Winter Olympic Games and The Bobsleigh

Bobsleigh, bobsled, and bobsledge are generally names for the same event - a gravity-powered sled, racing for time down a narrow concrete or ice track with many turns. Speeds may exceed 85 mph (140 km/h). That is over 117 feet every second. Curves increase g-force, with some as high as 5 g.

Modern sleighs have either two or four crew - a pilot and brakeman, and, in 4-man sleighs, two pushers to get the sleigh going before they jump in the narrow vehicle with the other two. Crew have to be fast and strong. The world governing body is the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing.

Until 2009, the Park City Utah track was called the "world fastest ice," with the highest recorded luge speed according to the Guinness Book of World Records. That record was broken at the 2009 Luge World Cup in British Columbia, Canada. The Vancouver track of the 2010 Winter Olympics is designed to be faster, with the highest vertical drop of all tracks yet designed.

Creating and maintaining competition and practice tracks for athletes is expensive. To offset expenses, some tracks allow civilians to try the bobsleigh down the actual track. Paul and I had a wild ride in Park City Utah, which had hosted the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Price for a ride was a moderate $60 US.

The Utah track has 15 turns in 1335 meters (almost a mile) and close to an 8% grade. Some of the turns are named, for example, Turn 4 is Sunny Corner, the sunniest part of the track. Turn 5 is Snowy Corner, the snowiest. The section between 14 and 15 is the fastest, leading to the "Graveyard" section.


Because of Paul's long legs, they gave him the second seat behind the professional driver. I was man three, and a large man we didn't know was crew #4. We jumped in and took off. Paul's enormous feet had nowhere to go except directly blocking the driver's elbows, preventing him from steering the high g curves. We banked high and higher on each turn. It was thrilling. We were also banging side to side like thunder. My helmet rattled the side rails like a bobble-head doll. The view? For me, Paul's giant back and nothing else. Paul said that on the banked turns, when he could turn his neck at all against the g-force, he could glance up and see the bottom of the track. The nice man behind me tolerated me compacted against his padded belly by Paul ironing me flat from the front.

At the bottom, the dazed driver congratulated us on what he said was probably the wildest ride ever by amateurs.

We didn't break a world record, but pulled higher g-s than the usual ride and may have renamed the end of the course Paul's Patch. That worked out pretty cheaply per g.

Related Fitness Fixer:

• Olympic Calories for Michael Phelps and Everyone Else
• The Mermaid Stories
• Indiana Jones Rocket Sled

Random Fun Fitness Fixer:

• A Laugh at Sedentary Mindset

Labels: bobsled/bobsleigh, cold, g-force, Olympics

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Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games 2010

The Olympic cauldron will light in Vancouver Canada on February 12, 2010, marking the start of the XXI (21st) Olympic Winter Games.

The 2010 Winter Games continue through February 28, 2010, in Vancouver and Whistler. Both the opening and closing ceremonies take place in Vancouver’s BC Place Stadium, the first Olympics in an indoor stadium in Olympic Games history.

Vancouver and Whistler then host the Paralympic Winter Games from March 12 to 21, 2010. The Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony is March 12, 2010 at BC Place Stadium. The Closing Ceremony is March 21, 2010, in Whistler.



Official Vancouver Olympic Site:

• www.vancouver2010.com

More Fun Olympics on Fitness Fixer:

• Thirteenth Paralympic Games Begin
• Beijing Olympics & Martial Arts Class Teach Common Sense Cooperation
• Not Old for the Olympics Part I
• Not Old for the Olympics Part II

Random Fun Fitness Fixer:

• Forearm, Upper Body and Hand Exercise

Labels: cold, disability/ability, Olympics

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Working In An Underwater Lab

I am a scientist in human physiology. I study how the body works in extremes of environments. I lived on mountains and underwater. I slept outdoors in snow to study cold adaptation. I spun pilots in centrifuges until their faces looked like shar pei puppies. I make grown men cry.

Readers asked for stories of when I lived the extremes myself.


Here is a story when I worked and lived in an underwater lab.

I didn't have a camera then, and have few photos from those years, so at right is a photo of an underwater lab found on the Internet using a search of the terms "underwater lab."

You live many meters underwater in a metal structure that keeps out the water. It is an air pocket the size of a big room and the air you breathe is under pressure equal to the surrounding water depth. Since you live there for days, or weeks, the lab has a kitchen. Cooking and using the bathroom in the higher pressure is for another story.

To get to the lab you need to dive down underwater. You can wear scuba gear or use a long surface supplied hose. Occasionally a reporter would come visit the facility and want to stay in the underwater lab for a day to get a story. We, the staff, would teach them enough to use the air supply safely to get them down and back up after their stay, and transport their sometimes large and unwieldy suitcases for them in watertight containers.

One day, another staff member and I helped a reporter dive down to the lab, helped her inside, all nice and dry, and left here there to set up her typewriter (this was a long time ago before laptops and wireless devices). We returned to the surface and put the air hoses away. Shortly later, we decided to free dive back down to check on her.

We took a deep breath, held our breath and dived
down down down

We thumped on the big tempered glass portholes trying to get her attention.

thump thump!
(holding breath)

thump thump thump!
(holding breath longer)

thump!
longer... oooooooh!

She noticed us. She was delighted to see two mer-people swimming in the blue depths outside. She waived at us gaily. We hovered swimming weightlessly outside in the blue, holding our breath.

She raised her two hands, making a camera gesture.
She clicked a finger in air and then pointed it to tell us - "Wait!"

Through the porthole we watched her pawing around for her suitcase to find her camera.
(still holding our breath, outside in the deep blue water)

She looked and looked. She scattered clothes and bags.

The other staff and I used a swallowing technique to extend breath-hold time -uuuuuuuuuuuMH

Finally, a camera waved at the view port.

She positioned the camera to take our photo.

(Still holding our breath waiting, waiting).

She held up the camera .... She leaned back, ... She stopped and oriented the camera the other way, ..... She leaned to the side

She gestured WAIT!! She gestured, "I have to get it just right! Just a moment longer just WAIT."


She got the photo. We saw the flash bounce off the glass, knowing the photo would never come out. She didn't seem fazed.

She held up one finger and pantomimed through the glass - "Wait - one more!"





Related Fun Fitness Fixer:

• Living Under The Sea (includes the exploding toilet story)
• The Mermaid Stories
• How To Stay Underwater For A Month
  
• Indiana Jones Rocket Sled
• Space Walks
• Extending The Envelope - Military and Civilian
• Do Military Chants Help Running? - The Jody Calls

Random Fun Fitness Fixer:

• FDA Orders Suicide Risk Warning for Common Back Pain and Migraine Drugs, and Others

Labels: aerospace, breath-hold diving, cold, hyperbaric, military fitness, scuba, swimming

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Are You Always Colder With Exercise In Cold Water?

It is winter in the northern hemisphere. Outdoor swimming and boating waters range from chilly to frozen. A widespread assumption is that exercise in cold water always makes you colder. Some scuba diving textbooks assert that cold water will cause heat loss and therefore you will always chill in cold water. Some survival protocols may say you must never try to swim to safety if you find yourself unexpectedly in cold water. Are these true?

Although you lose a high amount of body heat to moving water, it is also true that you gain heat from being alive and from moving. The more heat you can generate, the more it is likely to meet or exceed the amount you lose. Losing heat by itself does not mean that you are chilling. If you generate more than you lose, you do not chill, you can stay warm when swimming and diving, even overheat. If not, of course, you can get very cold.

In general, it is easier to chill than overheat in cold water. However, in some cases, you can generate enough heat through exercise to match or surpass the heat you lose, even moreso if you are well insulated with muscle and fat. Swimmers doing laps in pools and divers sweating into their masks during hard finning against currents can tell you that. During Desert Storm, some divers in the Persian Gulf needed to wear ice vests for heat extraction to prevent overheating.


Many factors are involved including your fitness (ability to exercise hard enough to make enough heat), your build, your clothing, medicines you may be taking, how far it is to safety, your health, how warm you were when you started, the weather, water current and conditions. You can have net loss and gain back and forth during the same swim. Much to know.

When I competed in swimming, we swam miles each day. In winter, after finishing pool training, I walked home, hair still dripping. A fun thing was to see how fast it would freeze. When I'd pat the top of my head, the frozen hair crackled humorously. You could hold locks out to freeze in shapes. Teammates and I experimented informally, running various speeds to see if the wind froze the hair more or our rising body heat could melt it. Some of us were able to generate a literal head of steam. Most of my training was pool swimming (wimpy) but I have tried ice swimming in no more than a bathing suit. My family were Russian Ice swimmers and my Grandfather was the oldest member of the Iceberg club, who swam in the ocean every day, including New Year's Day. I am trying to find any photos that may have been taken. I know the club and my Grandfather were pictured in an issue of Strength and Health magazine.

In my military work in cold survival, we used computer models to compare heat loss in critically cold water scenarios for downed pilots and combat swimmers, to our real experiments putting volunteers in cold water with lots of forced convection - waves, wind, overhead spray, and my little toy wind-up sharks and penguins. You can become incapacitated by cold before becoming hypothermic. You can die from cold incapacitation in the water without ever reaching a hypothermic state. In informal conversation, the terms hypothermia and chilling are often used interchangeably, but that is not correct, and they are not the same. I made t-shirts for "my guys" the military volunteers in each extreme experimental protocol. The cold immersion trial shirts were inspired by the verse "Many are called but few are chosen" to become, "Many are cold but few are frozen."

More On Surviving Cold:

• Sixteen Miles of Cold Water
• Getting Fitter in 50 Degrees
• Beware of Hype in Training Methods
• Do You Lose Most Of Your Heat Through Your Head?
• Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part I
• Japanese Ama Divers - Cold, Clothing, and Children

Healthy Swimming and Scuba:

• Diver Down Flags - Boating, Swimming, SCUBA Safer and Smarter
• Better Stretches for Swimming - Cook Strait Update
• Lower Back Pain From Swimming and SCUBA
• Nutrition for Endurance Swim Training

Random Fitness Fixer:

• Inspiring Update from Jill - Celiac, Knees, Fasciitis, and Restoring Happy Life

Labels: cold, military fitness, myths, scuba, swimming

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Reader Success - Using Good Bending For Shoveling Snow

About two feet of snow fell over the weekend in the Northeast US. I got a lovely Christmas card shortly after. I wrote back to thank the sender for remembering me.

KathyB replied,

"I not only remembered you, I've had you on my mind, as I so often do. I was thinking on Sunday, after I'd shoveled snow for 3 hours straight without hurting my back, and again yesterday when I did another half hour, that you gave me a gift that just keeps on giving, that I'll NEVER forget what you've done for me, and I thought how wonderful it must be to be able to do something like that for people.

"I wish you and Paul the very best always,

"Kathy"

Kathy - you make it all worthwhile.
Kathy writes well. In fact, she is a professional mystery writer. I will ask her to tell us about some of her exciting books in the future.

In 2006 KathyB stopped 13 years of back pain using my work. She describes what she did in the comments of:

• What Abdominal Muscles Don't Do - The Missing Link.

She checked good bending habits for her back and inflamed Achilles tendon in the comments of:

• Disc Pain - Not a Mystery, Easy to Fix

She brought up important questions in the comments of:

• Exercise is More Important Than Calcium Supplements for Bones

Random Fun Fitness Fixer:

• Thaipusam - Exercise of Body and Spirit

Labels: abdominal muscles, achilles stretch, cold, fix pain, lower back, readers inspiring story, shoveling/digging

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Diving Women of Korea - The Haenyeo

In the previous two weeks, I wrote about the Japanese diving women, the Ama. Readers asked about the divers of Korea. Although they are sometimes called Ama divers, "ama" is a Japanese word. The Korean diving women are the Hae-nyao. Both ama and haenyao mean "sea woman." The Korean divers are also called Jamsoo, or diving lady, and Jam-nyao, or diving woman.

The diving women are a respected profession of hard work to gather food for their communities. The work is difficult and cold. The numbers of both Ama and Haenyao are decreasing every year, as the daughters who would take their mother's roles go to other work in the cities.

The first recorded Korean diving (that I know of) is from the 400's A.D. around the Chechu (Jeju) Island area. It is likely that diving had gone on centuries before that. The Haenyao historically dived all year (even in winter), and without assistance of weights or ropes to ascend or descend. They made as many as 30 dives an hour, to depths from 10 to 30 meters, at temperatures in the winter as low as 10 C.


Diving clothes varied by geographic area, with some divers wearing only a rope belt or loincloth. No fins were used to help swimming. Later when wet suits were developed, only male divers wore them. Women were prohibited protective suits by their cooperatives, since they were considered more cold tolerant to begin with, and the advantage of the suit would "accelerate over-harvesting" Later, the work became pretty much exclusive to women.

Taking many large breaths before a breath hold extends time because "overbreathing" lowers carbon dioxide in the body. Carbon dioxide signals you to breathe, so it is protective to have it build and make you want to return to the surface before you go unconscious from lack of oxygen. Hyperventilating (too many large breaths) before a dive can cause a drowning accident. The haenyao and ama practice a short hyperventilation with a distinctive whistling maneuver which was studied to find why it may not cause the problems of hyperventilation without the maneuver.

To call them "The haenyao women divers" is redundant. The word haenyao already refers to the female. I asked them what the males were called and the Haenyao laughed at me, saying that males cannot withstand the hard work or the cold, and it is known that women do better in the cold. Dr Suk Ki Hong, one of the best known researchers of immersion and the haenyao and Ama divers wrote, "The shivering threshold is elevated as compared to men, and thus women are distinctly in a better position than men to work in cold water. Undoubtedly there could be many other reasons. However these facts lead us to postulate that men could not compete successfully by virtue of their poor tolerance to cold."

Sadly, Western sport divers started writing articles and presenting lectures at dive conferences in the 1990s, mistakenly claiming women did not have better cold tolerance and had greater risk of cold injury. The myth was repeated in diving magazines, scuba classes, and textbooks of the era.

Are there male indigenous divers? Yes. I will write of them and their stories in the future. Stay tuned.

Link to haenyao museum site


Previously:

• Diving With the Japanese Ama Divers
• Japanese Ama Divers - Cold, Clothing, and Children
• The AmaSan Japanese Diving Women
• The Mermaid Stories

Related Undersea Stories:

• Living Under The Sea
• Nutrition for Endurance Swim Training
• Hyperbaric and Aquatic Medicine On Travel
• Train Exercise is Exercise Training
• Three Common Swimming and SCUBA Myths in the News Again
• Diver Down Flags - Boating, Swimming, SCUBA Safer and Smarter
• Exercise and Fitness in Decompression Sickness Risk
• Helium Speech - An Astronaut Calls the President of the United States
  
  

Labels: breath-hold diving, cold, myths, squat, swimming

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Japanese Ama Divers - Cold, Clothing, and Children

The multi-part story of diving with the Japanese Diving Women continues here:

In villages along the Japanese coasts, diving by the AmaSan for sea plants and other harvests goes on without tourist fanfare. We dived in the cool, dim waters, rubbing leaves on the inside of our masks to prevent fogging, although there was little to see anyway.

The AmaSan - the SeaWomen - told me that during "the war" soldiers came and were horrified that they dived in only small underwear pants. The women told me they thought Westerners were funny and strange for their discomfort about diving naked in cold water. But after that, they were made to wear clothes for diving. I experimented with diving in clothes versus none. It is colder and clumsier to wear clothes in the water, especially over repeated dives. As people know who hike or pack out gear, wet stuff is hard to deal with, change, and keep clean. It's easier without clothing. The old traditional diving garments were white. Now, commercial wetsuits are worn for the AmaSan working day.

With exercise in the cold, your body makes several different adaptations to tolerate cold better. You need cold exposure to keep those adaptations. The Ama divers mentioned that before they used clothes, they tolerated cold better. After wearing cotton suit insulation and wet suits, they lost tolerance.

They dive throughout their pregnancies – even up to the moment of delivery. They don't find that unusual, but more comfortable than moving heavily on land. They said they had no problems doing hard cold diving while pregnant, and their children were all born healthy. They all dive during menses. They told me that during "The War" (WWII) they had no sanitary supplies so were happier to be in the water anyway. They said the work is terribly hard. They asked me to tell the world that.

I asked them many questions – "If I wanted to become a SeaWoman, can I?" "Eei No! You too old!" they said. I asked if an outsider, someone who wasn't the daughter of the Ama-San wanted to become an Ama diver, could they? The diving women didn't understand. They shook their heads, "Eei. No, the daughter do not stay." I asked if a son wanted to become an Ama-San, could be become one? Most laughed at me immediately. Others looked at me for a moment to be polite, before laughing. "Eei, they can't do this work. Too cold for them." I asked again, if someone's else's daughter, unrelated to a diving family wanted to join. "Eei no – the daughter all have gone."

Years ago, the Ama-San regulated themselves to prevent taking too much. They wanted to preserve resources. They shortened the harvest season – which was roughly from April to September.

The few thousand remaining Ama-San still make substantial money diving, although income continues to drop. Large-scale commercial fishing has depleted and polluted the waters so deeply and widely that there is little left for the SeaWomen. This is the opposite of what they tried to achieve by limiting themselves.

"I was the best harvester," one told me. "Tell them that. Tell them I made more money than my husband. Tell them that."

Are there not... Two points in the adventure of the diver:
One --when a beggar, he prepares to plunge?
Two -- when a prince, he rises with his pearl?
I plunge!
-- Robert Browning

Previously:

• Diving With the Japanese Ama Divers
• The AmaSan Japanese Diving Women
• The Mermaid Stories
  
  

Next:

• Diving Women of Korea - The Haenyeo

Labels: breath-hold diving, cold, green fitness, menstruation, pregnancy

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Do You Lose Most Of Your Heat Through Your Head?

Losing most of your heat through your head is a popular myth. Head heat loss is not the majority of body heat lost. Not even close.

Years of my career in research have been to study how the human body performs in extremes - exercise, injury states and how to prevent them, working and exercising in heat and cold, changes in air and pressure on mountain tops, and the related but different problems in space and underwater. I have lived in laboratories underwater and done experiments aboard aircraft. I have studied combat swimmers and done extreme swims with them for fun. For military research, I put men in vats of freezing water to see how we can keep pilots alive after bail-outs and how to get covert swimmers to their objective and, I found out, an entire separate topic to get them back again. Strong brave men got hazardous duty pay just to have a day with me. My life is scientific research and finding out why things are the way they are and how to make us better at surviving them. After finding out all these interesting things, I found out another thing - people still like myths more than fact. Here are some interesting facts (cool facts on cold):

Head heat loss is usually less than one-third to one-fifth of total heat loss. That means it is not the majority, which would be more than 50%. Head heat loss is usually less than 20-30 percent or so of total heat loss.

Head heat loss changes with how cold it is. The lower the temperature, the higher percentage head heat loss. Head heat loss is linear with temperature. At 0 degrees Centigrade, up to about 30 to 35% of heat could be lost through your head at rest.

Head heat loss changes with how much you exercise. When exercising at about a work rate of 50% of aerobic capacity, head heat loss falls to less than half of heat loss at rest.

Head heat loss changes if you are in water compared to air.

The heat you lose from your head is small compared to the rest of your body. Some people have bigger heads than others in proportion to their stature, so maybe they can lose a percentage more heat. To reduce heat loss, wear a hat.

All about cold, cold immersion, and scuba, try my book Diving Physiology in Plain English www.DrBookspan.com/books.
Post about body heat and cooling after death - Time of Death From Body Temperature?
All posts on myths - click the label 'myths' under this post.
All posts on aviation and aerospace - click the label 'aerospace' under this post.
All posts on cold or heat - click the corresponding label under this post.

Labels: aerospace, cold, heat, myths

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Happy New Year 2009

Today is the first day of the Shinto New Year (Gantan-Sai) and the Western New Year on the Gregorian calendar, the solar calendar used in much of the world, reorganized by Pope Gregory XIII in the (solar calendar year) 1582.

One New Year tradition, of many, occurs in the freezing waters off Coney Island New York. For many years, my Grandfather was the oldest member of the Brooklyn Icebergs, a swimming club who swims in the ocean every day of the year, no matter what weather or temperature, including New Year's Day when air and water temperatures are often below zero centigrade, and sometimes Fahrenheit.

I will post more on the fun and physiology of cold swimming in months to come.

On the New Year, it is another tradition for people look forward and back at their lives and make plans for things to change. The two-headed Roman god Janus symbolizes and names the first month of the year.

To help your New Years resolutions:

• Household Fitness in the New Year
• New Years Resolutions for Fitness Successes - Reader Hall Of Fame
  
• New Year's Resolutions Made Easy
• New Year's Resolutions
• If Better Abdominal Muscles Are Your New Year's Resolution, Try This
• Is Your Drinking Hurting Your Neck?
• Holiday reminder - Fast Fitness - Prevent Death and Disfigurement, Save Lives and Property

The Mahayana New Year will be Jan 11 and Lunar New Year will be January 26
The Baha'i and Persian/Zoroastrian New Year's Day will fall on the Vernal Equinox on March 21.

Happy New Year To All.

Labels: cold, holiday, swimming

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Three Common Swimming and SCUBA Myths in the News Again

On Monday July 7, a news show Troubled Waters featured a story of two scuba divers who floated 19 hours overnight after they and their dive boat did not connect after a dive on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

In their television interview, the two divers told various points of the situation. Three of the concerns were common myths often repeated in scuba training.

1. They mentioned they experienced signs of hypothermia. Technically, not any chilling is hypothermia. Being uncomfortably cold does not mean you have hypothermia. Shivering and teeth chattering does not mean you have hypothermia. You can even become incapacitated by cold before becoming hypothermic. In informal conversation, the two terms of hypothermia and chilling are often used interchangeably.

2. The woman of the pair stated she had read in a book, which had a section about progression of hypothermia, that exercise is not good and can be counterproductive. They were worried that body movement would, "send blood to the muscles away from your core, and your organs" and for that reason, make them colder.

I have read the book they mention. It is a book of wonderful stories and great writing, interesting medicine, but the physiology is frequently off. As a physiologist, I notice these things. When I teach medical students in their classes, I often see that they do not want to learn physiology, they only want to learn what medicine to give and where to cut. I tell them that without understanding the reasons for how the body resulted in the situation in the first place, they will only repeat the mistakes of their teachers by giving medicines and cutting.

Back to the shivering divers floating all night, waiting for rescue. It is not always the case that exercise in the cold must only make you colder. Exercise in cold water can generate enough heat to match or surpass the large thermal drain, depending on water temperature, work load, duration of exposure, your body composition, what you are wearing, and other factors. It is true that exercise in cold water increases heat loss, but it is an important point that it does not mean that you will always cool. Whether you stay comfortable or get cold depends how much heat you keep and how much you lose. If you generate more heat than you lose, you will be warmer than when you started. When I worked on cold water immersion for the Navy, we studied body cooling in pilots downed in cold water, and how long they could survive (all volunteers, really they loved my studies). We also studied divers. Some divers sent for underwater missions during the Gulf War were overheating underwater and had to wear ice vests with their scuba gear.

3. The last myth is a popular one. I am a scuba instructor and have heard this one repeated often. The two divers mentioned that the woman of the pair was menstruating and that there were sharks in the water. The woman said, "I'm shark bait is what I'm thinking." Diver researcher Dr. Carl Edmonds found that Australia's shark attack tracking system reported nine times more shark attacks on men, even though there was an even number of male and female swimmers.

Menstrual blood does not attract sharks. Neither does menstrual blood attract grizzly bears during camping trips, cause wine to sour as stated in ancient religious writings, or cause wings to snap off airplanes, as pilots insisted in the 1920's. The term man-eating shark, for now, remains.

I explain these myths and more about swimming and diving physiology, underwater and in heat and cold, in the book Diving Physiology in Plain English.

Related Fitness Fixer:

• Do You Lose Most Of Your Heat Through Your Head?
• Fitness Myths - How Many Legs Does a Dog Have If You Call the Tail a Leg?
• Time of Death From Body Temperature?
• Beware of Hype in Training Methods
• Lower Back Pain From Swimming and SCUBA - Parts I and II
• Exercise and Fitness in Decompression Sickness Risk
• Getting Fitter in 50 Degrees
• Gluteal Muscles Myth - Shaking The Dog's Paw

Labels: cold, menstruation, myths, scuba, swimming

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Can We Teach Young Doctors to Be Healthy?

We have been traveling for the past 2 months in Asia and are on the way to the chilly Smokey Mountains of Tennessee USA to teach medical students for a week during their rotation elective in Wilderness Medicine. This is the third year I will teach there.

I will teach the entire curriculum of diving medicine and physiology, plus a workshop on why commonly prescribed stretches are not healthful, and what to do instead. Several members of the Knox County Sheriff's Office from Knoxville TN have requested to attend my lectures, and several readers made the effort to find the class information on my web site and make arrangements to travel to the camp to attend.

As a physiologist, I design the techniques that physicians use. I spent many years as a military and university researcher in environmental physiology, which is how the body functions in the heat and cold, at altitude and underwater, breathing different mixtures of gases, doing different forms and intensities of exercise. It's important to understand why things work. If you don't understand, then you can't think for yourself, and all you can do is repeat the mistakes of the generation before you, who also were just repeating what they learned in a book from teachers who just were repeating what they had heard.

This problem occurs with some of the exercises and stretches given as physical therapy. An introduction to the problem is in the post What Does Stretching Do? In the past two years teaching at the camp, we encountered young students who were not interested to change bad stretches, and made a point of showing me after my lectures that they will keep doing their rounded bent forward toe touches, since "everyone knows" that is how it is done. However, Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch.

The problem occurs with nutrition. The medical school food at the wilderness camp is not healthy, and students have defended eating candy and junk food as reasonable, even saying that what they eat is not unhealthful - What Medical Students Told Me About Nutrition and When Did Health Become Thinking Out Of The Box?

The problem can occur with medical treatments that are in the books, even though wrong. In my diving physiology lectures, I try to show that if you understand the physiology, you will know why certain treatments do not work or are not needed. Immersion in water, for example, creates many interesting effects such as distributing blood volume more out of the limbs to the body. This is similar to the effect that occurs in space, described in Collapsing Astronaut Gives Healthy Reminder. Recently, during our travels, Paul wound up in the hospital with a swollen leg. The doctor who was Chief of Medicine of the hospital, announced that the treatment was bed rest. Paul was told he must lie flat in bed for at least three to fours days with the leg elevated to drain the fluid. We understand that bed rest is often listed in books as a treatment for this, but it is wrong. I asked the doctor if going in the water could help. The doctor said that standing in the water meant the leg would be "hanging down" and the leg needed to be elevated to drain. If you understand immersion, then you know why immersion can more effectively treat limb edema and water retention than medicines and lying in bed. Extended bed rest is unhealthy, and reduces muscle and bone health so much that it is used to study the damage to the body from floating around during space travel. We escaped the medical care and went into the water. I will post more on immersion, edema, and health soon.

I will not have Internet access for the next week to read or reply to comments. Enjoy the Fitness Fixer using the links in this article. Start taking and sending in fun photos of your successes using all the fun techniques.

Labels: aerospace, altitude, children, cold, education, fix pain, green fitness, hamstring, heat, hyperbaric, injury, nutrition, practice of medicine, scuba, sitting, stretch, swimming

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Regular Exercise Reduces Cold and Flu Incidence

A giant cold germ is pictured at left.

Studies first started to report the benefit of exercise to reduce incidence of colds when looking at recreational exercisers, who reported fewer colds once they began regular running. Later research on exercise, intensity, and the number of colds, found that people who exercised moderate on most days averaged one cold, while the less active group reported over four colds in the year. Related work shows that being a regular exerciser is also associated with quicker recovery from colds.

Moderate exercise also enhances immune function during the exercise and for a few hours following it. Specific research into mechanisms has found that moderate exercise speeds various immune-function cells through the body, and increases levels of the type of white blood cell called leukocytes that work to fight infection.

A 2006 randomized clinical trial found that "postmenopausal women who exercised regularly for a year had about half the risk of colds compared to those who did not work out routinely." The women in the exercise group also reduced body weight, body fat, and intra-abdominal fat from increasing their exercise level.

Too much intense exercise may lower immune function and predispose to some infectious illness shortly after the time of the exercise. The decrease seems to be temporary, similar to the increase seen around the time of moderate exercise. There is some concern that continual, intense exercise lowers immune function for longer periods. An example often offered for this is that during the Winter and Summer Olympic Games, clinicians report that "upper respiratory infections abound" and that "the most irksome troubles with athletes are infections." The situation may be more that high numbers of young people are concentrated in close quarters. Their high general health may mean that they are unlikely have other health disorders during the short period of the Games.

It is more likely that poor nutrition and insufficient rest, added to harsh, ongoing, strenuous work or exercise, decreases immune function, not just strenuous exercise alone.

Although cold and flu germs are reported to live better in the cool dry weather of fall and winter, if you are cold, caught in the rain or snow, or out in a draft, that does not make you more likely to fall prey to them. Immunology is not my field so I can only repeat what I've read. My understanding is that these germs are all around us most of the time. They are on surfaces all over our home, and workplace. Your immune system keeps them out or eats them if they try to invade (pictured to my level of understanding at right). They don't cause problems unless their number is too high and your immune system cannot deter them. I call germs the jerks of the world - they are always there and are harmless unless conditions let them under your skin with your defenses down.

Much attention is given to disinfecting yoga mats. Give attention to cleaning up your own strength against disease:

• Breathe.
• Exercise happy thoughts for good sleep.
• Don't eat junk food or junk drinks.
• Exercise in fun ways.
• Laugh.
• Take quick fun exercise breaks.
• Get enough exercise to sweat - your own sweat has antibiotic properties. Wash your hands.
• Get sunlight every day.
• Sit comfortably without slouching.

We need to start a new trend that Health is Contagious - Make Health Catching! Stand up and stretch. Do good deeds. Go now.

Labels: aging, cold, colds/flu/infectious, fix pain, performance enhancing modality, running

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Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part II

In Monday's post on Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part I, Katharine, an Ironman Triathlete, told of having pulmonary edema of swimming twice this year and asked if warm up or fluids were involved. US Open Water Swimming also interviewed me about pulmonary edema. Here are some things they asked.


1. What is pulmonary edema and why should swimmers know or be concerned about it?

Edema means too much fluid accumulation. Fluid suddenly fills the lungs. The left side of the heart is not pumping properly. It can cause you to have to stop a race. It can sometimes cause serious illness and death.

2. Is it more likely to occur in cold water?

It seems to be more likely in cold water. It has occurred in surface swimmers and scuba divers in both cold and warm water. Cold is only one of the several proposed causes.

Causes or contributors seem to be things that increase cardiac preload and afterload, including immersion in water, cold water, heavy exercise, negative pressure breathing (like breathing with a snorkel, and swimming with the chest below the surface and even the slight elevation of the head to breathe in), and drinking too much water or other fluids before swimming. Don't drink lots of water before swimming.

3. What are the signs and symptoms?

Unusually shortness of breath (not just fatigue) and coughing bloody froth. No chest pain.

With a stethoscope you can hear rales, an abnormal rattling breathing sound. Chest x-rays show the classic pattern of pulmonary edema. When blood oxygen in the arteries is checked, arterial O2 may be lowered.

4. Do wet suits provide any measure of protection against PE?

Difficult to say since it has occurred in people with and without wet suits. I haven't seen charts where the numbers of each predisposing possibility, like protective garments and temperature, were compared.

5. Can medical personnel easily detect PE?

Pulmonary edema is not subtle. The person is usually gasping and spitting pink froth, and asking for help with a worried look.

A swimmer who develops shortness of breath and cough in a race may have something else like exercise induced asthma.

6. What is the first aid if PE is suspected?

Get them out of the water. Sit them up to elevate the head, if conscious. Give them 100% oxygen by mask, and get them to the emergency facility.

7. If PE is untreated and the athlete continues to the race/swim, what could happen?

Depends how serious. Symptoms can resolve on their own or they can get worse. I wish I knew the future for them, but it's like other injuries. There have been deaths. We wonder how many people who suddenly went under were not drowning but developed pulmonary edema. We have no way yet to tell. Drowning also produces pulmonary edema (after the fact). Repeat cases of pulmonary edema can occur in the same person.

Interestingly, the frothing pulmonary edema occurs in racehorses after hard races. They are blowing bloody nose froth all over, but veterinarians have reassured me that the horses are fine. Any readers who are veterinarians, please tell me more. If a person is frothing, get help.

Related Posts:
Subjects Invited for Immersion Pulmonary Edema Study
Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part I

Labels: circulation, cold, fix pain, injury, ironman, pulmonary edema/oedema, swimming, triathlon

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Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part I

Reader Katharine asked:

"I am an Ironman Triathlete and have recently experienced symptoms of swimming induced pulmonary edema on two occasions this year and am trying to find as much information about this condition as possible. I have a background in swimming and have not experience this phenomena until recently. In both instances, my breathing became labored and fluid built up in my lungs during the early stages of a competitive triathlon swim.

"The most recent instance of what I suspect was 'SIPE' (Swimming Induced Pulmonary Edema) was on July 22nd at Ironman USA in Lake Placid. After the swim portion of the event, I had to be taken to the hospital as I was unable to breathe and was coughing up a 'pink frothy foam.' I felt normal within 24 hours and have still been able to continue to train as normal –initial ECG and Echo tests of my heart are normal, as well as a lung scan and x-rays of my lungs, throat and sinuses.

"The problem has only occurred in 2 out of 4 triathlon’s I have been in this year – and both instances occurred at approx. the 750m mark of an open water swim.

"It doesn't seem to be a common ailment so I’m trying to gather as much information on SIPE as possible from anyone who has studied it. I'm primarily trying to find out how to prevent it from happening. I am fine in training in the same 'open' cold water as I race it, so why is it happening on race day... Perhaps not enough of a swim 'warm-up' and an immediate elevation in HR... that along with added fluids in the days leading up to a long distance event such as an Ironman."

Warming up does not seem to be related to developing pulmonary edema. Why pulmonary edema can happen with swimming, what fluids have to do with it, and what to do, follow on Wednesday - click Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part II .


Related Posts and Comments:
Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part II
Subjects Invited for Immersion Pulmonary Edema Study

Labels: circulation, cold, injury, ironman, pulmonary edema/oedema, swimming, triathlon

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Fast Fitness - Healthier Sports Shake

A New Zealand swimmer asked for more sports nutrition. Here is Friday Fast Fitness - quick, good tasting sports shakes - cheaper and healthier than store-bought.

My father and grandfather, (and great-grandfather+) were Ice Swimmers. We all swam all year in open water including several over 20 miles (32km). My grandfather's sure-power recipe was an oily mixture (for future posts). When I raced competitively, I swam 5-7 miles a day, 35-40 miles a week (up to 64km/week). The coach pushed the common fad of eating Jello powder. As a vegetarian I skipped it, and watched other vogue sports food assumptions come and go. Best is real food.

Throw in a blender or other mixer:

• Clean water
• Peeled banana
• Peeled orange with the seeds
• Some of the well-washed orange peel
• Raw walnuts or other favorite
• Some cooked brown rice left from a meal
• Sweeten with raisins or a prune softened in clean water. Molasses optional. Adds many minerals.
• Cinnamon powder to level blood sugar

Tips:

• For the day of the event, you can substitute tea for the water.
• Experiment with amounts to get preferred consistency
• If you want a chocolate shake, add a scoop of unsweetened cocoa powder (unsweetened non-dutched baking cocoa). People with migraine can leave out the cocoa.
• Don't junk it up with milk, sugar, artificial sweeteners, commercial sports powders.
• If you use a juicer, put the solids and pulp back in, or you will be drinking sugar water and throwing away the point and the nutrition.
• Try different fruit - Persimmons, mangosteen, pineapple, melon, berries, your favorite. Raw red beets are an overlooked sweet fitness food good in shakes.
  
• For flavors, add a small slice of unpeeled ginger root, washed mint leaves.

Related Fitness Fixer:

• Nutrition for Endurance Swim Training
• Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part I
• Respiratory Muscle Training for Swimming, Diving, and Running
• Three Common Swimming and SCUBA Myths in the News Again
• Diver Down Flags - Boating, Swimming, SCUBA Safer and Smarter
  
• Lower Back Pain From Swimming and SCUBA
• Better Stretches for Swimming - Cook Strait Update

Labels: cold, endurance, fast fitness, green fitness, nutrition, performance enhancing modality, swimming

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Nutrition for Endurance Swim Training

"Dr. Ernie" is training to swim the Cook Strait of New Zealand. We met him in May in Sixteen Miles of Cold Water, learned about cold acclimatization with him in Getting Fitter in 50 Degrees, and did Better Stretches for Swimming with him in Cook Strait Update.

Dr.Ernie (blog name) writes,

"The water temp now (has risen to) 14 degrees Celsius (57F) and I had a robust swim this afternoon in Wellington Harbour (photo below right). Interestingly enough there was virtually no shivering. I'd swum for about an hour and a half in the pool earlier today.

"I was struck by the difference between pool and ocean swimming... technically I've improved tremendously in the pool over the past few weeks and my times have improved greatly. In the ocean it's much harder -- but I felt faster nonetheless.

"I am not a fast swimmer -- in fact, at this point I am still too slow to pass Phil's test -- but I can feel I'm making progress. I've been able to hold a pace of 2.5 km/hour for a few hours, and this has been an improvement from a measly 2 km/hour not very long ago. And I'll be up to 25 km/week by the end of this month (about 15.5 miles a week - longer and generally more work swimming than running).

"My plan is to increase weekly mileage to 40 km (approx 25 miles) per week by the end of November and then to make a push through to 50 km/week (about 31 miles) by the end of December -- the 'crunch' month. I'll attempt to renter the open waters by mid-November and begin reacclimatization to the cold. With luck and persistence, I'll be granted the privilege of attempting the Cook Strait swim.

"I met with Phil Rush -- the man who has crossed the Strait seven times (including a double-crossing) and who holds the world's record for a triple crossing of the English Channel. He will be piloting the support boat for my attempt, which will hopefully be in February 2008. His advice: swim, swim, swim… then be ready to take a 6-hour test in early January. In the test I will have to demonstrate that I can sustain at least a 3 km/hour pace for the 6 hours. He told me I'd have to figure out the kind of sustenance I'd need on my own, and he recommended that I not try to gain too much weight -- though he cautioned not to lose any from this point on. He also suggested that I procure the skills of a swim coach to refine technique (Fitness Fixer posts in progress on faster healthier stroke mechanics for swimming).

"Any advice on nutrition or cross-training would be appreciated. Because I also have a full-time job, time is tight and hours in the water are limited. I've experimented with a commercial product (name deleted) for multi-hour endurance activities that's easy on the stomach."

I am not a nutrient biochemistry or epidemiology researcher, so I can only report what I have read from others, which can inadvertently repeat and perpetuate wrong information incestuously (we all say so, it must be true). Following is a summary of what I believe and have seen from working with my patients and athletes:

• In general, good nutrition all year will give more benefit than eating special foods for an event, race, or hike.


• Processed packaged sports supplement foods cost far more than the ingredients, and you can get healthier ingredients, cheaper, and just as easily without commercial sports powders, bars, drinks, and other preparations.


• Many nutrients need to work in the original food containing other components that make each part work better. Some do not work, or have even been found to increase health risks when concentrated in vitamin and mineral supplements.
  


• In general, no commercial processed "sports food," no matter how engineered or marketed as effective for training, will give you the health of healthful real food. Whole foods, for example, a simple apple with the skin, contain combinations of nutritional and disease fighting chemicals that are not available in supplements.


• "Energy food" technically means it has calories. Extra calories alone will not enable you to build muscle or win a race.


• Increasingly, some "energy food" and drinks contain stimulant compounds. This practice is a foolhardy one to become accustomed to, building cycles of inability to focus, exercise, or feel well without them, and varying degrees of agitation with them, sleep difficulties, and various cardiovascular risks.


• Products with soy are usually unfermented soy. Unfermented soy contains enzyme inhibitors which block digestion, goitrogens which inhibit thyroid function, phytic acid, which blocks minerals like zinc and calcium, and estrogen-promoting compounds. Anyone with tendency to estrogen-dependent tumors or cancer, fibroids, cystic ovary and breast, or endometriosis will be better to avoid unfermented soy.


• Even if sugar water will extend endurance, it is still junk food, not healthy for the long term. Science Daily reports "Sports drinks face junk food label"


• Protein and carbohydrate together work better for training than sugar alone, however commercial processed powdered mixtures are still not the healthy choice over the long term.

This is all good news. You can eat good tasting food, that is quick to make, and cheaper and better for you than expensive commercial "sports food."

Don't worry that you have to eat engineered products to be able to win. You will win better in the long run without them.

Related Fitness Fixer:

• Recipe follows in Fast Fitness - Healthier Sports Shake.
• Click the label 'nutrition' under this post for all Fitness Fixer posts with food ideas and info.
• More on all these issues plus some Halloween treat suggestions - Is Your Health Food Unhealthful?

Labels: cold, endurance, nutrition, performance enhancing modality, readers inspiring story, swimming

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Exercise and Cancer

Regular physical exercise is documented to reduce risk of cancer. Exercise has also been found to increase survival in those with existing cancer, (JAMA and J Clin Oncol.) improving both number of years and quality of life.

Until recently (sometimes currently), cancer patients, along with heart patients and back pain sufferers were told to rest and stop activity. Inactivity creates new health problems and worsens existing health problems. Lack of regular exercise decreases strength, endurance, energy, blood sugar regulation, cellular repair (lengthy list here) and increases fatigue. Cancer treatments of radiation and chemotherapy do the same, and worse. This is called iatrogenic harm, which means injury or illness brought on by medical treatment. One medical report found that debilitating tiredness and loss of energy from cancer treatments can be more disruptive to the patient than the original pain of cancer. Another report called fatigue, "The most important consideration for the patient with cancer." Cancer fatigue can be a problem for months, even years, after treatments end.

Reader Dr. Zoe E., cancer survivor with personal experience writes:

"I don't think I'm quite ready for prime-time yet - but if I can be a source of encouragement to those trashed by chemo, I'm happy to be displayed.

"Yes, exercise helps if you can do it. Lots of people are lucky to experience low toxicity during chemo and are able to keep up their exercise programs or active life through treatment. Others are laid low and must stop treatment or are just trying to recover enough between treatments to continue them.

"While the Lance Armstrongs and Tony Snows of the world are inspirational, it would be a bad thing if the general population thought that people should be able to work and function during cancer treatment. Many, maybe most, can't and they shouldn't feel bad about it. Chemotherapy is as close to killing you as modern medicine gets."

Dr Zoe sent an update the day before yesterday:

"I did the Relay for Life on Saturday (a fund raiser for the American Cancer Society). It's a 12-hour team event where you keep one person on the track for the full time. I did the Survivor's Lap and several more with lots of rest stops. I managed to hang out there for 4 hours before I got too pooped. No photos though, I'm even more camera shy than blog shy! You can draw a picture if you want."

One of the benefits of exercise is that your body produces more of an interesting compound called heat shock protein. Heat shock proteins (HSP) are families of proteins that do several things including accompanying and helping other proteins under stress (called chaperoning). Heat shock chaperones keep the other proteins neatly folded when they are being deformed by stress factors such as infection, ultraviolet light, starvation, heat, and other harsh conditions. Heat shock proteins help cell survival and are thought to mobilize immune function against infections and diseases. One of the big stressors of focus in heat shock study is cancer. Heat shock proteins have been investigated for their role in activating immune response to cancer, and in cancer vaccine research.

Molecular physiology isn't my research area, so I haven't done any work in it personally. I just read the work of others. Heat shock proteins are intensely fascinating to me for their role in exercise, in increasing tolerance to hot environments (interestingly, cold too), and other extreme challenges to the body. I hope to post more about it from the sports medicine meeting next week.

Getting enough exercise to improve strength and quality of life doesn't only mean exhausting yourself or stopping your day to change clothes and go "do exercises." Get exercise that is healthy and fun, and as a normal part of how you bend and position your body in healthful ways during your day.

Fitness Fixer Ideas:

• What is "Fitness as a Lifestyle?"
• How Good Would You Look From 400 Squats a Day - Just Stop Unhealthy Bending
• How Often Should You Be Healthy?
• Household Fitness in the New Year
• Functional Fitness as a Lifestyle By Mail Room Workers
  

Labels: cancer, cold, heat, heat shock protein, injury, performance enhancing modality, readers inspiring story

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