Grunting: The Dreaded Free Weight RoomWritten by The Icon Diet Reader
By: The Icon Diet Reader I am new to world of gym. Having resolved to make my health and fitness a priority, spending time at gym is becoming a staple in my weekly routine. While I find that I am getting well acquainted with different exercises and exercise machines, there is one area of gym that I fear to tread. Behind a partial wall, tucked to rear of building, away from cardio machines, spinning rooms and yoga mats, is free weight room. When I work weight machines I am a stones throw from free weight room, not close enough to really see what goes on in there, but definitely close enough to hear what goes on in there. They say if you sit long enough in one place, whole world will pass you by. This may be true, but if you sit long enough near free weight room, you see a whole other world of gym patron pass you by. Into this mysterious room disappear giant men, their poor t-shirts barely able to contain their burly mass, arms propped out by massive lats; Amazon women with bodies of iron and physique most men would sell their mothers for. They disappear behind wall and for a good while they vanish. All that remains is their grunting. From free weight room issues forth a chorus of hissing and grunting that would put any tennis player to shame. Now being a novice in gym, I can only assume grunting issues forth under Herculean effort needed to heft such tremendous weights. On my side of wall, weight machine side, we are a quiet lot. The only break in peace is occasional clang of a poorly executed rep. In fact, on my side of gym we are so quite, that no one even notices when we come and go. We are like gym ninjas – stealthy and quite. I would like to think that we choose to leave grunting to giants on other side of wall. Of course, really this is totally untrue. I choose to leave grunting to giants on other side of wall because I am totally ignorant of free weights.
| | The Role of ObesityWritten by The Icon Diet Reader
By: The Icon Diet Rearder You would have to be a hermit not to know about dramatic rise of obesity levels in North America. Health issues have been plastered around media non stop for better part of last five years. The problem is that for most part message has been falling short of its mark. There are more obese people in 2004 then there were in 2003. The number of diet related health complications is growing and children are ballooning at a rate comparable to their adult counterparts. On flip side, health industry has been showing strong signs of growth, with one in four women and one in five men on a diet at any given time. While times have been tight financially, people have been opening up their wallets in record numbers to by fitness products and gym memberships. So bottom line is that while people are actively aware of health and fitness concerns, and are spending more then ever before on products and services to battle poor fitness, North America as a whole is getting fatter. It seems like a contradiction but it is truth none less. For one thing, most people try to fix their health and then give up because it is too challenging. Often they lack support from friends and family or even proper skill set to be successful. However, that being said, North America is in a bad way when it comes to health. We are a society that allows itself to binge to a point where obesity is considered an epidemic. Historically epidemics are things that rage outside of ready control of human kind. When we typically think about epidemics we think about cholera, typhus or even ‘the plague' – bubonic fever. In North America we have allowed our own poor habits to become an epidemic. It is really a shameful situation. We are simply eating ourselves to death. It is so serious that we have declared a war on fat. A war, on fat. Somehow by drawing on images of fighting, of military might, of violence, we will be able to battle obesity.
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