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Evan Solomon, co-host of CBC News: Sunday and host of Hot Type

MY GOAL

“I’m going on an Arctic hike in July for two weeks. It’s going to be 20 to 25 kilometres a day, and we are carrying very heavy packs. My goal is to survive this psychotic adventure.”

MY WORKOUT

Evan Solomon jogs eight to 10 kilometres four times a week. But he’d rather by playing basketball. (Tim Fraser for The Globe and Mail)

Jogs four times a week, for eight to 10 kilometres, and takes one long hike with a heavy pack each week.

Also plays tennis weekly with his brother and joins the occasional hockey game.

Does poradic sit-ups and push-ups (two sets of 25 each).

MY LIFESTYLE

“When I’m on the road, I run with a couple of my producers and cameramen in some interesting places. I don’t love jogging; I do it because it’s efficient. I would rather play hockey or basketball or tennis. My weekly tennis game is great because I see my brother. My wife is a heavy-duty yoga person. I tried it extensively and I loved the feeling afterward, but I hate it. Also, I ride my bike to work if I can.”

MY MOTIVATION

“If I’m anxious or moody and I have a jog, I will feel a thousand times better. I’ve never had a big weight issue. I’m 39 and I’m not the way I was at 29, but I wear the same pants.”

MY WORKOUT ANTHEM

“I love listening to talk radio - or a baseball game, if one’s on - because it’s like jogging with someone else. I listen to an old-fashioned Walkman, because it’s got AM [radio]. People think I’m jogging with a museum piece.”

MY CHALLENGES

“My life doesn’t allow for a firm routine right now. I travel almost every week, and with two young kids, the first thing to go is your exercise.”

THE CRITIQUE

For Steve Ramsbottom, owner of Vancouver’s Performance Institute, Mr. Solomon’s routine raises a few red flags.

The most serious problem, according to Mr. Ramsbottom, is Mr. Solomon’s lack of strength training. The television host should work on his core, back and legs - specifically, glutes, hamstrings and hips - to prepare for his adventure. And he should build up to about 50 repetitions of each exercise.

“He’s got to train like a marathon runner,” he says.

A hike of this intensity “is not something the body’s really designed to do.”

However, “for a short period of time, it’s relatively safe as long as he’s prepared.”

Mr. Solomon should incorporate some interval training, sprinting for about 100 metres throughout his jog in order to add an anaerobic component to his routine.

In the long run, however, the high impact of jogging could lead to injury. “I’d encourage him to do different types of cross-training,” Mr. Ramsbottom says. “Biking is a great way to develop endurance and strength in the legs.”

And though yoga would be a great supplement to Mr. Solomon’s training, maybe he should just stretch instead.

“If he doesn’t like yoga, he’s not going to do it.”

(AP)Trendy wheeled sneakers that let kids zip down sidewalks, across playgrounds and through mall crowds could also send them rolling into emergency rooms on a stretcher, say doctors who blame a rash of injuries on the international craze.

It’s called “heeling,” named after Heelys, the most popular brand. They’re sold in 70 countries and are so hot that their Carrollton, Texas, maker, Heelys Inc., recently landed atop BusinessWeek’s annual list of fastest-growing companies.

But doctors from Ireland to Singapore have reported treating broken wrists, arms and ankles, dislocated elbows and even cracked skulls in children injured while wearing roller shoes.

Over a 10-week period last summer, 67 children were treated for injuries from Heelys or strap-on wheels called Street Gliders at Temple Street Children’s University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, according to a report in the June edition of Pediatrics.

From September 2005 through December 2006, one death and at least 64 roller-shoe injuries were reported to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, a spokesman said last week.

And doctors in Singapore reported last year that 37 children had been treated for similar injuries at a hospital there during a seven-month period in 2004. None were wearing protective gear.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, based in Rosemont, Illinois, this week is issuing new safety advice that recommends helmets, wrist protectors and knee and elbow pads for kids who wear wheeled shoes.

“As these shoes are sold in department stores, parents buying them may develop a false sense of security that they are like any other shoe,” said Dr. James Beaty, academy president and a pediatric orthopedic surgeon in Memphis.

Heelys and their knockoffs look like gym shoes, but with wheel sockets in each heel. They can be used for walking, but the wheels pop out when users shift their weight to their heels.

Balancing on the wheels can be tricky, especially for novices. In the Irish study, most injuries were in new users and occurred when kids fell backward while trying to transfer their body weight.

Dr. Leon Benson of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare in Evanston, Illinois, recalled treating a 9-year-old girl who’d had her Heelys for just a week when she fell and broke both wrists.

Nine-year-old Noah Woelfel of Davidsonville, Maryland, wasn’t a novice but still tripped and fell, breaking several fingers and wrist bones in his right hand last year.

“All it took was a tiny piece of gravel in the driveway that went up in the wheel and stopped him cold,” said his mother, Nancy. “He required surgery and pins, and he was six weeks without using his hand, right at the beginning of school.”

She threw the removable wheels away and said other parents should know about the risks.

Dr. Dominic Catanese, a foot specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, said balancing on heels can strain feet and Achilles tendons. He has treated several Heelys-related ankle injuries and won’t let his 7-year-old daughter have the shoes.

“She wants them. Not happening. Just like I took away her trampoline” after reading about trampoline injuries. “It went right to Goodwill,” Catanese said.

Heelys in April said a study it commissioned shows that their shoes have a safer injury rate than skateboarding, inline skating and even swimming.

The shoes are sold with safety information including a recommendation to wear protective gear.

The company says it has shipped more than 10 million pairs since their introduction in 2000. Heelys reported first-quarter income of $8.5 million, five times higher than last year.

Still, some walkers find heelers who zip in and out of crowds a nuisance, and many schools and shopping malls have banned them.

Kelly Ford, 14, used to cruise down the halls of her Chicago grammar school in Heelys a practice that led teachers to confiscate some kids’ wheels.

Now a high school freshman, Ford has outgrown her Heelys. She said kids who wear them won’t pay much attention to safety warnings.

“I don’t think any kid is going to want to wear a helmet to school,” Ford said.

She thinks Heelys are being unfairly targeted.

“It’s just like, let your kid have fun. I think they’re fine,” Ford said.

CHICAGO For the first time, doctors say they have found a pill that improves survival in liver cancer, a notoriously hard to treat disease diagnosed in more than half a million people globally each year.

The results in a multinational study of 602 patients with advanced liver cancer are impressive and likely will change the way patients are treated, cancer specialists including the study authors say.

Patients got either two tablets daily of a drug called sorafenib or dummy pills in the study, which started in March 2005. Some patients are still alive, although on average, sorafenib patients survived 10.7 months versus almost 8 months for those on dummy pills. That’s a difference of 44 percent, or about three months.

That type of survival advantage “has never happened” with liver cancer “and is a major breakthrough in the management of the disease,” said Dr. Josep Llovet, the lead author.

“That may not sound like a lot of time,” but for liver cancer, “this is actually a quite impressive gain,” said Dr. Nancy Davidson of Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It is the first effective systemic treatment for liver cancer, which is such a huge problem internationally.”

Sorafenib attacks cancer with a targeted double-barrelled approach. It zeros in on malignant cells themselves and cuts off the blood supply feeding the tumour. It is believed to work on tumours within the liver and those that have spread elsewhere.

In the study, tumours didn’t shrink or disappear but in many cases they also didn’t grow.

“You are not curing the disease but you are delaying the progression of the disease significantly and strikingly,” said Dr. Llovet, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Spain.

The study was halted early, in February, because of the good results, and patients on dummy pills were switched to sorafenib.

“This is a very good step forward in this disease,” said Dr. Emily Chan of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tenn.

Results were prepared for release Monday in Chicago at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting.

The drug, sold under the brand name Nexavar, is approved in the United States and dozens of other countries to treat advanced kidney cancer. It is marketed by Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., which funded the liver cancer study. They hope to receive approval for liver cancer use from U.S. and foreign regulators.

Dr. Llovet has done consulting for the sponsors.

Liver cancer is diagnosed in about 19,000 Americans annually but is much more common elsewhere and is the fifth most common cancer globally. Risk factors include chronic liver infections and some forms of hepatitis. The disease is common in China and countries without widespread use of the hepatitis B vaccine, which is routinely given to U.S. infants.

Liver cancer doesn’t respond well to conventional chemotherapy and is often diagnosed too late for surgery to be an option. Many patients die within a year of diagnosis.

Robert Throckmorton, a 73-year-old attorney in Orange County, Calif., said his doctor told him “You better get your affairs in order” after he was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer last August.

But then the doctor offered sorafenib off-label, and Throckmorton readily agreed. He did not take part in the study.

After nine months on the drug, Mr. Throckmorton said his cancer shows no sign of progression and he has no significant side effects. He said he walks three miles six days a week to stay active and feels fine.

Instead of thinking about wills and funerals, Mr. Throckmorton is looking forward to get-togethers with his eight children and 18 grandchildren, and even a possible church trip to Uruguay with his wife.

“I have good energy,” Mr. Throckmorton said. “We are optimistic.”