People can say this stuff doesnt exist all they want and the ones that deny it are the ones that are destroying peoples health and doing at the alter of Fitness. Guess what? YOU ARE NOT FIT IF YOU INJURE YOURSELF TRAINING, nor is it a badge of honor to degrade your physical health, internally or externally, for Fitness. That is the stupidest perversion of fitness we have today! Fitness does NOT equal Health Dr. JD Hasenbank It seems that every January 1st most of us continually confuse the concept of Fitness and Health. With good intent we all set off to focus on our health by setting fitness goal, which ultimately never seem to come to fruition. The experience goes something like this...You set a plan of action and immediately start hacking your way toward your goal (Lose 20lbs, Train for the MS150, Train for a Half/Full-Marathon, Train for Triathlon, etc). Everything is going great so far... Week 1 - You have successfully completed every workout this week and have even made some radical dietary modifications (calorie restriction, low fat, low carb, high protein...whatever you think will work this year). Week 2 - You have more energy and feel a spring in your step, you still complete almost ever workout this week and are still holding fast to your diet. Week 3 - You are losing some weight, your cloths are looser than normal but you are feeling more hungry this week than last and botch it a few times on your diet by eating a bit more than last week or sneaking a treat. Week 4 - You are starting to feel more tired in the mornings and during the day and feel hungrier than last week. You start missing workouts here or there due to the lack of energy. Week 5 - You are still tired and are inconsistent with your workouts or diet but are determined to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get back on this plan. Week 6 - Your body hits the breaking point and either gets Sick or something starts to Hurt but you dont know why. By this time, the weight that you have initially lost is slowly creeping back on but you are faced with the decision of what to do: (a) Get back into the Game and hit it HARDER or (2) Rest a few days/weeks and start over with the resolve to be more DISCIPLINED. What do you do? Unfortunately, neither will get you where you want to go! Good intentions...Bad Information. Fitness does NOT equal Health. In-fact, Fitness done WRONG can DESTROY your health...Seriously! Take it from me who was starting to train for his first Half-Ironman after training for half-a-dozen Sprints and 2-Olympic Distance Triathlons in just under 9-months. I was more fit than I had ever been in my life...I could swim, bike, run farther than I had ever done before. Needless to say I knew better and was ignoring the subtle sign I would always warn patients about when they were overtraining. The signs that your body tells you before it is too late. Well, three months out to my Half-Iron event...I was hit hard. I was getting every cold, flu and bug that walked into my clinic. My wife finally asked me, do you think you have Mono? NO WAY...I already dealt with that nasty virus in high school!!! Guess what...you carry that virus the rest of your life and YES...run your immune system down far enough and YEP...RELAPSE can occur, even 20 years later. I had just run, swam, and biked my Health into the ground. Long story short, I was doing too much, too soon, not getting enough sleep, not eating correctly and destroyed my fitness potential for over 2 years while having to focus on regaining my health. There are too many stories like this, not all as extreme as my case of mono, but most with the frustration of, Why do my Fitness Pursuits never make me a Healthier person? Why do I seem to feel more tired, have bigger swings in blood sugar, have brain fog, get sick, allergies, sports injuries, etc? Yes, they are all tied together and can be eliminated and avoid by taking the right approach to Fitness and Health but the real challenge is understanding the difference in Fitness and in Health as well as how they combine and work together. We have all heard of the Star Athlete or someone who is Fit-as-a-Horse who drop dead without warning. Personally I have had two close to home encounters like this. First, I had a former business associate, rock-solid-fit, former track star in South Africa, exercise physiologist by profession...he dropped dead during the cool down of a nominal training ride with a riding partner. Nothing too hard, just a normal spin around Memorial Park...the coroner said he was dead before he hit the ground. No warning signs...Nothing! Doing fine one moment, dead the next. The second is about a close fiend whos father had just gotten finished with his yearly physical and treadmill stress test...he passed with flying colors! Of course, he was an avid runner and tennis player. He had a heart attack soon after his physical. No signs or warnings before or during the tests. Where am I going with all of this? Fitness does NOT equal Health! So what IS Fitness and Health and how do you achieve them without wrecking them both? Lets start by understanding what Fitness and Health truly are. Fitness is your bodys physical ability to do work (walk a block, jog a mile, swim 1000 meters, cycle 30 miles, hike the Grand Canyon, etc.). How fit your body is depends on what you measure it against. Can we say that an Olympic Swimmer is more Fit than a Olympic Track Athlete? How about is Lance Armstrong is more Fit than marathoner Robert Cheruyiot? Who is that anyway? Well...Lance ran a PR marathon in Boston in 2008 to finish at 2:50. What about Robert? He was the winner of the Boston Marathon that same year with a 2:07...He crushed Lance! Does that mean Lance was just simply Not Fit? Not at all! Lance would have left Robert in the dust had they been on bikes in the Alps. Fitness is a measure of the amount work you can do in a specific area or sport. You can become extremely fit in one sport but it doe not mean your fitness will translate to another sport. You really can become fit enough to do just about anything...but not without the sacrifice of your health if done wrong. I seen a ton of athletes at who are extremely Fit but struggling with their Health. Fitness at the sacrifice of your Health results in Tendonitis, Bursitis, Fasciitis, Muscle Strains, Tendon Sprains, Stress Fractures, Neuromas, Disc Bulges, Adrenal Stress, Chronic Fatigue, Allergies, IBS and Hormonal Imbalances. We all know that you can be extremely fit and still end up with Heart Disease, Diabetes, Arthritis, Degenerative Joints, GI and even Autoimmune Diseases. Elite level cyclist Floyd Landis won the Tour de France in 2006 but then shortly after got hip replaced. I know...he got nabbed for blood doping but still...he was extremely fit with a degenerative hip! Another perfect example of Fitness NOT equaling Health. So what is Health and how do you maintain or improve it while increasing your Fitness? Health is the balance and ideal function of all of your body systems (musculoskeletal, nervous, hormonal, digestive, immune, etc.). The healthier, more balanced and functional, you body is...the more potential fitness you will be able to build. Without health, fitness will only carry so far before thing start breaking down in your body. This is evidenced by some of the professional athletes who show up at my clinic wondering why they keep breaking down and getting injured. They also know it is getting harder and harder to maintain their level performance and near impossible to improve in their performance without further injury and longer recovery times. Most of them simply feel like giving in and giving up on their sport that they love! This happens to eager recreational athletes too...you know the ones who train for marathons, triathlons, the MS150, you name it...YES...You and Me!!! We get out there and want to drive our fitness forward but then hit the glass ceiling of our Fitness Potential because we did not work on or protect our Health along the way. We never saw it coming but when we hit that ceiling it hurts! Ever run into a glass door? Shocking, huh? We usually say, That Was Dumb...I Cant Believe I did That...Again! What Happens When We Focus on Improving Our Health & Fitness Together? Dr. Phil Maffetone in his 5th Edition of In Fitness and In Health calls it Peak Performance. His simple formula to life: Fitness + Health = Peak Performance What is Peak Performance? You say, I just want to be Fit and Healthy...not Perform at a Peak Level. Well, peak performance is defined as having Increased Energy Increased Endurance Increased Mental Clarity Increased Memory/Recall Increased Productivity Increased Creativity Increased Stress Handling Decreased Anxiety/Depression Decreased Heart Rate/Blood Pressure Who would not want this? Ok...back to how to improve our Health so we do not hurt ourselves trying to improve our fitness. What are the steps to achieving Optimal Health? Identify any Medical Conditions (Illness/Diseases/Disorders) Identify any Functional Conditions (Dysfunctions/Imbalance/Syndromes) Be Proactive Towards Your Weakest Links If you can make progress towards and achieve Optimal Health...you are limitless in regards to Fitness! How Fit do you Really want to be? How Healthy are you Willing to be?
Posted on: Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:56:22 +0000
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