Damn XP:

It’s been a few days since I last posted and I blame it totally on XP! It was time to do a complete reinstall on my computer, and basically XP refused to install. It was quite a battle to get everything up and running again.

You’d be amazed how dependant we become on computers. I couldn’t check my emails, update this site or anything, suddenly I felt awkwardly disconnected. Having said that you’d also be surprised at how much time I seemingly gained. I’m always complaining about not having enough time to read, however its more that I don’t prioritise it high enough. For the last few days, as my computer was down, I suddenly found myself with several more hours each evening to simply read. I finished two books I had started and have also progressed in a third one!

In some ways I wonder if I shouldn’t place a limit on my computer time, I’m sure I’d be much more efficient for it. Having said that at the minute, now that XP is reinstalled and all, I find myself having to copy files everyone and install programs again, it takes forever. Anyway, after all of that is done I should be able to start posting something useful again.

Is Guilt a Useless Emotion?

Today I wish to question the use of guilt as an emotion. Guilt is typically defined as feeling culpable and responsible for things past or possibly for things still to come. However isn’t this a little odd as why should we worry about things we have no control over? If you got angry at your good friend the other day then why feel guilty today? Please don’t get me wrong, realising that what you did was perhaps uncalled for or wrong is perfectly fine, but there is no need to then place a burden upon yourself which will make your life all the worse, this will only add to the damage the initial anger caused. Having an appreciation of how mistakes can be improved is fine, but don’t view it in a negative way.

Guilt is a negative emotion and as such can be very destructive. I know that I personally have a problem with being too hard on myself. I beat myself up about small things and drive myself into the ground for any mistakes made. This problem is also probably linked to the fact that I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Thus my standards are too high, and I can never meet them. Not meeting my expectations leads me to feeling guilty and aggravated which causes a negative cycle and then its all downhill from there.

An interesting example of this would have to be when I played competition tennis at age 15 or so. Coincidentally the tennis has been broadcasting on Australian TV recently as the Australian open is going on in Melbourne. Or perhaps I should say it is concluding in Melbourne as today is also the day of the finals. Anyway, I started playing tennis at around 12 and by the time I was 15 I was, trying not to sound to vain here, quite competent really. However when at 15 I started doing competition tennis I found to my dismay that I would lose pretty much all of my matches, even when my opponents had terrible technique and were obviously far worse than me (technically). Why was this? Ultimately I believe it was due to the stress and guilt I placed upon myself and how I would play badly due to putting myself in a negative state of mind, by beating myself up internally. Basically I’d make one bad shot, give myself a difficult time about it and then never manage to psychologically pick up my game again. Hence I would make a huge amount of unforced errors.

What I’m getting at is that tennis is a very psychological game. I always like to compare it to a fight. When talking singles its just you and the opponent. Hence if they win a point there’s only one person to blame, and that’s yourself. I’d come back each Saturday feeling despondent and being unhappy as well as angry with myself for having yet again lost, normally to an inferior opponent.

Guilt is an overrated emotion. Often people feel guilt for things they did years ago, and while it is good that they wish not to repeat that it is not good that they live in anxiety and fear of that past. Accepting responsibility is immensely important and I encourage it 100%, but it need not lead to guilt. Guilt is a waste of our time. If you do something wrong you accept it, you take responsibility for it, but you do not beat yourself up about it. Where does beating yourself up get you? Nowhere fast would be an appropriate answer, or perhaps the answer should be backwards.

Try watching a game of tennis some time, you’ll understand just how psychological it is. Not that any other sport isn’t of course, but I suppose as I used to play it I understand it particularly well. Its interesting to see that someone who was playing badly can turn their game around or vice-versa, all as a result of mood. Its obvious that being in a good mood can improve not only your actual performance but how you perceive that performance. Allow me to explain:

Imagine yourself playing a game of tennis, and you’re in a really good, positive frame of mind. Typically that means that the positive frame of mind will fuel you and make you play all the better. But even if you still lose (which isn’t to say that the positive thinking isn’t making you play better), you can still think “wow that was a great game of tennis and despite losing I played a good game.” Unfortunately I was never mature enough to think this back when I played tennis, but somewhat ironically it can’t just be thought but sincerely believed, otherwise the thought is like someone else saying it and you saying “bollocks, I played terribly and got beaten as a result.” Personally I find the first, more positive outlook much better and I think it also helps people to perform better too, not to mention just living a more enjoyable life generally.

So where does guilt come into all this? Well, as I mentioned earlier, guilt is a negative emotion and negative thoughts lead to negative results, at least such has always been my personal experience. Taking responsibility for your actions is all well and good, but dwelling on past and potential future failings is psychologically harmful. Indeed the Buddhist philosophy of “Living in the Now…:” coincides with the idea that we should not live in the past or the future, but rather in the ever evolving period of now. Guilt is an escape from the present, inserting worries over which we don’t have control, over what is done, or not yet even the case.

Maybe I’m naïve and foolish to believe that guilt is overrated, but I honestly feel that so much could be gained and that people could move on and better themselves so much more if guilt were at very least toned down, if not eliminated. As the science daily website http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070516081014.htm argues, self-compassion (the ability to treat ourselves kindly) is extremely important. As it puts it: “Life’s tough enough with little things that happen. Self-compassion helps to eliminate a lot of the anger, depression and pain we experience when things go badly for us”. Surely self compassion would be not putting yourself through unneeded pains and anger in the form of guilt.

Remember that getting ride of guilt and hence being more compassionate to ourselves need not remove responsibility. As the science daily site explains: “Self-compassion allowed people to accept responsibility for a negative experience, but to counteract bad feelings about it.” The website also explains how “researchers found that: People with higher self-compassion had less negative emotional reactions to real, remembered and imagined bad events.” It certainly seems that eradicating guilt and with it needless negative tensions yields more positive results. As though in proof of my hypothesis Djokovic just won the Australian Open, despite losing the first set. He kept his cool though and didn’t beat himself up, and it ended up earning him a fancy trophy. I imagine professional sportsmen must have to have be psychologically strong to, else they could not win. The minute a sportsmen starts blaming himself for what he did wrong, it all goes down hill.

So I feel that we as a society or as a species perhaps, must learn to reduce our susceptibility to unneeded guilt. For the third or so time I will stress that taking responsibility is not what I have a problem with, it is doing this by psychologically crippling yourself which I have a problem with. Worrying about all the bad things you have done in life won’t help fix them, only truly accepting responsibility for your actions and by trying to work to improve on how you act can. Guilt is useless, its role is destructive not constructive and as such it should be avoided.

Free Market Economy/Classical Liberalism Vs. The Welfare State – Which is the better ideal?

For years I’ve always shunned the complete Free Market Economy with its emphasis on laissez-faire based capitalism. The problems inherent have always been obvious to me so I have tended to preference a more leftist welfare based state. However as I begin to understand more of the political makeup of the left I also find that many left groups (while admittedly better than right groups) can be preaching a rather extreme course of action. Like almost all things in life a balance seems to be required, a balance between the ability to make money and the responsibility to pay taxes so that society is fair and has a degree of security.

What sparked this whole debate in my mind again was ironically simply the fact that I did some casual work today in which I was assigned to work with my boss’s father. He is a Swedish man by the name of Sten (essentially stan, but Swedish) and was I believe 70 years old. Despite the large age difference between the two of us, I quickly found myself enjoying his company as he was very friendly and talkative. Eventually we talked of Sweden which is renowned for having an extremely good welfare state, or so I had previously believed. Sweden has extremely high tax rates and thus it would be assumed that It has a good welfare system. Like many European countries I believe it has good public schooling and good health-care, something which America certainly lacks. If you have not already seen it I highly recommend you watch Michael Moore’s “Sicko (Special Edition)” as it is an interesting movie comparing the American health system to those of other countries.

Despite all this it appears, according to Sten, that Sweden does not have the most efficient welfare system in the world. It may well be that a lot of the money disappears in various bureaucratic processes, which is a common complaint of the classical liberals. Even if this is not the case there are other problems. The tax system in Sweden which effectively is the heart and soul of the welfare system is much to high. Even I, a person of rather left-wing views must say this. Sweden may be held up as a totem of how states should be, but like any other state it certainly has its flaws. A nice analogy for the high tax system was given to me when Sten told me of the famous author Astrid Lindgreen who was the author of Pippi Langstrump (or Pippy Longstockings, a renowned children's book). Apparently Lindfreen was taxed at 104% of her income! That is to say for every $100 she earned she had to pay the government $104. However I think Sten may have been just off the mark as other sources I have found state that it was 102%. Regardless, it’s just horrifically high. As “http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/Article____18005.aspx” states:
“at the age of 68 she submitted an opinion piece to the Swedish daily Expressen on the subject of a loophole in the Swedish tax system which meant that she, as a self-employed writer, had to pay 102 percent tax on her income. She wrote the piece in the style of a fairytale, and it had an immediate impact.”

The high taxation system also has other huge problems. According to “Statistics Sweden” the mean tax rate is 30.44% this year (2008), which still seems a little high. This huge taxation rate as Sten explained means many people aren’t motivated to work (or at least not much) as:
1) So much of what they need is supplied by the government (education/medical etc)
2) They have to give such a large amount of what they earn back to the government in the form of taxation

Another problem with high taxation (as The Classical Liberals always argue) is that it creates “corruptness” so to speak. While not what we would consider really bad crimes, it becomes the case that professionals serve one another for free, so that they don’t have to pay for each other’s services and also don’t have to pay the huge amounts of tax they would otherwise pay to work for them, only to spend on each others service’s. Thus it works out better for them to do jobs for one another unofficially, maybe with some cash in hand. In essence the high tax levels would no doubt lead to a large amount of tax fraud around the country. (See: “http://www.skatteverket.se/download/18.3dfca4f410f4fc63c8680003885/swedish+report+200604B+.pdf” for more details)

Of course the welfare system they have in place is of course very good, despite the various flaws inherit in it. While I think Sweden is an example of extreme left-wing thinking and is ultimately too extreme to be sustainable I do think many countries could do with adding some welfare state systems into their economies. I believe we need taxation for various purposes namely a fair health system, a fair education system and basic support for those in dire need. When I say dire need I really only mean the heavily impoverished. There should also be reasonably cheap transport which if needed should be government subsidised to encourage people to use public transport and also do the environment good in doing so. Heck in China they even pay cyclists a fortnightly amount for cycling and not polluting!

However I think to achieve this a high tax rate would not be required. If the money was used more efficiently (which trust me it could be – however people will understandably always argue for different causes to be of top priority and so forth) the tax rate could be kept reasonably low and yet the welfare gains as maximised as possible. This promotes some sort of balance between classical liberalism and socialism, and its generally called welfare liberalism, and its currently where I’d say I stand on the political spectrum. So after all that I simply say that a balance is needed. It seems the Buddhists and their notion of “the middle way” are again correct. I seem to write about them in half of my damn posts, its about time I hurried up and published a link to a post on that idea of balance!

I do not think the free market/classical liberal state is, the be all and end all of politics. It too is extreme. If several people are disabled and people in general aren’t kind enough to support them out of their own pockets they die. Unfortunately I don’t yet have enough faith in humans for them to sort out all their problems all the time, after all were rather erratic creatures. Hence the notion of a state which is created on rational logic which remains throughout points of emotional turmoil needs to exist, so that we can stick by our long term values, such as helping those in need.

Capitalists also argue that competition is good, and while to a degree I think this is true, it is also true that blatant competition leads to fear and greed. People become unhappy and life is lead in a state of anxiety. Also, in a capitalist society everything becomes commodified, including values that I think simply cannot be compromised by no amount of wealth. No amount of money for instance could make me forgive someone for killing my mother, its just not something you can forgive in that way. Do we really want to live in a callous, competitive society where we are slave to the dollar? What’s more free market capitalism does not allow for any government intervention. In some ways this is good as government can do stupid things, but mostly government serves to implement reasonable measures, and in these cases it should be allowed to do its job. What I foresee through free market capitalism is a sort of monopoly forming. I know free market capitalists argue it won’t happen but to a degree it is inevitable.

Life isn’t all about economics and wealth, yet free market theory commodifies all. It certainly seems unreasonable to me. Still I love to read things which disprove my views because as annoying as it can be it ultimately leads me to learn from my mistakes. Several pro-laissez-faire fans have suggested I read F.A. Hayek’s "The Road to Serfdom (Routledge Classics S.)". Maybe then I can comment some more on the situation. Until then I’d say that taxation is required for various basic functions and infrastructure and so forth which society needs. Some could argue that private companies could do it, but I’d rather have certain services such as basic public transport available to all people, as well as medical centres and basic education, at very least those three things are requires, as well as some government support for those in economic crisis. The fact is that statistically some of us get very unlucky and just because that happens doesn’t mean we deserve to be left out on the street to die. A welfare liberal state is far more humane than a laissez-faire based one. And as a human I’m all for humaneness.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT):

I mentioned in "Exercising Efficiently, the Intensity Debate:” that a form of physical training known as “High Intensity Interval Training” has skyrocketed. Why is this? Well, essentially high intensity interval training (often known as HIIT) is essentially the same as interval training, but at a high intensity, funny that. For those of you who are still confused allow me to further explain through an example.

If I were to complete a high intensity interval workout it would essentially consist of a short warm up at a low pace followed by a short burst of sprinting which was then followed by a period of what is called “active recovery”. Active recovery is essentially the period in which you get your breath and energy back from the burst of energy while also running, but obviously at a lower intensity again. This would, with the omission of the warm up, be one interval, and you would then complete several intervals in a row followed by a cool down period, again obviously at a lower intensity, to complete the whole workout.

So why the popularity? Well, like most things in life some people like it and others don’t, and that’s perfectly okay. One of the most self-explanatory reasons for its popularity is simply that the workouts don’t take long. Typically your looking at no more than 20 minutes and an absolute maximum of 30 minutes. Indeed, the intervals are supposed to be very challenging and intense and therefore not able to be done for longer period of time like traditional cardio. On the down side I suppose one could say that these workouts are somewhat more gruelling that a simple stroll through the local park. Then again, some people like a challenge.

Another reason for its more recent popularity has been that current science seems to be indicating that it is most likely more effective for fat-burning than traditional long and drawn out low intensity cardio. But doesn’t this defy conventional wisdom, which states that low intensity cardio burns more fat for energy? Sort of, but not really. While low intensity activities do use more fat for fuel than higher activities (which in contrast use primarily stored carbohydrate known as glucose) there is what is now known as post-exercise fat utilisation. Basically higher intensity workouts (such as HIIT) make the body work much harder so that while your exercising fat cannot fuel the bursts of activity properly, so it uses stored carbohydrate, but after the exercise has been completed the higher intensity workouts seem to realise more fat-burning enzymes and so forth and in fact increase fat-utilisation for some period of time after the activity has ended (whereas low intensity training does nothing of a nearly comparable level).

As, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070627140103.htm, put it: “It did not matter how fit the subjects were before. After interval training, they experienced not only an increase in fat used and in aerobic capacity, but also an increase of enzyme activity in the muscle”.

Another science daily release showed that interval training in fact burned three times as much as conventional exercising in only half the time frame! So clearly there is something here in regards to HIIT. As, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070207185835.htm, stated:
“The group which did around eight seconds of sprinting on a bike, followed by 12 seconds of exercising lightly for [a total of] twenty minutes, lost three times as much fat as other women, who exercised at a continuous, regular pace for 40 minutes”. The same article continued to explain possible reasons as to why the interval sprints worked so effectively: “We think the reason that it works is because it produces a unique metabolic response,” said Professor Boutcher. “Intermittent sprinting produces high levels of chemical compounds called catecholamines, which allow more fat to be burned from under the skin and within the exercising muscles. The resulting increase in fat oxidation drives the greater weight loss.”

Amazing stuff isn’t it? But an article entitled "A Few 30 Second Sprints As Beneficial As Hour Long Jog”, is even more impressive. Other than the obvious time benefits of HIIT training it actually seems that it not only improves anaerobic fitness (i.e. ones ability to do short bursts of activity, using fast-twitch muscle fibers) but also improves aerobic fitness! This itself is truly amazing. As far as I know the opposite has not been found to be the case. As the above article states: "Short bouts of very intense exercise improved muscle health and performance comparable to several weeks of traditional endurance training”! So effectively you not only help fat-burning but also improve your cardiovascular system by simply working out less, but at a higher intensity using short bursts of power in the form of intervals!

Another sciencedaily article called “"No Time To Exercise' Is No Excuse”, illustrates “that interval-based exercise is a very time-efficient training strategy", the evidence does certainly seem to be overwhelmingly in favour of it over traditional aerobic activity.

So in short HIIT seems certain to be the most efficient form of exercise in that it has been clinically proven to burn much more fat than normal aerobic exercise and in less time, it only really takes a very short period of time in which it yields such impressive fitness results and it improves both the bodies anaerobic and anaerobic capacity in the one quick workout.

I suppose the downside is purely the intensity of it. It is certainly not suited for everyone and if you are unfit or injured or not able to push yourself it is by far best to start of with an easier regime and gather initial fitness before starting, at least that would be my advice. Then once you have a decent level of fitness you can begin HIIT training and see if it has any effect for you. Clearly factors like diet and so on will also play a large role in influecning any body composition results you may see as a result of following this exercise regime. But I’d rather work out a few times a week at a higer intensity for only a few minutes than do a gruelling hourly run each time instead… then again that being said I do seem to fair better at endurance work, but that’s largely a genetic thing. Some people just have more slow-twitch or fast-twitch muscles than others.

So what of all this fancy information about the benefits of HIIT? Well, the greatest factor for success is being able to stick to something, that motivation matters far more than what you actually do, because it determines that you will eventually reach your goals as you wish to. Also remember that there is no one ideal exercise regime, but rather that different individuals will prefer different things and be looking for different results. In spite of all the amazing research here I would still say do the activities that you love doing, as they will not be a chore to do and you will ultimately be all the healthier, both physically and psychologically for doing them. If however you are not against the idea of doing interval training then by all means give it a go, for all you know you might quite enjoy the challenge. If you don’t mind this sort of intensive training then it would make a useful addition to any training regime. So try it, give it a go and explore something new, as always if worse comes to worse and you don’t enjoy then I suggest you simply stop it and go on to find a more enjoyable way of keeping fit.

How to gain an extra week this year:

So New Year has just passed and you’re still thinking about what sort of resolutions you could or should make. Might I suggest gaining an extra week this year? That’s one of my plans anyway. How do you do that you ask… easy I reply, by cycling (Pun not intended, but quite funny none the less).

I like cycling for a whole heap of reasons, which I shall compile into an article shortly, but one reason is believe it or not, because it can be a timesaver. Of course this really does depend on certain factors but you’d be surprised how it all adds up. If you live within the inner city (as many people do) then cycling can often be quicker than driving a car, particularly in peak hour. Back roads are taken and cycle paths used, as well as short cuts through parks and so on, hence it can end up quicker than other forms of transport. Allow me to provide you with an example:

It takes me approximately 20 minutes to ride into Sydney Uni from where I live in the inner west, and it takes a car about 15 minutes. However if it is peak hour then it takes a car much more like 25 minutes. On top of this I believe doing exercise is important to a healthy lifestyle and like to incorporate this in my travel time. So over the course of a day I do a good 30 minutes of exercise (as we should deduct a little time due to waiting at traffic lights and so on) whereas the fellow driving the car does not. Therefore if we both travel in peak hour on working days (as is most likely to be the case) not only do I save 10 minutes a day, but if the car driver also made a commitment to do 30 minutes of exercise a day then I would save 40 more minutes than him a day.

If your like most people and you work a day shift so that you travel around peak hour, we can see that even if the car driver doesn’t exercise, the cyclist still saves close to 10 minutes a day, let’s say 6 and be conservative. Doesn’t sound like a great deal admittedly, but if you add it up over a year it would be. Rather ironically I just discovered that if one saves 6 minutes a day and works 5 days a week for 48 weeks in a year (i.e. minimum holiday leave) then one saves exactly 1440 minutes, which when divided by 60 yields 24! So over a year I’d save a whole day just from the travel time!

Now imagine if I also wanted to do 30 minutes of exercise on top of that? Its exactly six days saved a year! Don’t believe me? Well then, heres the maths:

6 + 30 = 36 (minutes saved per day)

36 X 5 = 180 (minutes saved per week)

180 X 48 = 8640 (minutes saved per year)

8640/60 = 144 (hours saved per year)

144/24 = 6 (days saved per year!)

So why did I entitle this entry how to gain an extra week this year? Am I a lying bastard? Not quite, there’s more. I now want you to consider that like most people you are currently driving a car. Then I want you to think about how much cheaper owning a bike is than a car. Riding a bike means you don’t have to pay more than 500 for a bike, whereas a car is a few grand, a bike has no registration fees, insurance is almost nothing for a bike, you never have to pay parking fines or even buy parking tickets, nor do you have to pay huge amounts for repair costs! All in all a bike is going to save you at least $2000 dollars a year, if not closer to $5000 (Of course I’m talking Australian here but very similar cost savings will apply world wide). Now lets take the uber conservative figure of $2000 and say that the average person earns say $20 an hour. Therefore by saving $2000 you are also saving yourself a hundred hours of work! That adds up to another 4.16 days saved, every year!!! And remember, these are very conservative figures! I will be posting an article on exactly how much I think an average person would save, and will probably refine this whole article concept in a new post at a later date.

All in all we end up saving ourselves 10.16 days simply by riding a bike instead of driving a car! Now you see why I was more than justified in titling this article, “how to gain an extra week this year”! So what are you waiting for? Go save yourself some life!

The Most Efficient Form of Transport in the World:

I’m about to let you in on a big secret… one of mans most coveted gifts of knowledge. I’m about to tell you of the most efficient form of transport known to man. Is it an alien spaceship? Nope they are not known to man. Is it an airplane, nope they do really quite poorly efficiency wise. Is it human locomotion? Nope, but your pretty damn close. Well then, what is it? It my friends, is the humble bicycle.

You laugh, you cry and then you look me in the eye and say “bollocks”. I knew you wouldn’t believe me, it must be some sort of insecurity complex of mine. Yet it is true I swear it and many books and websites document this little known truth, or at very least quite obvious but seldom thought of truth.

So what sort of efficiency am I talking about here? Well largely I mean how efficient a vehicle is to transport its passenger. Here Bicycles come out top. Simply take a quick glance at the graph featured at: http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/humanpower1.html

However Bicycles are also far more efficient to produce and repair than other forms of transport while also being more space-efficient than other forms of transport. Heres a nice chunk of information from:
http://eco-living.net/writings/transport/effengine.html

“Not only are bicycles most efficient to propel, they also take far less energy (and lower levels of technology) to produce than motorized transport. The energy and materials needed for one medium-sized car can produce one hundred bicycles! Starting up a bicycle production or repair and maintenance business requires very little capital; the amount of money needed is insignificant compared to what is required to manufacture, maintain, and repair automobiles. Bicycles are also more space-efficient than cars. That is, more people on bikes than in cars can move through a given lane in a given amount of time. Cars are in fact the least space-efficient form of transport on the planet.”

We live in a day and age were people are fixated with efficiency and health and fitness and the likes, yet why does bike riding still remain so unpopular in places like Australia and America. At least in Europe they have a larger cycling population. I can think of many reasons as to why this is the case such as that Europe simply has much better infrastructure for cyclists. I’ll admit even cycling has disadvantages like getting a little sweaty on a hot day or struggling when it comes to transporting your fridge to your new home, but even so, I believe it has been greatly overlooked as a fantastic way to save the environment, save our wallets and not to mention improve our health dramatically. The fact that the humble bicycle is the most efficient vehicle in the world is simply one more reason on a long list as to why almost everyone should cycle!

Well now I’ve given you the information and it’s up for you to decide whether you are willing to take to cycling. Remember it need not be extreme, even cycling to work one day a work will do wonders compared to no days a week. I only wish I could somehow encourage you as well as the Chinese government does its citizens! As
http://eco-living.net/writings/transport/effengine.html puts it:

“In China, bicycle avenues with five or six lanes are common, as is plenty of safe and convenient bicycle parking. The government provides a monthly allowance for cycling to work.”

Here are some more snippets of information from:
http://eco-living.net/writings/transport/effengine.html which will hopefully further convince you of the benefits of cycling, enjoy:

“More than half of all commutes in the U. S. and more than three-quarters in the U. K. are less than eight kilometers (about five miles). This is a reasonable cycling distance; it is also the range in which internal-combustion engines get the poorest mileage and emit the most pollution.”

“Besides placing drastically less stress on our environment, human power also benefits the engine - the human body! The advantages of regular, sustained exercise are already well documented, and bicycling is a low-impact form of exercise as well. Studies have shown that workers who commute by bicycle are happier, more alert and more productive than average.”

Exercising Efficiently, the Intensity Debate:

There has been a debate raging for some time regarding how we should exercise. One side argues for anaerobic based training and the other for aerobic based training. The essential question being debated is whether or not we can exercise more efficiently. However, as we will find, this is a rather vague question as there is no set criteria to deem what efficiency is in this instance.

The older school of thought supported the aerobics craze. Everyone knows the old exercise videos from the 80’s with girls in coloured swimsuits jumping up and down for hours on end. If you don't, consider yourself lucky. Aerobics systems they argued burn more fat for fuel than anaerobic systems, and thus are better for fat loss. But the anaerobic fans retort that post exercise recovery from anaerobic exercise has the greatest affect on fat burning. In turn the Aerobics group advocate that aerobic exercise or “cardio” as its often called is better for the heart as it improves cardiovascular health and the circulatory system.

The more modern trend has been a move away from aerobics and into the weight room where anaerobic exercise has come to dominate. The anaerobic supporters argue that extensive aerobic exercise causes injury; however the aerobic supporters argue the same of intensive anaerobic exercise, so it’s a draw on that front. Anaerobic exercise also has the added benefit of stimulating more muscle growth and improving bone density. Another thing that is sometimes too lightly overlooked is the increase in hormones that anaerobic exercise causes.

The debate between the two groups has largely revolved around fat loss, which is really only one small category of total health and wellbeing. Regarding fat loss the anaerobic supporters often argue that one only has to compare the physique of a sprinter to a marathon runner to see the benefits of added muscle and hormonal changes as a result which typically mean the sprinter also has lower body fat levels! Yet as far as I am aware type 1 muscle fibres (which are best at endurance work) tend to burn fat much more effectively than type 2 muscle fibres (which are best at brief intense work).

Genetic experiments on mice have certainly had interesting results and can help to shed light on the difference between the muscle types (and by association types of exercising). There are many sites which cite these genetic tests on mice, but this one: http://www.sciencenewsmagazine.org/articles/20041030/bob9.asp seems to be quite in depth and as such I shall use it as a reference.

Mice who have had their genes altered so as to give them more fast twitch muscles (dubbed “Schwarzenegger mice”) have a much easier time growing muscle and staying strong. However, the shocking part is that these mice can gain strength without exercise simply by being injected with a certain gene! “Young mice injected with the gene grew stronger and more muscular, even without exercise.”

On the other hand: “Another set of experiments, by scientists at the Salk Institute in San Diego, produced mouse muscles that just keep going without fatiguing...Ronald Evans and his colleagues had started out with the intention of engineering mice that stay trim. To do this, the researchers inserted genes that code for a fat-burning protein called PPAR-delta…The mice that resulted stayed slender, even when fed a high-fat diet, but also developed an unusually large number of slow-twitch muscle fibers, the type the body relies on during extended exertion. ‘This change produced the 'marathon mouse,' able to run twice the distance of its normal littermate,’ vans says.”

Personally I would argue that it seems that the slow twitch mice win when it comes to maintaining a low body fat, while the fast twitch mice win when it comes to strength and muscle mass. So ultimately the question then becomes what are we trying to accomplish more efficiently through exercising? Most people wish simply for fat loss, and in the case of mice it would seem that slow twitch endurance based work would serve one better, however again we can compare the images of a sprinter to a marathon runner and wonder.

The debate rages on and it seems that each side has ample ammunition, we will find no answers on the battle field. In particular the recent increase in popularity of
“High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT):” has thrown another spanner in the works, but this itself deserves its own article and so I shall write one in the future.

Common sense would seem to suggest that while one method of exercising may be slightly superior to another (of course this also depends largely on what your goals are!), it is ultimately best to do what you are comfortable with. Most people forget that we are only human. For instance, while in theory we may gain best results from doing something everyday, maybe in reality the most we can consistently do it so that it is sustained is once every second day. What this ultimately means is if you like marathon running then do it, on the other hand if you like sprinting then do that!

Of course I would ask that we look further than just the aesthetics here and look at our total wellbeing. From a point of overall health it would seem self-evident that doing both aerobic and anaerobic activity will be best for our health. This would indeed allow for a more moderate exercise routine which would probably yield better results long term anyway.

It is also interesting to think that we should not all be doing the same thing. When one thinks about it, it makes perfect sense, but often we simply do not think about it and follow the herd instinct of doing what others are doing. The simple truth is that while we are genetically not that dissimilar from one another (say in comparison to a soy bean) we do vary and thus we as a society should be more open to the idea that different people require different things based on their differing genetics. Sprinting might help make your friend lose weight given his biological chemistry, but maybe you’d have more luck with aerobic work. In the future we will no doubt have gene testing which will help us to be able to work with our strengths, but until then all I can say is experiment, enjoy the process, and figure out yourself what you enjoy doing and what works for you.