Hand Holding and Miscellanous Ramblings

Hey everyone and welcome to the new DFM website and blog. I plan on trying to add to this a few times a week. I would love to get questions from clients, trainers, and non-clients to answer or at least try to so if you have a question go ahead and email me at jfeigenb@gmail.com. Now, on with the show!

Yesterday, while working at the Club Fitness in O’Fallon at Highway K and N I surveyed the landscape of gym patrons and noticed an oddity that spoke to me. Over half of the people using the cardio equipment were holding on to some sort of handles or other parts of the machine to "brace" themselves while frantically cranking out their exercise with their legs only. Now I am all for anybody getting active in the first place, and if that happens to mean they need to assist themselves by bracing their hands against the machine then so be it. However, for some of the gym regulars, it surprised me that they were still holding on for dear life! For example, a few people were walking on pretty steep inclines while holding themselves in an upright position with their hands on the machine. Furthermore, there were a few people on the stair climbers hunched over with their arms and hands braced on the machine. Then there are the elliptical machines where people were holding on to the arm poles that move when you move your legs. It was very interesting to me.

So before just going up to these nice folks and explaining to them that they were getting less out of their exercise by bracing themselves against the machine, I decided to do some research. As it turns out more than a few different authorities have found that holding on while performing cardio reduces caloric expenditure (bad), results in poor posture (bad), and reinforces improper muscular biomechanics (yea you guessed it, bad). When you hold on while say, walking on an inclined treadmill, you are effectively robbing your legs, core, and trunk of working hard during the exercise. Think about it, if you had to walk up a hill in the forest that had a steep incline you would be leaning forward and doing some pretty hard work. Contrast this to holding on to the handles on the treadmill and your position, which is more upright and relaxed. Which is more difficult and which do you think burns more calories? Ding, ding. Walking up the hill sans holding on wins out on all counts. It engages more musculature to keep your balance and also forces you to create more force with your legs to keep up with the treadmill rather than the slight subconscious pulling you would do while holding on to the treadmill. In another example, most would agree that swiftly ascending a few flights of stairs is pretty challenging, especially when the "few" flights turns out to be 20 or 30 flights. Now if you're holding on the railing of the stairs the difficulty drops through the cellar, comparatively. Also, the hunched over position that most gym-goers assume while leaning on the stair climber is just bad posture and reinforcing that is not a good way to get results.

Some sources claim anywhere from a 20%- 50% decrease in caloric expenditure when you hold on the machine with your hands or upper body. That is a TON of calories to give up during your precious gym time! And don't think that pushing and pulling on the elliptical's "ski-style" poles are doing anything for your upper body. In reality your legs are creating the movement and your arms are just moving as a result of being attached to the poles. Also, you're failing to challenge your core to hold your skeleton upright by adding points of contact (with your hands). I could go on for pages, but the reality is this: Do yourself a favor and do your cardio sans hands and see how much more challenging it is. There are about three cardio machines I know of that really can involve the upper body to any sort of significant training effect and they are the rower, a ski erg, and an upper body cycle ergometer. Unfortunately, Club Fitness does not currently have any of these specialty machines. The good news is now you have no question on whether you should be holding on or not, don't do it! Until next time, keep working hard!

-Jordan Feigenbaum CSCS, ACSM-HFS, IFA Sports Nutritionist DFM Trainer