Fitness and Exercise

Dear Members a great piece written by Ian Craig who I have worked with around DNA testing. One to think about regarding overtraining.

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Old paradigms die hard. If you combine the two areas of Health and Fitness, you will find many of them – many old theories that badly need to be dusted down and challenged in a meaningful way. This is especially true in South Africa where we are actually quite a few years behind current thinking with regards to the subjects of exercise and diet. And that also includes the education that comes from our Medical Aid schemes. 

South Africa is a land of extremes and whatever health message is flavour of the month, tends to be over-executed. If the message is to reduce Calorie intake, then we starve ourselves; if the message is to drop our fat consumption, sales of low-fat dairy products escalate; if the message is to go low-Carb, we follow the example of Prof Noakes and boycott the bakery; if the message is to exercise more… we run the Comrades!

We actually need individuals like Professor Noakes to shake up the hornet’s nest from time to time and question what we think is fact. By preaching a low-carb approach, he has made enemies with many dieticians, but he has successfully challenged the thinking of others. He makes a vital point about the low-carb story – in fact, we are about 12 years behind America and Europe, who experienced the Atkins revolution at the turn of the century. Low-carb diets have since received many clinical trials that have demonstrated their benefit for blood sugar and insulin control, weight management, diabetes and cardiovascular risk. But, it’s not for everyone and genetics has actually told us for several years that everybody processes food in different ways. Individualisation of diet is the new way – and that is up to date information!

And it is no different with exercise. When I arrived in South Africa (from the UK) four years ago, I was rather shocked that I could no longer call myself a runner even though I had run at a national level in the UK for several years. The reason: my longest ever race has been a 21K – I’ve never even run a marathon. In South Africa, it appears that you are a nobody in running circles if you haven’t done the Comrades; or the Epic in cycling; or the Ironman in triathlon. So the ethos is to go long – but they do it so very slowly…! Quantity unfortunately gains the nod over quality here. When I ran, I was proud when I ran fast; broke my PB’s and beat my rivals. I wasn’t really that interested in how many hours I could run at shuffle-pace on a Sunday morning. 

So, I would like to present the ethos of Quality before Quantity. I told you that exercise is no different from diet in terms of individualisation. It should be no surprise that some of us do well at high-intensity efforts like sprints and weight lifting, whereas others do well at ultra-distance events. But these are the extremes – like the dietary information, we now have genetic testing that can identify an individual’s power and endurance strengths. The number of runners who are capable of excelling at the Comrades are few and far between – and the same applies to Olympic weight lifters. But, there are many many alternatives to these two extreme examples and that is where we should be focusing our efforts. Even if you plan on going long, work on your strengths in training.

It has been demonstrated by science that if you want to run faster at any distance, your base speed is a key determinant: would you be surprised to know that the best marathon runners can hold the top speed of a gym treadmill (20kph) for the entire marathon distance? That is not slow and they cannot expect to be at their best by simply focusing on long-slow-distance (LSD) like us. Likewise, there is reasonable evidence that cyclists can gain a competitive advantage by including some weight and power training in their programme. The evidence is not yet definitive, which would probably suggest that the potential benefits will depend on the person’s power and endurance genetics. So, if you are involved in any competitions; look at the quality of the work that you’re doing before worrying about quality – this approach should increase your performance, while reducing your likelihood of overtraining. Even the prestigious triathlon coach Joe Friel (who visited South Africa recently) would agree with this approach.

Let’s also have a look at gym-based health fitness. In the gym environment, the focus tends to be more aesthetic – chasing the perfect body that always seems just out of reach. We unfortunately are in an era of ‘thin is fit’, which perhaps stems from the fitness boom of the 1970’s and 80’s when the mass public of the Western World started running marathons and watching their dietary fat intake. The approach doesn’t appear to have worked particularly well but nonetheless, it is a paradigm that we still live by in South Africa. 

So how do we become thin and fit? Well, if you follow the trends of the fitness clubs and popular health magazines, you will spend an hour per day on a treadmill or X-trainer and eat low-Calorie, low-fat food. The problem is that long-term, this approach is generally ineffective and can actually lead to a state called sarcopenia. Sarcopenia represents a depletion in muscle tissue, often accompanied by an increase in body fat. So, even when somebody looks thin, their percentage body fat may still be quite high. The same message to the athletes also applies here – Quality before Quantity. 

Choosing the right balance of exercises for you is also a question of genetics. Some people will trim down nicely with a largely cardiovascular programme, whereas others will see meaningful fat loss through weight training. Most of us will benefit from a mixture of both. Cardiovascular exercise is stimulatory to our heart, lungs and circulatory system, whereas resistance training, via its influence on anabolic hormones, is extremely effective at maintaining or increasing muscle mass. Muscle, due to its high metabolic nature, supports a healthy body composition. Conversely, relaxation practices such as Yoga and Tai Chi are anti-catabolic (muscle breakdown) in effect and stabilising to our stress hormones and insulin, which in turn can positively influence body composition. Additionally, they can decrease muscle tension, improve digestive function and support mood. 

It is up to you how you put together your exercise programme. For maximum results, though, listen to your body and treat yourself as an individual. 

Ian Craig BSc MSc CSCS
Exercise Physiology | Nutritional Therapy | Sports Coaching
+27 (0)79 194 8098
www.craigcoaching.com