by X-Slave

Created on: October 21, 2010   Last Updated: October 25, 2010

The question is can you be overweight and still be fit. The answer is YES but you are still OVERweight!

In the 22 years that I have trained people I have come across plenty of overweight athletes. As a mater of fact most professional football lineman are overweight and it actually works to their benefit. But there is a 2 fold problem with this, one being the long term effects of your weight on your joints. Two being as you age and begin to lower your level of intensity.

Lets look first at the long term effect of weight on your joints. Hundreds of studies have been done on the impact forces on the human body while exercising. They all came up with close to the same results with minor variations based on intensity and weight of the subjects tested. General results state that walking generates an impact force of 2 times your body absorbed repetitively by one leg at a time. Running generates up to 5 times your body weight repetitively on one leg. Jumping generates up to 11 times your body weight. So lets use the example I’ve read here, an athletic female at 5’1 who weighs 185 pounds. Walking: 370 pounds of force, Running: 925 pounds or force, Jumping 1850 pounds of force (rounded to 10).

So is she healthy? Possibly

Is she putting unnecessary force on her knees hips and ankles? Of course she is

Now let’s look at aging and weight issues. Everything we do in life is based on habits form what time you go to bed to what time you wake up in the morning. Through the study of volumetrics we see that people eat approximately the same volume of food on a weekly basis. Daily we may vary but when have light days we tend to make up for light days later on in the week. Along with volume of food also comes the habit of types of foods and in most cases this is culturally influenced which means it’s deeply ingrained.

Taking these two things into account lets add lower intensity into the equation. While in our 20’s and 30’s and maybe even 40’s we feel great. We are forced to respect father time due to he aging of our bodies and the bodies reduced ability to recover from trauma such as exercise. But we don’t have to stop we just have to lower the intensity and/or the frequency. When we make this change more times then not out eating habits remain the same. Calories in calories out, that’s all weight is, calories in calories out. So most aging athletes and weekend warriors put on 20-30 pounds when they either retire or lower there activity level which makes exercise even harder.

So can you be overweight and be fit HELL YEAH! Is it a smart thing to do? Not really sure about that but judging from fact that most overweight pro athletes have knee replacement soon after they retire. Plus the new trend of retired athletes having lap band surgery because they can’t change there old eating habits.  I would say it not to smart of an idea.

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