A couple of days after my post on Dara Torres, I got an email from uber-trainer Alwyn Cosgrove, who mentioned that he’d been in on a couple of Torres’s training sessions years ago when they both hung their hats in New York City.  Cosgrove stressed that he’d only been an observer and note-taker in the session, while his boss ran the session, but that Torres was a beast even then.

I shot him back an email asking why, if he'd even been in the gym while she was training, he didn’t have a huge poster of Torres in his gym window—with a beaming shot of him photoshopped in beside her for good measure--along with a banner proclaiming “DARA TORRES OWES IT ALL TO US!” 

I was joking, of course—Cosgrove is decidedly not that kind of coach--but trainers do this sort of thing all the time, and while in some ways it’s completely understandable, it’s also a shining example of why the average person is so terribly confused about fitness.  Wouldn't you know that an article would pop up in a general-interest publication mere days later that would illustrate my point exactly, and give me some great material for a nice Monday-morning rant.

The article (in TIME, by Alice Park) sings the praises of something called “resistance stretching.” Inevitably, there are a couple of trainers quoted who tout the system with bizarro, near-meaningless proclamations like “It takes twice as much force to stretch a muscle as it does to contract it,” as well as a body shot of a celebrity endorser.

That would be Torres herself, the fitness icon du jour, and herein we have the real reason this even remotely counts as fitness news.

I’m all for trainers making money, and I can pretty much reconstruct how this one went down.  A chance to beef up profits on account of Torres’ celebrity status came up, and these stretch-arm-strongy trainers jumped on it with a quick email to TIME, laced with a choice quote or two from the swimmer.  The article gets published.  If things work out as these trainers hope, a few more trainers will get certified in their system, several hundred people gain a few more degrees of range of motion in their joints, the inventors of the system make rent for a few more months.  Everybody wins. 

I’m also willing to concede that resistance stretching may have some clear benefits.  To me, it sounds like a repackaged amalgamation of Thai massage and advanced yoga.  And the innovation being ballyhooed here, contracting a muscle while you stretch it, isn’t exactly novel (it’s a part of a sequence called ‘proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation’, a technique covered extensively in the CSCS study materials).  Still, it’s possible that these trainers have put their techniques into an appealing sequence, made it palatable and comprehensible to the average fitness consumer—as well as the odd, photogenic Olympic athlete--and have themselves an appealing fitness product.  In which case, good on them. 

What I object to, however, is the suggestion that Dara Torres owes her considerable success to this quasi-innovation in any meaningful way.  The article ends with the line “…maybe we’ll start to pay more attention to stretching.  After all, look what it’s done for Torres.” 

I quite literally lost all feeling in my extremities when I read that.

Seriously, now, what HAS it done for Torres?  The article says she gets resistance stretched at home three times a week, and for a few minutes before and after her swims.  But that's a drop in the bucket compared to her full training regimen.  And yet, true to form, the article implies that this newfangled stretchy-stretching is the key to everything Torres has achieved.

All together now, so that back row can hear us:  it’s NOT!  If YOU are already doing 15-20 hours a week of training, feel free to add some fancy-pants stretching method on top of that.  But if you’re not, you’re better off redoubling your efforts on the tried-and-true basics, the stuff that I and every other fitness trainer worth his clipboard tells you about till you want to mace us and run.

I have a sportswriter friend, Tris Wykes, who used to play hockey when we were growing up.   One winter, Wayne Gretsky mentioned in a TV interview that he liked to sprinkle the blade of his hockey stick with talcum powder before a game; he felt it made the puck slip off his stick just few parsecs faster. 

Days after the interview came out, every one of Tris’s teammates had vats of talc in their lockers and were dowsing their sticks in the stuff.  Tris said that the locker room smelled like a nursery. 

Did any of these guys play any better?  Need you ask?  

If you're Dara Torres or Wayne Gretsky*—sure, hit the talcum powder or the resistance stretching.  If not, hit the pool.  Or the ice.

Just don’t get them confused. 

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Lou Schuler sent me a link to an article that suggests something we've all suspected for quite some time:  what your mom eats while you're in utero shapes what you eat once you're out.  My wife's pregnant with a boy, so if I want to bond with the kid I guess I should be force-feeding her protein powder and red meat.  I think I'm out of luck on this one...

*Dara and Wayne:  Thanks for reading!  Hey, I've got some really cool fitness products that sure could use your endorsement and I'll send them over if you just email me your personal addresses.  Looking forward to working with both of you!!  With admiration, Andrew