A new study of heart attack risk, which looked at more than 27,000 people around the world, promises to make “hip to waist ratio” the most commonly heard phrase in thousands of health clubs around the world, or at least on the East and West Coasts of the United States. […]

The November issue of Outside magazine has some mildly disturbing advice for athletic men in the coveted 50-year-old bracket. (Geezer knows a few.)  "If you maintain your fitness level solely through non-impact sports like cycling and swimming," the magazine warns, "you could be at risk for waking up at age […]

The Washington Post’s Camera Works page always works for Geezer. Take the "Athletes in Motion" link, and skip the damn ad. Go there now.

Even if it hadn’t been invented by a Hungarian from Romania who was a political refugee and principal dancer for the Houston Ballet, and even if it didn’t require a bizarre arrangement of wood and cable and straps that looks like it was constructed by Gepetto’s sadistic apprentice, and even […]

The New York Times gives us the lowdown on the widely held conviction that a good workout is just what’s needed to sweat the demons of a mild cold right out of our bodies. If you believe that (and it’s possible that Geezer once did)  the story tells us, you’re […]

Could the country that produces the world’s tastiest rum and most coveted cigars make something that’s actually good for you? Why would they want to? Geezer doesn’t have all the answers, but he can respond to question number one. Yes: Cuba is the world’s largest producer of policosanol, an apparently […]

The suggestion that exercise can slow or prevent cancer has been circulating for years, no doubt bolstered by the very public and remarkable recovery from cancer of cycling hero Lance Armstrong. But while the facts, sadly, don’t coincide with what we’d ike to believe, there is some slight evidence that […]

To believe most of the claims about antiaging drugs that are sold all over the Internet—slimmer waists, better memory, stronger sex drive–you’d have to be born yesterday, an event that may be goal of people who buy the stuff. Bottom line, says this piece in the Boston Globe, the ads are […]

No. MET, that mysterious acronym that has appeared on many late-model cardio machines, does not stand for "Magnificient Effort Today." It’s healthspeak shorthand for "metabolic equivalent units," which is healthspeak longhand for the amount of oxygen our bodies consume when at rest, which turns out to be  3.5 milliliters per […]

We always knew that exercise builds muscle. Then, a few years ago, we figured out that it also builds bone. Now it looks like exercise builds cartilage too. A Swedish study reported in the November issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism looked at two groups the meniscus repair patients. As reported […]