Everything in creation seems to be personalized now. I’m not just talking about monogrammed water bottles or customized sneakers. It seems we are all in search of our own secret sauce for fitness training, medical care, personal growth, career development, perhaps even creative endeavors. You name it, there’s a specialized 23-and-me-style approach to it. Forget one-size-fits-all. That’s out. Make way for precision medicine and personalized training, designed just for you.

Except that a new study came out saying that, at least for fitness training, personalized workout plans aren’t necessary. This article in Outside magazine offers a detailed summary, with graphs and everything.

So what’s the upshot here? I’ll break this down.

Once upon a time, there were standard training and exercise plans, designed to improve various areas of fitness– strength, endurance, agility, speed, etc. Some folks responded better than others on these plans. How to help those whose performance didn’t improve as much? Answer: personalized training. It seems intuitive. But is there evidence for this?

Researchers thought so until recently. So what happened to change their minds? Answer: a lot of studies, one of which is this cool and very carefully analyzed studies of variations on changes in VO2 max (a measure of aerobic fitness) over the course of a study for both exercise and control groups. Here’s a graph of what they found in a 2019 study:

Here’s what the Outside article said about it:

We see exactly the same variation in response in the control and exercise groups. The only difference is that the exercise group is shifted upward by the average response of about 0.2 liters per minute. So the variation in response can’t be because some people “respond” to exercise (or to the specific workouts prescribed) while others don’t—because the subjects in the control group had a similar range of response and non-response to doing absolutely nothing.

Wow. That is very surprising and counterintuitive.

Fast forward to August 2024, when a new meta-analysis came out “to evaluate inter-individual differences in VO_2max trainability across aerobic exercise training protocols utilizing non-exercising comparator groups.” They found that the variation for changes in VO2 max in the exercise groups were less than the variation in the control groups. That means that there’s just not evidence of variation in individual response in the exercise groups.

But but… it’s just a fact that some people are stronger responders than others to exercise and workout plans. Yes, this is true. What this (and a bunch of other) studies are saying is that the variation we see and experience may not be due to our individual training response (whatever that may be). There are lots of reasons for variability in response, both within an individual over time and between individuals in the same program. The Outside article explains:

If there is true variability in training response, though, it seems to be trivial compared to other sources of variability. One of the main ones is measurement error: if you’re measured slightly below your true value on the baseline test and slightly above on the final test, you’ll look like a strong responder—and vice versa. There’s also “within-subject variability”: changes in behavior or environment that have nothing to do with the exercise program being tested, like sleep, diet, or stress. These external factors might even be influenced by your genes…

So what does this mean for us, the pursuers of fitness and sport and improved performance? Science is not telling us to fire all personal trainers or stop focusing on specific areas in which we want to improve our responses. What these studies are saying is that training itself is good for all of us. There are decades-old, time-tested, reliable plans out there that have been shown to work for groups in large studies. We don’t need super-personalized, dialed-in, specialized workout plans just for us. We’re all individuals, but training is training, as the Outside article says at the end.

For me, this comes as a relief. Life is complicated, and if I can just make use of the standard workouts without having to go to a lab and get wired up for an extensive and expensive evaluation and detailed fitness plan, I am very happy to hear it.

Readers, what do you think about these new results? Are you relieved, annoyed, shocked? I’d love to hear from you.

CW: There is a lot of talk about body weight, weight loss, weight stigma, and methods for weight loss in this blog post, as I’m summarizing some of this week’s published scientific articles in these areas.

I love newsletters. Granted, I don’t get around to reading them all, but it’s a comfort to know that they are always on duty at my inbox, chock-full of facts or observations for my consumption, entertainment, and edification. I also love that they are easy to subscribe and unsubscribe to–once I lose interest, all I do is click, and woosh- gone! No recycling necessary.

One of the stalwarts in my personal corps of helpful and information email is this one, devoted to human metabolism research– it covers body weight, physical activity and nutrition results from studies.

Some highlights, and a little context for each of them:

One: Published survey showing less than 4 in 10 Americans strongly trust science about food, nutrition and/or diet.

some context: the organization publishing the study– the International Food Information Council– is funded by folks that include Big Food (General Mills, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Red Bull, and the like). This gives me pause, because greenwashing of nutritional research via corporate funding is a big thing.

Two: the “Headline vs. Study” feature is always one of my favorites. It shows how real science gets distorted, even mangled in between journal article and media story. This week, the headline is “Overweight? Good Sleep Is Even More Crucial to Your Health.“.

But is that what the researchers found (or even looked for)? Nope. The actual study, done on a group of men and women with BMI >=25, found sex-specific differences in the relationships between sleep phases and metabolic markers (like body fat, cholesterol, blood glucose, etc.). They didn’t compare the study group to people with BMI <25. So don’t believe all the headlines you read…

some context: there is a lot of research on the relationships between sleep and health biomarkers. And, this study shows an interesting-to-researchers difference between the men and women participants. But, there’s no important clinical revelation above and beyond that everyone should get good sleep. Duh.

Three: Eating beans, but not peas, contributes to lowered LDL cholesterol levels, relative to eating white rice (in humans, in case you were wondering). Researchers think it’s the extra fiber in the beans which helps. Well okay then.

some context: uh, it’s about eating. You know, food. That’s all I got.

Four: Weight stigma is alive and well in pediatrics. This commentary makes suggestions for addressing weight discrimination in children’s healthcare, sharing resources from advocacy and research organizations.

some context: body weight stigma aimed at children is still common in all spheres of life, and health care practitioners are guilty of some of biases that lead to harms. Many articles point to this problem and suggestions for mitigating it are made, although most in the context of weightloss-aimed treatments. Size acceptance appears not to be a popular approach, at least according to the literature I read weekly.

Five: The co-called “Ozempic face” phenomenon appears to be the result of rapid weight loss, not the result of anything specific to the GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs used to bring about that weight loss. This review article notes that the intensity of the effect correlates with the amount of weight lost, which stands to reason. The article lays out different treatments for “Ozempic face”, the cheapest and least invasive of which is to stop taking the medication, thereby regaining weight.

some context: honestly, I think this very sensible article speaks for itself. But just in case anyone is unsure: the GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs facilitate rapid weight loss, including around the face and neck. There’s not evidence that they result in more facial weight loss than would happen through different methods. People who don’t like the results can discontinue the medication, get cosmetic procedures (including surgery) or work on accepting what their faces look like now.

Today is Wednesday, the last day of the American Public Health Association meetings. I posted here about the first day of this huge conference of 12,000 folks from every perspective in public health. I’ve spent Monday and Tuesday getting in a lot of steps to and from sessions, visiting the expo to gather up as much free swag as possible, and then listening and learning about what’s important and new (which is a lot!). Here’s some of what I learned:

One: There’s a very interesting new documentary called “Shot in the Arm”, exploring vaccine hesitancy from measles to COVID. It opened in NYC on November 3, and will be screening in various places over the next year. We got to see numerous extended clips of the film, accompanied by commentary by the director, Scott Hamilton Kennedy (no relation to anti-vaxxer politician Robert Kennedy Jr.) The place was packed, which is no surprise. I’m looking forward to seeing it when it’s available.

Two: You’re not going to believe this, but: apparently there’s now a portable device, called the Veggie Meter that is used to measure someone’s fruit and vegetable intake by measuring skin carotenoid levels (I don’t yet understand this well enough to explain it; maybe later?) Suffice it to say that this gadget (not available on Amazon, btw) is an improvement over invasive methods, as it does something something reflection spectroscopy something light-scattering properties of carotenoids and their storage in the upper layers of the skin. The upshot is that the Veggie Meter may make nutrition research easier, cheaper and more accurate. That would be a good thing.

Three: I guess I already knew this, but my belief was revalidated: people will line up for free food and drinks no matter what the quality and what their economic status. At one of the local conference hotels that offered daily 6–7:30pm free drinks and snacks, people had already staked out spots in line and reserved comfy chairs and good tables in the lobby by 5:45pm. I know this because I was among them (with a friend). What can I say? One’s inner grad student still lunges at every passing free meal, even when they are obviously not top-quality.

On a more substantive note: there were tons of sessions about health equity, increasing and improving health services and the lives of those affected by racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and other forms of bigotry. I listened to presentations big and small, from big picture health policy initiatives to results from surveys about the reproductive health experiences of LGBTQIA+ people. All of them share an awareness of systemic breakdown and harms as well as proposals for addressing them in various sectors. Again, I felt proud to be a small part of this group and this work.

I’ll wrap up this weekend with a few more substantive comments on a session I attended on issues of body weight and stigma. But it’s now time to pack up, go to the last sessions and head to the airport. Wish me luck in getting back to Boston on time…

Hi from Atlanta, y’all– I’m at the American Public Health Association meetings, held yearly in some big American city. I love Atlanta; it’s got loads of interesting neighborhoods, good places to eat and meet, a great system of parks and paths, and an efficient public transportation system (called MARTA). I took MARTA to my hotel from the airport, which was quicker than driving. One drawback of the city is bad bad bad traffic. But I’m car-free (I accidentally wrote care-free, which is also true), happy to move about on foot.

The main conference runs from November 12–15. More than 12,000 attendees are expected. I love seeing people from all areas of public health, from clinicians to researchers to administrators to business folks to academics to students and so on. And there is very good swag. The exhibit booths are staffed with people happy to chat about their programs and hand over water bottles, coffee cups, candy, hand sanitizer, masks, pens, buttons, stickers, and all sorts of doo-lollies you never knew you needed.

There are multiple sections of APHA that members affiliate with, and they sponsor sessions. I’m with the Ethics section (natch) and also the Food and Nutrition section. I also attend talks by the Women’s Caucus and other sections. This conference is a prime opportunity for professional development and learning about up-to-date research, initiatives, emergencies, movements, etc.

I’ll be blogging about each day I’m here, sharing a few snippets of what I experienced. If you are here, too (I mean, there are 12K of us at the conference– it’s possible) or have comments or questions, please do let me know.

Sunday is the first big day of the conference, and the opening session features public health leaders speaking to the enthusiastic crowd. This is a time to welcome the members, do some cheerleading for public health, and honor professionals whose work helps make the country healthier. This year they presented the Fries Prize, awarded by the CDC Foundation and the Fries family, to Dr. Katalin Kariko, this year’s co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, for her research in developing mRNA science, making possible mRNA vaccines (including the COVID vaccines). They also awarded the prize to Dr. Anne Schuchat, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) physician and researcher, for her work on Group B streptococcus, including developing guidelines for treatment that has saved countless babies.

Dr. Kariko recorded a message of thanks, and Dr. Schuchat was present in person and chatted with the APHA leadership. Dr. Schuchat reminded us of how Dr. Kariko faced obstacle after obstacle in her career, being denied grants, being demoted in her job at UPenn, many papers rejected from journals. You can read the story in detail here and here.

Dr. Schuchat added that she herself benefitted from a group of supportive colleagues at the CDC. She didn’t face those same challenges of a hostile work environment, and in fact she found opportunities to influence the culture of the CDC, to make it a better place. She thanked her mentor Claire Broome and also her colleagues and students, noting how public health requires many hands and many ideas.

Hearing about the decades of work these women have done, being surrounded by a crowd of mostly women, doing all the detailed and thankless work that needs to be done to keep us alive and healthy, I was moved to tears. Tears of pride and tears of gratitude. My heart felt full and I knew I was in the right place and in the right profession.

In a lighter moment, Dr. Schuchat shared with the audience that she was the role model for the researcher played actor Kate Winslet in the movie Contagion. The two talked at some length about the details of Schuchat’s work. She also added that Winslet asked her questions including, “how did you wear your hair during an outbreak?”, and “What sort of shoes would you wear during an outbreak?” Well, you want the details to be right…

There’s more to share; stay tuned this week for updates from the public health mothership.

At the very end of August, while many of us were heading to the beach or mountains or lake for a last hurrah before fall, and while others of us were frantically finishing up syllabi or purchasing back-to-school supplies and clothing, a big study came out, looking at associations between longevity and weight changes in women over 60.

What did they find? Well, it depends on what you happened to read.

If you looked at news stories, you’d see only this:

The headlines are true. But the headlines aren’t the main result.

Let’s look at the details of the study itself (I’m paraphrasing from the paper abstract below):

• The study used data from the Women’s Health Initiative of 54,437 women, aged 61–81 years.
• It examined associations of weight changes and intentionality of weight loss with survival to ages 90, 95, and 100.
• Weight was measured at baseline, year 3, and year 10.
• Participants were classified as having 1) weight loss (≥5% decrease from baseline); 2) weight gain (≥5% increase from baseline); or 3) stable weight (<5% change from baseline).
• Participants reported intentionality of weight loss at year 3.

So the researchers are really looking at the issue of weight loss after age 60 vs. maintaining a stable weight. Why? Because many studies suggest a relationship between unintentional weight loss and mortality risk in older people. The researchers wanted to see if weight loss in general (including intentional) was associated with reduced chance of survival to age 90 or older.

Here’s what the news stories said:

[The researchers] found that the women whose body weight stayed stable over the years had 1.2 and 2 times the odds of surviving to 90 and beyond than those who lost weight.

Women who lost 5 percent or more of their body weight over the first three years studied had 33 percent lower odds of surviving to 90, 35 percent lower odds of surviving to 95 and 38 percent lower odds of surviving to 100 than their counterparts whose weight remained stable.

One factor associated with longer lives was whether a woman had intentionally lost weight. Those who unintentionally dropped pounds had 51 percent lower odds of survival to age 90 compared with others in the study. The researchers write that gaining weight over the study period “was not significantly associated with survival” to an extended age.

As the news folks say, this story buried the lede. The main result wasn’t that stable weights after 60 increase longevity, but rather than weight loss after 60 is associated with reduced longevity. And, unintentional weight loss was 3X more strongly associated with reduced longevity than intentional weight loss. Their study didn’t find any association between weight gain and reduced longevity. And finally, this pattern of results was similar across all BMI categories.

So, no matter the starting weight at age 60, losing weight was associated with reduced longevity to 90 or older.

One more important thing: these results are about associations found in large data sets. They’re not translatable into clinical advice for individuals. What the results do suggest is that prescribing weight loss for older women may not be productive for longevity. This news story did say that. Yay, Neuroscience News!

There’s a lot of science being done about aging bodies, weight and health. Some of it goes against standard clinical practice, so it’s important to keep up with new results and talk about them with friends, family and our healthcare providers. And we’ll keep you informed as best we can.

Last week, a news article came out titled “An unconventional training idea for older women”. Hmmm. Those of us who write for or read this blog already know (many of us firsthand) that older women train for all sorts of activity in all sorts of ways.

But no, this is a bit different. Researchers at the University of Calgary in Alberta, noting that “The cardiac phenotype of a substantial fraction of the population, i.e., mature women, is mainly unresponsive to endurance training “, carried out a study in which the participants– 15 healthy women aged 52-75– got blood drawn (10% of their total blood volume) and a bit later completed an 8-week endurance training program.

The results were interesting: their cardiac functioning improved (with main improvements in left ventricle mass and function). Their VO2 max overall didn’t change significantly, but there were statistically significant improvements in the 80-90% effort levels.

What are we to make of this? The news article offers some reasonable analysis.

As for the hypothesis that blood donation will overcome the reduced training response in older women, there are a bunch of caveats to consider. First, there was no control group that did the same training without donating blood. The authors emphasize that other studies with similar training protocols in similar populations haven’t produced big changes like this, which suggests that it’s the blood donation that sparked the magic. But still, without a direct comparison, how can we know that this particular program of intervals wasn’t simply better than the training used in previous studies?

More generally, it’s hard to interpret the nuances of heart adaptations. To be convincing, you want to know that a protocol helps women stay healthier or live longer, not that, say, it subtly changes the dimensions of one chamber of the heart. That, as the researchers acknowledge, will take more and longer-term research.

Right, so: 1) no control group, so who knows what would’ve happened without the blood donation; and 2) measurable structural and functional changes in parts of cardiac functioning do not, by themselves, provide evidence of clinical changes in older women’s health or fitness or sports performance.

Of course, it’s cool that researchers are paying any attention to older women’s endurance fitness at all, given the sad history of completely ignoring women in fitness and performance studies. I mean, when I picture sports performance studies, I think of something like this:

Physiological research almost always focuses on individual or clusters of structures or functions in order to shed light on how they contribute to the complexity of overall human functioning. Studies like these play their part. But (and it’s a big but), they don’t translate into advice or recommendations for clinicians or individuals. The news article author concurs. But, they add that there’s a bit need for more research on older women’s endurance fitness. Agreed.

Just don’t go out and donate blood, expecting to crush your hike or long-distance swim or ride, okay? You’ll crush it just by heading out there.

I hope this is sufficient for the lawyers…. Have a nice day… 🙂

CW: mention of articles talking about eating and weight loss.

Nutrition and metabolic scientists are working hard, and they’re working on a really hard problem: what are the effects of eating various foods/beverages on important features of human functioning? I’ve written in detail and with great relish about the swinging research pendulum on the egg question. Tracy has written about coffee and what science has to say about its effects on us. Christine’s even done experimentation on herself in service of our need to know about hydration. Thanks, Christine!

Some of those hard-working scientists came out with results of a study on eating almonds.

They were wondering whether eating some almonds before a meal (vs. eating a snack bar) would provoke what’s called early satiety– feeling full sooner– during the meal. They were going to measure this in three ways:

1. release of appetite-regulating hormones
2. self-reported lowered appetite
3. reduced short-term food consumption, i.e. eating less at the meal

Turns out, despite the fact that 1) happened– the appetite-regulating hormones got released, 2) and 3) didn’t. That is, people didn’t report lowered appetite and they didn’t eat appreciably less at the post-almond-snack meal than they did at the post-snack-bar meal (690 vs. 761 calories on average, which was not statistically significant).

In all seriousness, what they found was pretty interesting. At the metabolic level, the almonds did their job– provoking release of appetite-lowering hormones. But the effect didn’t migrate up to the conscious awareness level or the behavioral level. Which isn’t a bad or a good thing– it’s just a science thing.

And it spurred some good directions for future research like:

1. looking for different appetite-release patterns in people with different BMIs (their test group had BMI 27.5–34.9)
2. looking for longer-term behaviors and weight change and maintenance patterns
3. looking for favorable metabolic effects in diabetic populations

Yes, this research was done in part because nutrition science wants to find ways to bring about weight loss and maintenance of the results of weight loss. We’ve written a lot-a-lot about this, taking issue with the uniform imperative towards lower weights across almost all BMI categories.

Usually when I write these posts about new research, they’re accompanied by sensationalized and distorted media accounts of the results. This study doesn’t disappoint. Here’s what a google search yielded:

So what are we left with? I learned some things about what a nice food almonds are for the body (I mean by reading– I wasn’t in the study!). Also, trying snack selection strategies to distract us from eating by pre-feeding us may not work. Which is okay. Eating is a complex business at every level– from the social to the behavioral to the metabolic.

So, how to decide whether to eat almonds at any given time? I leave you with advice from a 1978 commercial that I remember well from my youth. In short, sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.

Hey readers? Do you like almonds? Do you use them for snacking? For taking the edge off before a meal? Do you remember this commercial. Just curious…

Last week, a new study came out on the effects of high-intensity exercise on metastatic (late stage) cancer. Medical news sites and medical Twitter have been all abuzz about the results. Take a look:

For those of you who know me or have read some of my critiques of medical journalism, you might think I’m about to lower the boom on the journalists and twitterers who are very enthusiastic about the results of the study. I’m not doing that. Not today… But, a little unpacking and clarifying of what we now know (and don’t know) about exercise and cancer is in order.

First of all, what were the researchers looking for in this multi-part study?

Researchers hypothesize that exercise-induced metabolic reprogramming of organs transforms them into metastatic-resistant metabolic micro-environments by limiting nutrient availability to the cancer cells thus creating a metabolic shield.

That is, they were investigating whether the metabolic effects of exercise might increase the likelihood that our organs would consume more glucose than usual, depriving tumors of the nutrients they need to grow and migrate.

Spoiler alert: the results of their study suggest a “yes” answer.

Exercise protects against cancer progression and metastasis by inducing a high nutrient demand in internal organs, indicating that reducing nutrient availability to tumor cells represents a potential strategy to prevent metastasis.

But (and as RuPaul says, it’s a big but), the details of the study show the results to be promising but still preliminary.

from the study:

Epidemiologic data from a 20-year prospective study of a large human cohort of initially cancer-free participants revealed that exercise prior to cancer initiation had a modest impact on cancer incidence in low metastatic stages but significantly reduced the likelihood of highly metastatic cancer.

In a 20-year prospective study of 2734 men and women in Israel, researchers found that high-intensity exercise lowered the relative risk for more advanced/metastatic stages of cancer (e.g. spreading to other sites in the body) 72%, compared to low-moderate exercise. Note, this is relative risk, not absolute risk. And, this is population-level, not taking into account other factors that strongly influence individual baseline risk. One more and: the researchers say that much more research is needed to know more about which particular cancers respond to increased exercise. All of this is TBD, if incredibly promising.

The study also included an analysis of this effect in mice.

In three models of melanoma in mice, exercise prior to cancer injection significantly protected against metastases in distant organs. 

Note, this experiment was done with melanoma, one form of cancer. It’s well known that different cancers set up shop, as it were, in the body in very different ways. Again, the effects of increased exercise on other cancers is still TBD.

There were other analyses done, and if you’re up to the task, you can access the whole paper here.

The authors themselves issues a bunch of caveats at the end of the article. For instance, the literature doesn’t show how long the tumor-starving effects of intense exercise last. They also point out that high-intensity exercisers, like Olympic athletes, are not themselves immune to various cancers. This suggests to them that “a personalized exercise regime for each patient might provide better clinical outcomes.”

Yes, I fully concur. Until we know more– a lot more– we can conclude that all forms and intensities of exercise are, in many ways, good for health ad longevity. A Healthline article on this study agrees:

High intensity also might not be possible depending on age and other factors. For these people, even moderate exercise still has a protective effect against cancer, Hicks said.

“Hundreds of epidemiological studies, comprised of millions of participants, provide strong evidence that regular, daily activities like brisk walking significantly reduce the risks of many cancers,” he said. “These results show 10 to 20 percent risk reductions for bladder, breast, colon, endometrial, esophageal adenocarcinoma, and renal and gastric cancers.

Well, yay for that! Reading those words has given me enough energy to maybe do this high-intensity move:

In case you’ve been outside or busy with other things non-internet this weekend, a) good for you; and b) a dense but very interesting research article came out; and c) this article has made otherwise sensible science journalists go hog wild. Researchers Mark and Deborah Hamilton and Theodore Zderic found:

…the human soleus muscle could raise local oxidative metabolism to high levels for hours without fatigue, during a type of soleus-dominant activity while sitting, even in unfit volunteers. Muscle biopsies revealed there was minimal glycogen use. Magnifying the otherwise negligible local energy expenditure with isolated contractions improved systemic VLDL-triglyceride and glucose homeostasis by a large magnitude, e.g., 52% less postprandial glucose excursion (∼50 mg/dL less between ∼1 and 2 h) with 60% less hyperinsulinemia. 

Very roughly, this means:

• Our big calf muscle can work continuously for long periods, without fatigue
• This process doesn’t use much glycogen, as it’s not intense muscular activity
• But, it has some surprising beneficial effects (insert technical stuff here about V-LDL triglyceride levels, glucose release after meals, and insulin levels related to insulin resistance, a condition that is considered a precursor to type-2 diabetes).
• Also, this is a surprising result, which is cool.

They were also nice enough to provide an illustration. So, if you like pictures:

But of course, the internet wasn’t satisfied with my explanation from above. Oh, no, that boring information won’t do at all. Here’s what they had to say instead:

The producers of the second article also got a little confused about where the “special muscle” was:

To be clear, the researchers tried very hard to stave off a new Tik-Tok calf-raise-at-the-desk craze. They say in the article:

This study was not a clinical trial. This was an experimental physiological study, conducted in highly controlled laboratory conditions. This study also did not test effectiveness of a free-living lifestyle intervention. 

And this:

One should be cautious when interpreting the relative effectiveness in subcategories until follow-up studies with a large sample size are performed. The practicality will also depend on implementation in large parts of the population. The practicality will depend in part on evidence that people are capable of successfully performing SPU contractions outside of a laboratory without EMG feedback. There is a need to test when this could be integrated within the lifestyle without disrupting various seated behaviors.

But the science journalists ignored all this. All they saw was that maybe this– the fancy lab-telemetry-enabled calf raise– could potentially reverse the death-encroaching effects of sitting for too long. So they wasted no time in putting that message out to the public. Even though one of the articles showed the illustration below, it still trumpeted the result as instantly available to office workers everywhere.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with calf raises. I do them on airplanes to help circulation (and also pass the time). But the soleus is not the “special muscle” that the internet is all in a swoon over. It’s just another one of our hard working body parts that help us get through our day.

Readers, did you see the calf-muscle-fever articles this weekend? Were you swayed for even a minute? I didn’t think so….