Of all of the waste of time exercises that people do in the gym, calf raises and all of its iterations, are probably the worst of all of these exercises. And of all the machine-based exercises, no other machines are as much of a waste of space, iron and cable as the various calf raise machines.

Stop doing calf raises.

Just don’t do them.

In the abstract, in isolation, the calf muscle may be getting stronger. But this strength gain is meaningless because it there is little, if any, transfer to improving movement or actual function. The goal should be to train movements, not muscles. The calf doesn’t work in isolation to produce any movement that we make, so there is no reason to perform an exercise that isolates the calf muscle, insulates it from the other muscles that it works with to produce functional movement. There is no reason to train any muscle in isolation.

The calf raise is the biceps curl for the legs. There’s an old saying they use in golf that says, “Drive for show, putt for dough.” When it comes to leg training we can adapt it to, “Calf raises for show, squat and lunge for dough.”

Walk into any gym, anywhere and you will see plenty of people doing all kinds of leg raises, but you rarely see the squat and lunge being performed, let alone performed correctly. And for goodness sake, do not superset calf raises with other purposeful exercises like plyometric jumps or squats and lunges.

The calf raise is an less-than-ordinary exercise that should be consigned to the scrap heap of exercises, exercises from a by-gone era when we just didn’t know any better.

Anybody who has spent any time in a gym has most likely seen people performing exercises while in a horizonal position. You know, lying down. There are a variety of exercises that can be referred to as “planks” that are very popular that have been touted as developing core strength. Ah, core strength, one of the great fitness buzz terms of the past half century…

But these exercises, which can develop horizontal stability, have little purpose and contribute even less to function. We need vertical stability because we operate vertically, standing upright on two feet, not horizontally on all fours or lying down. Gravity exerts a precise force on our bodies while we are standing – differently than when we are horizontal – so we should perform the vast majority of our exercises while standing. Your hip works in a different manner when you are on all fours than it does when you are standing, so this “all-fours” exercise will only make you “better” when you are in this all-fours position. Unless you walk around on your hands and knees you are wasting your time, and you also have some other problems.

Planks have their place in an exercise program as long as the place is somewhere in the first three to six months (and I am being generous) of a newbie’s workout program. When a formerly inactive person makes the transition to active, their overall strength (including core strength), balance, coordination, agility, etc is quite bad.

This is where the plank family of exercises comes in. Despite what you may think, these exercises are quite easy, which is why they are suitable for beginners. These basic planks can help prepare the body for the (hopefully) rapid transition to standing, two-footed exercises. So do your basic forearms and toes plank, get good at it, and move on up to standing on your feet. And don’t look back.

Now I know what some of you are thinking; “But Sal, some of those planks are really hard and some of them I cannot even do!” To which I reply in a number of ways.

1. Just because an exercise is hard to do doesn’t make it a good exercise to do.
2. The horizontal exercise is hard to do because we have evolved away from performing in this posture and we are not built to work this way.
3. You can train a muscle to do anything, but doesn’t make it the right thing.

Four-legged animals are efficient at performing certain tasks, but put them in a two-legged stance and not so much. For humans a four-legged, horizontal posture is beneath our capability level. It is kind of like putting a snow plow on a Porsche; not a good use of the machine.

We have evolved to be able to perform high functioning tasks precisely because we do not use – do not need – our upper limbs for balance and locomotion. Walking upright has allowed the human brain to pursue more complex functions like manipulating objects (throwing and catching) and a wide-range of intellectual pursuits like art, philosophy and developing reality TV shows.

The benefits of working while horizontal are limited to operating in the horizontal position and quite frankly this work is counter-productive. Vertical stability, not horizontal, should be worked on in every exercise session.

The good news about the new season of NBC’s hit television show “The Biggest Loser” is that there is no more Jillian Michaels. The bad news is that everybody else is still there.

I have heard all of the defenses of the show; it’s popular, people lose weight, it’s inspirational. These rationalizations reveal just how low we have set the bar, how little we’ve come to expect and how “un-critical” our thinking is.

The show is exploitative and anything but inspirational. A handful of people are hand-picked from a figurative sea of troubled contestants. So-called fitness professionals engage in various forms of physical and emotional abuse, employ the worst kind of pop psychology and get into areas that are beyond the appropriate scope of practice. In short, the trainers behave towards clients in a manner that would get them fired in the real world.

The show worships at the alter of weight-loss and exudes negativity, from the title of the show to the attitudes of the trainers. There have been news stories detailing the methods the show’s producers use to keep past contestants from talking in public about their experiences on the show. If the show, and the contestant experience, is so fantastic and life-changing why not allow unfettered access to those who have been lucky enough to be a part of it?

I would love to hear from the people who went through the entire process and got on the show, only to be voted off the first week because they lost only 15-pounds instead of 20. How uplifting and inspirational do you think the first week’s loser’s story is? How do you think they are doing now.

This year the contestants will have the privilege of working with under-achieving tennis player and pin-up girl Anna Kournikova. The producers of the show have lowered the bar to the point where they aren’t even aspiring to get a “celebrity personal trainer” on staff; being famous and looking good in a tennis skirt is the new criteria. Super.

Actually, since “The Biggest Loser” is an appearance-based show at least the producers upgraded their training staff. I can’t imagine anyone pining for the days of Jillian.

So let the dysfunctional, weight-loss games begin.

After reviewing over 1,600 papers, researchers from the Mayo Clinic state that, “You can make a very compelling argument for exercise as a disease-modifying strategy to prevent dementia and mild cognitive impairment, and for favorably modifying these processes once they have developed.” Author and neurologist Dr. J. Eric Ahlskog lead the effort that included the review of all scientific papers on the subject of exercise and cognition, including observational studies and studies done with animals.

This exercise includes traditional gym-based cardiovascular exercises, as well as other activities like walking and performing household chores, including yard work and shoveling snow. Through the use of brain scans the researchers have found that exercise preserves the integrity of the human brain and note that animal studies show that exercise improves the function of the brain and increases the connection between brain cells.

The review also found that there is a significant reduction of risk of dementia in people who being exercise during midlife and a reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Aerobic exercise improved the cognitive function of healthy adults, and with seniors aerobics was linked to a smaller loss of age related gray matter.

The researchers concluded, “Exercise should not be overlooked as an important therapeutic strategy. Whether addressing our patients in primary care or neurology clinics, we should continue to encourage exercise for not only general health, but also cognitive health.”

All-in-all, this is yet another instance that proves exercise is the best disease-modifying strategy known to medical science. Better than diet, pharmaceuticals or any other intervention. Everybody should exercise.

Dr. Andrew Weil, the Complimentary and Alternative Medicine guru (CAM), published a blog post saying that yo-yo dieting is better than “staying fat.” I guess attaining superstar status in the world of CAM gives you the privilege of saying silly, and potentially harmful, things, while maintaining said stautus.

When you get beyond the headline, “Yo-Yo Dieting is Better Than Staying Fat,” read the blog post and get the details of the study Weil uses to bolster his position, you have to scratch your head. For a minute, let’s put aside the obvious, in that from the picture he uses on his blog, Dr.Weil looks kinda fat.

The study Weil refers to in his blog post involves 10 yo-yo dieting mice, who lived longer than 10 mice who ate a high-fat diet, and 10 mice who ate a low-fat diet. Really unimpressive, isn’t it? And yet Dr. Weil is totally comfortable concluding that the negative effects of yo-yo dieting might be over-stated based on the experience of 10 binging and purging mice.

Dr. Weil does not say anything about how these “mice pounds” relate to human pounds, or give any other indication as to why anyone should pay attention to the results of this study given the hard evidence from human studies that attest to the ineffectiveness of dieting and the damage diets do. Actually given Weil’s track record, you’d be hard pressed to find a more anti-science advocate.

Besides the apparent differences between mice and men, we have had results of studies and other evidence to indicate that in humans, yo-yo dieting can have negative ramifications. Using mice studies in a case where we have human evidence of an outcome, is questionable and curious. Almost as if someone wanted to prop up the fact-challenged diet industry. The diet industry already takes billions of dollars per year from us, so is it not hard to believe this cabal would try to distract from the reality that diets don’t work.

Now back to Dr.Weil’s appearance. Don’t you think someone who tells people they shouldn’t be fat, shouldn’t look fat? I never judge a person based on their appearance, and I do not use weight as a measure of fitness, or lack of it. But does Dr. Weil look like someone who should be advocating “thin is in?”

There is an epidemic sweeping the country these days. No, it’s not the obesity epidemic, or the drug abuse epidemic, or the Glee epidemic. The “Doing Stupid, Waste of Time Stuff in the Gym Epidemic,”is a real problem. Earlier this summer I posted a piece about some of the things that people need to stop doing, and this is a follow-up piece that follows the same theme.

Take the weight belt off and wrist wraps, too. Wearing a weight belt for anything, but especially when doing exercises like triceps push-downs, and doing them poorly, to boot, just makes you look ridiculous. Thirty years ago before people knew any better, you had an excuse for wearing a weight belt while squatting or dead lifting, but today, no. If your back hurts, no belt or brace will “fix” it, and if you aren’t strong enough, you aren’t strong enough; the belt doesn’t make you stronger. Wrist straps make you weaker, not stronger. If you can’t lift the weight, make it lighter. Try developing the strength in your hands, wrists and forearms rather than ignoring these incredibly important muscles by using wrist straps. The person who can dead lift 200 pounds without straps is stronger than the person who needs straps to lift 225 or more.

Stop doing curls in the squat rack. The squat rack is really for doing squats. No, really. The rack is not for barbell curls or upright rows. I actually saw some guy doing a barbell curl, dumbbell curl superset in the squat rack last week. I almost said something to the guy, but I figured he really was misguided and was better off left alone. Just because you can curl with 100-pounds on a barbell doesn’t mean you need a heavy duty piece of equipment like a squat rack. Actually, the less time you spend time doing curls the better.

Don’t do the Sleep Walk on the treadmill. Walking on the treadmill is okay for an occasional warm-up. All of this low-intensity (slow) walking is a tremendous waste of time and, no matter what the computer read-out says, does not require a lot of energy. Think of it as 30-45 minutes of your life that you will never get back. And walking on an incline and hanging onto the top of the treadmill, or the side-rails, is plain silly. If you can’t keep up the pace slow it down, don’t hold on. Do you hold when walk down the street? Treadmill; it’s what’s for warm-up on. Occasionally.

Using the Step Mill really doesn’t get you in shape. Disabuse yourself of the notion that doing work on the Step Mill, or other similar “stair climbing” machine, is truly improving your fitness level. Disabuse, I say. Using these machines will only improve your performance with regard to using these machines and will not improve your performance in any meaningful, purposeful way. As a matter of fact, these “steppers” are really a waste of time, as they require a minimal range of motion, allow the user to hold or lean, and bear no semblance to any real function. And contorting your body so you can lean into the machine not only stresses the body in a way it really shouldn’t be stressed, it makes an inefficient exercise even worse.

Get off of the mat and onto your feet. There is very little that we do in our day-to-day lives, aside from sleeping, lying down. So stop exercising this way. Gravity is the single, most-important factor to take into account when designing an exercise or exercise program, so to lie down while exercising ignores the physics-based reality of our existence. And if you participate in sports at any level, doing prone or supine exercises (fancy talk for lying down), you are really doing yourself a disservice. We need strength, stability and balance in the vertical plane (standing up) not the horizontal plane, and the only way you develop skills in the vertical plane is to exercise in it. Think about it, do you know of anyone who practices the golf swing lying down?

Get more efficient with your workouts and stop wasting your time and energy.

I’m reading a book about health and fitness – shocker! – and came across this passage.

“Man is made with a body containing certain separate parts, each of which must be kept in proper use or the others will suffer. This becomes a troublesome question in complex modern life…Exercise, to produce it’s best effect, must be recreation, mental as well as physical. We cannot separate any one part of our economy and produce the best results. There must be well-rounded development…What most of us want is to have our bodies harmoniously developed on the general plan on which they were built.”

The author also bemoans the fact that the modern man gets too little exercise, both city-dweller and farmer alike, even going as far as to write that thanks to modern equipment the farmer now “may be (physically) inferior” to the average citizen.

The book was written by Theo Knauff and is titled, “Athletics for Physical Culture.” It was published in 1894. One-hundred and seventeen years ago.

So nothing has changed since the advent/awareness of the concept of “physical culture” two centuries ago. Physical culture is what we now call health and fitness, and physical culturists from the day of our great-great-grandparents were singing a song that is still being sung today.

You really can learn alot from reading these old fitness books. I like the perspective they provide. In this case I find it incredibly interesting that the affects of the advances of the Industrial Revolution were obvious 120-years ago and the concerns and observations are just as relevant today. Think about the life of a late 19th century farmer as it compares to the routine of people today; wouldn’t you think it was physically demanding, if not brutal? By the standards of 1894, guess not.

Another great observation made by Knauff is the need for recreative exercise and well-rounded development in the pursuit of fitness. This is a point that is still missed today by way too many so-called fitness experts. Knauff mentions that it was (is) a mistake for people to treat exercise as “a business and necessary work.” Whether it’s 1894 or 2011 this condition hasn’t changed, as there are fitness folks who promote this kind of thinking up to this very second. Walking on a treadmill, exercise while sitting down in a machine, mimicking mindlessly in an exercise class, following an externally developed diet that tells you what to eat and drink and when to eat and drink it.

That, my friends, is work. And it’s a big business getting people to work for their health and fitness. So take a step back and look at the elements of your routine, heed Theo Knauff’s advice and make sure you are doing everything possible to work your body harmoniously.

There is obviously a huge divide in our society between those people who exercise and those who do not. But from what I see, there are subgroups in the exercise group; those who exercise and those who exercise too much. Yes, exercise too much. Just like any other human endeavor, there can be too much of a good thing. Recovery from exercise takes many different forms – between sets, between exercises, between workouts – and can last seconds, minutes, hours, days, and even weeks. For the folks who overdo the exercise, their rest rarely goes beyond the hours stage.

There is so much information out there on exercise, that the advice to rest and recover gets drowned out. So while other coaches are constantly preaching the message of activity, I concentrate on the benefits – and necessity – of rest. Lack of rest and recovery can make a good workout bad. Sound elements, great program design and proper technique can all be undone when you don’t take enough time to rest. Too little rest can reduce, and in many cases, eliminate, the desired benefits of exercise. From exercise to exercise, workout to workout, not taking enough time to let your body recoup will have a detrimental effect.

I have written about Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) and how it can derail even the fittest, most athletic members of the population. Unlike the common cold, which everybody knows when they have it, many people don’t realize that they are in the throes of OTS. The complex series of symptoms presented by OTS are the result of training too hard, too often. Soreness, fatigue and a compromised immune system are just a few of the symptoms, and they can present themselves in a very short period of time. It doesn’t take long for someone who regularly trains, to overtrain.

Understand that any workout or activity that you can do everyday is of low-quality and unlikely to provide a stimulus to improve your fitness level beyond the lowest level. And after a few months no benefits accrue from this kind of exercise.

Take time off from the gym when you are healthy, feel good and are 100%. Don’t wait until you are sick or injured to take time away from the gym; this does not count as time off. The most beneficial type of recovery occurs when you are not sick or hurt.

You need to have variety in your workout routine. You shouldn’t perform the same workouts over and over again, and using a variety of different workouts over time can help keep you from getting bored and help you improve your fitness level. You can get this variety by using different exercises from workout to workout and by making slight variations to exercise during each workout.

I hope you squat during your workouts. You really should, as the squat is one of the great exercises. A great way to get variety in your workouts is to use many different stances/foot positions during your squat session. You should use the basic, shoulder-to-hip width “even stance’ foot position for squatting, but you should also use squat stances of different widths. Squat with your feet thisclose together, really wide, and all points in between.

But don’t limit the variety you use to the width of your squat stance, as you can also stagger your squat stance so that one foot is slightly in front of the other, using about a heel-to-toe relationship. Of course you should perform an equal amount of squats with each foot forward – balance is as important as variety in your workouts. You can also point your toes out, in, have one foot straight and the other foot pointed, either staggered or even. When you add the different width stances to the staggered stances and other varieties, you can experience a tremendous amount of variety in your workouts. You don’t have to do all of the varieties in each workout, but feel free to experiment and mix and match.

Another leg exercise, the lunge, can be altered in many ways. You can step forward, step on a variety of angles forward, laterally, and a variety of angles to the rear. Utilizing this kind of variety in your workouts can be a tremendous boost to your fitness level.

The push-up, another great exercise, can be modified with the pattern used with the squat. Changing your hand positions from set to set, changing the width, stagger and angles of the hands will make push-ups more challenging and effective than sticking with the traditional method, set-after-set, workout-after-workout. Experiment with having your hands at different heights, placing one hand on the floor the other hand on a Reebok Step or other similar piece of equipment. Be creative and your workouts will be more fun and effective.

My review of the Shake Weight has been quite popular, generating all kinds of traffic for the site. And I’d like to thank all of the Shake Weight fans for visiting the site, taking the time to comment, and ultimately helping to drive traffic to HealthAndFitnessAdvice.com.

However, I am slightly disappointed that none of the Shake Weight fans have been able to provide any of the science behind the claims made by the product’s manufacturer. Or even some before and after photos. How hard can it be to take a couple of pictures, especially since so many Shake Weight fans claim to see and feel the difference in just days or a few weeks?

Certainly the Shake Weight people don’t provide any access to this info on their web site.

The Shake Weighters don’t give even a shred of data to support their claim that their gadget, “Is 7 times more effective at burning muscle energy than a regular dumbbell!” BTW, the asterisked footnote at the bottom of their home page doesn’t constitute data. Do a Google search for “muscle energy” and you will find nothing about this term in the context used by Shake Weight. There is something called “muscle energy technique,” but this is a type of manipulative treatment used by osteopaths and physical therapists to treat joint hypomobility.

Also, where is the data that shows the Shake Weight contracts muscles 240 times per minute? And how can a muscle contract when it doesn’t move through a range of motion. You know, concentric and eccentric contractions, where muscles shorten and lengthen as they are used.

Now people say the Shake Weight works, but there are still people who say the Earth is flat and that the astronauts never walked on the moon. There are people who think that raising taxes is an incentive for business and will spur economic growth. People also say that you have to try the Shake Weight and feel the burn in order to pass judgment, which of course is crap. Apply this logic to other areas of life and you’ll realize how ridiculous this position is.

Take a broomstick and hold at arms length with elbows locked at shoulder height and constantly move your arms up and down about 6 inches for 30 seconds or so and tell me if you feel a burn. Or take a can of soup and hold it like the Shake Weight dude is holding it in the video on the web site, and shake the can in the same manner the Shake Weight is shaking. You’ll feel a burn.

We are told this vibrating dumbbell “dramatcally increases muscle activity,” but compared to what? Doing nothing? Holding a live cod fish? Doing an exercise that involves actual movement? Inquiring minds want to know.,,

According to the Shake Weight site, you will, “Feel the results instantly.” Is the burn indicative of results? Can you feel results? When you go for a power walk, do you feel results? Are feelings and sensations indicative of some result, and if so is this result necessarily a good thing? So many questions, so few answers.

Here’s another question. Does anyone seriously think the guy in the ad got to look the way he looks as a result of using the Shake Weight?

And then there are the people who poo-poo the paucity of scientific proof. Poo-poo, I say. These types don’t want to be bothered by inconvenient truths provided by legitimate scientific data, they want their exercise to be easy and sweat and movement-free. However, my bet is that these same folks would insist or having real science in the picture when it comes to undergoing a medical procedure or drug therapy. Science came in handy when NASA decided to go to the moon and when the Space Shuttle was designed.

Ah, but I’m being a spoil sport. Who needs science. The Shake Weight guy has a good build, so it probably works. But I’d still like to see some science.