The Slightly Chubby Brigade

As the news will tell you at every single available opportunity, we are living through an obesity crisis. Across the western world (USA being the worst and Britain coming in second) our average national BMI is increasing and the number of obese and overweight people, and children especially, looks to be soaring across the board. Only the other day I saw a statistic that said nearly a third of children are now leaving primary school (ie one third of eleven year-olds) overweight, and such solemn numbers frequently make headlines.

This is a huge issue, encompassing several different issues and topics that I will attempt to consider over my next few posts (yeah, ‘nother multi-parter coming up), but for many of us it seems hideously exaggerated. I mean yes, we’ve all seen the kind of super-flabby people, the kind the news footage always cuts to when we hear some obesity health scare, the kind who are wider than they are tall and need a mobility scooter just to get around most of the time. We look at these pictures and we tut, and we might consider our own shape- but we’re basically fine, aren’t we. Sure, there’s a bit of a belly showing, but that’s normal- a good energy store and piece of insulation, in fact, and we would like to have a life beyond the weight-obsessed calorie counters that hardcore slimmers all seem to be. We don’t need to worry, do we?

Well, according to the numbers, actually we do. The average height of a Briton… actually, if you’re stumbling across this at home and you consider yourself normal, go and weigh yourself and, if you can, measure your height as well. Write those numbers down, and now continue reading. The average height of a Briton at the moment is 1.75m, or around 5’9″ in old money, and we might consider a normal weight for that height to be around 80 kilos, or 170 pounds. That might seem normal enough; a bit of a paunch, but able to get around and walk, and certainly no one would call you fat. Except perhaps your doctor, because according to the BMI chart I’ve got pulled up a 5 foot 9, 80 kilo human is deemed clinically overweight. Not by much, but you’d still weigh more than is healthy- in fact, one stat I heard a while ago puts the average Briton at this BMI. Try it with your measurements; BMI charts are freely available over the web.

This, to me, is one of the real underlying causes of ‘the obesity epidemic’- a fundamental misunderstanding of what ‘overweight’ consists of. Whenever our hideously awful everyone-dead-from-McDonalds-overdose etc. etc. diet is brought up on the news, it is always annotated by pictures of hanging bellies and bouncing flab, the kind of bodies that make one almost physically sick to look at. But, whilst these people certainly exist, there are not enough of them for the obesity issue to be even worth mentioning in everyday society; whilst the proportion of morbidly obese people is significant, it’s not seriously worth thought for most of us.

No, the real cause for all the chilling statistics we hear on the news is all the people who don’t look to be overweight. The kind whose diet isn’t appalling (no 24/7 McDonaldses), who are quite capable of exercise when it suits them, and who might take a rough glance at the dietary information of the stuff they buy in the supermarket. But these people are nonetheless hovering on the overweight borderline, pulling up the national average, despite the fact that they don’t consider anything to be wrong; in fact, some women who are according to the evil numbers overweight, may consider it almost dutiful to not become obsessed over shedding every pound and to maintain their curves. Having a bit of excess weight is, after all, still better than being underweight and anorexic, and the body image pressures some young women are coming under are just as much of an issue as national obesity. Even for those who don’t have such opinions, many of the slightly overweight feel that they don’t have any weight issues and that there’s surely no significant health risk associated with a ‘bit of meat on your bones’ (it’s actually muscle, rather than fat, that technically forms meat, but ho hum); as such, they have absolutely no motivation to get their weight down, as they don’t think they need to.

I won’t waste much of my time on all the reasons for this statement, but unfortunately even this slight degree of overweight-ness will significantly increase your risk of major health problems somewhere down the line, particularly that of heart disease (which is going through the roof at the moment); diabetes isn’t likely to be a risk for the overweight unless they’re really overdoing things, but that’s also a potential, and very serious, health hazard. The trouble is that many of us find it hard to make this connection if we basically feel healthy. Despite what the doctor says and no matter how much we trust them, if we are capable of going for a nice walk and generally getting about without getting out of breath or feeling bad then we probably feel justified in thinking of ourselves as healthy. Our heart doesn’t seem about to give out, so why worry about it.

The thing to remember is that the heart is just a muscle, so if it isn’t stressed it will degrade just like any other. You know those triceps that haven’t done a press up in five years? Feel how small and weak they are? Yeah, that kind of thing can quite easily happen to the muscles that are responsible for keeping you alive. Your heart might be pumping all day long and be a different type of muscle, so the process will be slower, but give it twenty years and you might start to see the effects.

But anyway, I’m not here to lecture you about your health; that’s far too depressing and dull for my liking- the only point I was trying to make is that many of the accidental contributors to ‘the obesity epidemic’ are probably unaware that their health is in any way a problem, and not really through fault of their own. So whose fault is it then? Well, that one can wait until next time…

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The back, the tits and the showy bits

OK, time for part 3 of my current series on working out without the need for a gym. For all my general hints and tips, check out my last post- today I’m going to be listing techniques and exercises for working the muscle groups of the upper body, starting with…

PECTORALS (PECS) & TRICEPS
Where: The chest- or ‘boobs’ as one guy I work out with sometimes insists on referring to them. The chest is the muscle group most associated with posturing and aesthetic effect, and as such is one of the most worked by gym goers. Whilst most people tend to have a rather underdeveloped chest, it is a very useful group once they are built as they are able to take the work off other parts of the arm and shoulder. Triceps are found on the back of the upper arm, and are used purely to straighten the arm (pivoting mostly around the elbow).
Exercise: The chest is used as a way of levering the arms around the shoulder joint, pulling them from out to in and straightening them. Thus, most chest exercises are based around the straightening of the arm, and are often adapted forms of exercises designed to work the triceps. One of the best, if done properly, are press-ups (or push-ups).
Press-ups are much-maligned as an exercise, usually because they are done improperly. However, because they can vary so much in difficulty depending on your technique, they can get harder and harder as you get stronger and stronger so that you keep on progressing. Everyone knows the basic motion of press-ups; you lie face down on the ground, arms by your sides, and lift yourself upwards by extending your arms whilst keeping your body straight (this is especially important). This then gets repeated several times, your chest ideally going down to a height of about the width of a fist off the ground (if it’s really too hard for you to begin with then you can go down less far, but you should really try not to).  However, the variability comes from your arm position. The easiest position to do, and what you should start with if you find press-ups difficult, is with your hands as wide by your sides as is comfortable- this is quite an easy, short range of motion that uses all your muscles, so is nice and easy. Once you feel comfortable with those (if you can do 20 of them in a single set without a break, that’s usually a good indicator that it’s time to move on), start trying them with your hands getting steadily further inwards, until they are directly below your shoulders. To work your chest from this position, move your hands down a little so that they are around your rib area, and do press-ups with your arms bending outwards- after a set you should feel your pectorals pulling at your sternum (breastbone). To work the triceps more, bend and extend your arms so they stay parallel to the direction of your body (warning- this is very difficult the first time you try it). If this ever gets too easy (which is kinda unlikely), then try putting your hands in a triangle directly below your chest, or even trying them one-handed (which is easier with your legs spread wide for stability). If they ever get too easy for working your chest, then try  moving your hands lower or loading a backpack up with weight. There are some even more athletic alternatives, but I could talk about this forever. 45 second rests over 3 sets of whatever you can do should be all that’s needed.

BICEPS & BACK
Where: Biceps are at the front of the upper arms, the opposite side of the bones to the triceps. They are used for bending the arm about the elbow, and for flexing in front of mirrors and the easily-impressed. The part of the back I am interested is the upper part, between the shoulders and covering the trapezius (below the neck), latissimus dorsi (across the back below the shoulder blades, and the underarms, pulling the arm in to rotate around the shoulder) and a myriad of others that I can’t name or identify.
Exercise: I stick by my principle and say that you won’t need any gym equipment for this- however, you will need a backpack and a tree. Said tree does not have to be huge, but has to have a limb going horizontally with some space beneath it that you can reach, hang from and get off from without too much difficulty (this is a really good excuse for finding any good climbing trees around where you live), because here we’re going to be talking about pull-ups. (It doesn’t have to be a tree, but they’re probably the most accessible, free solution) For all of this, 3 sets of whatever you can manage (but keep it regular), separated by minute rests, will do.
The majority of the population probably lack the strength to complete a single pull-up, and to be honest I don’t blame you- until 2 years ago I couldn’t either. So your backpack will once again come in useful- load it up with weight and do some bicep curls with it to start off with. Holding the bag in both hands (or do one hand each if that’s too easy and your bag won’t take more), let your arms hang by your sides and, ensuring that you do not lean back, twist your body or move your elbows (they should be around the hip area), raise the bag up, rotating around the elbow, up to your chest (or until your elbows form a 90 degree angle if you can’t do that too easily). Do 2 sets to destruction (as man as you can), separated by a minute’s rest. After a few weeks (or whatever) of that, you should feel some improvement in your arm strength, so it’s time to move on to pull-ups. To start with, stick to chin-ups, as these will use your (by now quite strong) biceps mainly and work a few other muscles more gently to prepare them for some heavier exercises. Hang from your tree limb with your arms straight and hands in a ‘palms towards you’ grip, and pull yourself up so that your chin clears the limb. Then, lower yourself down a little, at least until your forehead is below the limb, and then raise once more. Some people like to leave their legs straight, others tuck them behind them crossed together, but don’t whatever you do use them to swing yourself up. As you get more proficient, extend the length of your pulls- start by going down so that your elbows form a 90 degree angle, and eventually progress to ‘full arm’ (extending your arms back to straight before pulling up). As a general rule with pull-ups of all sorts, if you can do 12 with relative ease in one way then it’s time to vamp up the difficulty. If you can do full-arm chin-ups, then start mixing them up with narrow pronated pull-ups; these are exactly the same as chin-ups except with your hands in a pronated grip (palms facing away from you). This works your biceps less and your back, especially your trapezius, more. Another thing- if you’re finding that the last inch or so of the pull-up is really tough, then it probably means that your lats are weak (which is not unusual). To work those specifically, try to touch your chest to the tree limb when doing your exercise- you can also try leaning backwards, endeavouring to keep your back straight, in a dead hang position (just hanging with straight arms).
If you are able to do around 8 of both narrow pronated and chin-ups (full-arm) without a break, then firstly well-done; if you’re doing your technique right and are not a dwarf stick insect then you should have built an impressive set of biceps by now. However, to work your upper back more (an underappreciated, useful and rather impressive muscle group), then it’s time to move on to wider pull-ups. These will require a slightly thicker tree limb that is able to support a wider grip without wobbling. If you can find one, then hang with your arms slightly wider than shoulder’s width apart and pull up with the same motion. If your back is weak (which it probably will be- everyone’s is) then these should be harder, but persevere and you should see definite improvements. Sternum pull-ups are slightly harder variations of these in which you lean back a little as you lift yourself and try to bring the top of your sternum (leaning back), close to the tree limb- if you really want to challenge yourself, on the way down try to push yourself out away from the limb a little and feel the burn as you descend slowly and controlledly!
Finally, for more work on the back itself (especially the V-shape of the shoulder blades), try wide-grip pull-ups which (you guessed it) are the same but with a wider grip. And, if you really want to give your biceps a killing, try the odd one-arm pull-up to mix things up a bit- if you can do one of those with a set of horizontal shoulders, every gym-goer on the planet will salute you.

OK… ah. 1500 words. Sorry about that- there was a lot to get through. Ah well, no matter, I’ll just have to do another one! Monday’s post will feature a bit on forearm work, and a full-body exercise that even a seasoned gym-goer probably won’t have heard of, as well as a little more general advice. See you then.