Nothing New Here

I mentioned last week that on Saturday I was presenting at the MA Association of Clinical Exercise Physiologists Annual Meeting in Boston. We were scheduled to go on at 1:45 (next to last.) I figured it would be a great opportunity to head in nice and early and sit in on the morning lectures and do me some free learning. Truth is, I'm glad I went, but unfortunately there was nothing new presented. This organization seems to work closely with the American College of Sports Medicine. I don't know a whole lot about the ACSM but I came away unimpressed. The first presentation was titled, "Real Exercise for Real People: What is an Exercise Professional to Do?" There were a few interesting points made near the end of this presentation.

1. I've never been a proponent of a "cool-down." I never really saw a point in spending 5-10 minutes cooling down. As it turns out there is very little evidence to suggest a cool down has any benefits. So that is reassuring.
   
2. The FITT principle is something all us fitness professionals learn. It's just an acronym for the variables in a program. They are: Frequency, Intensity, Type, Time. Way before my time the FITT principle was the FITTE principle with the E standing for Enjoy. I like that. I'm not sure why that has been dropped.

The second presentation was about building and maintaining bone density especially in women. She talked about all the science behind osteopenia and osteoperosis. She went into osteoblasts and fibroblasts and all sorts of other dorky stuff. The important thing is the minimal essential strain (MES.) MES "refers to the threshold stimulus that initiates new bone formation." (taken from the NSCA Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning textbook.) The MES is generally thought to be 1/10 of the force required to fracture a bone. So if my femur (thigh bone) requires 1,000 pounds of force to result in a fracture then simply applying 100 pounds of force will result in new bone formation (greater bone density.) The key is to utilize exercises that load portions of the skeleton and that involve multiple joints. You cannot get this benefit from using machines. A tremendous exercise to add to your program is the Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat. This exercise puts some good strain on your femur, pelvis, and spine. Other than that Jump Squats are a great exercise as well to get the benefits of building new bone.


The next presentation was from the nutrition consultant for the Biggest Loser. His talk was all over the place. He sorta trashed the show while mentioning it's benefits to the public. At the end he showed a bunch of before and after slides and kept saying that the people have since put the weight back on. So I still think that show is garbage.

Anyway, I like day Red Sox games.