Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Gina Kolata (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2003

The bestselling science reporter from The New York Times tells us what works and what doesn’t when we work outUltimate Fitness is Gina Kolata’s compelling journey into the world of American physical fitness over the past thirty years. It is a funny, eye-opening, brow-sweating investigation into fads, fiction, and the science and hucksterism of fitness training. From the early days of jogging, championed by Jim Fixx--who later died of a heart attack--to stretching, cycling, aerobics, and Spinning, Kolata questions such popular notions as the "fat burning zone," "spot reducing," the effects of food on performance, how much exercise helps build fitness, and the difference between exercise to help the heart and exercise to change the body. She explains the science of physical fitness and the objective evidence behind commonly accepted prescriptions. Along the way she profiles researchers and mavericks who have challenged conventional wisdom, marketed their inventions, and sometimes bucked criticism only to back down from their original claims.Ultimate Fitness spotlights the machines and machinations of the fitness industry, exposes the charlatans and gurus, and cuts through the marketing and hype not only to assess what is healthy, but also to understand what our obsession with staying healthy says about American culture today.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Everyone knows that exercise is a good thing. But when New York Times science reporter Kolata (Flu) set out to investigate the claims of various fitness regimens, she found that "the tiny pearls of good science are buried in mountains of junk." Much of the accepted wisdom about exercise, it turns out, is false-from the belief that endorphins cause an exertion-induced euphoria to the notion that all individuals, with sufficient effort, can become fit. An avid devotee of "spinning," a type of stationary biking that mimics actual road conditions, Kolata brings both personal enthusiasm and journalistic skepticism to her subject. She traces the history of the fitness movement from the ancient Greeks through the 18th and early 19th centuries, when feats of strength and endurance became a popular means of entertainment. By the 20th century, increasingly sedentary living prompted a new interest in fitness: the jogging fad emerged in the 1970s, followed by aerobics, weight lifting and other activities. Kolata looks at hard data about exercise, but also interviews enthusiasts and promoters, whose devotion to their regimens sometimes transcends the available facts. People exercise for different reasons, Kolata finds. For improving overall health, moderate exercise appears to be sufficient. To improve physical appearance, intense effort is required. To reach a sense of exhilaration and strength, however, one must actually love physical exertion for its own sake. The "truth" about exercise, Kolata concludes, may lie in the view of psychopharmacologist Richard Friedman, who suggests that "exercise is more often a marker of health than its cause." Illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Ever since baby boomers discovered they might not live forever, health and fitness, as well as looking young and svelte, have been major national fads. Whether one wants to develop six-pack abs or simply climb a flight of stairs without wheezing, sorting through the shams and quackery of exercise claims can be a full-time job. Kolata, science reporter for the New York Times and something of an exercise authority by avocation, takes on that task with the fervor of a marathoner. She deconstructs many assertions and myths, and much of the hyperbole of exercise enthusiasts trying to make fortunes off of an unsuspecting public. She reveals the truths behind several so-called scientific studies and asks why certain people will never exercise while some will never stop. Eighty-six-year-old exercise icon Jack LaLanne admits to vanity, but most exercisers like the feeling of control exercise affords. Having researched her sources and done her homework, Kolata also comes up with seemingly sound advice about exercise, weight lifting, personal trainers, machines, pills, and potions. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (May 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374204772
• ASIN: B0001OOTYS
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,421,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Creating new mythology, May 21, 2003

By 

M. Carlston (Santa Rosa, California USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise (Hardcover)

As a primary care physician and member of the American College of Sports Medicine I am pleased to see critical examinations of exercise science aimed at the lay audience. However, Ms Kolata's book tends to create new mythologies as much or more than it elucidates.

I spend 1-3 hours daily reading peer-reviewed medical journals, many of which are sports medicine research journals. While to Ms. Kolata's credit she exposes some areas of everybody-knows-it-but-it-just-ain't-so, in many other areas (positive effects of greater exercise intensity and duration, utility of and scientific basis for heart rate traiing, fluids and performance, etc ....) she misses the mark.

Even nutrition experts seem to view exercise as more important the she does. Last weekend I attended a medical conference on nutrition with several of the most highly regarded academic experts in nutrition reasearch. Each of them echoed the crucial importance of exercise and emphasized how much better it is to be fat and exercise rather than thin and sedentary.

The historical information about exercise proponents is fun and interesting. Unfortunately Americans are getting fatter and completely sedentary in epidemic numbers. I fear this book will serve primarily as another excuse for couch potatoes eager to ignore the scientific reality of the profound benefits of regular vigorous exercise.

133 of 165 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It Sags in the Middle, June 8, 2003

By 

Bill Marsano (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise (Hardcover)

By Bill Marsano. This book. like an exercise session, has a hopeful start, a bang-up finish and plenty of tedium in-between. And there are two things you should know right away: 1., it's not going to give you a fitness program and 2, the only person searching fvcor fitness here is the authors. It's about the myths, misconception of business of the fitness field.

A science writer for The New York Times, she starts well by demonstrating her journalistic response to Heart Waves, a new fitness program pitched by a puiblicist. It's a proprietary regimen--a product. You have to pay to participate at specific places. Suspicious--these things come along about as often as diet plans--Kolata investigates.

And what she finds is a lot of mumbo-jumbo about heart waves and natural rhythms that is designed to fleece the public. The program's creator has had his medical license lifted in New York and New Jersey; he is married to the CEO of the for-profit organization that is the program's biggest promotor; and the study proclaiming amazing results is pronounced poppycock by professional statisticians.

She ends well, too, closing with interesting and occasionally (wryly) amusing details about the history of weight-lifting and body-building (and their great rivalry); food supplements (generally useless; unaccountably, she's not up to date on ephedra, recently implicated in some deaths), and the business aspect of fitness. For example, she sees her daughter become a certified personal trainer, in less than two weeks, simply by buying an American Council on Exercise home-study guide (based on a book only 160 pages long!) and passing a multiple-choice test (price: $200)--without ever having trained anyone in her life. Want to become a Spinning instructor? You can earn certification (about $300) in a single day!

The middle sags, badly, because Kolata is an exercise junkie. I began to suspect as much when she discussed an early aerobics program that recommended persons in "very poor" condition (unable to run a mile in 12 minutes) should START getting fit by walking one mile in 13.5 minutes every day for five days. That, Kolata says, "does not sound particularly extreme." I beg to differ.

I'm a "professional" walker--I've made numerous long-distance walks in England and Italy and published walking articles in major consumer magazines. I walk daily for transportaion in Manhattan. Family and friends generally refuse to walk with me--they can't keep up. And I'm doing only 3.5 mph; 4.5 is nearly one-third faster and a whole lot harder. I've done 4.5 on a treadmill, but only after weeks of training up, and it's exhausting. If you doubt me, head for the nearest high-school
track. It'll be 440 yards a lap, so four laps equal a mile. Take along a stop watch, water, and a friend with a cell phone that has 911 on speed-dial. Unless you're in top shape, you don't have a prayer.

In time, Kolata admits to her zealotry. She's hooked on Spinning, also a proprietary fitness product that is "taught" in "classes" by "instructors" for substantial fees. Spinning is based on the stationary exercise bike but practiced in small, dark rooms, accompanied by videos (Mount Everest is a Kolata favorite) and sometimes candles and deafening music. The basic mood is frenzy--she speaks of sessions so crazed that sweat puddled on the floor.

And once is not enough: Kolata drags us to one spinning class after another. Her writing is workmanlike at best, and she relies on the present tense, so there are no stylistic pleasures to lighten this section. She is simply fascinated with herself.

Other information from the middle section is helpful (if frustrating) and easily summarized. It's this: almost everything you have ever heard about exercise (speed training, slow training, interval training, weight-loss, body-sculpting, effects on longevity, general health and disease-resistance, nutrition, vitamins, heart rates, etc.) is false, unproven, unprovable, folklore, arbitrary or some combination thereof. Current best advice, she says, is to walk 20 minutes a day (it doesn't even have to be all at one time) five days a week (would it have been too hard to credit this? to say how fast?). That, current wisdom says, will get you in as good shape as exercise can--anything more has no real effect.

Therefore, if you're going to go the extra mile(s), Kolata says, there's only one reason to do it: enjoyment.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Tedious, May 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise (Hardcover)

I picked up this book hoping for a well-researched look at fitness,maybe putting ideas we have today about excercise into a kind of historical context. Instead, I got a superficial look at the history of body building and waaaay too much information on the author's personal fitness routine especially in regards to spinning. This book was a waste of time.