Are You A One-Dimensional Trainer?

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Please consider this free-reprint article written by:

Marty Gallagher

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Article Title: Are You A One-Dimensional Trainer?

Author: Marty Gallagher

Word Count: 448

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Most people are classically biased toward one of the three legs

of the fitness triad: progressive resistance training,

cardiovascular training or diet/nutrition. How many folks try

and lose weight by dieting and dieting alone? A safe bet would

be a majority of individuals. Ever wonder why people who lose a

lot of bodyweight rapidly still look fat? It’s because they are

still fat.

When the human organism perceives starvation it reverts to a

primordial hardwiring that seeks to preserve body fat (the last

line of defense against starvation) at all costs. So dieting

alone can results in weight loss but when more muscle than body

fat is lost as a result of crash dieting, the end result is not

all that impressive.

I had a self-indulgent buddy who balloon up from 200 to 350. He

eventually went on some sort of weird diet and lost back down to

200. He looked terrible, loose skin, still fat and to make it

all worse he was now a 'diet expert' and told me and anyone

else within earshot how stupid they were to follow any diet

other than the one he had used. Of course he still couldn’t

catch a ball or walk up a flight of stairs without getting

totally gassed.

At the other extreme I knew a really good long distance runner

who was thin as a rail, lived on carbs and eschewed lifting or

protein. He became anemic and emaciated the combination of

mega-miles and carbs and fruit in meager amounts produced a

physique that resembled a famine victim. Lifting weights to his

way of thinking would add muscle that he would have to haul

around and would have the same impact as wearing a backpack

with a 10 or 15-pound plate in it. Needless to say by the time

he got to his mid-thirties he started experiencing the usual

repetitive motion injuries – knee arthroscopic surgery, ankle

ligament damage, eternal shin-splints. He eventually had to

give up running altogether.

My third example is a former national level powerlifter; a man

who set regional records and grew gargantuan. Eventually he

weighed 350 and was able to squat over 900-pounds. He ate

everything in sight and had to quit lifting altogether when he

developed terrible circulatory problems.

Each individual I referenced took one particular leg of the

fitness triad and because of overemphasis turned the pursuit of

their specialty into something opposite of fitness & health.

Better to practice a little of each leg of the triad instead of

emphasizing one aspect to the exclusion of the other two. It

makes perfect sense when we are presented with extreme and

obvious examples.

About The Author: Marty Gallagher is a former strength chat

columnist for washingtonpost.com. Marty has written for

publications such as Muscle Media, Muscle & Fitness, and

Powerlifting USA. His website, http://www.martygallagher.com,

assimilates years of accumulated knowledge from the athletic

elite and makes them accessible to the common person.

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