May | 2012 | Salient Dictates

Remember those “girly-men” of 1980s past, or more aptly non-girly-men. To those of us who didn’t look like Hans and Franz (check out a video), Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon scared us. “Wow are they big, they must lift really heavy things,” we collectively thought. Or at least I did. This is where my mind went as I read a review of two new research articles on resistance training and endurance training.

We know the benefits of strength training. From elite athletes to sedentary individuals resistance training is vitally important. Yet, few of us regularly engage in this type of activity. Amongst women the excuse heard most often is “I don’t want to bulk up,” which is based on the common myth that women will begin to look like Hans if they step in a weight room. Men are more comfortable in the weight room yet if you can get one that doesn’t lift heavy things to be honest, they will most likely tell you they aren’t sure of what to do when they get there and don’t want to look silly. They don’t want to be girly-men. Talk to a person in the weight room about what to do and how to do it and you will get a hundred different responses, all delivered with passion. The easiest way around this is to talk to a fitness professional.

Amidst all this confusion is a refrain typically repeated in exercise physiology textbooks which is that endurance athletes should engage in resistance training in order to improve their performance, yet if your goal is to develop strength, stay away from the treadmill. An extension of this is that we shouldn’t do both endurance and resistance training on the same day. The thought is that your body cannot simultaneously respond appropriately to both endurance and resistance training, therefore it chooses one response at the expense of the other. I’ve taught this theory myself. Enter these two new studies, one from the Journal of Applied Physiology (JAP) and the other from Medicine and Science in Exercise and Sport (MSSE).

Both groups of researchers looked at what happened when you resistance train and endurance train concurrently. (Again, the thought is that by doing both you can’t reach your peak in either.) Different types of subjects were used in each study (JAP study utilized sedentary men in their 50s while MSSE went with young active men (college students) who were not competitive athletes.) The subjects in the JAP research cycled with one leg for 45 minutes and then six hours later completed resistance training with each leg (thus, one leg was endurance trained only and the other was endurance and resistance trained). For the MSSE study, subjects rode the bike for 40 minutes on one occasion, resistance trained on another day, and on a third day biked for 20 minutes and did some resistance training.

Although the MSSE group did note some differences, both groups independently stated surprise. “…after combined training, the men’s muscles displayed the same amount of change within both cellular pathways as after either type of exercise on its own, even though the men had actually completed only half as much of each.” Did you catch that? With combined training both types of response (endurance and resistance) increased, and more surprisingly, when cutting by half the endurance portion and resistance training portions (i.e. concurrent training), the same response was elicited as when completing each type of training individually even though they only completed half as much of each type of training. Wow.

Take home message: you can ride your bike AND lift weights when you exercise today without compromising the response. And as an added bonus, rather than cycle for 60 minutes today and do 12 lifts tomorrow, do 30 minutes of cycling and 6 lifts today. Based on these studies, you’ll get similar responses. Interesting.

These are just a couple of studies, looking only at men, and only in the short term. However, the results sure are intriguing. No more avoidance of the weight room for me. Time to cowboy up and lift really heavy things. Like 5 pound dumbbells. Have to start somewhere.

On this morning’s run I listened to this past Sunday’s Meet the Press (NBC). At one point David Gregory, the host, was holding a roundtable on Women’s issues and it fascinated me that the guest, who happened to be male, thought he knew more about females than the female guests, of which Rachel Maddow was one. Ms. Maddow couldn’t get a word in edge wise. “Women earn 77 cents on the dolllar compared to men,” she stated. As she finished, Ed Gillespie chimed in that the reason for that is because women choose lower paying jobs, they choose not to be engineers. Teaching at an all womens’ university has allow me to have wonderful discussions with many wonderful women. I don’t think this is the argument they would make. Living in a household with 3 girls I also hope that my daughter has the opportunity to become whatever she wants to become, and be paid for her work. Not for not being male. This conversation fascinated me. Take a listen.

My mind was on bias as I finished the run as yesterday I had just re-read a recently published article showing the effects of exercise impression formation. And as the Head and Shoulders commercials attest, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. I may have blogged about this before, i can’t remember and I am too lazy to go look, but it is worth mentioning again. “Research demonstrates that college-aged students who were reported to exercise on a regular basis were judged more favorably by their peers, than individuals who were reported to refrain from regular exercise,” state the authors. We know there is bias in pay, we know that the way we dress influences how others think about us, even if it is below the level of consciousness, and with all the talk of student debt and loan rates, maybe by exercising, or at least having people think we exercise, we can exact a bit of revenge. (I would opt for the former, actually exercising). Here is what the authors of the present study did:

“…college students read very brief non-narrative descriptions of fictitious male and female students who were categorized as non-exercisers, moderate exercisers, or intensive exercisers, and then rated the individuals on 38 personality characteristics.”

“Level of exercise also influenced ratings of characteristics ostensibly unrelated to exercise. For example, target students who were described as exercising 5–6 times a week were rated as more successful, popular and responsible and less boring and unhappy than those exercising fewer times a week, or not exercising at all. All significant ratings, with the exception of masculinity, showed a direct linear relationship with level of exercise.

“Female targets described as exercising on a regular basis were rated as more responsible, and less hostile, selfish, immature, and conceited than female targets described as not exercising.”

It’s this last bit that gets me. Females described as regular exercisers were rated as more responsible, less hostile, less selfish, etc. Simply by believing a female exercises we assign a more favorable impression. Maybe Rachel Maddow should have told Ed Giilespie she exercises and he would have been a bit more respectful.

The most fascinating part of this study was that favorable impression ratings went up with level of exercise (i.e., no exercise, moderate intensity, vigorous intensity). In the middle of Meet the Press, Rachel Maddow should not only have said she exercises, but that she exercises vigorously! This is said somewhat in jest, but what if in the course of an interview or in a cover letter or whatever other situation a first impression is key, we were to interject that we exercise? Might we have a more favorable outcome? And if actually did exercise, watch out!

I worry about the state of affairs for my two young daughters. To know that women earn 77 cents on the dollar to men for the same work baffles me. What baffles me even more is when men claim to know more about women than women. Food for thought.

—Salient Dictates

Interesting ideas on why we eat and why we exercise

Archive

Monthly Archives: May 2012

I’m Hans, I’m Franz

Exercise Bias

Follow “Salient Dictates”

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Follow “Salient Dictates”