At the gym last week I saw a guy lifting weights, working out his shoulders while two friends urged him on. He alternated two similar exercises with heavy weights, repeating one exercise 10 times and then the other one 10 times, never resting between sets.
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“We want to burn out his shoulders,” one of the man’s friends explained to me.
Exercise researchers would be appalled.
While public health officials bemoan the tendency of most people to do little exercise, if any, physiologists are fretting over the opposite trend: an increasing focus on extreme exercise among some recreational athletes. Weight lifting with no rest between sets and with no days off. Endurance training with no easy days or days off. Competitions that encourage excess.
To enter a recent race, my friend Joel Wilbur had to sign a waiver acknowledging he could die. Still, Joel was disappointed to find the race wasn’t all that dangerous. After signing a death waiver, he said, he expects some serious risks.
My workout partner Jen Davis once signed a race consent form that said: “There are sections of the trail that travel along cliffs. If you’re not careful you could fall to your death. Very few runners go the distance without taking one painful spill. Most runners take lots of them.”
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