Books : Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.7
EAN: 9780312423223
ISBN: 0312423225
Label: Picador
Manufacturer: Picador
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: May 01, 2004
Publisher: Picador
Sales Rank: 159380
Studio: Picador
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
From the highly acclaimed New York Times science writer Gina Kolata, the book for people who love exercise as much as they value the truth.
In Ultimate Fitness, Gina Kolata, science reporter for The New York Times, takes a fascinating journey into the fads, fictions, and genuine innovations that have defined the world of physical fitness. From weight lifting for men and women in the early days, to jogging in the 1970s, cycling in the 1980s, aerobics in the 1990s, and now Spinning, Kolata explains the science of conditioning and the objective evidence behind commonly accepted prescriptions.
Ultimate Fitness is also a book about the individuals who have challenged and influenced or failed to influence the industry, and the many of us who have participated in
this multimillion-dollar corner of American culture.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Not worth 1 cent. Virtually zero science, and the rest reads like a diary review of narcissistic self-thought. You will learn nothing of exercise, physiology or anything else that might be useful for personal exercise or training. A womans story with all the interest of discussing shopping.
Rating:  -
If you want a memoir of the author's obsessive dedication to spinning and hardcore aerobic workouts, and a very thorough, well-written history of major exercise trends and historical figures over the last 200 years, this is the book for you. If you want an in-depth, scientific analysis of the "truth" behind theories on how much to work out, spot reducing, maximum heartrates, the role of genetics, etc., this is not the book for you. From reading the book's description, I believed it fell in the latter camp, unfortunately.
To save you the trouble of reading it if you are under a similar impression, this is what I learned:
1) Walking and minimal exercise is in fact very effective at increasing your fitness, if you are totally sedentary to begin with. If you are mildly active already, you need to actually work a bit to see real gains. (No real surprise there)
2) Your maximum heartrate is the rate at which your heart beats when you're working as hard as you can; the "220 minus your age" is a rough guesstimate with no scientific background.
3) There is no such thing as a "fat-burning zone" versus "cardio zone". You are either burning calories or you're not, and the more calories you burn the more weight you lose.
4) It is in fact possible to train your muscles to enhance performance; ie, to alter the proportion of slow-twitch to fast-twitch fibers.
5) The only training regimen truly demonstrated to make a big difference in endurance competitions ... Read More
Rating:  -
I listened to this as an audiobook and then (since the audiobook is abridged) bought it to see what else I missed. Kolata mixes a story of her own hard-core spinning workouts with lots of fitness myth debunkings. I liked the debunking better than the spinning, but the spinning did tie the whole thing together. Some things I learned--the "heart rates" that everyone learns (220 minus your age) are really more of an estimate and not that scientific, weight lifting won't dramatically increase your bmr (though it is worthwhile for other reasons), and muscles differ so that some people will be better at endurance and others better at strength. I learned how scientists go about researching fitness topics. And I also learned a little bit about what it must be like to be an exercise buff.
I disagree with one of the other reviewers who felt that Kolata doesn't stress the importance of exercise enough. She is clearly a hard-core exerciser who believes that most people would be better off doing more than the oft-prescribed after-dinner stroll. But she also acknowledges that some exercise is always better than no exercise at all. I don't see how this book, which is all about exercise, could possibly give the impression that exercise didn't matter.
I laughed out loud at the last "heart waves" mention (and that's all I'm going to reveal here--you'll have to read the book for yourself to get the joke).
Rating: -
Gina Kolata loves Spinning (you know, the indoor bicycles that you need the special shoes for). She's the first to admit she a Spinning maniac and loves the feeling of pushing herself through a grueling cardio workout. in fact, "Ultimate Fitness" has a whole chapter on spinning: the history of spinning and the joy of spinning. Most other chapters, when not about spinning, focus on running or other endurance sports. There's some good stuff in those chapters; the idea of interval training and how it came about; the reason why certain people never seem to lose weight or get fit (genetics), and the myth of the "fat-burning zone." But it's all seen through Gina's cardio-centric lens. Certainly cardio health and endurance are an important part of fitness, but so is balance, coordination, kinesthetic awareness, strength, etc. (she does include a brief chapter on weight lifting focusing largely on its history) If you're a spinner (or runner) this book is for you. If you're a skier, martial artist, or tennis player, you'll find quite a bit missing.
Rating: -
Author Kolata scrutinize the fads, myths, and actual innovations that have built-up in the world of physical fitness, based on her interviews and research,along with her own experiences as a fitness enthusiast.
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