The Fear Around Leg Extensions

Of all the exercises we employ with our clients, the one exercise that is most often met with skepticism or resistance (no pun intended) is the Leg Extension.  "My physical therapist (insert chiropractor, MD, or church pastor) says I can't do Leg Extensions." The purported detrimental effects of Leg Extensions range from causing knee injuries to being unsafe for people who have undergone knee surgeries to claims that the exercise "doesn't transfer to real life."

My Bod Pod Plan the Next Few Months

My How do you utilize the Bod Pod to track your own personal progress?  Personally, I have performed a Bod Pod test approximately every 6 months or so over the last 7 years.  I like to schedule a test in the days prior to running a marathon as I hypothesize that there may be a correlation between my body fat percentage and my marathon time.  It's not that running the marathon makes me leaner, it's that getting leaner probably puts me in the position to run a faster marathon (all other things being equal).  This summer, as I prepare for the New York City Marathon in November, I'm taking a different approach.  In order to increase my accountability over the summer and early fall, I'm committing to performing a Bod Pod test every single week for the 16 weeks leading up to the marathon. The theory is that the looming weekly test will help with my accountability around my nutrition choices throughout that week (I'm not worried about skipping runs or strength workouts... I'm worried about eating too much pizza and carrot cake).  I'm using this week-at-a-time approach to achieve a specific Bod Pod goal immediately prior to the marathon.

My Take-home Message From Vienna

I vividly remember sitting in a class at the University of Minnesota during the spring semester of my senior year of undergrad and telling myself, in fact, committing to myself that I would spend my entire career focused on one thing: Bridging the gap between the scientific research/academic community and the practitioner.  Stated otherwise, I wanted to close the chasm between what takes place in the world of exercise science and what actually happens with the health and fitness practitioner or facility.  Well perhaps I haven't been very successful.

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