Hereโs your free but abridged version of this weekโs โRun Long, Run Healthyโ newsletter. Subscribe below to receive the complete, full-text edition with the newest and most authoritative scientific articles on training, nutrition, shoes, injury prevention, and motivation.
The Most Important Exercise Rule: Aim For Good, Not Perfect
Hereโs one of the best and most important exercise/fitness/health maxims: “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”
We all sometimes feel guilty, and we should let this heavy weight off our shoulders and out of our lives.
A new strength training study reminded me of this anti-perfection aphorism and sent me searching for similar sentiments.
It turns out that those lifestyle-loving Italians probably invented this principle. They have a proverb that goes like this: “Il meglio รจ l’inimico del bene,” which translates to “The best is the enemy of the good.” Voltaire popularized the saying in the English-speaking world.
But Confucius and Shakespeare both took good whacks at it. Confucius: โBetter a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.โ
Shakespeare: “Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.โ The bard really had a way with words and wisdom, didnโt he?
Back to that strength-training study. Researchers followed 55 healthy, untrained adults (almost half female) for 30 weeks. They were randomized into two groups. One group did strength training for ten weeks, stopped for ten weeks, then did another ten weeks of training.
Thatโs what any of us might do if confronted by a big job assignment, travel, or a family emergency. We could call this the imperfect or merely good group.
The second group did nothing for ten weeks but then was perfect in their strength training for 20 consecutive weeks.
The big question: Who was stronger at the end of 30 weeks?
Answer: There was no difference. Subjects in both groups scored equally on strength, jump, and muscle fiber exams.
The researchers noted that the 10/10/10 group lost strength when they stopped training for ten weeks but then โregained rapidly during retraining.โ
Conclusion: โOur results, therefore, suggest that trainees should not be too concerned about occasional short-term training breaks in their daily lives when it comes to lifelong strength training.โ More at โScandinavian J of Medicine & Science in Sportsโ with free full text.
Restated: Every time you exercise, youโre doing something good for yourself. You donโt have to follow a perfect training or nutrition plan. You just have to do whatever you can whenever you can.
This has been proven previously with studies of โweekend warriors.โ The term is often used negatively. But, in fact, โresearch has shownโ that weekend warriors gain substantial health and longevity benefits from their bursts of activity on Saturday and Sunday.
RELATED ARTICLE: โGood News, Weekend Warriors: Studies Show No Downside To Cramming Your Workouts Into Just Two Days
How Mood Affects Food, And Vice Versa
Many of us have pretty good diets already. But I donโt know anyone who wouldnโt like to improve a bit more. Me? Iโd like to do something about my โsweet tooth,โ a lifelong affliction.
A popular nutrition and fitness app, My Fitness Pal, recently commissioned a โWhite Paperโ looking into food-mood connections, and how they can be changed. Itโs a great topic, even though this is clearly a commercial entity trying to boost its business.
The paper notes the generally poor U.S. diet, especially the low fruit/vegetable consumption and the high added-sugar intake (double what the American Heart Association recommends). These have obvious health impacts like weight gain and low consumption of healthier options. However, this connection isnโt universal.
Some people, aiming to do better, restrict their diet so severely that they โmay experience feelings of tension, anger, and fatigue.โ They swing from one extreme to the other, missing a healthy middle ground.
This โWhite Paperโ suggests nine mood boosting foods with two from the fermented foods group: kefir and kimchi. It also advises that, when youโre feeling tense and upset, youโre more likely to reach for less healthy, less nutrient-dense foods.
Finally, it provides strategies that can help us nourish our health more holistically. I particularly like โSit with your urges.โ You can learn to acknowledge temptations without acting on them with bad food choices.
Also, โThink flexibly.โ Challenge your all-or-nothing thinking to support sustainable food choices. More from โMy Fitness Pal.โ
RELATED ARTICLE: โThe Runnerโs Diet: What You Need To Know About Nutrition For Runnersโ
What Makes Super Shoes So Super?
A few weeks before this yearโs New York City Marathon, but just in time for Ruth Chepngetichโs astonishing 2:09:56 marathon world record in Chicago last Sunday, the New York Times took a thorough look back on five years of super shoe development.
The article used the provocative term โshoe dopingโ in its title but disappointingly didnโt discuss the 2016 Olympic results when Nike runners quite clearly had a shoe-doping advantage over their competitors.
Otherwise, itโs a great piece based on deep interviews with a handful of top-running biomechanists. Their main points:
1) The shoes clearly work; just look at how fast everyone is running, from the Olympians to the increasing numbers of runners hitting the Boston Marathon qualifying times.
2) The plate is important, but it must be a curved plate.
3) The new super foams provide more energy return than old EVA foams.
4) The plate and the foam work in concert to improve performance.
5) The โteeter-totterโ effect is unproven.
6) Individual variation in โresponsivenessโ to different shoes is real and can be dramatic, which explains why thereโs no one best super shoe for every runner.
The article concludes by noting that itโs impossible โto predict exactly where marathon runners will be in five years.โ Or where shoe innovations will be. Thereโs only one certainty: โThe times, from new heroes, will be faster.โ More at โNY Times.โ
RELATED ARTICLE: โThe Shoes That Won The 2024 Chicago Marathonโ
SHORT STUFF You Donโt Want To MissSHORT STUFF You Donโt Want To Miss
HEREโS WHAT ELSE YOU WOULD HAVE RECEIVED this week if you were a subscriber to the complete, full-text edition of โRun Long, Run Healthy.โ โSUBSCRIBE HERE.โ
- Why Ruth Chepngetichโs 2:09:56 deserves close scrutiny
- Long intervals vs short intervals–And the winner is ???
- Why itโs time to give orthotics another look
- Here it comes again: The excruciating โBigโs Backyard Ultra.โ
- Some brain supplements might actually work, and here they are
- Extraordinary results come from ordinary training days
Thatโs all for now. Thanks for reading. See you again next week. Amby