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- From: georgec@eng.umd.edu (George B. Clark)
- Newsgroups: misc.fitness
- Subject: Re: The fittest people on the planet.
- Date: 27 Jan 1993 16:33:02 GMT
- Organization: University of Maryland
- Lines: 26
- Distribution: usa
- Message-ID: <1k6dfuINNi49@mojo.eng.umd.edu>
- References: <1993Jan21.033520.28797@athena.mit.edu> <1jm16oINNoik@bnsgd245.bnr.co.uk> <C1Hnyw.5zy@csn.org>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: athens.eng.umd.edu
- Keywords: balance in life
-
- In article <C1Hnyw.5zy@csn.org> pae@teal.csn.org (Phil Earnhardt) writes:
- >In article <1jm16oINNoik@bnsgd245.bnr.co.uk> laurie@bnr.co.uk (Laurie Constantin) writes:
- >
- >>It's very sad that bodybuilding and powerlifting can be at both extremes of
- >>the health scale - on the one hand, recreational body builders and
- >>powerlifters (and natural competitors in those sports) are probably a group
- >>of the healthiest, fittest people on the planet.
-
- "Healthiest, fittest people on the planet" is hardly describes a
- bodybuilder. To become a world-class bodybuilder, a person must make
- great compromises in their health. These people eat an unnatural diet.
- They take drugs. Once every two weeks, they must lift extremely
- heavy weights to achieve maximum strength, and these routines are
- dangerous, especially if they are not supervised by a sports-medicine
- physician.
-
- In addition, world-class bodybuilders have weak hearts relative to their
- body sizes because the intensity of their strength training leaves them no
- energy for aerobic training.
-
- By the way, "fitness or being fit" by definition refers only to the heart,
- and since bodybuilders are focused on their skeletal muscles, fitness is
- inappropriate terminology.
-
- On the other hand, bodybuilders are highly motivated people, and they
- deserve admiration for having achieved a very difficult goal.
-