Health
Archive
Smart trend or exercise fad? We sorted out the tired and the wired to find 2004's fitness winners.
Week of January 30-February 5, 1997 Through-hiking the Appalachian Trail Hiking and rafting in Northern California Late-season skiing at Colorado resorts Making the most of five days in the Adirondacks…
Week of April 3-9, 1997 Hiking and biking in North Carolina Schlepping a surfboard to Costa Rica? Planning an adventure trip with a toddler Rock-climbing schools in New Hampshire…
You’ve done other books, right? Q: Warren, I really don’t think your new book is your first. It seems that I have a book about ski-bumming in Sun Valley that I…
Week of August 29-September 4, 1996 Roughing it (sort of) on St. John Aspen action, minus the snow Outside the Beltway, into Virginia Camping in Hoosier National Forest…
Think of this as your adventure tool box: We’ve got the strength moves you need for peak performance, from core training to flexibility building to explosive power drills. Ramp up your fitness plan with these six workouts, guaranteed to get you buff—and ready to play outside.
Outside Magazine, February 1995 Fitness Machines Worth Coming Home To Investing in club quality–without the club By Bob Howells Purchasing a bargain-basement home-fitness machine is usually a lesson in false economy: Cheap gym equipment seldom serves its ostensible purpose for more than…
Outside Magazine, November 1994 Regimens: Positive Apres-Effects By Dana Sullivan You wouldn’t think of interrupting a mountain-bike ride or a trail run for a cocktail, but alpine skiing is different. It’s worthy exercise, sure–but it’s a party, too. If you’re interested in actually skiing,…
Outside magazine, October 1994 Skills: Ride Out the Revolutions By Dana Sullivan Titanium pedals are fine if you have the money, but there’s a more basic way to improve your cycling stroke. According to Jeff Broker, a biomechanics expert with the U.S. Olympic Committee, most recreational…
Bodywork, March 1999 It Pays to Be Flexible A few new moves to get you out of that stretching rut The best way to choose a type of stretching that suits your style is, of course, to try them all. But whether you…
Outside magazine, June 1994 You Could Use Some Helping Hands You’re only as good as your grasp, so before you pick up the pace this summer, pick up the silly putty By John Brant During my freshman year in college, a…
Outside magazine, January 1996 Strategies: The Orthotics Option By Dana Sullivan Close might be good enough in horseshoes, but a difference of as little as a quarter of an inch in leg length can set you up for a bad case of iliotibial band…
Outside magazine, July 1996 Medicine: Pills for Pain–Not Performance By Gretchen Reynolds “Vitamin I, vitamin K, vitamin N: that’s ibuprofen, ketoprofen, naproxen. They all have little pet names,” says Jenny Stone, a certified athletic trainer in charge of clinical programs for sports medicine at…
Bodywork, April 1997 Regiments: The Painful Truth is Intervals Are Good By Ken McAlpine “The name of the game is who can hold off the lactic-acid onslaught,” says Matt Giusto, 30, who last year coached himself to the season’s fastest American road…
Outside magazine, October 1996 Intake: How to Dodge the Wall This Fall By Lisa Twyman Bessone With the big-city double-header of marathoning coming up–Chicago on October 20 and New York two weeks later–many runners are boosting their mileage. But in concentrating so intently…
Outside magazine, May 1995 Endurance: From Our Search for All Things Woolly… By Todd Balf John Stamstad is the acknowledged master of wilderness endurance races, so it surprised nobody that last February in Alaska he overcame the woolliest Iditasport Human Powered Ultra Marathon in…
Outside magazine, July 1999 The Twisting Somersault The Diving Dig | The Cartwheel | The Figure Four | Take the Stairs | The Crossover Dribble…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Curl When They Least Expect It Just when your muscles are getting the hang of a weight-lifting regimen, it’s time to shake things up By Ken McAlpine Three days a week for a year now, I’ve ducked into…
Bodywork, March 1997 Regiments: Options for the Discriminating Stretcher By Scott Sutherland When choosing from the stretching smorgasbord, think of creating a well-balanced meal. “Learning more than one method allows you to stretch more effectively,” says Bob Anderson, author of Stretching. So…
Outside magazine, June 1994 The Perfect Summer: Crank the AC, Man the VCR Summer viewing for the discriminating sloth By Alex Heard Cut the self-delusional “I’m active. I won’t rent movies this summer.” Yes, you will. And when the urge…
Outside magazine, October 1994 Strategies: Slow Down and Release the Insulin By Mark Jannot Insomnia is the thinking man’s disease: “Anything that causes you to reflect or act while you’re in bed,” says Wilse B. Webb, author of Sleep, the Gentle Tyrant, the definitive text…
Outside magazine, April 1995 The Indestructible Cowboy By Larry Burke We are, it is safe to say, a nation of cowboy fanatics. Whether it’s Eastwood or Autry, the Virginian or the Marlboro Man, no hero has a firmer purchase on the American imagination than…
Bodywork, May 1997 Be a Thigh Master And you’ll prep the rest of your leg muscles for a summer of fun By Jim Harmon Not that you need a reminder, but the time has come to leave the gym behind.
Outside magazine, June 1994 The Perfect Summer: Shed Those Pesky Pounds Advice on lightening your backcountry load By Michael McRae In outdoor product design, the grail of going light is forever being resurrected. In the sixties Gerry Mountaineering introduced a 13-pound…
Outside magazine, February 1999 Finishing Strong You’re leaner, harder, wiser. Now comes the fun part: putting it to use. The grand finale of the Outside Fitness Plan shows you how to clean the competition’s clock, no…
Outside magazine, August 1999 Easy Strider Finding the perfect-fitting running shoe is a simple matter of one, two, or three By Andrew Tilin CUSHIONING | STABILITY…
Bodywork, April 1997 Routines: Get Shipshape in Five Weeks By Lolly Merrell “Most paddlers concentrate on building up their big arm muscles over the winter,” says two-time World Cup champion kayaker Scott Shipley. “Trouble is, they don’t realize that the neck, shoulders,…
Fitness for the Outside Athlete, December 1996 Intake: The Shakedown on Weight-Gain Powders By Cory Johnson You can laugh at the gym-bound troglodytes whose primary life mission is to become bulgy. But being a 98-pound weakling–aerobically fit or not–won’t boost your performance. “Whether…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Prescriptions: The Pollen Factor By Jim Rosenthal Ah, autumn: a time for active allergy sufferers to breathe a sigh of relief. In certain parts of the country, though, you might not want to breathe too deep. If you’re among the…
Bodywork, July 1998 Pulling It All Together To boost your upper-body strength, go with a classic By Lolly Merrell In setting the world record for crossing the English Channel in 1978, Penny Lee Dean faced a lot of…
Outside magazine, August 1995 Regimens: Building Your Muscles by Surprise By Ken McAlpine With a nod to Nietzsche, that which wastes you makes you stronger. And the best way to thoroughly exhaust your muscles isn’t to do the same regimen over and over, but…
If any lesson stuck during physical education class, it was probably “stretch but don't bounce!” Bouncing, we were darkly warned, would lead to certain injury, from muscular microtears to flayed hamstrings. But, hey, what did Coach know? That well-worn admonition no longer rings true. Bouncing has had a 1990s image…
Bodywork, May 1997 In-line Skating By Jim Harmon If you’re in search of powerful, walnut-cracking thighs, strap on those in-line skates. “Some people describe well-developed skaters as T-rexes on wheels: huge legs, small arms,” says Mark Greenwald, a former U.S. Olympic speed…
Outside magazine, November 1995 Intake: Water on the Mountain By Suzanne Schlosberg You wouldn’t think of going on a three-hour bike ride without a water bottle or two. But get on the ski slope, where your equipment doesn’t boast handily mounted water-bottle cages, and…
Outside magazine, April 1995 This is Spinal Fact By Dana Sullivan I’m barely 30 years old. Exercise every day. Have decent posture and never lean over to pick up anything heavier than a PowerBar without bending my knees and flexing my hips. Still, every…
Outside magazine, June 1994 The Perfect Summer: Call Me Mr. Ribs The last word on barbecue By Brad Wetzler If God is in the details, it’s a holy man who finger-massages his spareribs before laying them over the coals. I know.
Outside magazine, April 1996 Strategies: Running Right By Mark Jannot While Stu Mittleman is mostly known for preaching slow going, that’s only half his equation: He’s just as likely to take you to task for your form. “Any time your body isn’t aligned,…
Outside magazine, August 1999 BUYING RIGHT Big Beats Writ Small CYBERTUNES Maybe you’re into filipino folk, or Chicago blues, or both. You can find it in cyberspace…
Bodywork, April 1997 The Creed for Speed How to break through your performance firewall By Ken McAlpine Calculations Testing Your Limits Intervals wouldn’t be useful without a credible figure for your anaerobic threshold heart rate, the level of exertion…
Fitness for the Outside Athlete, December 1996 Training: How to go Deep By John L. Stein If snorkeling is like viewing the moon through a telescope, free diving is like making a lunar landing. It’s an extension of snorkeling that can set you…
Outside magazine, September 1996 These Bladders Were Made For Moving Defeating dehydration on road or trail By Bob Howells TWO GALLONS OF WATER PER PERSON PER day gets heavy (a gallon weighs eight pounds), not to mention bulky. How to carry…
Outside magazine, July 1999 Take the Stairs The Diving Dig | The Cartwheel | The Figure Four | Take the Stairs | The Crossover Dribble…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Altitude Sickness, From Bad to Worse By Katie Arnold In the dicey world of mountaineering, one thing is certain: Stay above 25,000 feet long enough and you will die. “The communication between your brain and your organs falters,” explains…
Bodywork: Fitness for the Outside Athlete, November 1996 Training: The Prepared Snowboarder Tiptoeing past soreness this season By Sarah Bowen Shea Don’t be fooled by snowboarding’s carefree image. It is a sport, and you should train for it. “When I first…
Outside magazine, November 1995 Strategies: The Video Verite Approach to ACL Aid By Kiki Yablon There’s no sound a skier dreads more than the fabled pop. And when U.S. Skiing’s Diann Roffe heard it on December 19, 1990, she was third overall in the…
Outside magazine, April 1995 Regimens: The Cure for Spinelessness By Dana Sullivan “The spine alone is really just a flimsy stack of bones,” says physiatrist Jeffrey Saal of Standford University. “It fully relies on the muscles and ligaments that surround it for support.” Here’s…
Bodywork, May 1997 Prescriptions: Getting the Kinks Out By Alan Coté Flat tires may be an unavoidable unpleasantry of cycling, but the dull, achy tightness in your neck and shoulders after a two-hour ride is a nuisance you can avoid and something…
Outside magazine, June 1994 The Perfect Summer: Let Them Build Shacks A blueprint for constructing the most regal sand castle on the beach By Brian Alexander It’s sunny. You’re at the shore. There’s sand. There’s water. A sand castle is clearly…
Outside magazine, April 1996 Training: The Pre-Approach Approach By Jim Rosenthal To become a better climber, get out and climb: The sport is so specific that it’s difficult to simulate with weights. So for pre- and midseason training, hit the rock gym at least…
Outside magazine, September 1994 Sports You Can (and Should) Do with Your Eyes Closed By Mark Jannot According to Gary Kamen, the motor-control expert at Boston University, most athletes spend too much time looking where they’re going. After all, it’s not your eyes that help you…
Bodywork, April 1997 Strategies: Lactic Acid Loopholes By Ken McAlpine Pain may be the unfortunate constant when coping with lactic acid, but there are a few salvations. Say you find yourself suffering on an ambitious outing–quads burning, lungs heaving, mind wishing you…
Fitness for the Outside Athlete, December 1996 Lowering the Bar To avoid the weight-room snooze, think sport-specific By Andrew Tilin Paddling | Cycling | Rock Climbing | Running |…
Bodywork, July 1998 Side Saddled? A two-step plan for taking the pain in stride By Scott Sutherland The cause of the infamous side cramp may be obscure, but the remedy is painfully simple. “When you feel one…
Outside magazine, July 1999 Size MattersùOr Does It? The evolution of the modern surfboard has been largely aùhow to put it diplomatically?ùfickle affair. From the long, ultrastable, not terribly maneuverable sticks of the 1950s, to the shorter,…
Outside magazine, September 1996 Rx for Sick Gear By Glenn Randall “NO MAN EVER STOOD THE LOWER IN MY estimation for having a patch in his clothes,” wrote Thoreau in Walden. Our man’s ponderings have an especially practical ring in this age of…
Outside magazine, April 1999 Review: He Spins! He Rolls! He Stays Dry! By Andrew Rice KAYAKS | BUYING RIGHT | THE OTHER STUFF |…
Outside magazine, May 1996 …Or Not to Stretch You’ll rarely, if ever, hear anyone question the wisdom of a good warm-up or deny the importance of flexibility. But shout “Stretch!” in a crowded trainers’ convention and you’re liable to start a brawl. “The medical literature doesn’t…
Outside magazine, September 1995 Blazes of Glory By Larry Burke Smokejumpers are a rare breed of professionals, experiencing daily trials and tribulations–not to mention a proximity to nature’s primeval forces–that would make most of us blanch. Every summer, armed with little more than parachutes…
Outside magazine, April 1995 How Low Do You Go? The Answers By Paul Kvinta Give yourself five points for each correct answer. If you score 40-45, John Muir would be proud of you; 35-39, don’t throw away your hiking boots, there’s hope;…
Outside magazine, August 1996 Adventure: Blisters R Us By John Alderman On July 24, two single-engine floatplanes will drop six explorers onto the icy chop of Summit Lake, deep in Alaska’s Brooks Range. Once ashore, the team will begin a 20-mile trek through scree…
Outside magazine, June 1994 The Perfect Summer: A Tomato You Can Be Proud Of Secrets for sowing a prize winner By Todd Balf Some things can’t help but grow well. The tomato, in my experience, isn’t one of them. Tomatoes are…
Outside magazine, April 1996 Intake: Rehydrate, Reload, Recover By Suzanne Schlosberg “Eating and drinking properly after a major athletic push can make the difference between recovering quickly and having fatigue lag on for days,” says Bonnie Modugno, a dietician based in Santa Monica,…
Outside magazine, September 1994 Regimens: Stretching for the Long Run or Ride By Dana Sullivan Tis the season for marathons, centuries, and strained leg muscles. “I see a lot more pulled muscles in the fall,” says Tom Nance, an athletic trainer at the Cincinnati Sportsmedicine and…
Bodywork, April 1997 Intake: Puppy Uppers By Brad Wetzler Mocha-flavored Powerbars, orangeburst Gu, Thunder Bars–and don’t forget Super Mega Mass 4000. Clearly, real food isn’t in among endurance athletes these days. And if carbo-visionary Pat Meiering has his way, your dog will…
Outside magazine, April 1997 It’s Hard to Eat Just One A brief and crunchy defense of entomophagy By Ian Frazier Showing off for the bridesmaids at my sister’s wedding reception years ago, I caught and ate a large black cricket.
Outside magazine, September 1996 Regimens: Mental Training Routines Tailored to Your… “Issue” Mark Jannot Virtually all of the athletes who consult with Nate Zinsser, sports psychologist for the Center for Enhanced Performance at West Point, fall into one of three categories, depending on the…
 For daily coverage of the 1999 Tour de France, please click here. Outside magazine, July 1999 Playing Dirty The out-of-control spectacle that was last year’s Tour de France confirmed once and for all what really…
Outside Magazine, November 1994 Intake: Food for the Fastest? By Elaine Appleton There’s a point in an afternoon of rock climbing or pool intervals when most athletes would resort to PowerBar by injection if it meant an instant surge of energy. But load carbos…
Tony Little (I'm the World's Number One Personal Trainer!) travels to Tonga (it's a monarchy, right? you just stop the fatty food from coming in!) and whips the island nation into shape (holy shit, these people are huge!)
Outside magazine, May 1996 Flexibility With 15 minutes and a spot on the floor, Trace Worthington can fire up your muscles for anything By Mark Jannot The world’s greatest aerial skier says that if he weren’t so dedicated to maintaining his flexibility,…
Outside magazine, July 1999 SCIENCE Two Minutes to a Savage Tan Check your elevation—”well done” may be closer than you think BAKED, NOT FRIED Location Minutes to Crisp* Summit of Mount Whitney, CA. Elevation,…
Outside magazine, March 2000 Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 DO THE OSCILLATION MENTAL STAMINA TEST |…
Outside magazine, April 1995 How Low Do You Go? A self-proctored exam to gauge your backcountry impact By Paul Kvinta Low-impact camping doesn’t have to mean tiptoeing naked through the forest and not bathing for weeks. But it does involve treading lightly,…
Bodywork: Fitness for the Outside Athlete, November 1996 Essentials: Another Form of Pain Prevention By Sarah Bowen Shea Although a rigorous preseason training regimen may take care of your muscular woes, it won’t prevent another kind of pain–that which comes from impact. Thus…
Outside magazine, June 1994 The Perfect Summer: The Honest-to-God Curveball Loosen up the elbow. Snap that wrist. We’re not talking about softball. By Randy Wayne White Few can hit a curveball, but almost anyone can make a ball curve, unless their…
Outside magazine, April 1996 Regimens: Going Long the Light-Weight Way By Mark Jannot Endurance training happens in the weight room too, with light weights and lots of repetitions. These exercises provide a full-body workout with that aim. Stu Mittleman recommends “stacking” three…