Experiments in Fitness

Today's post was written by Charlotte Hilton Andersen, brilliant and charming host of The Great Fitness Experiment. If you're not familiar with her blog, check it out immediately for a no-holds-barred account of her approach to fitness, which consists of doing something spanking-new every 30 days. (This month's fitness experiment? Kettlebells. I love me some kettlebells.) Here, she explains the method to her madness.
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HEALTH AND FITNESS ARE really very simple. Lift heavy weights. Except that cardio is the secret to burning fat. Lots of protein fills you up. But vegetarians live longer. Don't take supplements because nature is best. Except for Vitamin D, B6, calcium, magnesium, iron and Omega-3's. Eat whole foods. But buy these specially formulated, packaged (and expensive) health foods. Listen to your body to know when you are hungry. So here are ten tips to conquer cravings.

Catch all that? No? What's wrong with you? Don't you have 28 hours a day to read all the latest health and fitness research? So how do you know what works? And just because it works for someone else, does that mean it will work for you? You can't know. Unless you try it yourself.

It was from this mental schizophrenic rambling that The Great Fitness Experiment was born. I decided to go from gym rat to lab rat, taking on a new Fitness Experiment every month to try and separate the hypertrophy from the just plain hype.

Over the course of a year I have learned one important lesson: Every reasonable workout works. Until it doesn't. It turns out that the key to fitness bliss is ... change. Not only is change good for all your fitness markers -- I can hear your muscles screaming from here -- but it also keeps the boredom away. Not to mention all the potential for public humiliation! So it is with great excitement, I bring to you:

Charlotte's Guide To Making Your Own Fitness Experiment

1. Pick a fitness routine. Tear one out of a magazine, search one out on the Internet, ask friends and family or shell out bucks for the sweetest late-night infomercial star -- just pick something. You only have to do it for 30 days (28 if it's February!) so even those of you with commitment issues can handle this without calling in Sarah Jessica Parker and crew.

2. Make it fun. It will help if you pick something you like. After doing this for a year, I am pretty much open to trying anything I don't have to pay for but if you are just starting out, go with a program that appeals to you. Everything will be boring to you by day 30 so don't stress too much. And if it's not boring? You've found your fitness Shangri-La and can officially become that smug person at parties who drops split times and weight sets like Disney Princesses lose parents.

3. Line up some good Gym Buddies. Not only will they motivate you to stick with it and pick you up when you're down -- both literally and figuratively -- but they are invaluable for tasks like deciphering weird exercise pictures, loading the weight bar evenly, and even shielding you so can pick a quick wedgie. Yep, they're great. And no, you can't have mine; they're taken. Although I do have a pretty sweet crew, if I do say so myself. My right-hand girl is Gym Buddy Allison (a.k.a. Good Sport Allison). She is the ideal Gym Buddy: She will try anything I throw at her, keeps the complaining to a minimum and is always good for a laugh when I drop a weight plate on my foot. Not to mention she's freakishly strong. Then there is Gym Buddy Mike, a former competitive hammer thrower (10 points for anyone who watched that event on the Olympics!) who coaches us in proper technique for all the Olympic lifts. Plus he always carries jelly beans. Who doesn't love that? Gym Buddy Megan is our pace dog and runs our butts into the ground. She's also good at keeping your treadmill running while you sprint to the bathroom to take care of your runner's tummy. Everyone needs a friend like that. Gym Buddy Jerry is in charge of witty one-liners, Gym Buddy Shalome bends us into burritos and no one can forget Turbo Jennie -- official cardio butt kicker and the only girl who can make me bounce like Beyonce.

4. Get a sense of humor. When you change your routine this much, you're not going to be great at everything. You want to be the best? Great, stick to your sport and call me when your knees blow out. The rest of us just have to accept that failure comes with the territory. There will be Experiments that you hate. And there will be Experiments that hate you. It's all about the learning, and if you can laugh at yourself then you won't cry. Not that I've ever cried over an Experiment. Ahem.

5. Track your stats. Here's where the science part comes in. If you don't write it down -- and by "it" I mean everything -- then you will never know what works. Memories lie, number don't. Decide what is important to you (and it had better be more than just weight) and then keep a workout journal. It isn't about "progress" or even "accountability" -- it's about seeing which types of exercises your body responds to and how. The Gym Buddies and I track weight, inches (chest, waist, hips, thigh, calf and arm), body fat percentage, weight loads and reps, one-rep maxes, pull-ups, and fast mile and sprint times. It's all in the details.

Everyone is a researcher of their own body. The trick is to be conscious of it. Make a plan and then chart your data. It'll either make you the world's biggest fitness geek or a really fit human being. Or both. Either way, you can sit at my table in the cafeteria.

Intrigued? Motivated? Just want to watch someone else get snapped in the face with a resistance band so you can have a good giggle? Come join the Gym Buddies and I over at The Great Fitness Experiment as we squat like Sumo wrestlers, hoo-ah like Navy Seals, bend it like ballerinas and get hemorrhoids like Olympic weight lifters. We can always use a new test subject!