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Bald Man Fuming

By MALE PATTERN FITNESS | April 3, 2007

I've thoroughly enjoyed my two months as a member of the AARP. The magazine, formerly known as Modern Maturity, is a first-rate product.

But I have a serious problem with a workout feature in the latest issue.

If you click on the link, you'll see a middle-aged guy who appears to be robust and in perfectly good health. And he's doing bench presses with eight-pound dumbbells.

A grown man. Eight-pound dumbbells.

Let's assume the man weighs 200 pounds, and he can do at least one push-up. A push-up forces you to move about 60 percent of your body's weight, which in his case would be 120 pounds. So the photo in the magazine shows a man capable of pushing at least 120 pounds off his chest doing an exercise with 16 pounds.

Here's the article's advice on how to select the weights to use:


Beginners should start with one set -- 8 to 12 repetitions -- of each exercise, using 5- to 8-pound weights (you can find them for $20 or less at any sporting-goods store). More advanced exercisers should shoot for two sets of each exercise, using 10- to 12-pound weights.

So I'm the magazine's reader, and I'd consider myself a "more advanced exerciser." That means I'm supposed to use 12-pound weights for bench presses, as well as the other exercises in the workout -- squats, one-arm rows, biceps curls, lateral raises, and triceps extensions. (The triceps extensions show the model using a single dumbbell, held in both hands.) I could see how those weights might start to feel heavy on lateral raises, especially since it's an exercise I rarely do. But bench presses? Squats? What possible benefit would I get from that?

According to the article, I'd get all these:


Strength training has been shown to decrease insulin resistance, decrease resting blood pressure, reduce arthritis pain, even improve memory. Some experts believe it's as essential as aerobic training: "As good as walking is for a variety of things, it does not address the loss of muscle that accompanies the aging process," says Wayne L. Westcott, Ph.D., fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts, and coauthor of Strength Training Past 50 (Human Kinetics, 2007). That loss of muscle -- about seven pounds per decade for men and five pounds per decade for women -- causes a slowdown in resting metabolism that then translates into a host of health problems.


Yes, but where's the research showing that grown men working out with Barbie weights get any of those benefits?

It's hard enough to convince women to use weights that will increase their strength and muscle mass, which of course are the only ways they can get the promised benefits of strength training. You don't increase your metabolism unless you challenge your body. But now here's a magazine that goes out to millions of people telling men to work out with weights that wouldn't challenge my six-year-old daughter.

Grrrrr ...

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