Fitness fads that damage your health
Exercise is a well known way to stay healthy both mentally and physically. To maintain a high fitness level there are many different types of exercises you can do. So many in fact, that it makes it difficult to know which is best for your needs. For this reason, many people turn to the latest ‘FAD’ filled with promises of significant weight loss, stronger bodies, and overnight ‘MIRACLE’ success. While some of these ‘FADS’ do make valid points and can be healthy and I say that with a pinch of salt, there are also many that have actually had the opposite effect.
1. Mad about Endurance Events – Running has been around since the start of the human race and because of the well-known health benefits of getting the hard miles in wheather that is on the road or through your local park more and more people have set their sights high on conquering a marathon. While this is a feat in itself, when not trained for properly, as many people fail to do, it can actually be an unhealthy mission to try to accomplish. Instead, start training slowly and give yourself adequate time for your body to reach the level necessary to conquer a marathon. Without proper training, you risk injury and overloading your body with joint damage from the pounding of the pavement which ultimately has adverse effects on your body.
2. Six Pack in Minutes – Marketing messages that over promise the benefits of a product are nothing new. However, in this case the over promise of getting a six-pack of muscles in only six minutes led to a craze of purchasing pulsating belts to activate the abdominal muscles while the person sat in a chair. The worst part about this fad was not the vastly reduced meeting of expectations from anxious customers. Instead, it was the fact that the promises were so extravagant and had people believing in the possibility of some truth behind them that they dropped all other forms of exercise off their fitness routine. This in turn created more sedentary people, higher rates of obesity among the users of the product and an overall lack of health. IF ITS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THEN IT NORMALLY IS!
3. Drink Your Way to Health & Fitness – For decades, makers of popular fitness drinks have promised results of simple consumption of a drink in lieu of exercise. Appropriately titled exercise in a bottle, makers of this and other similar products promised that the gym was not as necessary when consumers drank from this bottle. While this was wildly untrue, it also caused people to truly believe that they could avoid the gym and get miracle like results simply by taking a few sips of a drink. This claim was so devastating to consumers that an American company ended up having to fork over $10 million in consumer reimbursement. REMEMBER IF ITS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THEN IT NORMALLY IS!
The moral behind these and other fitness FADS is to always do your research and talk to your Doctor or Fitness Trainer before beginning any of these or similar fitness regimes. Falling for the hype has the potential to not only waste your money, but also leave you unhealthy and in some cases with significant and long lasting injuries.
