Health Tech

A recent New York Times called ‘The Slowest Generation’ slams the younger generation for abandoning competition and running races ‘for the bling’. The article – and the ‘Dumbing Down, Slowing Down’ article that inspired it – contend that competitiveness is dulled in the aftermath of a generation raised on ‘everyone gets a medal’, and finishing is now its own reward. The articles point to an increase in average finish times for races, the increased popularity of non-timed ‘gimmick’ races such as color and mud runs, and the move to stop funding elite runners at races by Competitor Group. They say that…

Many kids across the country are already in class, with other states opening within the next week. It’s back to school time, and that means getting organized for a new year. This sense of a fresh start can apply to everything, so as we get our kids equipped and organized, it is worth revisiting our health and fitness goals. At the end of last year, I talked about using the ‘SMART’ system to evaluate your resolutions. I emphasized the importance of setting goals that would make you accountable for tracking and milestones, and that were specific enough to be measurable. One…

Each year since 1995, Running USA has documented the ‘state of running’ in terms of road races. They have looked at the total number of finishers of official races, as well as how those numbers are distributed by race, age, and gender. For every one of the last 20 years except 2003, there have been new records set in every aspect of road races as covered by Running USA. They released the numbers for 2012 last week, and as that was my first year of participating in road races I was intrigued to see the numbers. Here are a few…

This is going to sound a bit cynical and perhaps it is: American culture has become obsessed with the possibility of actions without consequence followed by a ‘quick fix’ to undo whatever mess we’ve made. I have a picture of my mother at a bicentennial celebration in 1976 and she was rail-thin, thinner than I had ever seen her. She had problems for years losing weight after my younger sister was born, so her doctor gave her diet pills to help. In the mid-70s ‘diet pills’ were basically speed. She lost weight way too fast because the speed diet pills…

Many of us grew up with some specific ideas about soda, coffee and caffeine in general: mainly that caffeine is a diuretic; it will therefore flush fluids from your system (make you urinate) and dehydrate you. Therefore, any of those types of drinks are bad choices for athletes at any point around a workout. But like so many other things we learned growing up, there is much about that ‘common knowledge’ that is incorrect and misleading. Let’s take a look at a few reasons why perhaps your next workout drink should have caffeine!