Health
ArchiveOutside 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 |…
Here's the deal: Ten breakthrough workouts from the best fitness experts and coaching pros around. Great tips for nutrition, gear, and fine-tuning your form. Killer ideas to keep you motivated. Ten high-performance meals you can prepare in less than ten minutes. It's everything you need to start fresh, keep your options wide open, and realize your fitness dream
Learn how to do all the essential exercises, from basics like the bench press to advanced medicine-ball moves, in our ONLINE WORKOUT GLOSSARY.Coming April 23…
Meet your secret muscles—and find out how these hidden assets can leverage your leap to peak performance
Can Underwear Make You Stronger?* fitness tips *No, but it sure looks (and feels) that way Who knew that a stretchy T-shirt made from a more breathable version of the fabric found in ladies’ girdles would become the base layer of choice for athletes as diverse as baseball…
Travel can be a minefield of fatigue, jet lag, strange food, and fitness regimens shot to hell. It doesn't have to be that way. With our road-warrior plan, you can fight back—and win.
We're going to show you how to find your flow. The place where everything clicks and comes easy.
LISTEN UP: There's way more to achieving peak fitness than strength and cardio training. Here's how to unite body, mind, and soul to transform yourself into a Whole Athlete
I will be going hiking and kayaking in Hawaii next summer, but I concerned about the sun because of my very fair complexion. What are some good choices for clothing to help protect me from the ravages of the sun? Jeff Minneapolis, Minnesota
As anybody who's been hiking on the West Coast knows, getting "poison oaked" is a miserable experience. So, have you ever heard of Zanfel? According to the company's Web site, this soap is supposed to remove the urushiol from poison oak even after you get the rash. Unfortunately, it's really expensive—about $40 for a one-ounce tube! Does this stuff really work, or is it just snake oil? Rusty San Francisco, California
Everybody knows that many athletes cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs like steroids, testosterone, and EPO. But what is it like to take these banned substances? Do they really help you win? To find out, we sent an amateur cyclist into the back rooms of sports medicine, where he just said yes to the most controversial chemicals in sports.
Stuart Stevens’s November story “Drug Test,” on the use of performance-enhancing substances in sports, incorrectly reported that cyclist Alexi Grewal, who won a road-racing gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, prepared for that year’s competition with the use of blood packing, a transfusion technique that increases…
How is weight training for snowboarding different from weight training for skiing? Anne Davis Boulder, Colorado
I get sunburned every time I go skiing. What SPF should I be looking for in my sunblock? Dian Goodspeed Albany, New York
The brave new world is coming—fast. With sci-fi fantasy turning into performance-enhancing reality, we separate the hype from breakthroughs you can use.
Beta-tested by Olympians and elite athletes, the wizardry of neuromuscular training will hardwire you for peak performance
Bill Phillips, the most successful fitness author in history, is a Colorado recluse who got his start teaching muscleheads how to use steroids. He's cleaned up his act—his Body-for-Life program runs street legal, and it works—but he's still banking on a timeless American urge: Everybody wants to be huge.
Pass the summer splash test with these rowdy water fitness contests
Are the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients packed into everything you chug and chew the real secret to becoming a finely tuned sports superstar? Turn the page.
Forget the creepy promise of techno-longevity. Instead, take our advice: Live fast, die hard, and leave behind a worn-out, used-up, good-looking corpse.
The Fountain of Youth is a myth. But take heart: Intelligent training and an adventurous spirit will keep you running, kicking, screaming at the peak of your potential for years to come.
Juliet Draper may be the fittest firewoman alive: 185 pounds of chiseled, hollering, highly motivated tenacity. Now she wants to go global, teaching firehouse heroes everywhere how to shape up. Sounds like a pipe dream—but are you going to tell her to back off?
Want an easy plan to prepare you to climb a mountain—say, 14,494-foot Mount Whitney? Here's a five-week program that'll whip you into summit-worthy shape.
Grueling workouts are the only way to get ready for long-distance endurance, right? Wrong.
The fittest firewoman alive is transforming her colleagues into elite athletes. When she's done with them, she's coming after you.
Here's a one-day meal plan fit for a noontime event or workout.
If mom had told you what fruits and veggies can do for your game, maybe you would've listened. But it's not too late.
This month in New Zealand, the crew of Oracle/BMW will try to win the America’s Cup with the help of some unorthodox conditioning: grunting up and over sand dunes, terra firma’s closest approximation of a yacht rolling at sea.
With $100,000 for the winners, the world's most relentless teams, and a 138,000-vertical-foot Rocky Mountain course, the Subaru Primal Quest seemed poised to give big-time adventure racing a smashing return to U.S. soil. But then the race began—and all hell broke loose. A front-line report from the wildest, bumpiest game in the wilderness.
IN THE MARKET FOR AN INTERNET COACH? Then you’ll need to decide between a virtual coach (costs range from $0-$20 per month; no personal interaction included) and a bona fide online coach (costs range from $60 and up per month; live coach at the other end of the line). A…
Need a daily powder fix? Chase epic snow through the calendar with our guide to the best places to ski and snowboard each month.