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For immediate release
Sept. 1, 2009
CONSUMERS SHOULD
EXERCISE CAUTION ON FITNESS MACHINE CLAIMS, EXPERT
SAYS
INDIANAPOLIS – Many exercise
equipment advertisers make bold claims about their products’
benefits – claims that should be taken with a grain of salt,
according to an expert in the September/October issue of a journal of
the American College of
Sports Medicine.
David Swain, Ph.D., FACSM, says if an assertion
sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
“There is still no ‘miracle
machine’ that will give you the body of a fitness model in just a
few minutes per day,” Swain said. “The tried-and-true
machines that have been around for the longest, like treadmills, have
remained staples of the fitness industry for a reason.”
Swain says consumers should be especially wary
of these claims:
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Excessive calorie burn.
It’s impossible to burn, say, twice the number of calories on a
specialty machine as on a treadmill. The body has a natural limit on how
many calories can be burned in a given exercise session.
-
Fitness fast. Brief bouts of
high-intensity exercise can improve maximum power more than
low-intensity exercise, but cannot improve all areas of fitness in just
a few short minutes.
-
“Fat-burning”
zones. According to the intensity zones on some machines, you
don’t have to work as hard to burn fat. But Swain says that weight
loss – or what some interpret as “fat burning” –
comes from total calorie expenditure. It’s the combination of
intensity and duration that counts.
-
Waist reduction.
Spot-reduction is a fantasy, Swain says. Machines that only train the
abdominal muscles won’t remove fat from the stomach; only
total-body exercise and weight loss will eventually yield those
results.
In addition, Swain notes that many
machines’ reported caloric expenditures are inflated. Most inflate
the calories by including resting energy consumption, and use of the
machine is a big factor in calorie burn. For example, holding on to the
handrails of a steeply inclined treadmill reduces calorie expenditure
– but the calorie report on the machine doesn’t reflect that
change.
“Exercisers should focus on overall
health and accumulating at least 150 minutes per week of
moderate-intensity activity, or at least 75 minutes per week of
vigorous-intensity activity,” Swain said. “More is needed
for weight loss, but the real benefits of exercise are decreased risk of
disease and improved quality of life.”
The public can find tips for meeting the
physical activity recommendations at www.acsm.org/physicalactivity.
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NOTE: ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal®
is an official journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, and
is available from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins at 1-800-638-6423.
For a complete copy of the article (Vol. 13, No. 5, pages 9-12) or to
speak with a leading sports medicine expert on the topic, contact the
Department of Communications and Public Information at 317-637-9200 ext.
127 or 133. Visit ACSM online at www.acsm.org.
The conclusions outlined in this
news release are those of the article authors only, and should not be
construed as an official statement of the American College of Sports
Medicine.
The American College of Sports Medicine is the largest sports medicine
and exercise science organization in the world. More than 35,000
international, national, and regional members and certified
professionals are dedicated to advancing and integrating scientific
research to provide educational and practical applications of exercise
science and sports medicine.
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