Tag: jockology

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Jockology: How long does it take to get fit?

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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The latest Jockology column is now up on the Globe website:

The question

How long does it take to get “fit?”

The answer

The pair of “before and after” pictures is a staple of fitness hucksterism. Follow our patented program for a few weeks or months, the ads say, and your body will be transformed.

Intrigued by such ads, Megan Anderson and her colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse put 25 subjects through an intense six-week exercise program, modelled on claims made by companies such as Bowflex and Body-for-LIFE, in a 2004 study published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. The subjects’ before-and-after attractiveness was rated by a panel of six judges, who were unable to detect any change whatsoever.

Does that mean six weeks isn’t long enough to reshape your body? Not necessarily.

“The ‘time course’ of fitness changes depends on the training stimulus: intensity, duration and frequency,” says Friederike Scharhag-Rosenberger, a researcher at the University of Potsdam in Germany who published a study on the topic in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise earlier this year.

Under the right circumstances, six weeks may be enough. But even if it takes longer, the benefits of exercise start long before you begin to bulk up or run faster.

Here’s what you can expect from different kinds of workouts… [read on here]

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Jockology: Will active video games like Wii tennis get me fit?

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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The most recent Jockology column came out last Thursday, while I was hiking in the desert. It appeared as part of a back-to-school package aimed at the health concerns of school-age children, so I decided to tackle active video games, or “exergaming,” as it’s sometimes referred to.

The question

Will “active” video games keep my kid fit during the school year?

The answer

This is a question that has launched dozens of studies since the release of Nintendo’s Wii gaming system in late 2006, and the results of those studies are finally beginning to appear in peer-reviewed journals.

Researchers around the world now agree that “exer-gaming” does burn significantly more calories than traditional video games – but that’s not saying a lot. The real question is whether they burn enough to improve health and fitness outcomes, and the answer here is still up for debate. [read on…]

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VO2max (and lactate threshold) testing: what is it and why get it?

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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This week’s Jockology column in the Globe and Mail compares the benefits of VO2max and lactate threshold testing:

The question

What is VO2max and should I have mine tested?

The answer

VO2max is a term that surfaces whenever feats of great endurance are in the news, such as the gruelling Tour de France that wrapped up last weekend. It refers to “maximum oxygen uptake,” the amount of oxygen you’re able to deliver to your muscles when you’re exercising at your hardest.[read on…]

I’ve been tested a couple of times, once as part of an exercise physiology study and once purely for interest because a friend of mine, Dr. Gerald Zavorsky, offered to test me. But I’m not sure how many people take advantage of the commercial services offering testing. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who’s done it — why they did it, what they got out of it and so on.

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How hard is a spinning workout?

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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The latest Jockology column takes a look at “Spinning” — the indoor cycling classes whose popularity has rocketed over the past few years.

[T]he ingredients of a typical indoor cycling class somehow combine to lift workouts to heights that most participants wouldn’t achieve on their own. The alchemy of group exercise is well known to runners and aerobics classes, but spinning has found a recipe so powerful that researchers studying it have been forced to re-evaluate their definition of “maximal” exercise – and sound a warning for beginners who may wander into a class unprepared. [read the rest of the column]

I have to admit, the research on this topic surprised me. I knew people considered spinning to be a tough workout, but not “supra-maximal”! In the column, I focus on spinning compared to riding a stationary bike on your own — but I’d be interested to hear from serious cyclists about how spinning compares to a hard group ride on the roads. Does the same group dynamic apply outdoors?

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Core strength is more than just abs

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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Good article by Gretchen Reynolds of the New York Times on the difference between strengthening your abs and strengthening your core — and why it’s important:

“There’s so much mythology out there about the core,” maintains Stuart McGill, a highly regarded professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada and a back-pain clinician who has been crusading against ab exercises that require hollowing your belly. “The idea has reached trainers and through them the public that the core means only the abs. There’s no science behind that idea.” Continue reading “Core strength is more than just abs”