Answers to Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights Exercise IQ Quiz
If you haven’t already taken the Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights Exercise IQ Quiz you can do it at this link.
If you have already taken the quiz, here are the answers, based on Alex Hutchinson’s book Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights.
1. If you get a muscle cramp during a run, you likely started too fast.
TRUE: While the research is still hotly debated, the traditional theory that dehydration and electrolyte loss trigger cramps has come under fire. Instead, recent studies have found that more subtle behaviors like starting too fast and not resting up enough before a race appear to be significant risk factors.
2. You can improve your cardiovascular health by doing a few short, intense bursts of exercise – and that’s just as effective as prolonged “cardio” workouts.
TRUE: Often referred to as “high-intensity interval training,” short workouts like 4-6 times 30 seconds all out (with four minutes break) have proven to be equivalent to slower 45-minute sessions of running or biking for improving cardiovascular fitness, exercise capacity, insulin sensitivity and numerous other parameters. The catch: the shorter the intervals, the more you have to make it hurt.
3. Exercising outdoors in winter can cause asthma-like attacks in some people because the freezing air triggers a reaction in their airways.
FALSE: Winter air can indeed trigger “exercise-induced bronchoconstriction” in some people, but it’s the dryness of the air, not its temperature, that triggers the attacks. One solution is to wear a breathing mask (or scarf) that will help keep the air moist.
4. Muscles are most likely to get injured when they’re stretched beyond the limits of their usual range of motion.
FALSE: Most muscle injuries actually occur within the normal range of movement, during eccentric muscle contractions. This is one of the reasons “static” stretching, which aims to extend your range of motion, has little impact on injury risk.
5. It’s impossible to determine your maximum heart rate without actually pushing to your maximum.
TRUE: The old “220 minus your age” estimate for maximum heart rate is long dead. But even revised formulas like “208 minus 0.7 times your age,” while more accurate, are still off by more than 10 beats for one in every three people. The only to truly determine your max is to go there.
6. Light weights and lots of repetitions is the best way to tone muscles without bulking up.
FALSE: “Toning,” in the sense of light exercise to make a muscle look taut, simply doesn’t exist. If you’re poking a muscle that feels soft even when it’s flexed, that means you’re poking fat, not “untoned” muscle. To make your muscles stand out, you either have to lose fat or make your muscles bigger – and light weights won’t help unless you do enough reps to reach (or approach) failure.
7. Lifting weights is a more effective way to strengthen your bones than weight-bearing exercise like walking.
TRUE: The old idea that any weight-bearing activity builds bones has given way to a new understanding: strong muscles pull on the bones they’re attached to, and the bones respond to that tension by getting stronger. Jarring impacts like hopping or running also stimulate bone growth – but standing around or walking, not so much.
8. The harder you exercise, the lower the proportion of fat your body burns.
TRUE: A leisurely walk might burn 85 percent fat and 15 percent carbohydrate, while a vigorous run could be using 30 percent fat and 70 percent carbohydrate. But don’t be fooled: you’ll be burning so many more calories overall at higher intensities – including more fat calories – that you’re still better off exercising at moderate intensity for weight loss. It’s the number of calories that matter, not the percentage of fat.
9. If you have a sedentary job, you need to exercise for at least 45 minutes to counteract the negative health effects of sitting at your desk all day.
FALSE: Recent studies have found that prolonged sitting causes harmful changes in your metabolism – and those changes are entirely independent of how long you spend at the gym each day. Instead, frequent breaks, like standing up for at least five minutes every hour, are recommended.
10. By the time you feel thirsty, your body is already dehydrated enough to affect exercise performance.
FALSE: In fact, a recent study found that the fastest finishers at a marathon tend to be the most dehydrated. This remains a highly controversial topic, but several studies have found that simply drinking when you’re thirsty may allow your hydration level to drop, but won’t affect performance.
11. A fast start is essential to maximizing performance in a 5K or 10K race.
TRUE: Surprisingly, an analysis of every world record ever set over 5,000 and 10,000 meters found that, in 63 of the 64 examples, the first and last kilometers were faster than every other kilometer in the race. So starting fast may give you an advantage, as long as you quickly settle in to a more sustainable pace after the first few minutes.
RESULTS:
9-11 correct: Excellent! You’re making the most of your workouts.
5-8 correct: You’re on the right track, but are still stuck with some outdated habits.
Fewer than 5 correct: Uh oh – time to get caught up on the last few decades of exercise science.
Most people who took the quiz got Questions 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, and 11 wrong.
Contest Giveaway!
The publishers of Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights are giving away 3 copies of the book to readers of How 2 Run Fast located in the Continental U.S. To enter the contest, see the instructions in this post. Good luck!
Were you surprised by the answers to the quiz? How did you do? Tell me in the comments.
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Meb Keflezighi’s “Run to Overcome”
Book Review - Racing Weight Quick Start Guide
Book Review - Going Long: The Best Stories from Runner’s World
