I made no secret of being a bit concerned about this season's Biggest Loser. Don't get me wrong, their marathon running shenanigans is part of what got me running again and I give credit where due. It's one thing to have a bunch of class 3 obese people who have spent 12 weeks being relentlessly trained run 26.2 miles but it's an entirely different animal to allow the people who have been voted off to play along.
To be honest, to take a casual runner, someone who has run a few 5k races to a marathon in 12 weeks is grossly irresponsible and honestly, legally negligent if they get injured. The body just simply cannot adapt that quickly to the increased load. The odds of getting injured, game endingly injured are HUGE. In prior seasons, I've let it go since this is a fairly unique study. All of these people are trained for six days a week by world class trainers and have 24/7 access to sports medicine specialists. When you start sending people home, out into the real world, where they can't devote 8 hours a day, 6 days a week to training; when a trip to the doctor requires an appointment, a co-pay (if you are insured) and a doctor that has half a clue about sports medicine to even begin to correct any injury, it's just criminal to encourage these people to attempt that distance.
Watching last night's episode, I noticed that more people were wearing knee braces than not. So, we have a lot of people with some manner of tendinopathy doing weight bearing exercises for our entertainment. Considering the injuries they are risking by not resting, this is no longer entertaining to me...but that's not what sealed it.
They did their usual "where are they now" with the voted off contestant and she was bright eyed, looking good and excited about her new life. Then she goes on to brag about her 20 mile long run...wait, didn't she have a stress fracture? Then they cut to video of her running or shall I say limping and hobbling along. So they are condoning having a still overweight woman RUNNING on a damaged limb? I'm sorry but we passed irresponsible two exits ago.
I wish all the contestants well but I don't think watching them risk their health is entertainment.
I don't normally watch the show but happen to see it last night. I also noticed all the wrapped knees but what really caught me was when Bob(?) had the 300+ pound guy get on that girls back and she had to walk across the room. I was looking at her two wrapped knees thinking that she could be taking her last steps. Then there was the treadmill where he had two of the guys running at a full sprint. It made no sense.
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Yea, carrying 300+ pounds of man was just profoundly silly and a bit reckless. Yes, the human body can do amazing things but there is often a price to be paid. While their plyometric conditioning does leave them stronger than average, joint strength takes months or years to properly develop. The sprinting thing annoyed me as well, while dramatic, it's pointless and even a bit counter productive in the context of weight loss.
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