Greatest fitness tips from Outside

Outside online offers over two dozen health and fitness tips in their October article The Greatest Fitness Tips. Ever. They established the list through wisdom gained over 30 years in the health and fitness biz. Let's take a look at a few of their suggestions:

• Maintain base fitness: Never get so out of shape that getting back into shape becomes extremely difficult. Continually train for that annual marathon, 10-mile walk, climbing a new peak or whatever goal suits you.
• Cross train with the right sport: Runners should cycle, cyclists should run and row, rockclimbers should perform calisthenics ... you get the picture.
• Flexibility is important: You don't need to fold into a pretzel, but greater flexiblity also boosts muscle endurance.
• Don't blame food: Start exercising and you'll lose weight. It's not all about bad carbohydrates or bad food.

To Outside's credit, they mock poor advice they gave in the past, such as pro-tanning and saying exercising above 85 percent of your maximum heart rate has little or no cardio benefit (not true)! But in 1979, they did ridicule one physician who said a woman's weak abdominal muscles could cause her insides to fall out while jogging, as they're perforated by the vagina. A medical doctor actually said that? Oh yeah, this was 1979.