We planted a vegetable garden this Spring in my mother's field. Hard exercise changed a rocky ruined area into beautiful food. It's getting cold now. Readers asked how the garden turned out. Here are stories:
We are harvesting. By afternoon it is dark with a large orange moon overhead lightning our work. The hard work keeps us warm.
When we first cleared the area, we filled the wheelbarrow with concrete slabs, pried and dug from the patch. Paul bent to grasp the wooden handles. When he rose lifting the handles, the barrow was so heavy that both handles snapped, scattering everything. Paul is strong.
We sawed and attached new handles. Much good squatting, bending, rising, lifting, and reloading. Paul bent well (upper body fairly upright, knees bent over heels). At almost seven feet tall, he needed to bend low. When he rose, the wheelbarrow handles were so high in the air, the front of the barrow tipped forward so far that contents spilled everywhere.
Hoeing a field, breaking concrete, digging stumps and rocks, bending and reaching, lifting right, hauling bales of compost, and all the rest that gardening can involve, is more exercise than you can get in a gym. It combines hard natural movement using much of the body at once to give muscular and cardiovascular exercise. To pull weeds, you squat well, both heels down, loosen roots with a digging stick, grasp weeds at the roots, rise pulling slowly. Over and over. Rise and bend. Garden prayer.
We were amused that more grew outside than inside the garden. Outside, tall weedy grasses grew everywhere. Inside, small seedlings grew into low herbs and vegetables. Deer and other animals didn't eat our garden. We had built a 6-foot fence around it, but deer can easily jump that height, and small burrowing groundhogs and rabbits can wiggle through or under. What we had done is leave them a bushy meadow near the garden area, with plenty of food and hiding places. They didn't need to bother the garden. The municipality cited my mother for a violation of some kind for not mowing her "lawn." Sorry Mom! We paid it for her.
Large slabs of concrete lay buried, inches below the surface of much of the area we wanted to plant. We needed to break and remove them. I managed to lift Paul's huge sledgehammer, swinging it with both hands over my head. It came down on the slab and bounced. I tried a wider stronger swing. It was heavier to swing than it looked. It bounced off the concrete each time. I handed it to Paul. He swung it quickly with one arm, splintering the slab. We dug the dozens of new football-sized pieces and made a rock border for the flowers nearby.
We gardened without pesticides or chemicals. We hauled hundreds of pounds of compost that the municipality gives away free at the recycling centers. Thank you recycling center for all the good exercise, compost, and manure. Plants grew healthy and didn't need chemicals to fight insects. They could fight them from their own internal health - people can do the same much of the time from simple good health practices. Plants manufacture their own anti-inflammatories against disease. That is part of why eating vegetables and fruit is good for your own health against inflammation.
The work it took to eak out a few plates of vegetables for each meal reminded us of subsistence farmers - how worrisome it is to have to rely on what you can scratch out of your own soil. If we had to last the winter on what we grew, it would be a long thin winter. Much of the world does not sit around indulgently with fast food in the refrigerator. Many do not have refrigerators. Before spending money on junk food, then complaining you are too heavy, think. Save the money. Improve your health. Refraining from eating does not make anyone fat.
The tomatoes grew tall and long. They grew so much that we could not find the strawberries.
We are saving the seeds from the sweetest cantaloupe, the largest cabbages, and the most wonderful purple peppers and white eggplants for next year.
The wonderful Thai bamboo hoes we brought back with us have shrunk in our colder dryer climate, loosening the heavy metal shovel-heads so they tilt sideways with each overhead swing. We have been fixing them, then going back to hoeing. The ground will soon freeze. Hoeing is more upper back strengthening and work than anything in a gym, even more than all the pushups and handstands that I love. Bend knees, upper back upright, breathe in, swing up, breathe out, swing down. Over and over.
Saturday night was Halloween. The World Series was playing. Paul didn't want to disappoint me by not going out to see the fun going on for Halloween in the city, and would never have said anything. I put on a costume and sat with him to watch the game. It was a great evening. The next day I put on a scarecrow costume and we worked in the garden.
We were just two city kids, who grew up in urban slums. I didn't know about gardening, but we read, worked, learned from mistakes, and sweated under the hot sun and the cold evening air.
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
In the hot days of summer, common warnings involve avoiding the heat. What about the advantages of heat? Hot environments can improve your health in several ways.
Done right:
Exercising in the heat improves your fitness level and ability to exercise.
Exercising in the heat increases your tolerance to heat, making life more comfortable in the heat.
Exercising in the heat prevents the decreases in heat tolerance that otherwise occur with increased age, which can be unhealthy, even dangerous.
Exercising in the heat makes positive changes in your body that improve your fitness. You increase blood volume, improve cooling ability, make changes in sweating, increase the vasculature that helps circulation, cooling and exercising at the same time, increase specific chemical compounds in the body that improve health and ability to exercise.
When you exercise and increase body temperature, your body produces more of an interesting compound called heat shock protein. Heat shock proteins are families of proteins that do several things including preventing other proteins from damage by infection, ultraviolet light, starvation, heat, cold, and other harsh conditions. Heat shock proteins are thought to mobilize immune function against infections and diseases, even cancer.
Improved ability to tolerate heat without discomfort, called heat adaptation, occurs fairly quickly - with large improvements within the first week of exerting in the heat. Exercising in heat is more effective to produce heat acclimatization than heat exposure without exercise. Aerobic fitness is a major factor in heat tolerance.
It is a myth that you must avoid sweating to stay healthy. Exercising enough to sweat makes you more flexible, increases many chemical reactions in your body that are healthy. Sweat itself has compounds beneficial for your skin and body. Don't worry that you must exercise only indoors in air-conditioning in order to do healthful exercise. A protective environment does prevent initial discomfort, but reduces benefits and the ability to be comfortable in the heat.
This all does not mean to go out and cause yourself heat injury by overdoing without thinking. It is to gain the many benefits of exercising safely in the heat
I will cover more physical changes from exercise in the heat that improve health and exercise level in future articles.
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This week - a fun series with a post each day about triathlons.
A triathlon is usually a race, where each competitor swims, bikes, and runs one continuous effort. The first person to finish all three is considered the course time-winner. The order is often swim first, then bike, then run, although order can change depending on the length and kind of course, and opinions of the officiating body.
Some triathlons are relays. One person enters each part, for example the first person swims, then their teammate continues the run. A race consisting of a run, bike, then run again is considered a duathlon, even though the competitors do three parts. "Run-bike" and other duathlons will be covered in future posts, as will summer and winter biathlons.
The first modern triathlon was possibly a race in 1920 or so, in France, called "Les Trois Sports" (the three sports). Within that decade, several more three-event races of various distances and names followed.
In the 1980s, different big triathlons became more popular - including the several Ironman distance races and comparable races, called full triathlon and long distance, by other organizations. The "Ironman" brand and name is highly protected and can't be used by anyone else, a topic for another post. These are usually 3800 m swim (2.4 miles), 180 km bike (112 mi), and 42.2 km run (26.2 mi). In 2005, the World Triathlon Corporation started the Ironman 70.3, also known as a Half Ironman.
Triathlon became an Olympic event at the Sydney Games in 2000. Olympic Distance is considered a short triathlon - 1500 m swim (0.93 mi), 40 km bike, (24.8 mi), 10 km run (6.2 mi). The Olympic Triathlon is about half the bike and run distance, and a slightly shorter swim, of what is usually called a half-triathlon.
The many other triathlon events can vary in length and level of organization, depending what is available to the organizers. Distances may conform to standardized organizational rules, or vary with whatever length the available course allows. A kids' summer camp may use their pool or lake and a dirt road, track, or field nearby. A town may organize their waterways or harbor and roads. Sometimes the world comes together to host international events.
In some smaller-scale races, participants can show up on race day, sign up, and go. Larger races require registration and briefings before race day. Big triathlons require qualifying times in previous races and large entrance fees.
Read success stories of Fitness Fixer methods and readers, and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
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Photo 1 - Emma Snowsill wins in Beijing, image by Getty Images via Daylife Photo 2 of winner at Southeast Asian Games 2005 via Wikipedia
For weightlifters who enjoy Olympic lifts, rows, cable cross-overs, curls, and all the other good stuff with endless heavy weight, you may like growing vegetables.
We have been tilling a vegetable garden from a rocky field at my Mom's. Seems her home was built on landfill. We had to sledge-hammer and pry concrete slabs - prodigious squatting, levering, clean-and-jerking, and hundred pound medicine ball throws over the just-built garden fence into a pile. Then lifting and hauling away the pile.
Carrying sand, earth, rocks, weed bales, tree branches as heavy as you can lift, over uneven rocky hilly earth back and forth from the truck, the field, and the new compost pile a hundred feet away for hours is functional weightlifting. Hours of repetition-maximum (RM) hoeing gives a harder abdominal, arm, and gluteal workout than it looks.
Healthline software still isn't uploading my own photos. At left above, a photo of a statue with too much lumbar curve/hyperlordosis to be healthy, but in general doing functional weightlifting. Use your muscles to prevent overarching like this when you swing a sledge, a kettlebell, or other weight. For Fitness Fixer posts on neutral spine and hyperlordosis, click the photo or here.
Over the winter while visiting home in Asia, my husband Paul and I went to a workman's shop. The store-keeps remembered us and smiled. The first time we went there years ago, they were so sure we were lost tourists, they took our shoulder and gestured at a restaurant. In the best Thai I could manage, I explained that Paul is a carpenter, has done forge metal work, and loves old-world tools, strong bamboo handles, and hand-hammered metal. They smile each year we return. In the US, we live in a crowded urban area with minimal bricked exterior in deep shade from surrounding buildings. Vegetable gardens don't grow. Paul wanted to plant my Mother's field - a brambled overgrown area.
In the Thai tool store, I explained with the words I knew that Paul was looking for a specific Thai tool, shaped like a backward shovel, that you use in overhead action, like a mattock (flat bladed pick).
Quickly, excitedly, word went from the store-keep, to her friend in the next shop, to the next, and next:
"Man who good to Mother of wife!"
The coconut telegraph was happy. We bought two heavy tools, called "job" in Thai. Both had thick lovely bamboo handles. One was giant sized for Paul, the other for me. Fun getting them through flights and US customs.
Mom had asked a local man what it would take to clear her field, and he told her a blowtorch, a machine plow, three men, and a week. Paul and I cleared it in one day in early April with a digging stick and the Thai hoe-shovels. The ground was half frozen. Six, or so hours massive exertion - first clearing brush and tall grasses, then hours of half-squats to seize handfuls of stalks, standing back up to pull them with grip strength. Then excavating slabs of concrete and discarded materials with a pry bar, the Thai digging tools, and bare armed weight lifting.
The packs of seeds we had scattered in assorted flowerpots, pans, shoeboxes, and containers sprouted over just a week into tiny plants - broccoli, cabbage, pea, hot and sweet peppers, strawberries, eggplants, and assorted spices. We have been learning about complementary planting - plants, just like people, who are better and healthier with specific other kinds of plants so that chemical fertilizer isn't needed. We are learning about plants that repel pests, instead of using insecticides.
We got a rain barrel to reduce water bills. We attached an old broken hose. The holes made it a natural soaker hose. We poked more holes and arranged it around the garden for drip irrigation. We don't know the water quality of either the rain or from the tap. We will send six dollars and a soil sample to an agricultural university for testing. Maybe other toxic things are in that landfill that we don't want the vegetables absorbing. Maybe commercial food factories have the same problem. Many things to learn.
Weeks pass squatting and sitting well to plant seedlings, still hitting buried rubble. More lifting and hauling. Each night we are too tired to worry or think anything bad. We are barely were able to lift hands and feet. I consider what people for thousands of years have been doing just for subsistence farming, day after day, year after year. I thought of Fitness Fixer success story Ivy and her story - Farm Work, Lifestyle Exercise, and Preventing Overuse Pain.
We thought we planted everything, then found a half pack of pea seeds left. Paul mentioned we didn't have one more container for them. I laughed, "we didn't have a pot to pea in."
Ideas:
If you're a tough vital strong person, or want to be, dig a garden.
If you don't have anywhere to dig one, hook up with some nice elder who wants one, a community group, Habitat for Humanity, or someone who doesn't want to exercise like this but still wants a garden.
Contact your community to see about organizing parents and children out in sunshine for functional exercise doing good for all.
If you only want one hour a day of hard total body fat burning muscle building exercise, only plant a small vegetable garden.
No need to buy fancy tools, use what's handy.
If you don't want to exercise so hard, try a single pack of seeds in some potting soil in almost any container on a sunny windowsill. A chance to get the vegetables you like.
Fancy individual peat pots and seed starters aren't essential; a simple pack of seeds can get you a pan full of fragrant oregano, said to be very healthful. It gives a gasp of wonder (to me) when seedlings actually sprout.
Before the 2008 election, a video appeared by Roger Doiron (I don't know him, just liked the video). He asked the next President to grow a garden. It did come true. Here is his viewpoint of getting your own garden started, showing various bending, occasionally good:
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Reader Robert Davis has been enthusiastically sending in success story after success story. He sent his first story of fixing a painful back injury from weightlifting - Fixed Injuries, Got Strong, With Functional Exercise.
Since getting the idea of using healthy daily movement instead of injurious movement during daily life and exercise, Robert stopped major causes of his injuries. He has rapidly been getting strong using fun functional exercise, and improving function. He has been taking ingenious photos using his camera phone. His stories and photos will be posted. He is sending them in fast and furiously. I enjoy hearing how he experiments with each thing, and sees and understands how they work so he can incorporate the concepts into daily movement, not just going thorough arbitrary motions and calling it exercise.
We are still having problems uploading photos and movies for you - since October. It has been a time-intensive and difficult process to get any photos at all uploaded for these posts. It has changed and delayed a few of the articles I wanted to write for you. When Healthline staff can help, they will. Robert generously made a page to store visuals so you can link and see them. Start with:
Watch how he uses a healthful squat for real life, not just 10 times in a gym.
Robert writes:
"Make a mess and pick up only one item at a time via a squat. If you need to clean the house only pick up one item at a time. The constant up/down motion of the squat etc should get the heart rate up for a good cardio workout. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Tired of the stationary bike? Do this for a half hour:)"
Good bending is natural built-in cardiovascular exercise, leg strength and stretch, Achilles tendon stretch, hip strengthener, warm-up for stretching, and back pain prevention, since it stop one major cause of back pain - bad bending (bent over at the waist or hip). Done properly, good bending strengthens knees and does not cause knee pain. The Related Posts below explain more. For all Fitness Fixer articles on each topic, click the labels under this post - for example, "Achilles stretch."
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. SeeDr. Bookspan's books.
A video should appear below of 91-year-old drummer Jerry. Chick the arrow in the center of the movie box or at bottom left of the video box to watch her. You do not need HD to watch it. It is viewable at various resolutions.
Stay active, keep moving, be happy. It keeps you vital, more with each year.
For more ideas click the labels "aging" and "spirit" under this post. Labels give all Fitness Fixer posts about that topic. The label "video-movie" shows all Fitness Fixer posts containing a video to watch and enjoy learning how to be happy and fit.
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Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. Before asking, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, and archives at right.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right.
Grace didn't have a lifetime of track and field experience. She lived a life of real movement, called functional exercise, raising 11 children and doing chores. She decided to run a race. One month later, she ran the race and broke a world record.
A video should appear below of Grace Foster. Click the small, right-pointing arrow at bottom-left of the video box to watch her straight body positioning, the race, and her happy family.
Grace exercises daily, stretches, eats healthful food. Other racing record holders over age 90 will be featured in future articles.
Get moving, stay moving, be happy. It keeps you vital, more with each year.
Click the labels, aging, running, and spirit under this post. Labels give all Fitness Fixer posts about that topic. The label video-movie shows all Fitness Fixer posts containing a video to watch and enjoy learning how to be happy and fit.
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Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. SeeDr. Bookspan's books.
A debate in fad fitness is if you need aerobic activity to lose weight, or if weightlifting is sufficient. The larger issue is that you need to use your cardiovascular system for health.
A 21 year long study from the Stanford University School of Medicine found that older runners live longer and suffer fewer disabilities than healthy non-runners.
All 440 study participants were 50 years old or over at the beginning of the study. All ran an average of four hours a week. By the end of the study, all were in their 70s, 80s, and older, running an average of 76 minutes a week.
At the 19 year mark in the study, 34 percent of the non-runners had died, compared with 15 percent of the runners. Onset of disability was delayed in runners by an average of 16 years.
Lead study author, Dr. James Fries, is almost 70, runs 20 miles a week and plays tennis. He stated the positive numbers for runners was not even as high as compared to average populations, because "the control group was pretty darn healthy." The "health gap" between runners and non-runners increased with age. Fries said, "I always thought that the two curves would start to parallel each other and that eventually aging would overpower exercise. We can't find even a little twitch toward that gap narrowing in the present time."
Study authors also stated that, "The findings probably apply to a variety of aerobic exercises, including walking."
Study was published in the Aug. 11 2008 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Conventional medical texts originally stressed that exercise would harm elders. That viewpoint led to disastrous decades of needless infirmities among people who could have retained mobility and independence.
In 1980, Dr. Fries wrote a landmark paper of his "compression of morbidity" hypothesis, that "regular exercise would compress, or reduce, the amount of time near the end of life when a person was disabled or unable to carry out the activities of daily living, such as walking, dressing and getting out of a chair."
Stay active, keep moving whatever your age. It is the most important medicine you have.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify throughDrBookspan.com/Academy.See Dr. Bookspan's Books. ---
A study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found no evidence of accelerated rates of osteoarthritis among long-distance runners.
Further, weight-bearing exercise like running helps stave off osteoporosis by maintaining bone mineral density.
Study source: American Journal of Preventive Medicine August 2008; 35(2):133-8.
With good movement mechanics, running will not cause early wear on your bones and joints. With injurious poor movement habits, of course, you can wear and injure the joints.
Posts showing good movement mechanics during exercise and daily life:
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
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The Shinobi no Mono, or the Ninja of old Japan, were renowned for their running speed and endurance.
Running drills called "ashi" (foot or feet) were an important part of Ninjutsu physical training. Try this basic Ninja ashi, or running drill:
Put a straw hat on your chest.
Run without holding the hat with your hands or other fastening.
Run so fast that the hat does not fall - this requires keeping a minimum speed for the duration of the ashi drill.
Where is the photo? He (or she - there were female Ninjas) must have run by so fast you didn't see. We are still working on the problem of photos not uploading. Healthline staffer Jerry has been helping to upload several photos for posts to come. Thankyou Jerry.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives, and labels under posts. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
Sedentary Lifestyle Linked to Teen Emotional and Behavioral Problems
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
A study of physical activity in more than 7,000 teenagers found that inactivity is associated with emotional and behavioral problems.
Teens with less than one hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity a week had more symptoms of anxiety, withdrawal, depression, sleep problems, rule-breaking behaviors, attention problems, and somatic complaints (body pain).
Study author Marko T. Kantomaa stated in an American College of Sports Medicine news release, "Negative mental and emotional effects brought on by physical inactivity does not help young people ease into adulthood. Physical activity could be a highly effective and relatively easy way to help that transition and could, in addition, lead to establishment of lifelong healthy habits."
The study was published in the October issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise - Kantomaa MT, Tammelin TH, Ebeling HE, Taanila AM. Emotional and behavioral problems in relation to physical activity in youth. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2008 Oct;40(10):1749-56.
Increase in physical activity is known to reduce incidence of depression and anxiety in both adolescents and adults.
This morning, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released "The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans." The guidelines describe, "the types and amounts of physical activity that offer substantial health benefits." In summary, adults need 30 minutes of moderate-intensity daily physical activity five days a week, and children should run and play at least an hour every day.
Regular exercise lowers the risk of heart disease, many cancers, osteoporosis, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, depression, and other diseases. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said in a telephone interview, "More than 59 percent of adults don't get enough physical activity and a quarter of adults aren't active at all in their leisure time."
Guidelines for ages 6–17:
1 hour (60 minutes) or more of physical activity every day.
Most of the 1 hour or more a day should be either moderate- or vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity.
Vigorous-intensity activity on at least 3 days per week.
Muscle-strengthening and bone-strengthening activity at least 3 days per week.
Guidelines for over age 18:
2 hours and 30 minutes a week of moderate-intensity, or 1 hour and 15 minutes (75 minutes) a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity. Aerobic activity should be performed in episodes of at least 10 minutes, preferably spread throughout the week.
Additional health benefits are provided by increasing to 5 hours (300 minutes) a week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, or 2 hours and 30 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity physical activity, or an equivalent combination of both.
Muscle-strengthening activities that involve all major muscle groups performed on 2 or more days per week.
Barry A. Franklin, PhD, national American Heart Association spokesperson and Director of Cardiac Rehabilitation and Exercise Laboratories at William Beaumont Hospital in Michigan, stated, "Numerous studies now suggest that if we can simply move people out of the lowest levels of cardiorespiratory fitness, it can have a profound (and beneficial) impact on public health." More information and downloads of federal guidelines - www.health.gov/PAGuidelines.
Use this Fitness Fixer column to see how to get healthful activity as part of daily life. You don't need a gym, a trainer, or equipment. Click the articles and archives in the list at right, use the search box at top right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. For personal evaluation take a Class. Top students may apply to certify throughDrBookspan.com/Academy.
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Photo - Family meets guidelines on Morro Strand State Beach by mikebaird
Tour De France 2008 and Increasing Aerobic Capacity
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
The Tour de France is a 23-day bicycle race. This year it runs from July 5 to 27, 2008. It is a stage race, broken into individual races, from one town to another. The number of stages has varied over years since the tour began in 1903. Course distance runs approximately 3,000 km (1,864 mi) through most of France and often through one or more adjoining countries.
Some of the essence of "le Tour" was incorporated in the synthpop song "Tour de France," a 1983 hit single by the German group Kraftwerk. They put the motto of France in krautrock (krautrock is considered a fun and positive term by enthusiasts): Liberté, égalité, fraternité, French for liberty, equality, good company - which is the point of much of the race.
The Tour de France is a difficult event. Even with light bicycles designed for each stage, it is still grueling. Athletes must train for exceptional aerobic ability.
Cardiovascular endurance, also called aerobic capacity, determines how long you can continue activity at your chosen pace. When you exercise, your body needs more oxygen, so your cells extract more of the oxygen your blood provides. Aerobically fit people can extract more oxygen when exercising, and so, can do more exercise. Average exercise needs about 10 times more oxygen supplied to your active tissues, than at rest. Heavy exercise can increase need to around twenty times. If you do not have high enough capacity from training, you will be too out of breath to continue. World-class athletes have been recorded to reach over 30 times their resting rate.
With regular endurance activities, such as biking, running, swimming, your body makes many changes that improve function. You increase blood volume, the number of oxygen-carrying blood cells, expand the network of blood vessels, reduce incidence of vessels clogged with fatty deposits, increase number of cellular organelles and enzymes your body uses to process oxygen into energy, and other physical improvements, to be covered in future posts.
Breathing in more oxygen won't increase your ability to extract more oxygen. For that you need training. When your body senses it needs more oxygen than it is getting - during hard aerobic exercise or exposure to altitude - the kidneys secretes a natural human hormone called erythropoietin (EPO). EPO stimulates the bone marrow to make more red blood cells. Everyone can do this on their own through regular aerobic training. When some people want more EPO, they may try blood transfusions, called Transfusion Doping, an illegal procedure to increase maximum oxygen carrying ability. They may also inject various kinds of synthetic human erythropoietin. Whether having the money and access to these substances is fair play is topic of many debates in sports ethics. More important is that they are not healthy. Blood can thicken and cell count increases to a dangerous level leading to cardiac problems. Deaths have occurred in young athletes from blood doping practices. There have been experiments with artificial oxygen carriers based on recombinant, bovine (cow), and human hemoglobin or perfluorocarbons. These substances have potentially lethal side effects including renal toxicity, increased blood pressure, and immune depression. Champions don't need them. You don't need them.
Posts to come will cover more on performance enhancement, drugs, supplements, Le Tour and other bike races, The Olympics and other events. Posts on supplements and performance enhancing drugs:
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - How to know what heart rate will give you a cardiovascular training effect.
Several formulas calculate exact heart ranges and "target heart rates." There are a variety of commercial (expensive) heart rate monitors. Arguments in sports medicine continue on which is the right formula and if heart rates in water or at elevation can be calculated the same way. These issues will be covered in posts to come. For now:
Your body is smart. Heart rate generally follows "perceived exertion." If you feel your running or other exercise pace is moderate, your heart rate is likely to be at a moderate training range. If it feels light, then heart rate will likely be too low to give much training effect.
Find something you enjoy enough to continue more than ten minutes at a time.
Keep a pace that you feel is moderate to hard, depending how you like it.
If your running or other exercise pace feels moderate, it is also moderate for your cardiovascular system. If it feels hard, your heart and body and mostly likely working hard for your current level If it feels light, then it is too light to give much training effect.
--- Read and contribute success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. For personal evaluation take a Class. Top students can apply to become certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
Reader Mike sent this flawless Canadian commercial showing lack of exercise as a mindset. Have a laugh:
The commercial is for a company that sells products, but the message is right. A few years ago I was attending a major sports medicine conference. In the Grand Hall, was an escalator next to stairs. Both went to the same place. An easel with a plainly marked notice stated that a study was going on of exercise habits. Even with the written notice, by the end of the study, which consisted of a student sitting and counting, few took the stairs. Sports medicine professionals were overwhelmingly taking the escalator on their way to major presentations on disease consequences of sedentary behavior, and exhibit halls selling pedometers.
Fitness as a lifestyle isn't going to exercise class a few times a week. Check your mindset, and how you bend, lift, and move all day:
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Respiratory Muscle Training for Swimming, Diving, and Running
Friday, July 06, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
At the diving and hyperbaric conference three weeks ago, I attended sessions on respiratory muscle training for underwater operations. It is a topic of interest for those in charge of combat swimmers, and anyone doing physical training.
In one study, Researchers at the State University of Buffalo at New York found that respiratory muscle training improves swimming and respiratory performance at depth. As you go deeper, the work of breathing can increase, even using high performance breathing devices, because of higher gas density and other factors. They tested the effect of resistance respiratory muscle training on respiratory function and swimming endurance in divers at 55 fsw (~16 m). They found that respiratory muscles were less fatigued following training, breathing rate was lower during the swims, and that the training increased the duration they could swim by about 60%. They concluded that respiratory muscle fatigue limits swimming endurance at depth, and the increase in swimming endurance may result from reduced work of breathing or improved respiratory muscle ability.
The second study by the same group looked at the different benefits of training the endurance and strength of the respiratory muscles. Eighteen SCUBA-certified swimmers were randomly assigned to a placebo group who didn't train their breathing muscles, a respiratory endurance training group, or a respiratory strength training group. Each group used a breathing resistance device five days a week for 30 min over four weeks. The endurance trained group decreased heart rate and ventilation during underwater swims. Both the endurance and strength groups improved fin swimming endurance. The placebo group experienced no changes.
The researchers concluded that respiratory muscle training is effective in improving swimming endurance. They told me they found it is also effective for endurance running, but perhaps not as effective. They are working on finding out why. My friends who do long stints in submarines mentioned they like to use respiratory muscle training to help keep them in shape since they can't go out for a run while on sub duty.
Related:
The previous post on training breathing muscles -Respiratory Muscle Training for Better Health and Exercise - covers how breathing exercises help increase respiratory capacity in people with various diseases, and physical training in athletes.
Respiratory Muscle Training for Better Health and Exercise
Monday, July 02, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
At the American College of Sports Medicine conference last month, I attended an entire session on effects of training respiratory muscle function. Back when I was in school, we learned that the ability to breathe harder, better, faster, could not be trained with exercise or other modality, that it was fixed from person to person, like eye color, except that it got worse with aging, and that it didn't matter much, since ventilation did not do much to limit exercise potential anyway.
Even though the lungs don't have any muscles of their own, it didn't seem right to me, as the diaphragm and muscles that move the rib cage to voluntarily breath in and out are muscles like any other. What if there are people whose respiratory muscles are not trained to work hard enough and add to the metabolic cost of exercise, increasing fatigue and so, limit exercise? It is also true that many people are not in good enough shape to use more oxygen, so breathe most of the oxygen back out with each breath, even when exercising strenuously. What about someone in great athletic shape who could use that oxygen. Why couldn't they be trained to move more air faster if they needed some?
Exercising the muscles that you use to breath in (inspiratory muscle training) is known to improve the endurance of the respiratory muscles in people with spinal cord injury and cystic fibrosis, and is shown to improve exercise capacity in patients with heart failure. What about for people without these conditions or for athletes?
Combat swimmers have long used various breathing training to get in shape for swims and other strenuous work. The diving medicine conference I attended two weeks ago had several studies that showed interesting and promising results with breathing training.
Respiratory muscle training in the above studies did not involve popping corks from your lips, as in the photo. To improve your breathing capacity and do training at home without respiratory training devices, see the Fitness Fixer post Do Breathing Exercises Work? and the book Healthy Martial Arts.
--- I make posts from fun mail and success stories. See if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
Exercise and Fitness in Decompression Sickness Risk
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
In the post Train Exercise is Exercise Training I mentioned the ongoing question in diving physiology research of how exercise can affect the risk of decompression sickness (the bends).
It seems that exercise done during a scuba dive at the bottom increases the amount of nitrogen gas you absorb from the air you breathe from your tanks. This makes more gas which could contribute to decompression sickness on the way up. Mild exercise on a "decompression hang" (waiting at specific shallower depths for a few minutes on the way up) seems to help let more gas dissolve out while you breathe, and may lower risk. Exercise soon after surfacing may increase gas coming out and increase risk according to other work. Some interesting studies look into whether exercise done days before a dive can reduce risk by "using up" specific components that decompression sickness bubbles need to be able to form. The kind of exercise and timing seems important. I will post more on this another time.
Some work looks at physical fitness, and whether that affects risk of decompression sickness (DCS). Would someone in better physical shape have lowered risk? What constitutes being in better shape? Is it body fat? Is it the amount of oxygen you can use to exercise? How might any one of those components affect DCS risk?
I am writing this from the UHMS scientific meeting, explained in Exercise and Medicine Underwater and at High Pressure. One of the studies presented by French naval researchers is, "Does the VO2 max value predict the formation of intravascular circulating bubbles during decompression of healthy divers?" VO2 max (pronounced vee-oh-too-max) is the most oxygen you can use when doing the most exercise you can do. It is usually higher in people who can do more aerobic exercise (other factors also contribute). The maximum amount of exercise an average person can do is about ten times their resting level of oxygen use. Marathoners usually max at around 20 times better than resting levels. A top aerobic athlete can use about 30 times resting level (a horse - more than twice the top human max). Someone badly out of shape, or with heart disease or other problems that limit ability to get oxygen to cells, generally has a low VO2 max. You can raise your level with regular exercise at any age. It is not set.
In the French study, divers were tested for VO2 max a week before their experimental dive. They avoided any physical exercise 48 hours before the dive. Then half completed a dive in a dry hyperbaric chamber and the other half in the open sea with the same dive profile and decompression stop according to French military decompression table MN90. After the dive they were all tested for presence of small decompression bubbles in the bloodstream.
Bubbles can form in the body painlessly after a dive without creating decompression sickness. It is not the case that bubbles always form after every dive, as often thought. Certain bubbles can be detected audibly (they sound like pops and squeeks) using Doppler ultrasound, and other kinds of instruments being developed. I will post more another time about these bubbles and what ultrasound can and can't determine about bubbles and decompression sickness.
The French researchers found that bubble formation in both types of dive was related to the age and body mass index of the divers, but not to VO2max.
Being in good shape makes many aspects of diving safer, even if it doesn't affect risk of decompression sickness. Being in better aerobic shape helps you swim more easily against currents that may take you away from your dive site or boat. Strengthening your body through weightlifting with good body mechanics helps you lift and haul gear with less chance of injury, and practicing all your physical skills helps you be more able to rescue someone or yourself.
What about physical fitness and risk of decompression sickness in space? Several studies here at the meeting address that. Astronauts who go outside the space vehicle go to lower pressures, similar to divers coming up from a dive. Many considerations, including exercise, go into their preparation for that. The interesting story is posted in Space Walks.
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When we first cleared the area, we filled the wheelbarrow with concrete slabs, pried and dug from the patch. Paul bent to grasp the wooden handles. When he rose lifting the handles, the barrow was so heavy that both handles snapped, scattering everything. Paul is strong.
The wonderful Thai bamboo hoes we brought back with us have shrunk in our colder dryer climate, loosening the heavy metal shovel-heads so they tilt sideways with each overhead swing. We have been fixing them, then going back to hoeing. The ground will soon freeze. Hoeing is more upper back strengthening and work than anything in a gym, even more than all the pushups and handstands that I love. Bend knees, upper back upright, breathe in, swing up, breathe out, swing down. Over and over.
Saturday night was Halloween. The World Series was playing. Paul didn't want to disappoint me by not going out to see the fun going on for Halloween in the city, and would never have said anything. I put on a costume and sat with him to watch the game. It was a great evening. The next day I put on a scarecrow costume and we worked in the garden.
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