The liver, located on the upper-right side of the abdomen, is the largest internal organ of the human body. The main functions of the liver are to remove toxins and process food nutrients. Blood from the digestive system filters through the liver before traveling anywhere else in the body.

A meta-analysis was released in May of this year explored non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in adults. The goal of analysis was to ascertain the contribution of ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption to the risk of developing NAFLD.

NAFLD represents a disease spectrum ranging from liver fat accumulation through to end-stage liver disease with fibrosis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. NAFLD is associated with related diseases such as type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity. There is strong evidence that NAFLD is associated with an approximate twofold higher risk of developing T2D, irrespective of obesity and other common metabolic risk factors.

NAFLD is similar to a type of liver disease caused by alcohol consumption. Most people may not know they have it because doctors don't routinely screen for it and it can develop without symptoms until it reaches an advanced stage, when liver damage occurs.

NAFLD was recognized in the early 1950s but only in 1980 was it pointed out as a possible cause of cirrhosis of the liver.

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are industrial formulations of cheap ingredients from high yield crops (such as refined sugar, starch, oil, protein isolates) and remnants of intense animal agriculture that are highly energy-dense due to total fat, saturated fat and trans-fat contributions, combined with low fiber and poor micronutrient profiles.

They can be differentiated from processed foods due to additional chemical enhancement using preservatives, emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners aiming to increase shelf life and palatability. They include such food items as confectionary sweets, high-sugar drinks and ‘microwave ready-meals’, constituting around half of daily energy intake in Western populations. Their cheap production cost, contrasting with the higher relative cost of minimally processed foods, drives a high UPF consumption rate globally; particularly in low-income households.

In this meta-analysis, a total of 5454 records were screened, and 112 records underwent full text review. From these, 9 studies analyzing 60,961 individuals were included in the meta-anaylsis.

A factor that the researchers came across was that the manufacturing process behind UPFs is metabolically damaging to the food as well. Through chemical modification, cosmetic additives and artificial packaging. Common cosmetic additives to UPF, such as monosodium glutamate and artificial sweeteners, have been associated with NAFLD.

They also discovered that timing of eating impacts metabolic outcomes. with high consumption of low-quality carbohydrates, such as those found in UPFs, being more harmful when consumed during evening meals.

NASH (or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis) is a type of NAFLD that can damage the liver. NASH occurs when the fat buildup in the liver leads to inflammation (hepatitis) and scarring.

Conclusion:

Both moderate (vs. low) and high (vs. low) intake of UPF significantly increased the risk of NAFLD. Consumption of UPF is associated with NAFLD with a dose–response effect.

These results provide valuable evidence to support public health policies in respect to dietary advice in this increasingly prevalent disease. We would advocate global efforts to minimize consumption of UPFs, in exchange for fresh and minimally processed foods, with promotion of physical activity to tackle the societal burden of this disease.

In its early stages, NAFLD generally does not cause symptoms. In fact, many people—and their doctors—are unaware they have NAFLD. However, it can lead to liver damage over time in some people.

Fortunately, screening techniques such as blood levels of liver enzymes, ultrasound, and imaging techniques for assessing liver stiffness can help detect NAFLD, and the condition can often be reversed in its early stages with dietary and lifestyle changes.

About 100 million individuals in the United States are estimated to have Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD).

NAFLD in children has more than doubled over the past 20 years!

Bottom line – cut out processed foods! Don’t be lazy and eat whatever you can find in a pinch or is simple. Your body and long-term health are worth you taking the time to eat real food (meat, fish, vegetables and fruits).

I’m a member of a peer group of local business leaders that meets monthly. Each month, we have a top-notch speaker come and talk. It’s usually around a business-related topic. However, once year, there is a speaker that comes to talk about health and wellness. While most people in the group dread this topic, I get very excited. This past month, we had a speaker that came to talk about fitness. The speaker was Luke Carlson (great first name) and the title of his presentations was “Sharpen The Saw: Evidence-Based Fitness For The High Performing Executive”.

Over the almost four hours of time he talked with us, he not only debunked several workout and training myths that most people believe, but he also presented a simple resistance workout that anyone can fit into their busy schedule. You can learn more about Luke and his training program at his website: https://www.discoverstrength.com/

One of the more interesting subjects he approached was how many reps and sets you should do when lifting weights.

I started lifting weights around age 13. My Dad knew the benefits of resistance training even back in the early 1990’s. There was some good information available thanks to Joe Weider’s books and magazines and the popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger. My Dad encouraged my brothers and I to lift weights to not only get stronger for sports, but to feel better and have more energy. We had some old concrete dumbbells, bars and a bench in the basement and would lift several days a week after school.

Even way back then, everywhere you read told you to do 3 sets of 10. That’s 10 repetitions of the specified weight, followed by a rest period, 10 more reps, rest and then a final set of 10 reps. With the exception of a few periods of time off here and there, I’ve pretty consistently lifted weights for the last 30 years. Throughout that time, I’ve always fallen back to doing something close to 3 sets of 10 whenver I'm in the gym or lifting at home. I would adjust how heavy I lifted depending on my goals at the time but would always do multiple sets of 8-10 repetitions. But why? Where did this 3 sets of 10 come from? Why does everyone do it?

Where Did 3 Sets of 10 Originate?

What I learned during Luke’s discussion was that the thoughts around 3 sets of 10 in strength and conditioning was first coined in 1948 in a paper by T.L. Delorme and A.L. Watkins titled, “Techniques of Progressive Resistance”. The idea seems logical.  3 separate sets of 10 exercises allow muscles to gain strength and endurance. Moreover, in addition the rest period between each set, the first 2 sets ramp up muscles for an intensive third set. But is this the most effective or efficient way to lift weights?

Turns out exercise science has come a long way in the last 70 years, and we now know much more about the human body and the way it responds to training. Many studies over the last decade show that the 3 sets of 10 reps approach is far from the most effective program for several reasons.

Despite this information, most mainstream fitness publications and websites continue to promote the 3 sets of 10 reps philosophy like it was not only the best way but the ONLY way to train. The 3 sets of 10 approach also does not allow for customization of volume (reps and sets) and intensity (amount of weight lifted).

If you have ever started a new training program, you know that your body adapts very quickly to the training stimuli and eventually you will stop responding to doing the same workout over and over. In order to continually progress you should consider breaking out of the 3 sets of 10 mindset.

What Should We Be Doing Instead?

When lifting weights, the goal for most people is to get strong. You may also lift to improve cardiovascular health, reduce blood pressure, increase bone density, improve cognitive and mental health, live longer or even just look better naked. Regardless of your personal why, you should maximize the amount of time your muscles are under tension. Accomplishing this is not possible if you limit yourself to a specific number of reps. If you can easily do 20 or more consecutive reps of the weight you are lifting, why would you only do 10? If you load up a weight that you can only do 6 times, is it too heavy since you can't get to 10 reps? Studies show that, regardless of the weight, it is best to do as many reps as possible until you physically can’t anymore. You’re trying to make your muscle tired. You’re trying to feel something by the end of it. Lifting until you can’t do another will accomplish this. Slowing the amount of time you take to lift and lower the weight can also increase your time under tension.

You should not even have to count the number of reps you do. Simply choose a weight and do as many reps as you can perform of the exercise until you fail. You can even just do one set. That’s right, just one set to failure of any given exercise while maintaining proper form and technique. Not counting is going to be hard for me to do as I often even find myself counting the number sips I take from the water fountain at the gym or counting the steps as I leave. Counting has always been part of my lifting routine, but maybe it shouldn’t be.

A study from the Journal of Sport and Health Science published in November of 2022 found that that a lower volume, higher effort approach should be encouraged. You can read the entire study here, but below are some of the quotes from the conclusion:

If your goal is to gain muscle mass, drop sets is a great way to efficiently lift weights. A drop set is when you perform the exercise until failure, then lower the weight and continue with no rest in between. Or if you have a partner, you can do “negatives” or “eccentric” lifts, where you have assistance lifting the weight and then do reps lowing the weight slowly until failure.

I tried this single-set to failure approach for the first time this morning at the gym. I plan on using it for the next few months to see how my body reacts. I’m excited to not only see the results, but to be able to do more with the 40-50 minutes I have to lift in the mornings.

A study published at the end of 2020 found that those who completed afternoon workouts upped their metabolic health far more than those who performed the same exercise earlier in the day. The results are the latest in a line of results that show the time of day we exercise may change the benefits we get from that exercise.

It’s nothing new that what we do when in relation to circadian rhythm influences the quality our health. Studies in both animals and people indicate that every tissue in our bodies contains a kind of molecular clock that chimes, in part, in response to biological messages related to our daily exposure to light, food and sleep.

These circadian rhythms regulate our bodies’ temperatures, hormone levels, blood sugar, blood pressure, muscular strength and other biological systems throughout the day. Studies shown people whose sleep habits do not follow the patterns of light and dark tend to be at higher risk for metabolic problems such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The same is true for people who eat late at night, outside usual dinner hours.

In this new study, the researchers asked adult men at high risk for Type 2 diabetes, based on being overweight (BMI > 26 kg/m2), to ride stationary bikes at the lab three times a week for 12 weeks, while they tracked their metabolic health. Participants were asked to maintain their regular dietary behavior throughout the study.

All subjects performed twice a week aerobic exercise on a stationary bike for 30 min at 70% of a previously determined workload (Wmax), and once a week resistance exercise comprised of three series of 10 repetitions at 60% of the subject's previously determined maximal voluntary contraction (MVC). Resistance-type exercises targeted large muscle groups from the low and high limbs (leg extension, leg press, chess press, lat pull down, triceps and biceps curls, abdominal crunches, and horizontal row).

They then compared the men that had worked out between 8 and 10 a.m. with another group who always exercised between 3 and 6 p.m. They found that the benefits of afternoon workouts decisively trumped those of morning exercise.

After 12 weeks, the men who had pedaled in the afternoon displayed significantly better average insulin sensitivity than the morning exercisers, resulting in a greater ability to control blood sugar. They also had dropped somewhat more fat from around their middles than the morning riders, even though everyone’s exercise routines had been identical.

One of the researchers quoted says he believes moderate afternoon exercise may have an impact on the foods we consume later in the evening and “help to faster metabolize people’s last meals” before they go to sleep. This effect could leave our bodies in a fasted state overnight, which may better synchronize body clocks and metabolisms and fine-tune health.

The researchers concluded that the timing of an exercise training session is a crucial environmental cue when aiming to improve glucose stability and explains that performing afternoon exercise training might be more optimal than exercising at morning hours. Considering the practical limitations of the present study, future human interventions, especially larger prospective randomized controlled trials are required to confirm the present findings.

It is important to remember this study was based on sleeping at normal times and eating three meals a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner) at typical times. Pre-exercise meal ingestion was not controlled, and exercise training was performed 2–3 hours after either breakfast or lunch. There have been other studies that showed that fasted morning exercise can have many benefits to health. Clearly, future studies are needed to investigate if and how pre- and post-exercise food intake may affect the results of the timing of exercise on glucose stability.

Please don't interpret this as if you can't exercise in the afternoon, you shouldn't at all. Exercise ANY time of day has masive benefits, but if you are overweight and your goal is to control glucose, afternoons appear to be better.

A recent study found that the more runners distract themselves from what their bodies are doing, the more effortless their run may feel, and the better their performance. The new study was published on October 1^st of this year in the Journal of Motor Learning and Development. Researchers at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran, used the study to determine whether runners would perform more effectively if they were distracted, compared to if they tuned in to what was happening with their bodies.

After a baseline test of a treadmill, the subjects ran on four separate days, for six minutes at a time, running at about 70% of their top speed, while the scientists monitored their oxygen consumption, the amount of lactate in their bloodstreams and their feelings about the difficulty of each run.

Participants experienced a different experimental condition (i.e., four focus of attention conditions) during each of their 4 days of participation in the study. The four attention strategies were as follows:

    (a) An associative-external attention was prompted by repeatedly instructing the participant to “count your steps” while running.

    (b) To create an associative-internal focus of attention, the examiner repeated the phrase “Focus on the muscles in your feet” during the running action.

    (c) Participants viewed a video clip of a basketball game on a monitor placed at eye level while in the dissociative-external condition.

    (d) An dissociative-internal attention was prompted by asking each participant to perform mental calculations during the trial. This was done by providing each volunteer with a unique number and then instructing them to continuously subtract by three while running. The researcher asked the participant to verbally report the currently calculated number every 30 seconds.

A lot of us have been told by a coach or read an article telling you to focus on your running form, listen to your breathing, count your steps to track cadence, or think about the process of lifting your knee with each stride or kicking your heel back. But does doing any of this make us faster or make running seem easier?

To my surprise, the study found that that video watching easily bested body listening. The runners consumed the least oxygen and produced the least lactate when they viewed basketball and were the most distracted. Their running, physiologically, was least taxing then. They also told the researchers that when they watched the videos, they felt the least strained. Their running felt hardest, on the other hand, when they paid attention to their muscles, with the other strategies falling in between.

Jared Porter, a professor of human movement at the University of Tennessee, who oversaw the new study suggested that those of us that run should wear headphones and stream music or podcasts while running or watch television as you jog on a treadmill.

“We were surprised by how significant the effects were” when people’s minds drifted away from their bodies, he said.

In conclusion, according to the results of this study, recreational runners who wish to optimize their running in terms of movement economy should be encouraged to implement an external-dissociative focus of attention while running. So will I start running with headphones? Not likely. But what I will do is try and just be in the moment and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature as I’m out running. Maybe get real crazy and even try not running with a watch now and then!

You can find the full text of the study here: The Effects of an Associative, Dissociative, Internal, and External Focus of Attention on Running Economy

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The results of a new study that was published in August confirms what I’ve been telling people for years – exercise is a horrible way to try and lose weight!

Turns out those “calories burned” calculators on fitness apps or exercise equipment at the gym are not even close to being accurate. Think you just burned 500 calories with a 30 minute session on the elliptical? Turns out it was more like 300 or 350.

If you have tried to lose weight through a new exercise program, you know that most people lose less weight than would be expected based on the number of calories they think they are burning during their workouts, even if they strictly monitor their diets.

The researchers in this study wanted to see why that is, so they set out to see what happens to our metabolisms when we move. They pulled data for 1,754 adults (692 men and 1,062 women aged 18 to 96 years) that included their water consumption, measures of their body compositions and basal energy expenditure, which is how many calories they burn simply by being alive, even if they otherwise are inactive. Subtracting basal numbers from total energy expenditure gave the researchers an approximation of people’s energy expenditure from exercise and other movement, such as standing, walking and general fidgeting.

The study found that we tend to automatically compensate for at least a quarter of the calories we expend during exercise. They also found that this calorie compensation varies from person to person, based on how your unique metabolism responds to workouts.

What they found was that most people seemed to be burning only about 72 percent as many additional calories through movement, on average, as would be expected.

The results also show that carrying extra pounds unfortunately compounds calorie compensation, making weight loss through exercise even more elusive for those who are already overweight. They tended to compensate for 50 percent or more of the calories they burned by being active.

It appears that our bodies compensate by dialing back overall calorie burning the longer or more frequently we exercise or move…to avoid starvation. This is likely part of our ancestral make-up to keep us alive while burning calories to find food.

With this knowledge, in the future it might be possible to screen individuals to ascertain whether exercise would be a valuable fat loss intervention because they are “weak compensators” or a fruitless fat loss intervention because they are strong compensators. The researches also think that there may be other factors that play into your level of compensation, such as a compromised immune system or recovery from injury.

The few national guidelines that have been published converge on the recommendation of a 500–600 kcal/day deficit through exercising to instigate fat loss. These guidelines are general for the population and do not factor in the variation in energy compensation exhibited by people with different levels of fat mass, as demonstrated in the study. Public health strategies for fat loss should be revised to recognize energy compensation as our understanding progresses about which individuals compensate and by how much.

Don’t let this study discourage you from exercising. Even if your body compensates for 50 percent or more of the calories you burn during physical activity – this is still more than if you stayed on the couch! Not to mention that exercise can combat health conditions and diseases, improves mood, boosts energy and promote better sleep among other benefits. Bottom line is that you should not use exercise for weight loss. To drop pounds, you just must eat better…there’s no way around it.

You can read the full study here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982221011209

A new study came out last week in Science magazine. These researchers have precisely measured life’s metabolic highs and lows, from birth to old age, and the findings will surprise you.

The findings suggests that your metabolism (the rate at which you burn calories) actually peaks much earlier in life, and starts its inevitable decline later than we thought.

According to the abstract, the scientists analyzed the average calories burned by more than 6,600 people ranging from one week old to age 95 as they went about their daily lives in 29 countries worldwide.

Most previous studies on metabolism only accounted for the calories we burn for things that are critical to life (breathing, digesting, pumping blood).  Requirements of the heart, liver, kidney and brain account for 65% of the resting metabolic rate although they constitute only 5% of body weight. Previous studies did not take into account the energy we spend doing literally anything else. Even sitting burns calories.

Pooling and analyzing energy expenditures from data gathered over the last 40 years from multiple labs across the entire lifespan revealed some surprises. Some people think of their teens and 20s as the age when their calorie-burning potential hits its peak. But the researchers found that, pound for pound, infants had the highest metabolic rates of all.

Energy needs shoot up during the first 12 months of life, such that by their first birthday, a one-year-old burns calories 50% faster for their body size than an adult.

After this initial surge in infancy, the data show that metabolism slows by about 3% each year until we reach our 20s, when it levels off into a new normal. Despite the teen years being a time of growth spurts, the researchers didn’t see any uptick in daily calorie needs in adolescence after they took body size into account.

I remember being told that “once I turned 30, my metabolism slowed dramatically”.  Turns out that it’s not a changing metabolic rate that causes weight gain in our 30’s and 40’s. So why do most people put on the extra pounds at this stage in life? Aside from people just eating more calories than they are burning, other lifestyle changes including stress, a busier schedule and less exercise are also contributing factors.

Researchers discovered that energy expenditures during these middle decades – our 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s -- were the most stable. Even during pregnancy, a woman’s calorie needs were no more or less than expected given her added bulk as the baby grows.

The findings show that our metabolisms don’t really start to decline again until after age 60, and then at a rate of only 0.7% a year. But a person in their 90s needs 26% fewer calories each day than someone in midlife.

As might be expected, while the metabolic rate patterns hold for the population, individuals vary. Some have metabolic rates 25 percent below the average for their age and others have rates 25 percent higher than expected. But these outliers do not change the general pattern, said the researchers. So don’t assume they you are different. You likely are not

This research is going to reshape the science of human physiology and may even have doctors and pharmacists rethinking appropriate drug doses for children and older people.

You can find the details on the study here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34385400/

I started training for this race in the fall of 2019. I had signed up to run the full marathon in April of 2020. A global pandemic caused a slight change to those plans! I was in great shape in the months leading up to the race that was planned for April 25th. My workout times were faster and my heart rate was lower. I was poised to run a fast race. Then on March 25th, for the first time in it's 19 years (47 years for the half marathon), the race was cancelled. The half was rescheduled for August 2020, the full was not going to be run at all in 2020 - the only option would be virtual at some point later in the year - which I was not interested in doing.

So I stopped my training. All that fitness was wasted as there were no other races anywhere else to run either. While I continued to run a few times a week, they weren't focused runs and with no races on my calendar, my diet started to slack as well. 

Then in December came the announcement that you could defer your race registration to the 2021 race. Since I knew that I wanted to do the race live, and didn't want to lose my entry fee, I signed up for the April 2021 race. I was still not feeling motivated, but hoped that once I get back into my training, my mental state would improve!

I decided to kick off my training with a long run at the end of 2020. I wanted to see where things stood both physically and mentally. It wasn't pretty. I had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. I still wasn't excited about the race. So I decided a good way to ensure that I put in the work and was ready come race day was to challenge myself publicly. On January 2nd, I posted the following to social media:

It worked. Any time I didn't want to push that last run interval, or any time I wanted to eat that dessert, I thought of this post. I thought of that feeling I would have when I crossed the finish line with a new Personal Record (PR) and how good that would make me feel. That feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction far outweighs any temporary feeling of pleasure I get from eating a piece of cake or indulging in some Jet's pizza! When my body wanted to call it quits at 6 hill repeats when the training plan called for 8, I thought about crossing that finish line on April 24th and did those last two reps.

Even in a pandemic, not much has changed from a stand point of free time I have to train. Making time to train for a marathon is not easy with a full time (50+ hours a week) job, a wife, four kids, a dog (that I'm training), and countless responsibilities around the house. I knew that I had to follow the Balanced Approach plan that I developed while training for four Ironman triathlons.

At the beginning of January, I got the training plan out and got to work. I pulled just the running workouts out of the 36 week plan and counted back. I had 20 weeks until race day. Every workout was going to be important, there was no room for wasted days when the plan was cut 16 weeks short.

Each week consisted of three runs. Usually one with hill repeats, one with sprints and one that was either all aerobic or a progression run. When it was all said and done, I went back and looked at the 20 weeks of training. My average week consisted of just 18.75 miles and only 2 hours and 39 minutes of running! Compare this to most marathon training plans that require you to run 5-6 times a week with weekly mileage in the 45-50 mile range!! Seriously, who has time to run for 7 or 8 hours every week?!?!

If you are interested in learning more about the training plan I followed, you can find it here: The Balanced Approach to Marathon Training

The workouts and my fitness improved, and in the weeks leading up to the race, so did my confidence in my ability to get that PR. My previous best for a stand-alone marathon was 3:40:31. That was what I needed to beat. Even just one second faster would be enough!

The actual race was unlike any other that I had done. While still navigating a pandemic, the race organizers did the best they could to create a safe environment for everyone. That meant staggered start times and no (very, very few) spectators. It also meant a new course that was basically on walking/running paths instead of roads. The aid stations were a mix of water bottles and giant water coolers for runners to self-fill their own bottles. Runners would be required to carry their own nutrition. This was no problem for me, as I always have my own food anyway. For this race, I decided to try something new. In my search for real food that is both portable and easy to digest while running, I decided to try out baby food. That's right, I was going to fuel my 26.2 miles with the stuff that you feel to your one year old. I spent some time in the baby isle at the store reading ingredient labels and thinking about how easy it would be to carry 4 or 5 of these pouches. I grabbed a few different kinds to test on some runs. I ultimately landed on the Biodynamic brand made by White Leaf Provisions. I tucked four of them into my fuel belt and ate one at miles 5, 10, 15 and 20...and it worked great. Being fat adapted meant that the 160 total calories (40 calories per pouch) is all that I needed to get me through.  

Beating my goal time equated to a pace of 8:24 minutes per mile. I knew that I wanted a little to spare, so I set my sights on holding a pace of 8:20 or less. I knew not to go out too fast, so I was checking my pace every few minutes to make sure I wasn't getting much under 8:10's. I'm happy with my pacing and I honestly feel like holding a steady pace is a huge key to running a successful marathon. It wasn't until mile 22 that my pace started to fall off. As expected, those last 4 miles are brutal.

Good thing the course was pretty lonely, there were several times that I was talking to myself out-loud. Trying to keep my legs moving and willing myself to hold as close to my 8:20 pace as possible. My Garmin was telling me that I was 0.15 miles long the whole day. The mile markers on the course always came 0.15 to 0.17 miles after my watch beeped for the mile split. I think I ran the extra distance early in the race at the turn around at Eva Badman Park. There was no sign, cone, or even paint or arrows on the ground to indicate where to turn around and I'm sure I went too far. So my actual distance for this race turned out to be 26.37 miles! Not that I needed that extra 0.17!!

There's not much better than that feeling you get when you try to do math with a little over a mile to go and after assessing how you feel and how fast you need to run, you realize that you are going to meet your goal. I knew that despite the race course being long, I would still set a marathon PR! My official time was 3:38:49.

The finish line was very anticlimactic. No PA system. No one announcing your name as you sprint toward the line. No finish line shoot full of cheering spectators. No music playing.  - Just a small flag that says "Finish" and a timing strip on the ground. I cross the line, stopped my watch, and stumbled up to the rack of medals. No one was there to put it over my head like I just won gold in the Olympics. I took one off the rack and put it around my own neck. I looked around. There were only a few other race finishers standing around. Everyone looked a little lost. So I just started walking back to my car.

While inside I was busting with joy, I'm sure to anyone that saw me, they probably thought I was disappointed. It was weird. I worked so hard, made so many sacrifices to accomplish my goal and then there was no one there to celebrate it with. The good news is that 20 minutes later, I was in my living room surrounded by people that were proud of me and were more than happy to celebrate with me!

Putting races on the calendar and setting goals for them has always been a driving force behind training hard and keeping myself healthy through diet and lifestyle. With no races in 2020, it was hard to stay on track. Despite the persona I put out, I struggle to make good choices sometimes when it comes to food and doing things to improve my mental state. With several races on the calendar for 2021, I'm hoping that I can make this a year where I can get things back in alignment. A marathon PR is a good start!

​Depending on where you are, your life looks different than it did 8-10 weeks ago. Here in the United States, it was mid-March that things started to shut down and we were told to stay home. In order to prevent the COVID-19 virus from spreading too quickly and overwhelming our hospitals, we shut down all non-essential businesses. This ​meant not only no access to gyms and pools, but also most people working from home.

So what impact did all of this have on exercise? Did people give up completely on their routine since there was no access to treadmills, ellipticals, weights, spin class or the pool? Would people find something else to do since they could not go to Pure Barre, Orangetheory or their local CrossFit Box?

While it's impossible to gather all of the data to determine how exercise habits changed over the last two and a half months, Garmin compiled data from it's users and came up with some pretty interesting results. For those of you not familiar with Garmin, they ​produce activity trackers and sports watches, aimed at activities such as running, watersports, golf, cycling and swimming with sensors such as heart rate and GPS. Most users upload their workouts to the Garmin website or app, giving the company access to the activity of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.

​Here are some of the more interesting statistics from the Garmin report:

Total steps worldwide decreased 12% in the month of April - but some countries saw a sharper drop-off than others. This is likely due to how strict the lockdowns were. ​While some countries stay at home orders meant that it was hard to leave the house for any reason, others allowed people more freedom to get out. The map below shows how people's step counts differed from the same time period one year earlier. If you look back to data from March, step counts in the United States dropped almost 13% from March 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020.

​Another method of exercise that has seen an increase worldwide ​is indoor workouts with fitness equipment. In China, Mexico, South Africa and a handful of other countries, fitness equipment workouts increased more than any other activity. ​People were able to shift from gym-structured workouts to home-based workouts. Good luck trying to buy a Kettle Bell or Dumbell Set right now! People also ​turned to bodyweight only workouts and found that they could be just as effective. 

Offering further reassurance on the dual physical and emotional health front is the positive trend for yoga. Garmin wearable device data showed an 11% increase in yoga in March.

Along with Swimming, Multisport (triathlon) training,​ hiking and golf also ranked as the activities with the largest decreases in multiple countries. But according to Garmin, athletes that focused on these sports have been finding alternatives. In South Africa, for example, 20% of the users who were golfing in April 2019 turned to indoor fitness workouts in April 2020, while another 11% began indoor cycling.

After analyzing the activity trend data for two months, ​Garmin is using the phrase “fitness is finding a way”.  ​I am encouraged, but not surprised that hard-core athletes have not stopped training, but are just adapting and finding other ways to exercise. My hope is that the casual exerciser or even those that did not exercise before have started a new routine and will continue to walk, ride, run or even do yoga after things open back up! ​

If you have lifted weights or spent much time working out, you have likely heard that you need to 'keep the body guessing' by regularly switching up your workout routine. For those just starting out, it’s much easier to follow the same plan day in day out. However, doing the same workouts for too long will bring your training progress and gains to a slow crawl.

The biggest problem of not altering your routine is simply boredom. There are certainly people out there that would do the same thing every day for years if they thought it would help them accomplish their goals. There is a certain segment of the population (Type A Personalities), that will do whatever necessary to succeed…even at the cost of being bored. But the truth is, you will at some point plateau and no longer adapt to your training. Not to mention the risk of injury from overuse. Nagging injuries could be a sign you’ve reached a threshold pattern called pattern overload—an injury to the soft tissues resulting from repetitive motion in one pattern of movement.

Your training should be physically challenging and mentally stimulating. If you are constantly progressing, it's highly likely that you will remain motivated to keep training hard and progressing. But if your body starts feeling sluggish, fatigued, or it's taking you longer than usual to recover in between workouts, a change of pace might be what you need.

Even slightly altering your routine every so often will lead to the best results. Just switching your grip position is enough to create a different stimulus. For instance, a different stance in your squats, or changing from front squats to back squats. Doing narrow grip versus wide grip bench press is an easy way to switch things up as well. And it doesn’t need to be just new exercises, either. Trying a new sport or even a new kind of workout class—say spin or bootcamp if you never venture out of the weight room and treadmill.

The next obvious question is, how often should you switch up the routine? A good general rule is every 4-6 weeks for most people.

As with most things, you can overdo it. You do have to be careful not to bounce from program to program too regularly, as your body is not going to know what to adapt to and you will never get the results you want because you are not sticking to anything long enough to see measurable progress.

All that being said, you can keep a few key exercises or lifts as part of your routine even if you change up other parts of it. Complex lifts such as deadlifts, pull-ups, squats, bench presses and rows are worthy enough to always have a place in your program. Mobility exercises are also a key part of staying injury free.

Happy training!