h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm subbing your entry on pull-ups. I'm pretty happy with it except for a few little points, although there's still a bit of work to be done.

The few minor things I want to clarify:

"Weight training is the superior form of exercise for shedding fat. Most obviously, because muscles burn more calories at rest than any other tissue, meaning you burn extra calories while watching TV."

What point are you making here? I don't understand it at all. You seem to say that exercise is the best way of losing weight because muscles burn calories when they are doing nothing.


"this suggests that muscles tire not because the mitochondria run out of fuel, but because they get overheated"

I don't know much about biology - are mitochondria involved in the energy burning process? I thought they did very little in the cell.

"Routinely"

You have two different sections with this as the header. Can you please suggest an alternative for one of them?

The subbed version is at A27636528

Hi - this is a bad weekend, so can you hold on until Monday? I will get to you, but I want to give this proper attention.

No problem.

Hiya. OK: quickie -
indeed, muscles do burn calories while at rest. Fat might too, but much less.

Mitochondria are the power sources of the cells. They turn the ATP/sugar into energy the cell can use. Theory is that muscles tire because the mitochondria can't produce to match the demand. The question is why. Previous theory is that they run out of fuel, becuase during exercise, energy is pulled out of fat and transported to muscle, but perhaps not fast enough. The DARPA business suggests that the problem is more about overheating, but I don't know of any serious studies on the topic to prove it, so it's just a suggestion.

The second "routinely" can become "Practically".



The entry was kind of whipped out from under me, so I hope you don't mind if I do a teeny bit of editing myself:

>>Now, without pushing off the ground, pull your body up until your chin is over the bar.
- Can you add "without kicking, swinging, or bicycling your legs." to the end of that?


>>The long, slow workout: since repeated use of muscles is linked to their growth, many advocate a lengthy workout that doesn't push the boundaries of what you're able to do. For example, if you can just barely pump 30 pounds for a few reps, advocates of this workout recommend pumping 20 pounds for many sets. [This workout has been tied to growth in stamina and endurance. Bodybuilders disdain it as not leading to rapid and bulgy muscle growth.]

>>The short, intense workout: since muscle strain is linked to muscle growth, many advocate a short workout using weights just beyond what you're able to do. For example, if you can just barely pump 30 pounds for a few reps, advocates of this workout recommend pumping it to total failure. [This workout is linked to explosive but short lived power. Bodybuilders also claim it creates bigger muscles faster.]

>>Both of these theories have some validity, and both have successful built muscles, [but both have their fans and naysayers.]

>>The [naysayers] for the long, slow workout point out that it takes too long to make significant progress. (Some say that long, slow workouts lead to harder muscles while short, intense workouts lead to larger muscles, but that is the bodybuilder's equivalent of an old wives' tale.) The [naysayers] for the short and intense workout mutter about tissue damage, brevity of strain and overworking.
- some stuff deleted from above paragraph. Maybe just remove the brackets and copy-paste?


I think that's it for now, but let me know before you send it away. Thanks.

I still need an explanation of the point you are trying to make about watching TV. It still seems to be saying that weight training is good for losing weight because you burn calories by not doing it.

I've made the changes you suggested, although you had used "naysayers" three times in rapid succession, so I reworded the second one.

Once I've got an answer to the question in the previous post, I'll be sending this back to the Eds as quick as possible - they're desperate for new Entries - so if you have any other suggestions, be quick about them.

Well, exercise burns calories. So walking for x amount of time burns x calories. When you sit down, you no longer burn any calories. (Or you do, but a negligible amount.)

Weight training builds muscles, which burn calories even when you aren't using them. So you burn x calories while working out, and you'll also burn y calories when you aren't.

So what I mean is that if you do resistance/weight exercise, you will burn calories even when not working out - say, while watching TV - which you wouldn't if you were doing any other exercise.



Return the entry, then. I never reread them anyway.