The Fitness Files
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday March 25, 2000
Run, climb, go to the gym, work out, pump iron, don't eat - whew, had enough? Colin Clews looks at sites to make you feel better.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
www.aihw.gov.au
If you need a reason to start an exercise program, why not check out a few Australian health statistics. As well as detailed reports on issues such as asthma, cardiovascular health and nutrition, the institute also offers "Health bytes" - snapshots of Australian health. For example, there's detailed but depressing information on the leading causes of death for men and women. Read it, then ring the gym immediately.
Drug Arm
www.drugarm.org.au/general/statistics.htm
A few more facts and figures to help boost your willpower. In this case it's specifically about our use of drugs and alcohol - and it's not a healthy picture. According to Drug Arm approximately one-fifth of all deaths are drug-related (more than 26,300 a year). Alcohol is a factor in 30 per cent of road accidents and nearly 17,000 Australians are receiving treatment for drug and alcohol problems.
Wellness Web
www.wellweb.com
When you've read enough about health problems here's the place to start finding a few solutions. This portal offers information and links covering a broad range of health and fitness issues. Sections include conventional and alternative/complementary medicine, medical research and nutrition, and fitness. There's also a very big interactive component with chat rooms, forums and a communications centre where you can post questions and comments.
Fitness Portal
www.fitness-portal.com
Looking for more information on exercising? Try this portal for size. Links are organised under a number of headings, including sports medicine, nutrition/supplements, aerobics/exercise and (even more) fitness portals. If you're getting bored with your present exercise program maybe you'd like to take up jazzercise. Or try the Turnstep link that shows you "6,676 step exercise patterns from 63 countries". That's an awful lot of ways to step on and off a block of wood.
Rob Wood's Home of Fitness Testing
http://fitness.testing.8m.com
Discover where you stand in the fitness stakes. Want to know about your endurance, strength and power, body composition, agility or flexibility? If it's measurable then this guy's got the tool to do it. There's also information on selecting the right test, how to conduct testing and how to interpret the results. And if you're considering a career move you can find out if you meet the fitness requirements for the US police, fire service or armed forces.
Global Fit
www.globalfit.net
An admittedly sparse list of gyms around Australia, but it's a place to start. Listings are broken down by State then suburb. In most cases, there's also a link to the Web site of each individual gym. With all that information it just gets harder to find excuses not to go.
Personal Trainers
www.personaltraining.com.au
If you can't get to the gym, why not have a personal trainer come to you. And here's just the place to find one. As well as a suburb-by-suburb Australian guide there are also extensive overseas listings covering everywhere from the UK to Korea and Pakistan. The site also serves as an education resource for trainers so there are articles on issues as diverse as injury rehabilitation and working with pregnant clients.
Travel Fit
www.travelfit.com.au
Just when you think you can avoid your local gym and personal trainer by hitting the road, someone comes up with a scheme for travellers, too. Travel Fit has developed a network of gyms around the world and offers discounted admission to backpackers. The site is pretty basic but is due for a major re-vamp next month.
Pat Farmer Newsroom
www.patfarmer.com/newsroom/news12.html
Of course, there is another way to hit the road and keep fit without visiting gyms. How about running around Australia? It's not that difficult. Well, at least it didn't seem to be for Pat Farmer. He did the trip last year to help promote the centenary of Federation. He covered more than 15,000km (and still finished early). Get an idea of what the trip was like by reading some of his Postcards from the Road and viewing the QuickTime movies. You can even "listen to Pat running".
Part Animal, Part Machine
www.partanimal.com
If long-distance runners or walkers don't impress you then take a look at this guy. Warren Macdonald had both his legs crushed in a climbing accident in April 1997. They were subsequently amputated just below the knees. Not one to be discouraged, he then climbed Tasmania's Cradle Mountain in January 1998 and is planning an assault on Africa's highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro. His noisy but dynamic site offers video of the man in action as well as details of his future plans and activities.
Women's Weightlifting: Links and Lessons
http://krista.tico.com/weights.html
While bodybuilding guys worry about being called girlie man, bodybuilding women, apparently, worry about becoming manly girls. But weight training doesn't make women "huge and masculine", says Krista Tico, the author of this women's weight-training resource. Tico dispels the myths, outlines the benefits and provides lots of practical advice. Topics include getting started and staying motivated.
Anabolic Steroids
www.steroidsinfo.com
One of the greyer areas of bodybuilding, anabolic steroids can produce very impressive results and some pretty scary side effects. These include high levels of aggression and physical changes such as infertility, prostate cancer and "raisin nuts" in men. This is an excellent source of information for anyone considering steroid use or anyone suffering from the effects.
Eating meat - a new form of doping
http://news/bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sport/newsid_31000/31632.stm
The story of David Martinez, a Spanish discus thrower who was banned for two years after testing positive for steroids. Martinez has pleaded innocent, claiming that the steroids must have come from eating contaminated pork. To prove his theory he has been injecting a pet pig with daily doses of steroids and plans to conduct scientific tests on the animal. Get some pork off your fork?
Sydney Athletics
www.pnc.com.au/~stevebn/cgi-bin/2000.shtml
No consideration of health and fitness would be complete without something about the Sydney Olympics. In fact, it would probably be downright unpatriotic. So here's something for those athletes hoping for Olympic selection. There's an Olympic athletics timetable, maps of Olympic venues, useful contacts and information on training facilities. Training ideas are also provided with everything from sprint and middle-distance training to "trunk conditioning". BYO elephant?
Centre for Education and Information on Drugs and Alcohol
www.ceida.net.au
CEIDA is funded by the NSW Health Department and provides advice and information on a wide range of drugs from steroids to heroin, amphetamines and tobacco. Information is also packaged to meet the needs of particular groups. For example, there's a section for parents on how to talk to kids about drugs and what to do if they suspect their child is using drugs. Lots of useful downloads here.
About Australia - NSW Sport
www.aboutaustralia.com/nsw/nswsport.htm
This attempt at listing all NSW sports organisations is a good idea but it would benefit from a little more work. Contacts and Web site details are provided for a range of sports from athletics to volleyball but some activities are conspicuous by their absence (bushwalking and fencing to name but two).
The Running Doctor
http://runningdr.com/locator.html
Despite the name, runners aren't the only ones who would benefit from the Running Doctor's advice. The information is relevant to a broad range of athletes and other sports people. In fact, many of the sports psychology articles are useful as more general motivational reading. Other areas covered include back and leg troubles, what to do if you're injured, and strategies to improve performance.
Adiposity 101
www.rdrop.com/users/caf/adipos.html
"No study has ever shown dieting to extend the life of fat people, but more than 20 have reported ill-effects from dietary weight cycling." According to the author, nearly half of all Americans are overweight, but weight- loss programs are going in the wrong direction. He suggests "dieting is a major cause of obesity" and looks at other possible causes including an obesity virus and an excess number of fat cells.
Study Web. Medicine: Obesity
www.studyweb.com/links/3783.html
Examines a broad range of issues related to obesity and weight loss. Topics include obesity discrimination, obesity and blood pressure and a personal account of stomach stapling. There's also a chat room offering discussions with doctors and people who have had surgery.
Love It Off
www.geocities.com/~ninalee/tarweigh.htm
This is "a weight loss support group for those who wish to use metaphysical and New Age tools to help with weight loss". Learn about tarot for weight loss, chakra scrubbing and astrology and weight loss. If you join you get two rings - the support ring and the official love it off cybernet chocolate resister decoder ring. Just make sure you don't lose them - because they're invisible.
Muscling in
Schwarzenegger.com
www.schwarzenegger.com
A Schwarzenegger site by Arnie's biggest fan - himself! Find out how truly wonderful this "actor, athlete, activist" really is. Buy some souvenirs. Learn about his interesting life as a body builder. Buy some more souvenirs. And for we mere mortals there's some special tips. "Take a look at some of the features below - you may never be called a Girly Man again." Yawn.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald