According to the American College of Sports Medicine, Charlotte wheezes in at No. 36 in the recent fittest ranking of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas. (Raleigh trotted in far better at No. 15.)
The American Fitness Index, introduced in 2007, ranks cities in 30 categories ranging from acres of parkland and number of farmers markets, to number of smokers and people with heart disease, to the percentage of residents with health insurance.
On the newest ranking, released in May, Charlotte was cited as lacking in 19 of the 30 categories. Compared to the nation as a whole, it’s got an excessive number of smokers and obese residents, a higher number of residents with diabetes and heart disease and not enough primary health care providers.
It’s also lacking in playgrounds, dog parks, ball fields, rec centers, swimming pools and tennis courts, according to the index.
On the plus side, it has more farmers markets and acres of parkland per capita and fewer people who die from diabetes. The area evaluated was the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The findings didn’t surprise Hall Rubin, who moved to the area three years ago. Rubin previously lived in the Triangle, where he founded and headed a 400-member Meetup group that hiked, biked and paddled three or four times a week.
“There are opportunities in Charlotte,” says the semi-retired Rubin, “but you really have to look for them.”
For instance, he says, “There are a few long, linear greenways in Charlotte, but they aren’t connected. You have to put your bike on the car and drive to them.”
Ken Tippette, the manager of the Bicycle Program for Charlotte’s Department of Transportation says it’s no surprise Charlotte took a hit in the ranking for having a low percentage of residents who bike or walk to work. Years of planning have conspired against residents making short commutes by bike or foot.
But Tippette says efforts are underway to change the situation.
The city is planning the Cross-Charlotte Trail, a nonmotorized passage that would run 26 miles, from Pineville on the south side of town to UNC Charlotte.
The $35 million project is expected to take 10 years to complete. He adds that the city has come a long way in a decade: In 2003, Charlotte had 1 mile of marked bike lane; today it has 75 miles and another 44 miles of greenways.
And the city’s new B-Cycle program that lets people rent and ride bicycles parked in uptown Charlotte and other sites just turned a year old. Nearly 500 annual memberships exceeded the program’s expectations by 40 percent, and the more than 11,000 one-day riders surpassed expectations by a whopping 1,600 percent, program officials said. The bikes have made 32,000 trips in a year.
And, there’s the Carolina Thread Trail, an effort to build a trail network in 15 counties linking 2.3 million people.
Charlotte’s presence in the heart of tobacco country also weighed against the region. Nearly 19 percent of residents smoke, about 6 percent above the national average.

N.C. Prevention Partners, a nonprofit that works to reduce early death from preventable illness, says the tobacco situation is gradually improving.
A growing number of tobacco-free facilities – public schools, acute care hospitals and restaurants among them – is helping to discourage smoking. The nonprofit continues to push for a $1 increase in the state cigarette tax, which it believes would keep more than 89,000 children a year from taking up smoking.
Charlotte also struck out for having an overweight population: 27.8 percent of residents qualify as obese, compared with the national average of 21.3 percent.
N.C. Prevention Partners isn’t quite as optimistic on the obesity front, noting that statewide, the figures are even higher: 2 of 3 Tar Heel adults are overweight or obese, while 28 percent of high school students are likewise.
“For the first time in 200 years, today’s generation might not live as long as their parents,” the nonprofit notes on its website.
Tippette, the Charlotte Bicycle Program manager, says the American Fitness Index also fails to take into account the new bike share program – Charlotte B-cycle – launched last year, or the fact that an increasing number of commuters are using their bikes and the city’s Lynx light rail system to get to work.
Says Tippette, “You can hardly ride the train and not see a person with a bike on it.”

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Despite boasting five Bicycle Friendly Communities and a greenway system fast becoming one of the best in the nation, the Triangle got below-average marks on cycling in the fourth annual American Fitness Index survey released by the American College of Sports Medicine in May.

But the knock didn’t hurt the region too much: Of the largest 50 metro areas in the country covered in the report, Raleigh ranked as the 15th healthiest. Minneapolis-St. Paul, lauded for its green space, ranked No. 1. Charlotte came in at No. 36, while Oklahoma City ranked as the nation’s least healthy city.

The American Fitness Index, introduced in 2007, ranks cities in 30 categories, ranging from acres of parkland and number of farmer’s markets, to number of smokers and people with heart disease, to the percentage of residents with health insurance.

The Triangle’s high ranking – it was the second-healthiest city in the South behind No. 11 Austin, Texas – doesn’t surprise Hal Rubin, who lived in Cary for 15 years before moving to the Charlotte area three years ago.

“I adored the Triangle,” says Rubin, who founded the Raleigh Weekday Activity Meetup group, which has nearly 400 members. “Cycling, hiking, kayaking, camping – I could ride a couple blocks to the greenway and ride to Umstead (State Park, in Raleigh) or head out to the American Tobacco Trail and go to downtown Durham.”

The area ranked high in the category of “parkland as a percent of city land area,” with 17.1 percent of municipal land devoted to parks compared with the national average of 10.6 percent. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s heard Raleigh described as “the city within a park.”

“I really think we’ve been very fortunate in this area that our elected officials and our city officials have supported and valued cultural resources and recreation,” says Diane Sauer, director of Raleigh Parks & Recreation.

Not to mention the strong support of residents: Since the early 1980s, Sauer says, Raleigh residents have approved more than $200 million in parks-related bonds, garnering as much as 68 percent to 73 percent of the vote.

“At times, they’ve had the highest approval except for candidates running unopposed,” says Sauer.

The Triangle ranked below the national average in percentage of residents who bike or walk to work. Nationwide, 2.8 percent of workers claim to use those forms of transportation; in the Triangle just 1.7 percent.

Eric Lamb with Raleigh’s Transportation Department says the city is working to make such commuting easier. For one, there are those five Triangle communities deemed bike-friendly by the League of American Bicyclists: Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh. Lamb points to the change in Raleigh since 2008, when the city adopted its first bike plan.

“In 2009, we had 4 miles of striped bike lane,” says Lamb. “By the end of this year we’ll have 23 miles, and in 2015 we’ll be up to 75 miles.” The current bike plan calls for 300 miles of bike lanes and an additional 75 miles marked with “sharrows,” a marking on wider streets indicating the presence of bikes.

“We’ve had to go through a culture change,” says Lamb. “Bike and pedestrian planning wasn’t routine, it was considered something special, not an inculcated part of what we do.

“I wouldn’t say it’s automatic yet,” he adds, “but it’s better.”

The Triangle’s deep-seated ties to tobacco also weighed against the region. Some 16.2 percent of local residents smoke, more than 3 percent above the national average.

N.C. Prevention Partners, a nonprofit that works to reduce early death from preventable illness, says the situation is improving. A growing number of tobacco-free facilities – public schools, acute care hospitals and restaurants among them – is helping to discourage smoking. The region also struck out for having an overweight population: Nearly 1 in 3 residents qualify as being obese compared to the national average of about 1in 5.

N.C. Prevention Partners isn’t quite as optimistic on this score, noting that statewide the figures are even higher: 2 of 3 Tar Heel adults is overweight or obese, while 28 percent of high school students are likewise.

“For the first time in 200 years, today’s generation might not live as long as their parents,” the nonprofit notes on its website.

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Act I: Leave it to poor cholesterol

The scene: Lunchtime at Grant Avenue Grammar School as Larry and Gilbert sit down to eat. Let’s listen.

Gilbert: Lunchables?
Larry: Yeah, why?
Gilbert: Ya knucklehead! Don’t you realize that the lifestyle choices you make today can have a profound effect on your cholesterol levels as an adult? Hey, there’s Judy! Load up a spitwad in your straw, would ya?

Hopefully Larry followed Gilbert’s sound advice (on the lifestyle choices, not the spitwad), for a study by researchers at the University of Tasmania in Australia and Finland’s University of Turku has found that smart lifestyle choices made in adolescence can affect cholesterol later in life. Researchers tested the cholesterol and triglyceride levels of 539 youngsters — aged 9, 12 or 15 — in 1985 (they also recorded their height, weight, waist circumference, skin-fold thickness and smoking behaviors). In 2005, they remeasured the now not-so-youngsters and found  that the ones who had good LDL, HDL and total cholesterol levels as kids only maintained those levels if they ate wisely and didn’t smoke; the kids who let themselves go saw their cholesterol levels go to pot. Similarly, the kids with poor readings in youth were able to improve their cholesterol levels through good living.

“Our findings are important for two reasons,”wrote the study’s authors. “First, they suggest that beneficial changes in modifiable risk factors (smoking and adiposity) in the time between youth and adulthood have the potential to shift those with high-risk blood lipid and lipoprotein levels in youth to low-risk levels in adulthood. Second, they emphasize that preventive programs aimed at those who do not have high-risk blood lipid and lipoprotein levels in youth are equally important if the proportion of adults with high-risk levels is to be reduced.”

For more info, go here.

Act II: Of changing voices and devastating deltoids

The scene: It’s after school at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. High School as 7th graders Kevin and Paul decide what to do.

Kevin: We could ride our Stingrays downtown to see if any new comic books are in.
Paul: Ya, ya, we could. But I feel like getting pumped up instead.

And that, despite a persistent but erroneous belief that weight training in youth may inhibit bone growth, would be a good after-school activity for a 12-year-old. In fact, medical non-profits from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the American College of Sports Medicine agree that weight training can help prevent injuries, improve sports performance, play a key role in rehabilitating an injury and enhance long-term health no matter one’s age. Studies back up the notion (including a University of Connecticut probe that found that teenage boys who engaged in Olympic style weightlifting had bone mineral density values 20 percent to 35 percent higher than their non-lifting peers) and gyms are starting to encourage supervised lifting programs for youths.

Here’s a good first-hand account by a father of a weightlifting 12-year-old who’s also a certified strength and conditioning coach.

Act III: The ultimate energy drink?

The scene: A highchair in anyhouse USA. A 3-month-old aspiring Olympian watches annoyed as his mom plucks a bottle of formula from the fridge and warms it on the stove.

Annoyed 3-month-old (via a thought bubble): What’s she trying to do, kill my chances for gold in the high jump at the 2032 Olympics!?

It’s true, according to a study of 2,567 adolescents by the University of Granada, those who were breastfed wound up with stronger leg muscles.

The study has more far-reaching implications than simply fueling a field of extra-good high jumpers. Read more here.

Photo: Easy on the gravy, Beav.

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You’ve likely heard that from your friendly, local robo-athlete, the guy or gal who works out with machine-like efficiency pert near every day. Well, he/she now has a study out of the Human Performance Laboratory at Appalachian State’s North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis — quick breath so we can finish this sentence — to back him/her up.

ASU researchers followed 1,002 men and women ages 18-85 over a 12-week period in the autumn of 2008, keeping tabs on the number of upper respiratory tract infections they suffered. Their findings:

• Frequency of colds among people who exercised five days or more every week was about 46 percent less than the folks who maybe — maybe — exercised once a week.
• Of the physically active folks who did catch cold, the duration of their colds was about 34 percent less than the sluggos.
• The severity of colds was less severe among the fit.

The study took into account the participants’ lifestyle, diet, stress levels, how much they claimed to exercise and a self-assessment of their fitness. One thing it didn’t cover: How much exposure to germs they had at work and at home (e.g., from kids). Curiously, the study also found that being older, being male and being married also reduced your chances of catching cold.

In a typical year, the report says the average American adult can expect to catch two to four colds, they average kid six to 10. The study estimates that colds cost the U.S. economy about $40 billion annually, in direct and indirect costs.
Researchers believe that exercise activates the immune system. The more active your immune system, the more your attack cells circulate through your body hunting down viruses.

The American College of Sports Medicine agrees with that assessment — to a point. Working out 30 to 60 minutes a day most days of the week reduces the number of sick days a person claims by “at least 40 percent,” says ACSM. Too much intense exercise, however, can weaken your immune system, tuckering out those attack cells and letting viruses roam about your body unchecked.

In addition, the ACSM offers this advice:

• If you do have a cold, it’s OK to exercise moderately if the symptoms are confined to your head. If it’s seeped into your respiratory system, you have a fever, your glands are swollen or you’re achy, bench yourself.
• If your symptoms become too much and you must sit on the sidelines, don’t rush your return into the game. Rather, ease back in.

And sweating out an illness? It’s a myth and doesn’t work.

* * *

For more on the Appalachian State study, go here.

To check out the American College of Sports Medicine’s Exercise and the Common Cold Fact Sheet, go here.

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Right, I gasped to myself. And you can pick up my lung when I cough it up.

It was my first “coached” running workout and a whirlwind of thoughts rushed through my oxygen-deprived brain as I did the third of my four prescribed 600-meter sprints (bookended by a pair of 1,000-meter dashes). Will I be seeing that tuna wrap I had for lunch again? was foremost. Why am I doing this? was a close second. By “this,” I meant hiring, at age 54, a coach to drive me, push me and to make my body feel like it hadn’t since I’d last crossed paths with a coach in high school some 35 years ago.

Quick background: Back in my 20s, I ran — a lot. Mostly 10Ks, about 30-35 miles a week. When I turned 30 my back and knees simultaneously quit; I turned to swimming, cycling and other less-pounding pursuits. Then, last fall, the bug to run, which had never entirely disappeared, surfaced when I started reading about where running was headed. Out were the days of long, meaningless training runs intended solely to rack up miles. Today, the smart runner runs less but makes every mile count. Less emphasis on long pounding runs, more on interval training. I was also inspired — as have been countless others — by “Born to Run,” which, among other things, repudiates the heel-strike movement of the ‘70s in favor of a running stride emphasizing a forefoot strike.

I enrolled in the Fit-tastic walk-to-run training program, which promises to take non-runners and make them capable of running a 5K in 12 weeks. My plan: Prove to myself that I can still run a 5k, then go back to cycling. After three months of training I figured my knees and back would renew their protest and force me back into less impact-insistent activities. Three months of knee and back cooperation, that was all I asked for. Then they could protest all they wanted.

Oddly, that didn’t happen.

In fact, I regained my dormant running form and did pretty well in my 5K return, finishing third in my age group in my first race. I kept running through the winter, upping my mileage. In April, I did a 12-mile trail race. Inspired, I enrolled in the Fast Coaching half marathon training program over the summer. On Labor Day weekend I exceeded my expectations, running the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon in 1:45. I was happy, my knees and back were happy. What next? I thought.

The Second Empire Grand Prix 2010 Fall Series, it turned out. The series is a collection of eight races, ranging from the mile-long Magnificent Mile to the Anna’s Angels 10-miler. Most of the races, though, are 5ks, which set up the obvious scenario of trying to improve with each successive race. That meant doing a lot of the “smart” training, with long runs interspersed with intervals, that I’d been reading about. And that planted the seed of hiring Coach Tim.

Back in the ‘80s, Tim Clark was a competitive runner. He’d nearly broken the 15-minute barrier in the 5k, did 31 minutes and change in the 10K. Tim knew about effective training, and what he knew he’d been passing along to others for the last 15 years. (Tim had coached our Fit-tastic group.) And because Tim had been a competitive runner, he knew what it took to meet a goal: someone riding your butt, indifferent to the fact you were beet red, out of breath and about to come un-wrapped.

Coaching adults, even ones who are paying you, is no easy task. First and foremost, they are adults. They take grief daily on the job; they aren’t up for more, well intended as it may be, come playtime. The trick, then, is to be encouraging and demanding without coming off like a high school football coach. You don’t handle a sulking adult who balks at doing that last 400-meter interval by getting in their grill and questioning their manhood. Rather, you do what you would do with a challenging employee: you gently tell them they’re doing good, then throw in the “but” — “but you need to do better.” Especially if they hope to achieve this dubious goal of being 18 again.

At first, I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d hired Tim. Because everyone is doing it? (The American College of Sports Medicine says taking on a personal trainer/coach is one of the top 10 fitness trends for 2011.) I didn’t have long to mull it over; the first question Tim asked was, “What’s your goal? What are we shooting for here?” So I made one up on the spot: I want to break 21 minutes in a 5K. Tim created a workout routine aimed at helping me do just that. And that’s when I realized how Coach Tim differed from Coach Lucifer back at Gateway High: When you’re in high school, the coach gets you to do what he wants you to do. When you’re an adult, a coach helps you achieve what you want to do. Therein lies the danger of hiring a personal coach:

Be careful what you ask for — a coach will make you work for it.

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