It could be three-mile run through a flat meadowlands, or a grueling half-day race up a 4,000 foot mountain. Either one, trail runners say, is preferable to running through cities and towns on a paved road. The Boston Globe reports that the number of trail running events has grown three […]

People who live there know: there’s Colorado, and there’s Colorado off-road. That applies to biking as well as driving: the real thing is only found in the back country. This GORP primer on the best four mountain bike trails in Colorado makes it easy to understand why you want to […]

It’s not shocking news, but it is news, in the sense that it comes from a new study by Stanford University School of Medicine. A diet rich in vegetables, grains and legumes appears to be better for your heart than a meat-based low-fat diet. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that […]

Most New Englanders have heard about the magnificent vista atop Mt. Monadnock, but relatively few actually check it out, because, hey, getting there is all uphill right? The Boston Globe thinks that’s a mistake. As this short piece opines, Mount Monadnock offers the best trek opportunities in New England. The […]

The American Heart Association has been so high on fish that it has long recommended eating it at least twice a week. But all fish doesn’t make the cut. As the Washington Post reports, the heart association wants us to eat particularly oily fish–those that are high in omega-3 fatty […]

Aspirin, Advil, Aleve, Tylenol, Celebrex, Vioxx. Trying to figure which pain reliever is best for which pain is, well, a real pain. That’s why we thank Jane Brody for this easy-to-swallow explanation of the pros and cons of the many pain pills that are pushed upon us. Each one, it […]

It may be politically incorrect to speak of it, but for years, it’s been well known that poor people were more likely to be obese than rich people. National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys show that in the early 1970s, 22.5 percent of people with incomes below $25,000 were obese, […]

What is it about working out with others that makes it so easy to share personal stories? Jeannine Stein, writing in the L.A. Times, explores the strange intimacy that often blooms when two or more people meet at the gym. Stein quotes clinical psychologist Richard Sherman, who says “there’s a […]

The word “polyphasic” doesn’t mean much to most people, but to sleep scientists, it describes an extremely efficient and widespread (in the animal kingdom) pattern of sleeping, one that consists of many short naps and no sustained period of sleep. As explained in this feature story in Outside magazine, most […]

It’s true that even "athletic" middle-aged people tend to neglect the development of our fast-twitch muscles. We run, we swim, we cycle, but we do lots of cardio, but far fewer sprints than we did in younger days. That, says Phil Campbell, author of “Ready, Set, Go! Synergy Fitness for […]