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Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise | 
 enlarge | Author: Gina Kolata
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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You Save: $23.99 (100%)
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Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 859211
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0374204772
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.7
EAN: 9780374204778
ASIN: 0374204772
Publication Date: May 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: A tradition of southern quality and service. All books guaranteed at the Atlanta Book Company.
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Product Description
The bestselling science reporter for The New York Times tells us what works and what doesn’t when we work out
Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth About Exercise and Health 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 the fads, fictions, and science of fitness training.
From the early days of jogging, championed by Jim Fixx— who later died of a heart attack—to weight lifting, cycling, aerobics, and Spinning, Kolata questions such popular notions as the “fat-burning zone” and “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, 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 41 more reviews...
 Misleading Title - Non Scientific "Story' December 3, 2008
Dr. Rite (USA)
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.
 Title is very misleading August 23, 2008
W. Butler
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 is interval training. (If you're training to lift massive weights, well, look elsewhere for how to train.)
6) There does seem to be a phenomenon known as runner's high, but as to what exactly causes it, or why it varies so much in who gets it, when, and for how long--no one really knows yet.
7) Exercise activates the same system that's involved in pleasure and therefore, in some cases, addiction. (Ie, it increases dopamine in the brain.) So it is possible for some individuals to become addicted to exercise.
8) Weightlifting is good for you (surprise surprise).
Out of 267 pages, that's about it for the clarity, myth-debunking, and final word on scientific debates in the field. If you want to read the other 260 pages on her spinning classes, the history of the industry, her love of spinning, (and did I mention spinning?), have at it. I give it two stars only because those other 260 pages are admittedly well-written and appear to be well-researched. It's just not what the description or the title implies.
 You'll learn a lot July 27, 2008
iBeth (Florida)
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).
Cardio-centric April 1, 2008
A Reader (New York City)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Fads and Myths August 16, 2007
Dr Adam Weiss (Buffalo Grove,IL.)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
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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