Are New Trends In Exercise Dangerous?

Remember when you first heard one of your friends wives talk about how brutal her yoga class was because the room was 105 degrees… ON PURPOSE!!!!? And remember your reaction? WTH??? Now the madness has spread, like a virus in a kindergarten class, beyond Bikram Yoga.

In the apparent need to punish themselves for watching Desperate Housewives on Sunday nights, real life housewives are striving for more and more horrific ways to make themselves uncomfortable. Expanding the high temp torture to pilates, stationary cycling and any other activity that was at one point only mildly unpleasant. Why not just jump into a boiling cauldron of baby oil and protein powder and get it over with? Is it for bragging rights? Do they really hate themselves? Are they brainwashed by fashion magazines?

You don’t waste three songs sitting around warming up — you can hit it hard from the start,” said Mimi Benz, 31, an owner of the Sweat Shoppe, a seven-month-old hot group cycling studio in North Hollywood, Calif. “I’m not going to lie, it’s intense.

Of course, with every trendy way to make your life less comfortable, there is a doctor willing to step up to the mic to voice the harmful effects of this ridiculous behavior. The New York Times interviewed Dr. Douglas Casa, a kinesiology professor at the University of Connecticut and an expert on athletic exertion in heat.  He says that while hot workouts are harder, benefits of any workout peak at about 100 degrees.

Above that, you’re just jeopardizing safety. If it’s so hot you can’t get a hard workout in, it defeats the purpose.  If you’re able to maintain the same intensity in the heat as you do in cool conditions, you’ll have to work harder and you’ll burn more calories. But a lot of people can’t do as much in the heat, so it could just be a wash — you might as well work harder where it’s cooler.

What about the detox effect? “That’s a hoax,” Dr. Casa said. “I don’t think there’s any inherent advantage to sweating more. Some people just like the feeling

So, is it hazardous to your health? Was it’s conception borne in an already brain damaged mind? Either way, stay away from “hot” exercise. Even if it will make you sound more impressive at your next local Stepford Wives gathering.

Do you enjoy “hot” exercise?  Let us know in our poll!

[NY Times]