes and resistance weight machines, mirrors on the wall and pop music pumping out, this gym in Potters Bar looks and feels just like its larger adult version.

Children are attracted by its grown-up feel, but also say they want somewhere to go with their friends, somewhere to do some new kinds of exercise.

At least 80 such gyms have opened in Britain in recent years, and one of the leading kid gym companies, Shokk, says it alone is opening new ones at a rate of around three a month.

With memberships reaching the hundreds for each one, tens of thousands of children across Britain are expected to pump weights and sweat it out on running machines this summer.

Evidently the idea was exported from America. Who knew?

Amateur cyclists can buy Better Bikes Than Lance’s:

The governing body of the three-week odyssey, the Union Cycliste International, strictly limits what Tour de France riders can and cannot use during this celebrated event. Recreational riders can go down to their local bike shop and purchase a bike that’s much better than anything the pros are allowed to ride.

There is a strict minimum bike weight of 6.8 kg for UCI-governed races. Many high-end off-the-shelf road bikes come in well below that mark and manufacturers have often been forced to add ballast to standard production bikes to bring them up to the minimum UCI weight.
[...]
Suspension is also a big no-no, according to the UCI. Some companies such as Trek and Softride have tried to race pivotless suspension designs that rely on the flex of a carbon beam. But those designs were written out of the rule book before they could ever reach the racecourse: The UCI determined they had an aerodynamic advantage over conventional designs.

The UCI has a long history of trying to control bicycle technology. In 1934, the organization banned the use of aerodynamic recumbent bicycles after a mid-level racer broke the prestigious record for distance traveled in one hour while riding one. Many modern recumbent riders are still angry over this and are quick to point out that recumbents still hold most of the speed records that are not under UCI control.
[...]
The UCI also used the hour record as a reason to ban another host of technological improvements in late 1996. Throughout the early to mid ’90s British riders Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman took turns setting and raising the mark while experimenting with several different aerodynamic bike designs and riding positions.

When Boardman raised the bar to 56.375 km in 1996, the UCI had enough. The rules were changed to prohibit the extreme tuck and superman-style riding positions that Obree and Boardman had used and the carbon fiber monocoque frames they rode.

Aerodynamic advantage was also one of the reasons the UCI used to attempt a ban on hydration systems such as those from Camelbak. A Camelbak is a large plastic bladder full of liquid that’s worn like a backpack. A hose runs from the pack to the rider’s mouth. But according to the UCI, if a properly shaped backpack is worn underneath the rider’s clothing, it could give them an aerodynamic benefit. But testing showed no advantage and the ban was dropped. Camelbaks are now occasionally used by riders during time trials.