A lot has changed since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay executed the first successful climb to the top of Everest in 1953. Some of the biggest changes have occurred in mountaineers’ understanding of proper nutrition and the products available to help fuel their journey to the top. We scoured historical records and firsthand accounts from as far back as late 1800s to trace the most important advancements that have helped to make previously unreachable summits just a little more accessible.

1892: The Primus Stove

Near the end of the 19th century, Swedish inventor Frans W. Lindqvist created the world’s first sootless, compressed air–powered kerosene stove. He dubbed it the Primus, and it forever altered the diets of mountaineers and explorers.

Prior to the Primus, portable kerosene stoves emitted heaps of ash and smoke as they burned—not ideal seasonings for a base camp meal—because they combined fuel straight from the tank with flame. But the Primus vaporized the kerosene before ignition, eliminating the soot and smoke and allowing for a much cleaner, much faster form of cooking.

The new stove was an instant hit and was used on expeditions to places like the North Pole and Everest. The Primus made achieving a quick, hot meal a manageable task, expedited the process of boiling water to use for cleaning and drinking, and cut hours from the daily task list of mountaineers, so they could cover more ground in less time.

1953: Vitamin Tablets

When Hillary and Norgay climbed Everest in 1953, they brought along British mountaineer and physiologist Lewis Griffith Cresswell Evans Pugh, who was there to counsel the expedition on nutrition and create a scientifically backed fueling regimen to meet the demands of alpine exploration. A large part of Pugh’s nutrition plan involved a specific to the body’s needs at high altitude.

“A further question that needs to be raised is that of vitamin requirements,” Pugh wrote. “[Vitamins] might be inadequate in a party subsisting for three months on packed rations.” Pugh determined that if you eat more or less the same thing for three months—the approach to expedition fueling at the time—you’re bound to have some nutritional deficiencies. That, in conjunction with the toll that vigorous exertion in high-altitude conditions takes on your body, meant that mountaineers were putting themselves at serious risk. In response, Pugh issued his fellow mountaineers daily vitamins. The tablets contained vitamins A, B, C, and D, as well as thiamine, riboflavin, nicotinamide, and folic acid—all crucial for proper physiological functioning.

The need for climbers to pack multivitamins quickly became an imperative, not a recommendation. Pugh’s vitamin discovery helped generations of future climbers stay strong and sharp despite eating the same foods repeatedly throughout months-long trips. While today that means more fortified foods and fewer supplements, the vast majority of mountaineer’s favorite vitamins or vitamin-fortified products are derived from Pugh’s formula.

1965: Powdered Sports Drinks

Not long after physiologists like Pugh began making mountaineers aware of potential vitamin and nutritional gaps, sports drinks like Gatorade and Gookinaid (now Vitalyte) quickly followed suit. Although initially developed for other sports—football, in the case of Gatorade—these drink mixes developed a mixture of water, sodium, and electrolytes like potassium to hydrate more effectively. At high altitudes especially, the body has to use more energy than it would at sea level to power the same movements. As a result, dehydration and fatigue come on more quickly and intensely. These drinks pair sugar with electrolytes to replenish glycogen stores, counter vitamin loss, and delay the onset of extreme exhaustion.

Like the Primus stove, powdered sports drinks didn’t introduce something totally new to the equation—existing forms of supplementation like sugar cubes and vitamin tabs would have worked—they just made it easier. The powder was supremely packable and added relatively little weight compared to how many servings it delivered, and it could be consumed on the go, reducing the number of required stops on any given day.

1969: Freeze-Dried Food

Freeze-drying was originally invented before 1969 for military rations during the Vietnam War effort. Rumor has it they tasted like a “.” That changed when Oregon Freeze Dry saw the consumer potential for freeze-dried meals that actually tasted good and launched the Tea Kettle line of outdoor enthusiast–inspired rations.

These meals were designed to be highly portable—perfect for mountaineers who valued packing large amounts of lightweight calories. It also meant that you could actually eat meals that felt gourmet as opposed to the cardboard-like options mountaineers had grown used to on their trips in the name of carrying as little as possible. Add 16 ounces of hot water, wait ten minutes, and you had beef stroganoff in the middle of nowhere.

Freeze-dried meals quickly became all the rage. They freed up space in the pack for other important items (as well as for gear and technology that would be developed later), allowed you to eat a well-rounded meal at day’s end without carrying all the heavy ingredients separately to avoid more nutritional pitfalls, and facilitated lighter and faster trips.

1986: The Energy Bar

Mountaineers were no strangers to getting their fuel from a wrapper. References to consuming chocolate bars date back more than a century as an easy way to get fast-acting energy in the form of quickly digested sugars. But anything portable and just slightly more nutritious—like the Pillsbury Company’s —was said to taste overly manufactured and fake.

Faced with the same conundrum of how to refuel during competition or long training runs without having to stop, marathon runner Brian Maxwell and his girlfriend launched PowerBar in 1986—a single bar made of a combination of oat bran, milk protein, and sugar, fortified with vitamins, amino acids, and minerals.

It was almost immediately appropriated by the mountaineer crowd. The oat bran burned slower than straight sugar from something like a chocolate bar and provided lasting energy over a longer day. The fortification process added vital nutrients that plain old sugar lacked, and the taste was good enough to actually enjoy putting it down.

Or so thought everyone except . In 1990, the cyclist decided the current energy bar offerings tasted like crap, so he raided his mom’s kitchen and developed a bar of his own: the Clif Bar, with comparable nutritionals but flavors that resemble dessert and a texture more reminiscent of real food. Today, you’re far more likely to encounter a Clif option (especially the nut butter–filled varieties) than you are a PowerBar.

2017 and Beyond

Today, there are lighter and more powerful stoves (like the now commonplace ) and some that even allow mountaineers to create electricity (like the ). But the real modern-day innovation has come in portable foods, which have also gone high tech. Newer bars look to provide key macronutrients and an energy boost from new and unlikely sources. And many companies now consider sustainability in both production and packaging. Take the Chapul Cricket Bar: The that cricket protein delivers 71 grams of protein per 100 gallons of water, as compared to 6 grams of beef protein per 100 gallons. The exemplifies the all-in-one mentality of mountaineering nutrition: A single bar has 20 grams of plant protein and 55 milligrams of caffeine, so you only need one to jump-start the system before a day’s trek.

What’s next? It’s anyone’s guess, but if Meat Chips are any indicator, the lines between food groups and nutrient sources should continue to blur. At 21 grams of chicken protein per 2.6-ounce bag, the snacking revelation proves that the arms race for the best on-mountain grub is only getting more fierce.

The post The Evolution of How Mountaineers Fuel appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

If you’re a runner, cyclist, or other endurance athlete who can’t imagine downing another gel, I feel you. Most of us enjoy a love-hate relationship with classic sports nutrition products. Although there are a handful of flavors worth trying to stomach, you can’t escape the sticky texture, subsequent dry mouth, and possible GI upset.

As the push for whole food–based alternatives has gained traction in the endurance community, athletes have gotten creative with what they’re willing to try. Take , which launched a few years back as purees of real-food ingredients mixed in the right nutritional ratios to function as performance fuel. If a product that resembles baby food in texture and appearance could make it on the market, I wondered if the real stuff could work as well. I set out to test it by fueling with a high-end, organic baby food called .

What Is Yumi?

Like Blue Apron for babies, Yumi is a food delivery startup created by new mom Angela Sutherland and former Wall Street Journal reporter Evelyn Rusli. The purees and blends are low in sugar and high in several foods that babies wouldn’t otherwise get until their palates develop, says Nicole Avena, a nutritional adviser and neuroscientist with the at Columbia University. Each flavor features fancy (and highly nutritious) ingredients like sweet potato, bell pepper, apples, leafy greens, quinoa, berries, coconut milk, chia seeds, dates, and spirulina. Not too unlike staples of the classic diet of an athlete, right?

Nutritional Head-to-Head

Before testing Yumi in action, I wanted to compare its nutrition content to the Clif Organic Energy Food products, similar in texture and makeup but specifically calibrated for endurance fueling. Although the exact nutrition figures vary slightly depending on the flavor, they are generally the same across brands. Clif and Yumi include whole-food ingredients and have similar calorie counts, but the real difference in their ability to fuel performance lies in a handful of nutrition categories: sodium, potassium, fiber, and fat.

Sodium: Only one of the four Yumi blends I tried had more than 30 milligrams of sodium, while Clif blends such as Pizza Margherita have sodium contents as high as 600 milligrams. Salt is critical during long, hard efforts, as it helps prevent dehydration and stave off cramping, says dietitian

Potassium: At 570 milligrams, Yumi’s potassium count nearly doubles the Clif figure. That’s huge for helping to restore electrolyte balance during a tough effort.

Fiber: You want to avoid fiber in the middle of a race because it can prevent absorption and complicate the digestive process. “Certain things are just useless and would get in the way. Fiber would be one of those things,” says nutritionist . Unfortunately for Yumi, it has a moderate amount of fiber, clocking in at more than double than the Clif offerings.

Fat: Fitzgerald says that too much fat in purpose-built endurance fuel can cause GI distress. While both contain small amounts, Yumi has less, which gives it a mark in the win column.

The Road Test

I packed the Yumi Kale N’ Pear blend for an afternoon 50-mile ride.

That morning, I ate a breakfast of toast and a couple oranges to get my glycogen stores going for the day, but I skipped lunch and got on the bike around 2 p.m. to simulate the feeling of needing muscle glycogen to sustain a quality effort.

I opened the container at mile 15 and fearlessly slurped down the baby food.

At first taste, I was impressed by its lack of bitterness, especially given how much kale constitutes the mix. The quinoa added a heartiness that made me feel like I was eating real food, rather than a sugar-based energy gel.

I then waited to see if an energy boost kicked in. I got after it on the hills, shooting for a slightly below-threshold effort to simulate a long race pace. At first, I was burping up pears and kale—like a baby, the feeling of which was not lost on me—but the blend settled in my gut after about 20 minutes.

When I suck down an energy gel, it typically takes no more than 15 minutes for me to feel the impact—a physical energy boost closely followed by a mental pick-me-up. If I deploy it properly, that means the back half of my ride feels as good, and sometimes even better, than the front. Yumi didn’t give me that same lift. I waited about 30 minutes before admitting that the backside of my ride was going to feel less than great as a result. By the final and 50th mile, I was dragging and definitely would have felt stronger using conventional fueling methods. But the flip side was that I didn’t have any of the gastrointestinal distress the dietitians warned me about.

The verdict? Although the Yumi baby food blend tasted better than expected and kept my stomach happy, it’s not a specifically designed endurance fuel, and the difference was noticeable at the end of the ride. Still, finding the right fueling scheme is an individual process. If you’re looking for whole-food options or something that’s easier on your stomach, Yumi’s worth checking out to determine if you’ll have better luck than I did.

The post Can Baby Food Replace My Sports Gels? appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Runner Allie Ostrander is a chameleon. The 20-year-old Boise State University standout is a cross-country tactician in the fall, an aggressive steeplechaser during track season, and a sure-footed trail runner in summer. This July, she won Alaska’s infamous Mount Marathon race, a roughly 3.1-mile trail run where competitors scramble up about 3,000 feet before hurtling back down. She notched the second-fastest women’s time ever—and did it just one month after winning the NCAA title in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Ostrander also finished eighth last year in the 5,000 meters at the Olympic Trials.

We asked her how she manages to perform at her peak year-round in a sport plagued by burnout. She sticks to these ten tips.

1. Blaze your own trails. “Comparing myself to others is pretty detrimental to my own training, and it’s never really done me much good.ĚýI try to stay off FloTrack, LetsRun, all those websites.”
2. Snack well. “I always have a really big snack before bed. It’s almost like a fourth meal, around 9 or 9:30 p.m. Otherwise I’ll wake up hungry in the middle of the night. I don’t usually eat much before I go run in the morning, so that snack carries me over.”
3. Get creative with your training. “I’ve moved some of my mileage to the underwater treadmill—between 18 and 19 miles per week.”
4. Ramp up gradually. “Before I start any training block, I build up really slowly and make sure that my body can handle it. Mainly for injury prevention, but it’s also mental: I want to know that when I do eventually jump into a workout, it’ll build my confidence instead of tearing me down.”
5. Maintain perspective. “A lot of athletes, myself included, judge their selfworth based on how well they’re performing. It’s hard to remember that you’re still a valuable person whether you’re competing or not. Your sport isn’t who you are, it’s just a part of what you do.”
6. Rest and recharge. “I am a sleep fiend. I have a really incredible capacity to sleep. I have slept 15 hours consecutively, and I’m generally in bed by 10:30.”
7. Take recovery seriously. “On my easy days, I slow down and really let myself recover. That’s usually somewhere around a 7-to-7.5- minute-mile pace. If I want to have consistent training, I need to hold myself back from doing too much.”
8. Get the right nutrients. “My coaches require my team and me to get our blood tested and to supplement accordingly. So I take liquid iron every day, usually right after I run. Your body typically absorbs liquid iron more easily than a pill, so it’s fast-acting.”
9. Cross-train. “Twice a week I train in the gym. I do light weights, focusing on hips, hamstrings, quads, and calves. I’m trying to make sure that all my stabilizer muscles are strong.”
10. Appreciate the moment. “It’s important for me to think back to all the times when I was injured and would’ve given anything to be able to run. It helps me appreciate the times when I can consistently perform and enjoy the whole process.”

The post How Runner Allie Ostrander Fights Burnout appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Fat has a complicated past. It went from being viewed as the fast track to weight gain to a surefire way for endurance athletes to teach their body to burn slower for longer. We looked at some of the most common misconceptions ideas behind the macronutrient—one of three nutritional components (fat, protein, and carbohydrates) required by humans to function—and stacked them up against the latest peer-reviewed literature and advice from the experts. Here’s what we found.

MYTH: Cut fat from your diet to lose weight during training.

REALITY: For starters, you probably shouldn’t be trying to lose weight during training. If you have a few pounds to lose, do it ahead of time so you can fuel your body with enough calories to function and perform during intense training blocks.

Even when weight loss isn’t on the mind, “many athletes incorrectly believe that a low-fat diet is good for them,” says Bill Campbell, an exercise physiologist at the . That assumption is misguided. Not having enough fat in your body suppresses normal testosterone production in males, which can have negative implications for performance, he says. The U.S. Olympic Committee’s , created specifically for athletes looking to lean out, recommends adding, not removing, fatty foods like nuts, seeds, and avocados to keep you satisfied for longer and to give your body fuel it can actually burn.

In your hardest periods of work, you shouldn’t skimp on the fats; rather, you should load up on them to power your efforts. “In a very heavy training phase, the required fat intake might be double the amount of the rest and recovery phase,” says Trent Stellingwerff, director of performance solutions at .Ěý

THE MYTH: High-fat diets help endurance athletes go harder for longer periods of time.

THE REALITY: Ketogenic diets are having a moment. Adherents swear by a life of foods like sardines, macadamia nuts, and fatty fish, saying the diet key to their endurance performance. But their views aren’t without controversy. Many scientists in the field take a more cautious stance. Louise Mary Burke, head of nutrition at the , has focused much of her research on how high-fat diets affect endurance athletes and recently of the trend’s popularity and legitimacy, suggesting the scientific and endurance community claimed to have found the secret to high-mileage invincibility all too soon.

Part of the trouble in assuming high-fat diets work for everyone, researchers say, is in the difference between effort intensity across different types of sports, such as a marathon versus an ultra-distance race. With successful fat loading, athletes can store enough fat-derived energy—and still be lean—to power them through 50- and 100-mile races easily, says Stellingwerff. But it’s important to have at least some carbs to fuel a shorter race at a higher intensity or even to pick up the pace during the last ten miles of an ultra or tackle an exceptionally difficult stretch of the course. For a marathon distance or shorter, or any other endeavor where you’re more likely to be , it’s important to incorporate quickly digested, easy-access carbs like the classic gel mid-race or even a responsible carbo load a few days before the race.

THE MYTH: Medium-chain triglycerides (MCT), best known for their presence in coconut oil, break down like carbohydrates, so you can eat them as an easy-to-digest energy source prior to exercise rather than traditional carbs.

THE REALITY: “On paper, it would seem as though MCTs ingested prior to endurance exercise would be beneficial for performance,” says Campbell. All fat molecules are composed of long strands of fatty acids, some longer than others. MCTs are composed of fewer of these fatty acids, so their chains are shorter, allowing the body to break down the molecules much faster and absorb them as energy.

“However, nearly all of the research that exists on MCTs suggests that it does not improve endurance performance,” says Campbell. Recent found that cyclists who used MCTs had worse sprint performance and reported gastrointestinal upset during intense exercise. In short: Keep it simple and stick to carbs before your workouts.

THE MYTH: A daily pill of L-carnitine, an amino acid derivative, keeps the fat away.

THE REALITY: Sold as miracle fat burners, L-carnitine supplements have been hailed by some as the best way to fast-track fat loss and get lean. But research on the pills paints a less compelling picture. Your body makes this compound on its own to move fatty acids to the mitochondria—the part of the cell responsible for energy production—where they’re metabolized. “The evidence of L-carnitine increasing fat oxidation and weight loss is tenuous at best,” says Stellingwerff.

Pro cycling teams have been known to use L-carnitine on a rigorous supplementation schedule of twice-daily intake with high-carb meals for up to six months, but their diet is dialed in such a way that the supplement helps to make them leaner, says Stellingwerff. In other words, they eat so little fat that there’s hardly anything left to burn, and the supplement burns through what little remains. If you’re following a standard healthy diet, however, the pills won’t make a difference.

THE MYTH: All fats fall into the same macronutrient bucket, so I can eat any type—handfuls of almonds or slabs of ribeye—as long as I hit the right ratio of fat-to-protein-to-carb by day’s end.

THE REALITY: A recent and exhaustive looked at more than 130,000 people in 18 countries and determined that those who had greater fat intake were more likely to live longer. But the perennial debate about which type of fat to eat rages on. Stellingwerff recommends that athletes avoid , like fried foods, desserts, and even crackers, and shoot for monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which come in plenty of vegetarian- and vegan-friendly sources like olive oil and avocados. “I recommend athletes ingest one-third of their fat from like olive oil and nut butter, one-third from polyunsaturated sources like walnuts and fatty fish, and one-third from saturated fats like dairy products and red meat,” says Campbell.

The post The 5 Biggest Fat Myths appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

In May, the released that revealed a harsh revelation about us typical grocery shoppers: We’re pretty much clueless. Whether it’s about what’s healthy, what’s safe, or what’s better for the planet, our decisions are largely guided by complicated nutrition advice and a savvy food marketing industry rather than recommendations grounded in science. All this confusion means we’re spending way too much money on things we think are good for us but in reality offer negligible benefits.

We looked at the results of the IFIC survey to see which nutrition labels are influencing our perceptions—and to offer advice for not falling prey to them.

LOW-FAT

The Perception: Something that’s lower fat has fewer calories, so you can eat your favorite foods—like yogurt or cheese—with less risk of weight gain.

The Reality: Low-fat doesn’t necessarily mean fewer calories. In fact, you’ll likely end up simply because you think you’re making the smarter choice and because fat leaves you feeling fuller longer, so it takes less of it to satisfy your hunger. Any calories that you are in fact saving are likely just added back in as sugar, which helps to salvage the taste and mouthfeel of whatever’s left once you remove the fat.

The Verdict: If you’re about to buy something because it’s labeled as low-fat, read the nutrition facts and ingredient list to determine what’s making it palatable.

ALL-NATURAL

The Perception: Foods with this label are better for you and the environment. It’s basically like eating organic without the hefty price tag.

The Reality: All-natural labels try to capture the crowd who aren’t quite willing to make the jump to pay for organic but still want to feel like they’re putting something good into their bodies. But all-natural is not the same as organic. The Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulate organic foods and have strict guidelines on what qualifies as such. All-natural foods, however, remain unregulated, so there’s no guarantee that the product actually has fewer modified ingredients or cleaner production practices than a conventional option.

The Verdict: Either buy organic—preferably locally sourced—or save your money and buy foods made with healthy, whole ingredients and without any fancy labeling.

VITAMIN-FORTIFIED

The Perception: Vitamin-fortified foods are healthy because they provide essential vitamins without the need for a supplement.

The Reality: Many brands add vitamins to foods that are inherently unhealthy—cookies, candies, chips, and other snacks foods—and call them nutritious. This vitamin craze has affected purchasing behavior: A showed that when presented with two snack options—one healthier, whole-food-based option and one vitamin-fortified option—consumers were more likely to buy the latter, without scrutinizing the ingredient list. This is a problem because those added vitamins don’t make up for the empty calories, sugar, and unhealthy fats acting as their vessel.

The Verdict: Get your vitamins in foods that should have them, like fruits and vegetables.

GMOs

The Perception: They’re not good for you. So you shop at natural-food stores and always buy the foods labeled as “non-GMO” at regular supermarkets.

The Reality: The GMO battle rages on, with farmers, industry giants, and agricultural biotech firms all making their case either for or against GMOs. But the science remains murky: There’s no to the body and the environment. Some people argue that foods that are genetically modified in any way often last longer, have higher levels of antioxidants or vitamins, and might even taste a bit better. that consumers who don’t know much about the GMO debate will actually pay an upcharge for products that boast these qualities. It’s only when they’re introduced to the controversy—typically through some sort of marketing or PR campaign—that they balk at buying foods with modified ingredients.

The Verdict: We’re all still pretty confused. Try to pay less attention to any sweeping generalizations in either camp. Instead, focus on looking at a food holistically for its health benefits rather than fixating on one item from the label.

ORGANIC

The Perception: Organic foods are healthier, safer, and better for the environment.

The Reality: The USDA to products that “rely on natural substances and physical, mechanical, or biologically based farming methods to the fullest extent possible.” For produce, that means the soil has to be pesticide-free for three years; meats must be antibiotic- and hormone-free and raised in conditions that emulate their natural environments; and 70 percent of the ingredients in processed, packaged goods must adhere to these parameters. Organic foods enjoy tremendous popularity among the health-conscious crowd with more disposable income to spend on their food. values the industry at $5.5 billion, with sales up 72 percent since 2008. Consumers believe that just being labeled as organic implies a slew of health and environmental benefits—most of which can’t actually be guaranteed. Even when by then Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, he made it clear that “the organic label is a marketing tool, not a statement about food safety or a value judgment about nutrition or quality.” The label remains marred in conflict over how it may alienate smaller farmers who practice many organic methods but , how it does or doesn’t adapt to , and how it suggests these foods are healthier and safer than conventional alternatives to support such claims.

The Verdict: This isn’t to say that there’s no value in buying organic. But you shouldn’t make it your go-to based on assumptions that it’s unequivocally better for you, safer, and more eco-friendly. If you want to go organic, stick with local farmer’s markets and community gardens to support your local economy and small-scale farmers and to cut down on transportation pollution.

The post 5 Food Label Myths, Debunked appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

When a planned rest day turns into a rest week or a nagging injury keeps you out of the game for longer than anticipated, you expect a little guilt over dropping your exercise habit. But we consulted the experts to break down what happens when workouts grind to a halt and what they have to say may surprise you. It's okay to take time off, but there are physiological changes that you should be aware of. The good news: while some gains do vanish overnight, most are reversible or don't take much effort to maintain.Ěý

Blood Pressure Rises

In the short term, your blood pressure will change within a day depending on whether you work out or not. “With blood pressure, things happen very quickly, and they also cease very quickly,” says Linda Pescatello, a blood-pressure researcher at the University of Connecticut. , meaning your arteries temporarily widen to facilitate greater circulation. They tend to stay slightly larger for about 24 hours, but if you don’t get your heart rate up within a day, your blood pressure returns to baseline.

Quick response time aside, these acute effects don’t change the structure of the arteries themselves. It’s actually training adaptations (in addition to diet and genetics) that allow you to lower your blood pressure substantially after three months of consistent exercise or, alternatively, begin to narrow your arteries when you don’t work out for a long time.

Although daily movement is important to health, it takes around three months for your arteries to feel the impact of your dropped gym habit. It’s not until that point that they’ll begin to stiffen and narrow, so a few days’ rest won’t hurt you. But be warned: if you nix exercise for such an extended period, to get your arteries back to their best shape once you do return.

A little goes a long way. “The more you do, the better off your blood pressure is,” says Pescatello. “If you only got in exercise for half of a week, you’re still going to see some benefit… when it comes to blood pressure.”

Skeletal Muscle Starts Resisting Insulin

When we exercise, our muscles process insulin and absorb the resulting glucose as energy. Reduce that energy expenditure and your muscles will adapt physiologically to become a little less insulin sensitive, says John Thyfault, a researcher at the University of Kansas.

Losing insulin sensitivity means your body converts sugar into fat rather than using it as energy to power your movements. And while that adaptation helped our hunter-gatherer ancestors survive a feast-or-famine lifestyle, it’s bad news for the modern desk jockey, because improper regulation of insulin can prompt your cells to store some of what’s not used in muscle movement as fat. This change puts you at greater risk for the foundation of other conditions, such as Type 2 diabetes and inflammation.

Thankfully, your body can adapt pretty quickly to increased insulin sensitivity with just a little bit of exercise and healthier eating. High-volume and high-intensity exercise can be equally effective at making your body more sensitive. Just a 30-minute walk or a ten-minute HIIT regimen a few times a week will suffice for keeping your body eagerly processing insulin.

Muscles Shrink

You’re going to get small—and it’ll happen fast. The visible gains you made from a lifting routine will diminish within a week of quitting the weights. But smaller doesn’t mean weaker. “The thinking has changed recently,” says Jeremy Loenneke, exercise physiologist and assistant professor at University of Mississippi. “It suggests that muscle strength is probably not related to muscle size.”

Loenneke’s research, coupled with similar studies on muscle strength versus size, suggests that strength gains are actually dependent on neural responses in the brain or spinal cord. Weightlifting doesn’t just break down muscles and build them up bigger. It actually improves communication between the brain and the muscles being activated. That means your “strength” won’t be determined by the size of your biceps, but by the actual capacity of your brain and muscles to complete a certain task.

“If you have a weekend away on vacation, it’s probably not going to have a big impact on muscle size or strength,” says Loenneke. “Now, if you take off a month, you’ll lose muscle size, but strength is going to be relatively maintained.”

VO2 Max Drops

VO2 max—the maximum amount of oxygen you can get into your system—matters because it helps determine your cardio capacity and performance potential. Edward Coyle, a physiologist at the University of Texas, has dedicated his career to better understanding the role VO2 max plays in an athlete’s physiology and how quickly it begins to diminish.

unearthed hard numbers to create a timeline for VO2 drop-off. After 12 days, it dropped an average of 7 percent in test subjects, but then held steady until 21 days after the athletes’ last workout. By 56 days, VO2 max had dropped by around 14 percent, and finally hit a 16 percent decline after 84 days. But Coyle says 12 is the key number: “It turns out the decline follows a half-life of about 12 days. You decline half of the level from where you start during the first 12 days.”

However, even Coyle says VO2 max isn’t everything—you have to be able to put that oxygen to use, after all, and that means factoring in exercise economy (how efficient you are) and lactate threshold (how fast you can run or how hard you can push before your quads turn to stone). It’s also important to look at what was previously gained to determine where you’ll be after a lengthy break. According to Coyle, for every week you remain idle, it takes about three weeks to regain the lost adaptations. If you’re starting at an incredibly high level of fitness, this isn’t a huge deal, but if you’re just beginning to exercise, it may be harder (or more discouraging) to come back from a period of exercise abstinence.

Grumpiness Takes Over

A single hike, swim, run, or ride almost instantly makes you happier, thanks to a rush of feel-good endorphins. But turn that one afternoon outing into a long-term daily habit and you’ll see bigger mood boosts every time, according to a . Get out of the habit and your emotional drop will be much steeper, too.

Additionally, staying active may fight anxiety. Michael Otto, a psychologist and professor at Boston University, explains that exercise can mitigate anxiety by firing up your fight-or-flight response, the evolutionary trigger for adrenaline, sweat, and increased heart rate when faced with a challenge. When you stop exercising, your body forgets how to handle stress. Because you’ve allowed your natural fight-or-flight response to atrophy, you’re less likely to experience something tough—whether an interval workout or a stressful workplace relationship—in a positive way. Instead, you get anxious.

“Many people skip the workout at the very time it has the greatest payoff. That prevents you from noticing just how much better you feel when you exercise,” Otto said in an . “Failing to exercise when you feel bad is like explicitly not taking an aspirin when your head hurts. That’s the time you get the payoff.”

The post The Five Things That Happen to Your Body When You Quit Working Out appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Every month, . While some would argue that working out with music is sacrilege, many of us turn to our Spotify playlists for extra motivation to finish that last rep, power through the final pull-up, or send that ten-footer.

This got us thinking: what exactly are the most popular songs among the nation’s cyclists, CrossFitters, runners, and skiers? To find out, we asked the nice folks at to help us compile a list of the top 20 songs included in playlists with each of the aforementioned sports in the title—that is, the most popular songs in user-made playlists that have “running,” “cycling,” “CrossFit,” or “skiing” in the name. We looked at songs played in these playlists from just the month of February, which may be why the data favors newer releases (who knew so many athletes like Ed Sheeran?) and ranked each track in order of how many inclusions it had in the playlist category.

Cycling

https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3Aoutsideonline%3Aplaylist%3A36lZJ42Bw1bNEEIyZS50lw

The chamois club favors Top 40, it seems. There are more than 700,000 cycling playlists on Spotify, and Ed Sheeran’s “” is on 10 percent of them—presumably because its 96 beats per minute align well with a morning sweat session at SoulCycle.

Running

https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3Aoutsideonline%3Aplaylist%3A19vypVquA1mpdgrFgnf1y2

Pulling from more than 9 million user-generated playlists, the runner’s soundtrack is quite similar to the cyclist’s but with a few more hip-hop tracks to add a bit of bravado to those tough morning intervals. And you could make a heck of a adjusting your cadence from “” at 93 beats per minute to the 188 BPM “.”

CrossFit

https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3Aoutsideonline%3Aplaylist%3A5e8WB4mQiTDmh9OllvemRP

Between DJ Khaled and Slim Shady, it seems CrossFitters can’t decide whether they want to turn it up or get angry. With classic pump-up staples like Eminem’s “,” Fort Minor’s “,” and Metallica’s “,” it seems the 100,000-plus CrossFitters on Spotify found what worked for them and stuck to it.

Skiing

https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3Aoutsideonline%3Aplaylist%3A0CopYiHDULeBZtC8q5wf9a

We get it, skiers, you love AWOLNATION. Six of the band’s tracks made their way into the skier’s top 20 list, which is pulled from more than 600,000 playlists. Who doesn’t want to hear that “” while sailing off the side of a cliff? Unlikely pairings of Migos and the Naked and Famous, Big Sean and MGMT finish out the top ten—call that an all-mountain track list.

The post The Most Popular New Spotify Songs by Sport appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

In October 2011, months after a seventh-place finish at the IAAF World Championships, two-time U.S. 5K champion Lauren Fleshman was training for the New York Marathon when she felt a twinge of pain in her knee. Fleshman figured she could dial back her training for a few weeks and wait for the pain to subside. “I didn’t want to take any real time off, though,” she says. “I ended up racing the marathon on it and really screwed it up.”

Fleshman was feeling the familiar torment of IT band syndrome, a sharp outer-knee pain that afflicts everyone from once-a-year charity 5K runners to world-class marathoners. She spent the next ten months after New York nursing the ligament in preparation for running the 2012 Olympic Trials. “If the IT band hurts, you’ve got to take it seriously,” Fleshman says.

But not every runner has access to Olympic-caliber doctors. So we talked to Fleshman and other experts to give you the best advice we can about this common but totally preventable running injury.

What Is IT Band Syndrome?

The iliotibial band, as it’s formally called, is a fascia—or fibrous tissue that connects, stabilizes, and protects muscles and internal organs. It runs from the outside of the pelvis to the lower knee and inserts into the top of the shinbone.

This do-it-all band acts as a hip abductor (helping with movement away from the body), assists with hip adduction (movement toward the body), and stabilizes the knee while running. Unlike a muscle, the IT band is not particularly malleable—it’s more like a leather belt than a rubber band—and it’s packed with nerves, which explains the intense pain of lying sideways on a foam roller.

When the IT band becomes tight or inflamed, it creates friction as it rubs against the outer portion of your upper tibia, which causes pain on the outside of the knee. This is different than pain on the front of the knee, which could be patellofemoral pain syndrome, commonly know as runner’s knee, and is most commonly caused by overuse. “Think of the IT band as a violin string rubbing along the side of your knee,” says Dr. Jordan Metzl, sports medicine doctor and author of . “If that string is stretched too tightly, it starts to get irritated over time, and that’s when you get IT band syndrome.”

What Causes IT Band Pain?

While IT band syndrome is often classified as an overuse injury, a variety of individual elements can irritate the temperamental tissue, says Mike Maciejewski, an athletic trainer at the University of Michigan’s program. These can include leg-length discrepancies, excessive pronation, muscle weakness in the glutes and hips, hamstring weakness, and a host of other strength deficiencies. Runners training for a marathon are especially susceptible to the injury, Metzl says. This is most likely due to the combination of high mileage and unvaried pace.

That’s what happened to Fleshman, who hypothesizes that her IT band issues were a combination of running on slushy, uneven winter road conditions in Eugene, Oregon, and the repetitive cadence and increased mileage of ramping up marathon training. “For 5K training, you do tempos, faster intervals, speed work, and dynamic strengthening in the gym. You go through different knee and hip angles,” she says.

How Do I Know If I Have IT Band Pain?

Initially, runners may not feel pain until they’re miles into their workout. This factor differentiates IT band syndrome from another common knee injury—a lateral meniscus tear—which will hurt immediately.

“IT band syndrome tends to get gradually worse if you don’t fix what’s happening,” Metzl says. The pain will be specific to the outside of the knee and may induce sharp pain and a grinding sensation as the tissue fails to adequately insulate muscle from bone. The injured leg will likely feel tighter and more restricted than the opposite leg, and the pain will happen progressively earlier in the run as the IT band continues to tighten and inflame.

While the pain may go away with self-care and rest, that may not be enough—it can persist for weeks and even months. And you may notice symptoms outside of your workouts. Maciejewski says patients often report pain while lying in bed on the affected leg and while crossing their legs. Morning knee stiffness is common. Because the band is stretched most while the leg is bent, sitting may be equally painful and can actually exacerbate the injury.

If the pain doesn’t go away shortly after it arrives, it might be best to stay away from training. “It tends to get gradually worse if you don’t fix the reason why it’s happening,” Metzl says. “In the beginning, it may come on mile six or seven, then mile two, then you can’t run more than ten minutes.”

How Do I Cure IT Band Pain?

Training through an IT band injury can aggravate existing imbalances and cause additional injuries. Employ any number of these at-home remedies to fix your aggravated IT band, but if it still hurts after a few months, see a doctor, ideally, one who specializes in running injuries, like a sports medicine doctor, orthopedic surgeon, physical therapist, athletic trainer, or podiatrist. “The clinician needs to evaluate the entire kinetic chain in order to peel back the layers to the root of the problem,” Maciejewski says.

Foam Roller

Lay sideways on a foam roller and roll back and forth from the top of the knee to the bottom of the hip. Metzl recommends runners do this each day for two or three minutes on each side to break up the tight flesh—or for as long as you can tolerate the excruciating pain.

Deep Tissue Massage

Have a masseuse press their fingers deep into the IT band, stripping the tissue along the “gutters,” or linear indentations between tissues, and massaging the tight tissue. Maciejewski prefers this method of active release therapy because he believes it targets the specific problem areas and tends to be (slightly) less painful than foam rolling.

Lacrosse Ball Massage

If you’re unable to get a deep tissue massage, try this quick substitute: Lay sideways on your elbow like you’re doing a side plank, then cross your top leg over your bottom leg to partially support your weight. Place a lacrosse ball underneath your butt, just below the hip, and gently lower yourself onto the ball. When the muscles stop spasming—and they will—roll forward (toward your hip flexor) or backward (toward your gluteus medius) and repeat until the spasms cease.

Shorten Your Stride

When your stride is too long, you stretch the IT band beyond its healthy limit and risk injury. Metzl recommends runners maintain a cadence of 180 steps or more per minute.

Check Your Terrain

To decrease the load on your knees, run on soft and flat surfaces, like smooth dirt trails. If you must run on pavement, avoid hilly and uneven routes to lessen the pounding.

Foot Support

Excessive pronation can load the outside of the knee and strain the IT band. Switch out your shoes after 500 miles, and consider heading to a local running store or athletic trainer for a gait analysis. The pros can identify whether your current shoes are supportive enough.

Sit Less

If you hit the showers and go straight to an office job, you’re not doing your IT band any favors. Desk jockeying keeps the IT band stretched and sedentary, which may increase inflammation and pain. Fleshman swapped her chair for a standing desk to expedite the healing process.

R.I.C.E.

Use this popular treatment progression—an acronym for rest, ice, compression, and elevation—as a supplemental rehabilitation tool. Take time off running and apply an ice pack to the painful area, wrap tightly with an Ace bandage, and elevate for ten minutes. Do this two or three times each day for best results.

Take Time Off

Runners are habitually greedy about their daily endorphin rush and sense of achievement, but a few days or weeks of rest could pay massive dividends down the road. Fleshman took three weeks off after the New York Marathon to heal her disgruntled IT band but says that was “not even close to enough time.” She stayed fit with short walk/sprint intervals and swimming workouts and still made the 5K final at the 2012 Trials.

Stretch

A few key stretches can loosen up the tissue surrounding the less malleable IT band. Start with the : place your right foot behind you and to the left of your body while reaching over your head and to the right with your right hand. Chase it with the , the , and the to round out the routine.

How Do I Prevent IT Band Pain?

Strength deficiencies, especially in the glutes, are the common culprit of repeated IT band syndrome injuries. “The stronger your butt muscles are, the better your running life will be,” Metzl says.

Do these killer glute and core strengthening exercises three times a week to build a rock-solid kinetic chain and kick IT band syndrome for good.

Plyometric Jump Squats

Start with a regular body squat (back straight, weight over your heels), but explode upward into a jump and land with your knees bent, starting the next squat without hesitation. Metzl recommends four sets of 15 squats.

Single Leg Squats

Stand on one leg while holding the other leg in front of you at a 45-degree angle. Squat down as deeply as possible while still being able to come back up. If you can’t make a 90-degree angle with your plant leg, place a bench underneath you and tap it at the bottom of the squat to help you stand back up.

Glute Bridge

Lay on your back with your knees bent past 90 degrees and digging your heels into the ground. Thrust your hips upward until your torso and quads form a straight line and hold that position for two seconds while squeezing your glutes. Do two or three sets of 15.

Leg Raises

Lay on your side with your hips tucked under your stomach (as opposed to pushing your butt outward) and your legs straight. Squeeze your glutes while raising your top leg 15 times. Then cross your top leg over your bottom leg and raise your bottom leg 15 times. Finally, sit upright and raise each leg 15 times while squeezing your quad to lock out the knee. That’s one set; repeat two or three times.

Clamshells

Lay on your side as you would with leg raises, but tuck your legs into a 45-degree angle (with your knees bent 90 degrees). Squeeze your glutes and raise your top knee while touching your top foot to your bottom foot—it should look just like a clamshell. Do these 15 times on each side for two or three sets, and up the ante by slipping a rubber band around your knees to add resistance.

Planks

These are remarkably effective for maintaining upright running form and keeping a quiet core, which makes you more efficient and takes the pressure off your knee. Hold for one minute on the front and one minute on each side (hands or elbows). Start in front of a mirror to lock down perfect form.

The post How to Banish IT Band Pain for Good appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

You have no idea how tough [insert sport] is.

Whether we say it out loud or just repeat it to ourselves, many of us share this sentiment. As American novelist Mary McCarthy once said, “We are the hero of our own story.”

That said, some activities are legitimately harder than others, and in the realm of outdoor sports, a few are in a league of their own.ĚýTake rock climbing, for instance, which requires explosive upper-body strength, problem solving, and crux-time focus. Downhill mountain bikers regularly risk shattered bones, while open-water swimmers push themselves to the limit in unforgiving conditions. Nordic skiers force their bodies deep into oxygen debt, and ultrarunners—well, you get the idea.

But how can we quantify which one is actually the toughest? Here’s how: we chose five competitive sports that we feel are tough to learn, can be dangerous to perform, and require a high degree of skill and fitness.* We then looked at peer-reviewed research and compared calories burned per hour, the average number of injuries per 1,000 hours of an athlete’s activity, and fatality rates. Finally, we asked a panel of world-class athletes to weigh in on what makes their vocations so tough and to vote for the sport, besides their own, that they think is the hardest.

Before we make the call, let’s meet the contestants to answer the age-old debate: what is the hardest sport?

Rock Climbing

Calories burned per hour:Ěý818

Injury rate: 0.56 per 1,000 hours

Fatality rate: 145 per 1 million climbers

Experts: Steph Davis, Alex Honnold

How hard is it to learn?
“It’s pretty accessible because climbing gyms have become such a big thing,” says Steph Davis, the first woman to summit all seven peaks in the Fitz Roy Range in Patagonia and the second woman to free-climb El Capitan in one day. “You can just go to a gym and get taught how to start climbing.”

How do you train for it?
Most serious climbers spend time off the wall, tediously strengthening their upper body, core, and fingers. This type of training is in contrast to the sustained agony experienced by Nordic skiers and ultrarunners, but the explosive upper-body and grip-strength exercises, usually performed on a hangboard, are designed to hurt. A lot.

How often do you get injured?
Climbers regularly suffer rotator-cuff tears, tendonitis, trigger finger syndrome (where the finger locks in bent position), and a bouldering injury called subluxation, where a jarring hang causes the shoulder’s ball joint to detach from its socket. “I compression-thrashed two vertebrae in my back, and then I tore a ligament in my hand,” says Alex Honnold, the world-renowned big wall free-soloist and El Capitan speed-record holder. “I guess in 20 years it’s not too shocking to have a little bit of stuff happen.”

Why do you do it?
“The exposure, the position, being that little speck on the wall,” Honnold says.

Ultrarunning

Injury rate: 7.2 per 1,000 hours

Fatality rate: 2.5 per 1 million ultrarunners

Expert: Scott Jurek

How hard is it to learn?
Despite the fact that many of the toughest ultramarathons take more than 24 hours to complete, the physical act of running is easy to master. The hardest elements of ultrarunning—the things that separate the pros from the amateurs—are pace management, nutrition, hydration, and maintaining your sanity while running for a full day and night. “The hard thing for me is that at any time, I can stop and call it,” says Scott Jurek, seven-time winner of the Western States 100.

How do you train for it?
Training for an ultra is like taking on a second job: it often requires hundreds of hours of running over the course of many months. Shorter runs (under ten miles) are usually squeezed in during the week, while long runs (anywhere from 20 to 50) are reserved for the weekend.

“On Saturday, I might do something that has 10,000 to 15,000 feet of elevation gain at lactate-threshold pace—that type of workout lasts four to six hours,” Jurek says. “It’s followed up by a six-to-eight-hour long run [on Sunday].” Plus, he adds weight training two or three times a week with strength and stability exercises, such as one-legged squats, and lots of core work.

How often do you get injured?
While less susceptible to the catastrophic, bone-shattering injuries endured by, say, climbers and mountain bike riders, ultrarunners often fall victim to soft tissue and overuse issues, such as Achilles tendonitis, IT band syndrome, runner’s knee, and plantar fasciitis.

Why do you do it?
To suffer for 24 hours—to ignore the voice in your head telling you to quit and battle through the body’s progressively depleting energy systems—is not for the faint of heart or legs. Yet humans evolved to run, and for some, that primal instinct is motivation enough. “I love being able to cover vast distances in the woods and in the mountains,” Jurek says. “That ability to really explore my endurance capabilities. The human body was built for bipedal motion, and it’s a great way to travel out in the woods and the mountains and be unhindered.”

Downhill Mountain Biking

Calories per hour: 632

Injury rate: 43 per 1,000 hours

Fatality rate: 11.2 per 1 million mountain bikers

Expert: Rachel Atherton

How hard is it to learn?
“It’s like nothing else on earth,” says Rachel Atherton, who won all seven rounds of the 2016 Union Cycliste Internationale Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup in September. Traveling fast over loose singletrack and technical rock gardens takes guts, and there’s a big mental learning curve for those new to the sport. Not to mention, the cost of entry is steep: a full-suspension rig can easily cost as much as a lightly used Corolla.

How do you train for it?
Unlike the cross-country and enduro disciplines, downhill racers aren’t hitting the rollers for cardio conditioning. Besides spending time on the bike, dynamic lifts such as squats and deadlifts and muscle-searing upper-body exercises like weighted chin-ups are key to developing the strength required to muscle a 40-pound rig down a steep, rocky slope. “I train with my brothers Dan and Gee, who are also pro mountain bikers,” says Atherton. “I like to mix it up with yoga or stand-up paddleboarding or rock climbing to keep it fun. Apart from that, it’s vital to spend a lot of time on the bike.”

How often do you get injured?
The biggest danger of downhill mountain biking is—you guessed it—crashing. You have to contend with rocky surfaces and even the bike itself, which can turn into a sharp, heavy weapon when you go down. Atherton has learned to ride more carefully than when she was younger, but the years have taken their toll. “My shoulders are pretty beaten up,” she says. “I’ve had a nerve taken out of my leg and reinserted into my left shoulder. This has given me about 60 percent more muscle function than before the operation, which is a huge improvement.”

Why do you do it?
“Once I’m out of the start gate, riding my bike through all those roots and rocks and drops, it becomes like a dance or a meditation,” Atherton says. “And crossing that finish line, realizing that you’ve gone fastest, that you’ve conquered the mountain and won the day—there’s no feeling like it.”

Open-Water Swimming

Calories per hour: 957

Injury rate: 4 per 1,000 hours

Fatality rate: 9.1 per 1 million open-water swimmers

Expert: Elizabeth Fry

How hard is it to learn?
“Swimming is 20 percent physical endurance and 80 percent mental endurance,” says Elizabeth Fry, one of four swimmers ever to have completed the Double Triple Crown—twice swimming the English Channel, Catalina Channel, and the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim. In addition to the tremendous exposure these athletes face—and the mental and physical challenges that exposure presents—Fry says the hardest parts of open-water swimming are dialing in your hourly feeding schedule, fitting in a time-intensive training regimen, and adhering to your safety protocol.

How do you train for it?
“During the week, a training session could be two hours, and on the weekends it’s closer to three,” Fry says. “And that’s a mix—it could be swimming; it could be a combo of swimming and yoga. We rely on big swims on the weekends.” It’s equally as tough on the mind, as swimmers must battle the extraneous and numerous variables of the ocean. “There’s nothing more challenging than to see your finish just minutes away after 12 hours of swimming through the dark, and to be told the tide has just changed and you will need to swim at least another four hours until the tide slacks,” Fry says.Ěý“It’s part of the sport.”

How often do you get injured?
Like runners, open-water swimmers suffer overuse injuries, but the biggest threat to athletes is, unsurprisingly, the water. Total exhaustion can mean drowning. To stay safe, crews talk to open-water swimmers like doctors would talk to patients with concussions, since they may be too focused on exerting themselves to consider their own well-being. “Your crew is counting your strokes, looking for changes, looking at the way you’re speaking, asking you questions that you should know the answer to,” Fry says.

Why do you do it?
Like Himalayan mountaineers, open-water swimmers often talk about the desire to test their minds and bodies over a long period of time in extreme exposure. “The longer it is, the better I am,” Fry says. “I do enjoy it.”

Nordic Skiing

Calories per hour: 952

Injury rate: 30 per 1,000 skiing hours

Fatality rate: 11 per 1 million Nordic skiers

Experts: Sophie Caldwell, Kikkan Randall

How hard is it to learn?
While technically it’s not as difficult to learn as downhill alpine skiing, Nordic skiing is almost unparalleled when it comes to required fitness. Traveling quickly, often uphill, using both your arms and legs, makes it a true full-body workout. In fact, the highest VO2 max ever recorded was in the lungs of Norwegian Nordic skier Bjorn Daehlie. “I truly believe that Nordic skiing is one of the most difficult sports in the world,” says Sophie Caldwell, 2014 U.S. Olympian in the freestyle sprint. “It requires so much strength and endurance from your entire body.”

How do you train for it?
Nordic skiers put in countless hours in the mountains training at lactate threshold. When there’s no snow, professional Nordic skiers like world champion Kikkan Randall get creative. “Roller skis allow you to simulate your ski motion on pavement,” Randall says. “You get a full-body workout like you do with cross-country skiing. We also do a lot of running in the mountains.” On a typical preseason training day, Randall says she “runs for a couple hours pretty much entirely uphill.”

How often do you get injured?
Similar to ultrarunning, the repetitive motion of Nordic skiing leads most often to overuse injuries, such as nagging soft tissue pains and stress fractures. Yet, nordic skiers have been known to forgo the excuses: “One of the many perks of our sport is that it’s full-body,” Randall says. “So if you injure your arm, you use your legs and vice versa.”

Why do you do it?
There’s something to be said for earning your tracks. And if you want to get in shape, there’s almost no better workout.

The Expert’s Verdict

Alex Honnold: “I think open-water swimming sounds fucking heinous! And in some ways dangerous, because you could frickin’ drown.”

Steph Davis: “I would not be enthusiastic if I had to do open-water swimming, because I’m not a very big fan of the ocean. If I had to do one of these sports tomorrow, I would probably be most upset about swimming.”

Scott Jurek: “Nordic skiing came to my mind right away. There’s nothing like it in terms of the feeling when you’re floating along, to grind up the uphills and cover the terrain. I think Nordic skiing is the most taxing workout.”

Rachel Atherton: “Ultrarunning! I can’t begin to imagine running for 50 miles—or 100!”

Elizabeth Fry: “I would probably say rock climbing, because there’s so much less room for error. The mental endurance and the concentration would have to be the highest there.”

Sophie Caldwell: “Objectively, I think ultrarunning would be the most difficult, because it requires so many hours of training and competing.”

Kikkan Randall: “I would have to think that open-water swimming is pretty challenging, because you are so vulnerable, and regulating your body temperature in the water can be really challenging.”

Our Verdict

1. Nordic Skiing

For our money, this is the toughest sport. It requires the endurance of ultrarunning, the sprint speed of mountain biking, the mental toughness of open water swimming, and, at times, can put skiers in situations of real exposure. And at 952 calories per hour, competitive nordic skiers burn the equivalent of a Chipotle burrito every hour. To be successful, athletes must maintain unparalleled cardiovascular fitness in addition to muscular strength and coordination.

2. Rock Climbing

Climbing requires a high degree of technical skill, and a nearly incomparable level of mental discipline and self-reliance.ĚýUnlike some other sports on this list, one cannot simply gut their way through a difficult climb—they either have the fitness to complete a certain pitch, problem, or route, or they do not. And if they don’t, the consequences can be deadly— that 145 per one million expert climbers will die from climbing-related injuries, which puts its fatality rate leagues above any other sport on this list.

3. Open-Water Swimming

This sport combines the enormous training regime of ultrarunning, the exposure of climbing, and the added element of the ocean, where one must factor in the risks of sharks and jellyfish and the tedium of changing tides. Sure, many open-water swimmers have a fail safe in the form of an escort boat, but that doesn’t detract from the absolute sufferfest that is swimming for hours (or days) at two miles-per-hour, and trying to eat 900 calories per hour in the process.

4. Downhill Mountain Biking

Like climbing, mountain biking requires a serious degree of technical competence, daring, and finesse; there’s a high barrier to entry in terms of skill required to successfully traverse a downhill course, and the consequences should one wipe out are massive (it injures more athletes than any other sport on this list). However, riders enjoy the assistance of gravity, and one doesn’t need a high level of aerobic fitness to be a good downhill rider.

5. Ultrarunning

Don’t get us wrong—running 100 miles is incredibly difficult, and being competitive in an ultra requires an almost unparalleled degree of suffering. That being said, the only requirement for beginners is to be able to run more than 26.2 miles. Running is hard, no doubt, but not as technical or energy-intensive (as measured by calories burned) as the rest of the panel.

*Did not qualify as a sport: fly-fishing, birding, spelunking.

The post What Is the Hardest Sport Outdoors? We Ranked Them. appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Veteran runners know the familiar “Run Forest, Run!” jeer all too well. You can tell off a passing motorist, but you’ll need a creative retort when an unknowing—and generally well-meaning—dinner party guest asks if you won the Boston Marathon. Here’s your cheat sheet on what you’ll want to say (and what should actually say) to the dumbest things people tell runners.

“I could never run that far!”

What you want to say: “And that’s exactly why you haven’t.”

What you should say: “We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I, for instance, can run the mile in 4:10, but I can’t process gluten, so you’ve got me there.”

“Why don’t you just run home?”

What you want to say: “Because I’m not actually an ancient persistence-hunting Tarahumara from Christopher McDougall’s Born To Run.ĚýBut I assume that’s all you actually know about distance running, so I’ll give you a pass this one time.”

What you should actually say: “Well, I’m actually pretty tired from running earlier, so I think I’ll just drive there like the rest of the American proletariat.”

“I’m so jealous you can eat whatever you want!”

What you want to say: “Actually, it takes a strict diet of Chipotle and thrice-daily IPAs to maintain this model skinny-fat physique.”

What you should actually say: “I could eat whatever I wanted, sure, but I’m just a sucker for uncooked kale.”

“For which causes are you running?”

What you want to say: “The Hypertension Aversion Fund, Mothers Against Muscle Mass, The Legion Of Self-Important Hobby Joggers, and pure unadulterated selfishness.”

What you should actually say: “I like to think that I’m running to inspire others to lead a healthy lifestyle. I’m like Michelle Obama, with a fuel belt.”

“But why haven’t you run a marathon yet?”

What you want to say: “Do you know what happened to the man who ran the original marathon, from Marathon, Greece, to Athens? He died.”

What you should actually say: “Because it doesn’t fit into my training program right now. You see, I’m trying to be fast on my feet, like Muhammad Ali, and the marathon makes you slow on your feet, like a sumo wrestler.”

“What would it mean for you to run Boston?”

What you want to say: “It would be a lot like Taylor Swift at the VMAs in 2009, before Kanye got on stage and ruined the moment.”

What you should actually say: “It would be a career-defining honor to run Boston, for anything less would be egregiously un-American.”

“Did you win?”

What you want to say: “Oh, that major road race with thousands of people and elites? No, but I did get this super-shiny finisher’s medal that I’ll hang on my mantel and wear to dinner parties to differentiate myself from people like you.”

What you should actually say: “Well, no, but I beat yesterday’s version of myself: Isn’t that what we’re all here to do?”

“Why don’t you run barefoot?”

What you want to say: “How would you like it if I buried shards of glass in your feet and covered the wounds in chewing gum?”

What you should actually say: “There is no proven correlation between barefoot running and injury prevention, and there’s far too much debris in an urban area anyway.”

“Don’t you want to have knees when you’re 40?”

What you want to say: “I’m always going to look better than you in shorts regardless.”

What you should actually say: “I set aside 10 minutes of foam roller-love making each day to ensure the health of my connective tissues.”

“Why do you run?”

What you want to say: “Because I was picked last for every team in high school until I realized the only thing I’m actually good at is conditioning.”

What you should actually say: “Have you ever heard of a runner’s high? It’s like a drugs high, but totally legal and fun for the whole family.”

The post How to Explain Running to Non-Runner Friends appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.