I hate to start off going negative but it is illustrative and appropriate to reduce to the point of absurdity the approach used by personal trainers in general and the clown trainers on the TV show The Biggest Loser specifically.

Everybody wants to make a buck on the plight of the overweight. The Purposefully Primitive approach, to use an old hackneyed analogy, is to teach overweight individuals how to fish rather than sell them fish. There is an obesity epidemic in America. As pointed out in a recent New York Times article, 30% of the population is obese, obesity being defined as 30% (or more) body fat.

A 200-pound obese person holding a 30% body fat percentile would carry 60-pounds of fat. If that same individual carried a 40% body fat percentile (not uncommon) they would have 80-pounds of fat to haul around on a daily basis. Hold a pair of 30 or 40 pound dumbbells in each hand to give your self an idea of how much weight this represents in real terms. Body fat is not near as dense as iron so the space on the body needed to carry body fat is voluminous.

How to melt off adipose (fat) tissue is the subject of great controversy within the fitness community. One element of the obesity solution is the use of cardiovascular exercise to mobilize and oxidize stored body fat.

Personal trainers and fitness experts have a huge collective blind spot in that they continually mistake exercise mode for cardio method. What is the goal of cardio exercise? The systematic elevation of the heart rate for a protracted period of time on sustained basis: the benchmarks are frequency, duration, intensity.

Fitness experts force clients to become adept at a mode of exercise they are biased towards, despite the fact that the mode, jogging, is injurious, ruinous and unnecessary.

Marty Gallagher

WHO IS MARTY GALLAGHER?

Writer & Author Published articles

* Washington Post.com: 232 weekly and bi-weekly columns

* Muscle & Fitness, Flex: 54 feature and training articles

* Powerlifting USA : 34 articles on training & personalities

* Muscle Media: 14 articles including the 2003 training edition

* Parrillo Performance Press: 84 feature articles and interviews, co-editor

* Milo Magazine: 10 articles on training and athlete profiles

* Strength Review: 26 articles on all aspects of athletic training

Joe Weider called Gallagher's book, Coan: The Man, The Myth, The Method ?the best book on Powerlifting ever written.? Athlete

DCAAU Senior Men's weightlifting champion, National Junior Olympic weightlifting champion, national junior Olympic weightlifting record holder, seven-time national master powerlifting champion, five-time world master powerlifting champion, runner-up and third place winner IPF world masters championships.

Coach

* Black's Gym ? coach (along with Bob Fortenbaugh) for five time national powerlifting team champions, twice runner-up national powerlifting team champions

* United States of America ? co-coach, 1991 world powerlifting team champions

Marty Gallagher lives in a small powerlifting village in south central Pensylvania at the foot of the Catoctin Mountains.