EUGENIZATION.

I’ve been doing a lot of media trolling lately to find interesting, unique, and sometimes absurd articles on health and wellness lately. Of all the articles I’ve ever come across, this absolutely tops the cake, with regards to sheer absurdity.

Vibrating Machines Make a Comeback.

It’s alright, you’re allowed to do a double-take.

Yes, those are those silly vibrating machines that feature prominently in turn-of-the-century movie reels and clips. If there was one thing that I could single out as heralding the brainlessness of the fitness industry, it would be the resurgence of whole-body vibration. It was foreshadowed several years ago by the invent of the Body Blade(tm), a piece of flexible plastic that offered one a bit of resistance as you wiggled it back and forth. It was purported to effectively work your core musculature by forcing your ab muscles to contract to stabilize your torso against the resistance of the furiously wiggling “blade”. Incredibly, it continues to be a modality that is accepted and used by the physical therapy community.

Anyway, that the health and fitness community has taken this idea of body stabilization to its unfortunate logical completion should be of little surprise, since anything that one can make a buck off of is heralded as “the next big thing” (remember the Ab Roller, Thighmaster, etc.?). But the funniest part is the article reporting William Kraemer doing studies on the efficacy of whole-body vibration.

In the past, I’d criticized Kraemer and the NSCA as being completely stupid, irrational, dogmatic, and a host of other things, without considering the few viewpoints they held that I did agree with. Ultimately, as a consequence of considering those points (and some subtle intellectual prodding by Dr. Warden), my opinion of the NSCA changed enough that I decided to get their CSCS certification.

I believe that Kraemer’s actions have once again caused my opinion to swing in the opposite direction. Kraemer is a moron; end of story (Ok Fred, you win).

At any rate, check out the article, have a few laughs, and don’t take it as seriously as I do. It’s not good for your health, you know.