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    Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise
    Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise
    Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise

    Written by Gina Kolata

    Narrated by Gina Kolata

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The bestselling science reporter from The New York Times tells us what works and what doesn't when we work out

    Ultimate Fitness is Gina Kolata's compelling journey into the world of American physical fitness over the past thirty years. It is a funny, eye-opening, brow-sweating investigation into fads, fiction, and the science and hucksterism of fitness training.

    From the early days of jogging, championed by Jim Fixx--who later died of a heart attack--to stretching, cycling, aerobics, and Spinning, Kolata questions such popular notions as the "fat burning zone," "spot reducing," the effects of food on performance, how much exercise helps build fitness, and the difference between exercise to help the heart and exercise to change the body. She explains the science of physical fitness and the objective evidence behind commonly accepted prescriptions. Along the way she profiles researchers and mavericks who have challenged conventional wisdom, marketed their inventions, and sometimes bucked criticism only to back down from their original claims.

    Ultimate Fitness spotlights the machines and machinations of the fitness industry, exposes the charlatans and gurus, and cuts through the marketing and hype not only to assess what is healthy, but also to understand what our obsession with staying healthy says about American culture today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateMay 1, 2003
    ISBN9781593971618
    Author

    Gina Kolata

    Gina Kolata is a science reporter for The New York Times and the author of Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It, Clone: The Road to Dolly, and Sex in America. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

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    Reviews for Ultimate Fitness

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      Very informative and insightful. This book gave me a whole new perspective on exercise.
    • 4/5
      Written in 2003 by the science reporter of the New York Times, this is a great survey of the subject. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of fitnes, from the state of the science to the state of the industry. The chapters that bring in the author's personal story are well done. She describes her focus on spinning and trainers in that area.

      The things that I want to remember from this book is that A) to be fit does not take much activity - only about 20 minutes a day of light movement. B) To change my looks or my performance will take intensity. I want to focus my intensity on both my strength training and dance. C) It is often a surprise to people that they enjoy intense physical effort and it may take some time to find the activities that one person may enjoy. As Gretchen Rubin points out "What makes you happy may not make me happy. What makes me happy may not make you happy." It took me many years to find how much dancing makes me feel happy.
    • 4/5
      Fat burning zone, target heart rate, spot reducing, runner’s high, and supplements--these are just a handful of the topics New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata tackles in her book Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth About Exercise and Health. Using her analytical research skills, Kolata sets the record straight about some of the most common exercise myths and searches for the truth about how to get fit and healthy. This book also covers the history and evolution of fitness and body-building. Whether you are a fitness guru or novice, Ultimate Fitness will have you reevaluating your notions of fitness.
    • 3/5
      lots of interesting facts and discussions.
    • 4/5
      In Ultimate Fitness, Gina Lolata examines the various "truthes" about exercise by taking the reading on a journey through exercise in modern times, as well as intermingling her own avid love of spinning, the exercise bike experience on steroids. Kolata looks at theories of training regimes, the myth (?) of the maximum heart rate, body building, and even the concept of the "runner's high." Like her later book, Rethinking Thin, Kolata ultimately rejects the "one size fits all" notion of exercise: the idea that every body, trained the same way, will react in the same way. I agree with others who have complained that the book drags a bit in the middle, which concentrates on her preparation for a super-spinning event called Mount Everest. It feels less like a researched expose of fitness and more like an extended magazine article, but it's still an entertaining read of you speed through the spinning.
    • 4/5
      Kolata surveys the science that underlies many fitness myths (e.g., the 'max heart rate formula' that hangs on the wall in so many gymns).
    • 4/5
      In this book Gina Kolata takes an honest look at popular thinking about health and exercise. Some of the questions that are examined: How much exercise is required to obtain health benefits? Is there really a heart rate zone beneficial for burning fat? Is there a runner's high and what might possibly cause it?. In answering these questions, she looks for and presents respected research. Or if respected research is lacking, she presents that as well. At times this book is sobering as it excises many cherished exercise myths. Gina also takes us into the training regimes of world class athletes, and reveals what the fitness business is like. The backdrop from which this story is told, is Gina's personal relationship with exercise. The only negative I'll say about this book, is occasionally, in order to support a point, the book gets bogged down in reiteration. After reading this book I'll certainly look upon health claims, and exercise modalities, with a more critical eye.
    • 4/5
      I found this to be a surprisingly compelling book. I thought the first-person bit would put me off, but instead it just kept leading me on, since I found it very easy to make the connection between her own activities and the reporting she was doing. Learned a lot about fitness, most surprisingly how little science is behind many of the beliefs that are often repeated by fitness "experts".
    • 3/5
      An odd book. Some interesting sequences, espcially the chapters on the runners' high and the history of weight training. The author's own obsession with working out is a mixed blessing at best, though, and it makes for an authorial voice that will put off anyone who's not into fitness.