HEALTH AND FITNESS: Santa’s annual fitness report

Since Christmas is next week, our attention is naturally focused on Santa Claus. Have you ever wondered how Santa gets in shape for his yearly sleigh ride to deliver gifts to good children around the globe? Like many elite athletes, Santa does not publicly discuss his fitness or training. There are certainly no published studies that report his muscular strength or his maximal oxygen uptake. Given this lack of information, I attempted to make an educated guess about Santa’s training, fitness and health.

By all accounts, Santa is overweight. While we don’t know his body mass index or percent fat, he would probably be considered obese. Furthermore, he appears to have a large waist circumference, indicating a high level of visceral fat. This suggests that Santa is a high risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. This combination can lead to a heart attack and, possibly, death at a relatively young age.

But Santa has avoided this fate and seems to be living a healthy life. His secret, no doubt, is regular exercise. There is good evidence that maintaining a high level of physical fitness can reduce the risk of death in people who are obese (and everyone else). Like many athletes, Santa trains in the “offseason” to get ready for his annual Christmas Eve journey.

Santa’s training likely includes endurance, strength and flexibility exercises. In order to visit every home around the world in one night, Santa moves quickly. This suggests that he has a high maximal aerobic capacity as well as good endurance. This is a result of both high-intensity interval training and long-duration, lower intensity training, similar to what a marathon runner might do. Evidence for his good aerobic fitness is shown by the fact that he departs each home with a hearty “ho, ho, ho!” If he were out of shape, he would be too short of breath to speak, much less give such a robust farewell.

Santa must also dedicate training time to improving his strength. His sack of gifts is certainly very heavy, and he repeatedly carries it up and down chimneys. In addition to traditional weightlifting, Santa probably also engages in plyometric training, which involves explosive movements that develop muscle power. Santa must also have good flexibility in order to squeeze through narrow spaces and move quickly without pulling a muscle. This is the result of stretching and, likely, other exercises including yoga.