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Get The Facts About Fitness
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by Jamie Hale
Recently I had a chance to discuss fitness with Christian Finn the founder of thefactsaboutfitness.com. Be sure to pay special attention to his advice on reading research papers. Christian has a reputation as being one of the best when it comes to deciphering research data.
How long has your site The Facts About Fitness been online? Where do you see the site in five years?
The site has been online since April 2000, which makes it almost an antique in the online world! Things have changed a lot in the past 10 years, and the pace of change is going to keep on getting faster. Back in 2000, most visitors to the site came from the Yahoo directory, which was “the place to be” back then. Most people hadn’t even heard of Google. In five years time, the way that people get information from the Internet will no doubt have changed, although the exact form that change will take is hard to predict. Attention spans will keep on dropping. People will become more impatient. And a lot of them will be using mobile devices, rather than sitting in front of a computer, to get what they want from the Internet. The site will need to adapt and change so that it gives people what they want in the most convenient way possible.
What do you love of the fitness industry? What do you hate about the fitness industry?
I think the great thing about the fitness industry in 2009 is that there are so many different “entry points” for anyone who wants to exercise. There are hundreds of home exercise systems. Gyms are everywhere. And there are thousands of books, magazines and websites devoted to fitness and fat loss. Compared to the 1980’s, which is when I started getting interested in fitness and nutrition, things have changed so much. Here in England, there were far fewer gyms back then, and most of them were of the “spit and sawdust” variety. They were a long way from the “user friendly” places they are today. There was no Internet, so it was hard to get your hands on decent training and nutrition information. And the only equipment you could buy for training at home was a barbell and some dumbbells. These days you can order a home gym over the Internet and have it set up in your home in a matter of days.
But for the fitness industry to stay as an “industry,” it has to keep reinventing itself. And this can make things very complicated for someone who wants to get in shape. In other industries, such as electronics, the technology is always changing and improving. There’s always a better “gadget” that’s faster, smaller and does more stuff for less money. So there’s a natural “turnover” of products and ideas. But the human body hasn’t really changed for thousands of years. And the methods that people used to get in shape 50 years ago, 10 years ago, or even 12 months ago are still effective today. But that message doesn’t sell very well. Magazines can’t publish articles telling people to “do what we told you last month.” Diet books can’t just tell people to eat less and exercise more. So they need to dress everything up as “new and revolutionary” to get people excited about it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially for those who are easily bored. But I think a lot of people just end up feeling totally confused about the whole thing.
Suppose someone comes to you and their interested in a career in the fitness industry. They ask you how can I learn? What should I study? What would your advice be?
Well, it really depends on what type of career they want. Someone who wants to manage a large health club, for example, will need to follow a very different path to someone who wants to make a living training athletes.
So, what I’d suggest is to find someone who’s done what you want to do, and then ask them how they did it. You’d be surprised at how willing people are to help, especially if you approach them in the right way.
What does a typical day look like in your life?
I don't really have a typical day. I hate being woken up by an alarm, so I generally get out of bed when I'm done sleeping. I used to be one of those "up at 6am" types, but I'm a lot happier now that I just let my body do what it wants.
I work at home, so I'll do a bit of work as soon as I wake up, answering e-mails, writing articles and so on. Then I'll have a small snack before I head to the gym and train for 45-90 minutes. Then it's back to the office for more work. I have a few business interests outside of running my website, so I'm usually kept busy for the rest of the day.
Is there a specific regimen you advise for hypertrophy training?
While there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat, there are two hypertrophy regimens that I'd recommend for most people most of the time. On my website I have a 3-day routine, which works the whole body three times per week. Different movement patterns (legs, push, and pull) are emphasized in each workout.
Monday: Whole Body (legs emphasis)
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Whole Body (upper body push emphasis)
Thursday: Off
Friday: Whole Body (upper body pull emphasis)
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
There’s also a 4-day routine, where each muscle group is worked twice a week. Shoulders and arms are worked directly only once each week, as they receive a lot of indirect stimulation when you train your chest and back.
Monday: Lower Body (quadriceps emphasis)
Tuesday: Upper Body (chest/shoulders emphasis)
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Lower Body (hamstrings emphasis)
Friday: Upper Body (back/arms emphasis)
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
The programs combine heavy weights and relatively low repetitions (where the focus is on adding more weight to the bar over a given period of time) with higher repetitions and short inter-set rest periods. This way, you get both tension overload and metabolic fatigue, which are the two main "triggers" for muscle growth.
I also like to include both maximal and non-maximal effort days. So in the 4-day routine, for example, the Tuesday workout involves hitting the chest with maximal effort. The back also gets some work, but of the non-maximal variety. On Friday the pattern is reversed – maximal effort work for the back and non-maximal work for the chest.
Also on the site is a 5-day “bodybuilding style” routine, which can work well for some people, as well as a 2-day routine for busy people who want to be in and out of the gym in 35 minutes or less.
What is the biggest difference between training competitive athletes and general fitness enthusiasts?
I’ve never worked with any serious competitive athletes - just “regular” men and women who want to get in shape.
You are recognized as one of the top dogs in the fitness industry when it comes to deciphering scientific research. What advice can you give other professionals regarding understanding research?
First off, don't believe everything you read. Newspapers and magazines are often seen as "authority" sources when it comes to fitness and nutrition. But most of the magazines have a vested interest in selling you something, whether it's supplements, the latest "breakthrough" training system (which is almost always just a rehashed version of something that's been done before) or some gadget that you could easily do without. And a lot of the information in newspapers is taken from press releases, which saves journalists the time and trouble of researching subjects on their own. Entire sections of a press release can be simply "cut and pasted" with little or no editing. When you see "breakthrough" research being cited, remember that the source could be another industry-backed group trying to sell you on a product or idea.
I highly recommend looking at the research data yourself. And this means reading the whole study, as opposed to just reading the abstract on Pub Med! What the abstract says and what the study actually shows are often two very different things.
A good example comes from a study that looked at the effects of arginine and ornithine on muscle growth.
If you read the abstract, you’ll come away with the impression that (and I quote) "arginine and ornithine taken in prescribed doses can, in conjunction with a high intensity strength training program, increase total strength and lean body mass in a relatively short period of time."
However, the study only reports the difference in body composition between the groups at the END of the study — not from the start to the end of the trial. In other words, the group using the amino acids could have had more muscle at the end of the study simply because they had more muscle at the start of it!
Most studies are available in the public domain — you can read them for yourself if you dig hard enough. Here are several important questions to ask while you’re sifting through them.
1. Was the study published in a peer-reviewed journal? Not all studies are published in peer-reviewed journals. Those that are carry more credibility because they undergo scrutiny from a panel of experts.
However, the fact that a study is published in a peer-reviewed journal doesn't mean you should accept the findings without question. Rather than being peer reviewed, some papers are simply "pal reviewed" by a buddy of one of the study authors. So you need to keep your “BS detector” turned on at all times.
2. Was the research funded by a company with a financial interest in the outcome? Every study has to be paid for by somebody. Just because a trial has been funded by a company with a vested interest in the outcome doesn't mean you should ignore it. However, be very cautious if the research is sponsored, especially if drugs or supplements are involved.
3. What was the group of the test subjects? Were they old or young, trained or untrained? Some strength-training studies that involve sedentary or elderly groups show large gains in strength — several hundred percent in some cases. This may sound impressive. But it may have been experienced by individuals whose strength in the leg press improved from 10 pounds to 30 pounds. At 30 pounds, they're still very weak when compared with younger people.
4. Does it pass the reality check? When you look at them in detail, there are some studies that completely fail any kind of reality check. Interval training is a good example. You have people saying that intervals are “9 times better for fat loss” than steady-state aerobics based on the Tremblay study from 1994. But this claim just doesn’t pass the reality check. And when you look at the data, the whole thing was just misreported. Another instance where reading the full study (as opposed to the abstract) would have been a good idea.
5. What type of study was it? Studies involving food supplements, sports drinks, energy bars and other performance aids should be double-blind and placebo-controlled. A placebo is a "fake" supplement used to reduce the influence of faith and belief in a treatment on the results of a study. Double-blinded means that neither the researcher nor the test subject knows which supplement or drug they are getting. If either person knows, it can have a big influence on the results.
6. How does it compare with other studies? You need to ask yourself how the findings measure up to previous research on the topic. One study is not really news. Think of it as a single piece of a jigsaw puzzle. It's only when you put the pieces together by looking at a number of different studies (preferably by different researchers) that you get an accurate picture of what's really going on.
What is your favorite exercise?
Hmmm… a tough one! Right now, I’d say the deadlift is my favorite. But it changes. Ask me the same question in 6 months and I’d probably give you a different answer.
What is your favorite food?
At the moment, beef tacos with sour cream and guacamole with some carrot cake for dessert!
What is your favorite article you have written?
I don’t really have a favorite article. But the most popular one on my site is Belly Fat and How to Beat It (http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/news/waist.htm), which gets tens of thousands of visits each month,
Are you currently working on any new projects? Any seminars coming up in the near future?
At the moment I’m working on updating some of the programs on my website to make them easier for people to follow.
Visit Christian Finn's site at www.thefactsaboutfitness.com
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