Not Old for the Olympics Part II

Yesterday's post told of athletes competing in the highest level athletic events over many years as they get older. The ability to keep physical skills by training is not new or unusual. To keep physical skills, you continue to use and practice them.

One of my students, Leslie, was featured doing 30 pushups in the March post Are You Stronger Than A 67 Year Old Lady?


Leslie can now do 40 pushups easily, and says her goal is 45 for her 68th birthday this October. I didn't have a camera with me to record her 40 pushups last week in class before posting this post, but will try when I get back from the Wilderness Medicine conference.

Leslie says she wants me to tell all of you that she could not do any pushups when she started working with me. She says it was my training in functional daily movement that made the difference, instead of doing artificial exercises in "sets and reps" for isolated body parts. She says the last 5 of the 45 pushups are hard, but she perseveres and keeps smiling, knowing discipline needs training. Bookmark her movie so you can do your 30 pushups every day with her.

When Dara Torres made the news by qualifying for the Beijing Olympics, the first comments by the masses included that performance enhancement drugs were probably needed. Torres employs a head coach, a sprint coach, a strength coach, two stretchers who moved to Florida to stretch her daily, two masseuses, a chiropractor, a nanny, and household help, with costs estimated at least $100,000 per year, plus the support of family, friends, and good sponsors. You don't win an Olympics alone, but it does not require drugs to get better over years of training. Torres trains hard, and has a team of trainers and people who stretch her, using many of the conventional moves that "work" at the price of her 13 surgeries for injuries.

There are people who state that it is unfair and unethical to use performance-enhancing drugs, but they wear or allow a one thousand dollar engineered bathing suit like the new Speedo LZR. When I was competing, swim goggles were considered an unfair advantage. Mark Spitz won his record setting medals without even wearing goggles. When I was competing, it was considered unfair for an American athlete to earn any money from athletics. No sponsors were allowed. Athletes swept floors to earn money to compete. Today they are not only sponsored and advertised, pro athletes arrive at events with chauffeurs from their villas.

Is it fair to be taller, a trait which favors speed in swimming? Some who say performance-enhancing drugs are wrong will eat engineered food, and use expensive altitude chambers and other training devices. Is it fair to other competitors when one swimmer has a rich family who gives up all to support their dreams? It is considered unfair doping to use certain steroids to hasten healing of internal injuries and soreness from intensive training, but not if you use them to heal skin erosions from the same hard training. Drugs are vilified in some sports, glorified in others, and routinely used in the business and military world for increased concentration and competitiveness, and reduction of hunger and fatigue.

Debate continues about ethics. Two truths are important to remember - Performance enhancing drugs are not necessary to win or to achieve the highest goals of competition. There are women swimmers today who without any drugs are breaking records of men swimmers of the 70's who used steroids. Performance drugs are not healthy. The purpose of athletics is not just to mindlessly best the person next to you. A higher view is the beauty of clean healthy athletics.

Posts on exercise and aging, and enhancing drugs:

• Exercise and Aging - Don't Limit the Patient to Limit the Pain
• Why So Many Aerobics Injuries?
• Human Growth Hormone
• Rocky IV and Healthier Exercise
• Metabolism - How to Lose Weight and Save Money

Labels: aging, drugs, Olympics, performance enhancing modality, swimming

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Tour De France 2008 and Increasing Aerobic Capacity

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.

The synthpop song "Tour de France" was 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.

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:

• Human Growth Hormone
• Nutrition for Endurance Swim Training
• Get Muscles for Christmas

Books that cover aerobic training and performance enhancement are Health & Fitness THIRD edition (good for general populations) and Healthy Martial Arts (more for athletes of body and mind).

Labels: aerobic, altitude, biking, drugs, endurance, performance enhancing modality, Tour De France

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Technical Difficulties

Articles intended for yesterday and today could not be posted. Blogger is having technical difficulties. No photos or graphics are uploading to Fitness Fixer. The scheduled posts that describe healthy use of kettlebell weights would not be as fun or understandable without seeing the photos. They will come, hopefully soon. Until then, try this remarkable site www.bonkersinstitute.org.

Bonkers Institute was sent to me by reader Dr. Ern Campbell, a good man, who runs the immense resource of the Scubadoc diving medicine site and forum, scuba-doc.com. I am one of the site's diving medicine advisors.

The Bonkers Institute site, on the surface, seems to be funny stories. Look closely to realize how they intelligently expose critical topics. From their "about" page, they explain that they bring to light "shameless disease mongering and unprecedented pharmaceutical profiteering."

"...Our mission is to expose fraudulent medical pseudoscience wherever it is found… We march into the field of battle armed with a powerful weapon: our sense of humor. Fighting pseudoscience with pseudoscience…"

read on -

Labels: drugs, education, mind, scuba

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Junk Food Through Your Skin?

We live part of each year in Asia. For a few months, I was posting articles for you from various villages. The town shower of one is pictured at right. Imagine what the Internet café was like.

On the flights over, our only bag was lost. US transportation security required us to check our sole knapsack, since it had a small gift for friends containing liquid. It never reappeared. We don't need "things" and it was just as easy to make our own soap, comb, and toothbrushes as carry them.

In Western stores, I am astonished by the number of "personal care items." Not just shelves full, but aisles. Each promising better hair, skin, nails, and other parts, but with ingredients that are not healthy for your body, produced in ways that pollute the world, and packaged in plastics that are unhealthy to produce, pollute when discarded, and which apparently leak chemicals into the product that can be absorbed through your skin - see Green Water. A study commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association found that even shampoos, body washes, and lotions labeled "natural" and "organic" can contain unhealthful, even carcinogenic compounds.

I feel high maintenance just carrying a toothbrush. Then we arrived without even that. What freedom.

We made simple hand sanitizer from coarse salt, rubbed between the palms.


For body, face, and hair, we picked aloe leaves, squeezed out the gel inside, and rubbed directly on - see Fast Fitness - Aloe Inside and Out. It dries non-sticky, and makes your hair shiny, clean, and healthy. We used the rest of the gel in food and drink for healthy digestion.

Bamboo is easily made into cooking pots (photo above left). We also visit our favorite bean sprout PadThai restaurant - an outdoor wok on wheels run by a friend. Paul is always popular when we travel (photo at right).

Baking soda and salt makes clean toothpaste. Even without them, a short branch called a neem stick with one end mashed until fibrous, makes a soft, effective bristled toothbrush. Neem extract is said to be a good antiseptic, and effective against various health ills and germs.

After a long day at work and after hard training, instead of hand lotion, you can rub sesame or other light healthy cooking oil onto your hands and feet. You can scent it with mint leaves, citrus peels, spices, and flowers. More ideas in Healthy Mother's Day.

I don't use sunblock, even in the tropics. I do use something to stop some of the unwanted effects of too much sun, but I do not want to block the Vitamin D and other helpful effects of sunlight. Vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis (thin, brittle bones) and osteomalacia (rubbery, demineralized bones). Vitamin D deficiency is associated with increased risk of a few types of cancer, including lung cancer. Studies find that people with low blood levels of vitamin D were more likely to have high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Another study found that a number of patients with aches and weakness were vitamin D deficient and concluded, "A lot of 'fibromyalgia' may be D deficiency."

Instead of blocking or deflecting UV rays using chemical sunblocks that may contain chemicals that I am not sure are healthy, I mix my own, that I hope stops the oxidizing effects and makes my own body better able to stop skin cancer mechanisms. I mash together fresh coconut pulp, green tea, vegetable sprouts, mashed turmeric root, and aloe gel.

A study by Johns Hopkins researchers, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (October 30, 2007, vol. 104, no. 44, 17500-17505) found that rubbing an extract made from broccoli sprouts on your skin may help prevent skin cancer from high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Broccoli, and the sprouts in particular, contain a chemical called sulphoraphane, which is found to activate cancer-fighting enzymes in your own cells throughout your body, not only skin cells.

Instead of chemical anti-mosquito products, we try various things. Marigold flowers rubbed on the skin seem to work for us. I don't seem to be "sweet," and mosquitoes often ignore me while going after Paul. We have heard various theories from locals. One is that he eats sweet rice while I eat more garlic. Various grasses rubbed on the skin also work well for us. There are vines growing in Thailand with beautiful purple flowers. When you rub them on wet hair, it leaves your hair soft and shiny and sweet smelling, but the bugs do not like it. There are other vines that, when mashed with water made effective gentle soap and mosquito control combined.

In Asia, martial arts training is often more rigorous and disciplined than is common in the states. After hard evenings of training, I would sit by a candle made from oil and tightly wrapped bamboo leaves, and rub salt and oil into my, and Paul's, tired feet. Bliss.

• You can exercise for your health. Why undo that by eating junk food - Is Your Health Food Unhealthful
• or by adding junk food to your brain through thinking unhealthful thoughts - Healthier Heart
• or with junk food directly through your skin.

The biggest worry for Paul is just ducking the doorways.

Labels: cancer, diabetes, digestion, drugs, fix pain, nutrition, osteoporosis

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Sinus and Head Colds

Several readers asked what else they can do for painful head and sinus congestion, because after two+ weeks of medicines and doctor visits, they were no better, or were worse. Common treatments do not work as claimed, including decongestants and sprays, and can cause sinus pain to continue and recur.

What Are Sinuses?
The sinuses in your head are eight spaces in your skull behind your eyes and nose. They produce mucus, and that is good. Mucus produces antiseptics, and traps and filters germs and particles that you don't want to pass into your respiratory system and the rest of your body. Sinusitis occurs when one or more of your sinus cavities become inflamed.

Inflamed by Inhaling Things
Sinuses can become inflamed without any germs causing it, for example from inhaling particles, allergens, or liquids up the nose. If you have ever "gotten water up your nose" in a pool, you have felt the results. The practice of irrigating the nose and sinuses with salt-water sprays is often prescribed for sinus congestion, and even for preventive "maintenance," but it removes important protective mucus layers and natural disease-fighting compounds, and is irritating in itself. Some people regularly spray the sinuses using a variety of squeeze bottles, or a device called a neti pot. It is an unnecessary practice, and does not prevent the underlying cause of sinus pain. It sets up an addictive cycle of rebound congestion and irritation, and increased risk of infections and discomfort to follow.

Another contributor to rebound congestion is regular use of camphor inhalers. Sniffing camphor is a widespread practice throughout Asia, where decorative camphor containers shaped to fit the nose are sold in most grocery, pharmacy, and convenience stores. Camphor irritates mucus membranes causing a cycle of irritation, more camphor inhalation, and more congestion. Some people develop a habit of inhaling camphor, thinking it is for their congestion, not realizing they have a substance inhalation addiction called "huffing."

Decongestants
Decongestants are a big money item in drug store sales. They are not the best treatment for sinus pain and congestion. You are already too clogged up. You do not want more "drying out." The clogged areas would do better becoming more dilute by drinking hot liquids, not by becoming more gummy and concentrated with the "drying out" of a decongestant. After the decongestant wears off, a rebound can occur of more congestion. Taking more decongestant perpetuates a negative cycle, and can raise blood pressure. Cough syrups and pills that contain dexomethorphan (DXM) to block coughing are not as effective for coughs as hoped, but are popularly abused by kids looking for a cheap, easily available "high" ("rhobotripping") with unhealthy physical and psychoactive effects.

Infections and Antibiotics
Sometimes sinuses fill with bacterial or viral fluid. Antibiotic do not help against sinusitis, even the kinds colonized by bacteria. Antibiotics can kill your body's good "bugs" or weaken them, leaving you susceptible to stronger bad bugs, who learn how to live and multiply in your body. Antibiotics taken orally reduce the needed numbers of beneficial flora that normally live in your GI tract. The nutritional and immunogenic products that they normally make in your body are not made, and the organisms responsible for several illnesses can rapidly reproduce and get out of control. An example is antibiotic-associated Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) colitis, an infection of the colon that occurs primarily among patients exposed to antibiotics. More than three million C. difficile infections occur in hospitals in the U.S. each year. He number is growing. An estimated 20,000 C. difficile infections occur each year in the U.S. outside the hospital - directly caused by taking antibiotics.

Healthier Ways to Decongest and Sooth:

• Hot steamy showers and baths.
• Hot facial compresses.
• No need for fancy vaporizers with chemicals (more camphor or other irritants to inhale). Put on a kettle or any pot of water and heat until steaming. Stand at a distance where you feel the warm steam, without standing close enough for any chance of burns. No need to bend over as in the photo at right. Stand in healthy comfortable position for your back and neck.
• Eat spicy foods that you like, such as wasabi or chili peppers.
• Drink hot peppermint tea, or other warm, aromatic teas with lemon.
• Reduce irritating particles (rugs, cats, junk piles, cigarettes, or whatever concentrates trigger irritants).
• A walk outdoors in fresh air and sunshine helps clear breathing and pain.
• Do any fun exercise to heat your body. Increasing body temperature loosens clogging secretions and generates heat shock proteins that have been found to be pretty good for you. The post Exercise and Cancer touches on the basics of heat shock proteins.
• The post Fast Fitness - Quick Warm Up gives a quick method to increase body temperature to warm up.
• The post Regular Exercise Reduces Cold and Flu Incidence lists good practices to lower risk and increase resistance to infectious diseases.

More information on preventing and resolving sinus problems, things to know about antibiotic use, and other infectious topics are in the book Healthy Martial Arts.

Labels: breathing, children, colds/flu/infectious, drugs, heat, neck, nutrition, smoking, warmup

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Green Water

Commercially bottled water may not be a healthy fitness drink, from the container it comes in to the water inside.

The water may be no healthier than tap water, the plastic containers may leach chemicals into the water they hold, and the bottling, transport, and disposal all seriously weaken environmental fitness, and ultimately your own.


The Cornell Daily Sun made a nice summary of the information:

• CNN news reports that Aquafina and Dasani are no different than tap water
• Plastic water bottle manufacturing process, requires 1.5 million barrels of crude oil a year
• 13,700 18-wheelers are used per week to transport one billion bottles of water across the world.
• Bottled water undergoes eight tests under Environmental Protection Agency requirements. Tap water must undergo 22 different tests (tests in countries like Great Britain and Canada are more stringent).

The Journal of Queen's University (Ontario) adds:

• One kilogram of plastic bottles requires 17.5 kilograms of water to be used in the production process. You're putting more water into it than you're getting out.
• Bottling and shipping water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2006.
• Tap water is a safe and economical alternative to plastic bottles.

Both articles, plus others, advocate avoiding commercially bottled water and re-filling your own plastic or Nalgene bottles with simple tap water. I add two things:

1. Use non-plastic bottles. Small glass bottles have been working for me and my students. For more safety, wrap them in protective neoprene sleeves, available easily in many places, including "dollar" stores. Some students have come in with stainless steel bottles from old army supply. We discourage aluminum bottles until we know if there is possibility of the aluminum leaching into the water and if that may affect health.


2. Get a water filter for your tap water. There is work showing the water supply increasingly contains medical drugs excreted by the users and other chemicals that constitute a "body burden" of compounds with potential health effects. Future posts will explain those topics.

One of my students, Lily, who brings me a wonderful quick-bean recipe in thoughtful glass jars, adds this site for more eco-health through Deforesting Your Mailbox of catalogs.

Friday Fast Fitness gives recipes for Healthier Fitness Water. Readers, send your ideas for healthy, convenient water and photos of your inventive, fun containers.

Labels: drugs, nutrition, performance enhancing modality

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Altitude Sickness, Viagra, and Bubbles on Flights

The previous post Altitude Sickness During Flights told how certain symptoms occurring during air travel are from exposure to altitude.

If a craft were not pressurized, cabin pressure would be equivalent to the air pressure outside the aircraft at whatever altitude. At high altitude, there would not be enough air pressure inside for crew to be functional enough to fly. This was one of my areas of study with the Navy. Crew in unpressurized craft wear oxygen-delivery equipment.

Passenger planes are pressurized. The inside is kept at a higher pressure (lower equivalent altitude) than flight altitude (the air outside the plane). The pressure is still not as much as at sea level. Keeping that much interior pressure would create huge fuel costs and extreme metal fatigue on the craft. Regular passenger aircraft keep interior pressure equivalent to mild altitude exposure.

In the last few years, Viagra (sildenafil citrate) has been tested by various groups, including the military, as intervention against altitude sickness. Recently it was also found that the drug reduced symptoms, thought to be jet lag, after flights. My guess is that it was effective for symptoms from flights because of the same properties that may help reduce symptoms, in some, of altitude sickness.

Another component that I discovered many years ago in my work in altitude sickness, was a bubble component - an altogether new dimension to the altitude sickness puzzle. Decompression sickness bubbles can form in the body when coming up after a scuba dive. I found the same kind of bubbles can form in your body when going to elevations encountered in aircraft and mountain travel, with no prior scuba diving. More of this in future posts. Decompression sickness is also an issue when going into space during extra-vehicular activities. Click Space Walks.

Altitude sickness in flight is different from (or in addition to) the motion sickness of flight motion, or being stiff after not moving enough during long flights. The post Exercise and Stretch for Long Travel Sitting covers some exercises and stretches to relieve those problems.

Labels: aerospace, altitude, drugs, injury, scuba

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Independence Day for Fitness

Today is Independence Day in the United States. The Declaration of Independence was drafted in June of 1776. Signing began by July. The paper itself didn't grant independence - work continued until independence came a few years later. After getting the idea to do something, the next thing is to take action. Here are ideas for a life free from things that are unhealthy - pain, unhealthful food, and exercises that reinforce bad habits:

Freedom from junk food:

Instead of soda, put a red sweet pepper in a food grinder. Cut about an inch of fresh ginger root and add through the grinder. In about 30 seconds preparation time you will have a sweet, cool, red, slushy drink with an exotic tang of ginger. Healthy and good tasting.

Instead of refined sugar sports drinks, put a peeled whole cucumber into the food grinder or low speed blender with a whole kiwi fruit. It will make a sweet, cool, slushy, green drink.

Instead of processed peanut butter and refined sugar jelly, put fresh raw nuts and apple slices into a grinder, mill, or chopper. In less than a minute of preparation time, you have a sweet nut butter that you can spread on fruit slices, carrots, and other good foods. Try walnuts, almonds, other fresh raw nuts, and experiment with different fruit combination to make different sweet creamy fresh nut butters.

For more recipes, Healthy Martial Arts has an entire chapter on nutrition.

Freedom from overeating

Just as you can't go through red lights every time you just feel like it, or hit someone any time you just feel like it, you don't just eat anything you feel like it at any time. That is unhealthy. Some people say any denial is unhealthy. That is like saying you can just wet your pants when you feel like it. Self-control is cleaner in body and spirit:
Exercise Common Sense Discipline - Turn Down Halloween Junk Food
A Little Good Exercise, a Lot of Bad Food - Overweight Still No Mystery

Freedom from unhealthy drugs and medicines:

Masses of products crowding store shelves claim to fix this and cure that. Millions of dollars are spent. The products seem dazzling, but much is hype and many produce unhealthy effects. Then more dollars are spent on more pills and products for the new problems caused by the medicines. Many prescribed medicines cause new problems that can be avoided. Stop the cycle and save yourself time, money, and unhappiness. If it is not healthy, it is not health care:
Teen Dies After Using Muscle Soreness Rub
Human Growth Hormone
Is Your Health Food Unhealthful?
Stomach Acid Drugs Increase Osteoporosis and Hip Fractures

Freedom from physical pain and injuries:

At the Special Operations Medical Association conference two years ago, it was released that 62% of our American injuries in Iraq are "Disease Non-Battle Injuries"(DNBI) - not from combat or supporting operations, but occurring in the gym. At the ACSM conference last month, a research study reported that their American military units had 17% DNBI injuries. I asked them how they kept their numbers so low. They replied that the number was for evacuations - injuries so serious they required removal from the base. Some of the most common exercise and stretching practices are not healthy. It is not that they are not good for some people or that they are overuse or done "wrong" - they are inherently bad movements. The same high injury rate is happening to fitness and yoga and Pilates instructors and students. I wrote about this in Welcome to the Fitness Fixer. Here are some specifics on why and what to do instead:
Why So Many Aerobics Injuries?
The Stretch You Need The Least
Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
Safer Overhead Military Press
Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?

Freedom from neck pain:

Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain
Nice Neck Stretch
Breasts Causing Upper Back Pain is a Myth

Freedom from mental pain:

Healthier Heart
Exercise Your Sense of Humor
Which Ancient Exercise Gives Focus and Concentration?

Freedom from crunches:

Abdominal crunches are a popular exercise, but they are not healthy. This is new and different information, I know. Crunches "work" your abdominal muscles, but not in a healthful or beneficial way, whether done sitting or standing or using a machine. Crunches also train rounded bad posture that you know is unneeded and unhealthy when sitting or standing that way in real life.

The idea that strengthening the abdominal muscles stops back pain is a myth. Many muscular people have pain. They do their crunches, then stand and move in the overly-arched spinal posture that is the hallmark sign that the abs are not even being used, and which creates one major kind of chronic pain: Fixing the Commonest Source of Mystery Lower Back Pain

Crunches do not automatically make you use your abdominal muscles to position your spine to support your back. You do that on your own: What Abdominal Muscles Don't Do - The Missing Link.

Neutral spine has a small inward curve to the lower spine, just not a large one:
What is Neutral Spine and Why Does Sticking Out In Back Harm?
Aren't You Supposed To Stick Your Behind Out to Sit Down or Do Squats?

The simple act of standing and doing all your activities and exercise without letting your lower spine overly arch, and instead keeping neutral spine, uses more abdominal muscle involvement than doing crunches: Using Abdominal Muscles is Not Tightening or Pressing Navel to Spine.

Functional abdominal exercises use no forward bending: Abdominal Muscle Exercise - Better, Different, Not What You Think

The book No More Crunches No More Back Pain The Ab Revolution explains a healthier better way to use and exercise your abs (114 illustrations 124 pages). I have a number of copies of the new 3rd edition expanded to give to military personnel as gifts. Contact me to send one (free) to someone you know, to keep our guys healthy.

Independence is Healthy:
This post included links to a few past posts about being free of unhealthy things. Click the labels below each post for more related posts. Keep the things you do, eat, and think healthy. If a medicine is not healthy, it is not health care. If an exercise trains injurious body mechanics, use the time for healthier exercises that are more fun. There are better, healthier ways. Be free.

Labels: abdominal muscles, drugs, fix pain, holiday, injury, neck, nutrition, performance enhancing modality, spirit, stress, upper back, weight loss

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Teen Dies After Using Muscle Soreness Rub

A New York teen cross-country runner is reported to have died after using large quantities of a muscle soreness rub. According to various news stories, the medical examiner concluded she died after using too much Bengay cream containing methyl salicylate.

Methyl salicylate is a natural oil of wintergreen (betula oil) found in plants. It is used in many muscle rubs and creams to dilate blood vessels to bring blood to the area and redden the skin.

Deaths are rare, but salicylate poisoning is not rare or unknown. Poisonings using medicated oils account for "48% of acute salicylate poisoning cases treated in the general medical ward of the Prince of Wales Hospital" in Hong Kong (Vet Hum Toxicol. 1996 Apr;38(2):133-4.) Another study comparing severe salicylate poisoning from aspirin or topical oils found that the oils pose "the threat of severe, rapid-onset salicylate poisoning" because of the concentrated form and lipid solubility of the methyl salicylate in the rubs (Postgrad Med J. 1996 Feb;72(844):109-12.)

Some muscle rubs and balms contain other toxic ingredients, such as turpentine oil and camphor. The various preparations all "work" in various ways to relieve pain or mask it. I will cover more about the different soreness creams and preparations from around the world, their ingredients, and how they work in posts to come. The book Healthy Martial Arts covers ingredients in detail, how they work, and more on soreness and training.

Soreness in the muscles is common and normal after energetic activity. Muscle soreness does not just occur in the out-of-shape. However, your joints should not be sore after workouts.

If your joints (not muscles) are sore after activity, you may be using body mechanics that put joints in positions that grind or rub. You may also be shifting weight off your muscles onto your joints to make the exercise easier. Your joints should not be sore, hot, or swollen after any activity.

Here are a few ideas to avoid joint pain during or following activity:

To reduce knee joint stress during daily good bending (half-squat):
Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending
and Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle

Reduce knee joint stress in full squat:
Achilles Stretch in the Bathroom

Reduce knee joint stress when running, walking, jumping:
Healthy Knees

Reduce lower spine stress when reaching, running, walking:
Back Pain in Pregnancy - and Why Men Can Get It
the post tells why and has links to show how to restore the spine to neutral to stop the pain then and there,
and Change Daily Reaching to Get Ab Exercise and Stop Back and Shoulder Pain

Reduce lower spine stress when sitting and bending:
Disc Pain - Not a Mystery, Easy to Fix

Reduce upper back and neck pain:
Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?

Shoulder and rotator cuff:
Safer Overhead Military Press
and Upper Back Exercise and Neck Pain Prevention Too

Click the labels under each post to show all posts on that topic.
Sincere wishes to the family of this young girl.

Labels: drugs, fix pain, injury, performance enhancing modality, soreness

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Blood Hero

The previous post mentioned I am writing from the meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). Yesterday the ACSM ran a blood drive at the conference center. At a blood drive, volunteers donate a small amount of (their own) blood; only a pint. Giving blood is a helpful simple thing to do. Your body will quickly make more and replace the small amount you give.

You can give as often as every two months. Seventy-nine-year-old Lillian Bloodworth from Florida has given 160 times, spread over 40 years. Just giving one time in your life still makes you a hero. The single pint you give can be used to save several sick, even dying, people of any age.

Before donating, donors are screened through questions to make sure they have not engaged in practices that make them more likely to have diseases spread through blood. These practices can be sexual, injecting drugs for recreation or bodybuilding, even receiving tattoos or piercings. A small blood screening is done to assure that you have enough blood iron to make donation safe for you. Then you lie down comfortably while they take the blood from a vein in the inside of your elbow. A good phlebotomist (venipuncturist, blood donation taker) makes the process painless.

A common topic in sports medicine is low iron. Medical texts devote much attention to populations with lowered iron levels, considering it a bad thing. Just as important to consider is high blood iron level, which is one intriguing risk factor for cardiovascular disease. High iron levels have also been associated with unusual fatigue, and perhaps cancer. One, of many, reasons to cut back (or eliminate) red meat is high iron content. Conversely, premenopausal women who lose small monthly amounts of iron, and vegetarians and athletes have lower incidence of heart disease than the rest of the population. One of the factors is that these populations often maintain lower iron levels.

High iron is not only an issue with extreme levels, or a genetic disorder of iron metabolism, such as hemachromatosis. Raised iron level from dietary sources may raise cardiac risk, particularly in men who don't have the benefit of monthly blood loss. Understandably, people with iron levels that are too low are turned away from blood donation. Other people donate to benefit their own health by lowering blood iron.

Either way, it can be healthy and kind to donate blood.

Need for blood donations rises in the summer. More info on Red Cross blood donation.

Labels: cancer, drugs, nutrition, spirit

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Muay Thai Monks on Horseback

E-mails have come in since I posted that we were on our way to the Monks on Horseback in the northern Thai mountains. Readers wanted to hear about our stay.

We live in Asia part of each year. We traveled north to visit our friends and teachers who are relatives and former teachers of the Phra (monk) Kru Ba Neua Chai who heads the monastery. Our friends live in the village of Baan Mai Kom, not far from there, close to the Burmese border. We took the bus north to there. There is no station - the driver dropped us on the road after dark, and we walked into the cool night to the mountain.

Nearby in Myanmar (Burma), drug traffickers from ethnic and government groups move vast amounts of opium and heroin, and more recently, methamphetamine, into Thailand for local and world distribution. For generations they have torn through villages, murdering adults and forcibly recruiting children into their militias. Drug use in the area further damages and destabilizes families and lives through drug illnesses, kidnapping, prostitution, and land control.

Drug wars, shooting, bombings, terror, international involvement and dollars have not stopped the destruction. The Thai monarchy, caring for the welfare of all involved, started a program for poppy growers to have income from other crops and industries beside opium. Thai soldiers in the region asked local monks to combat the drug menace by taking dharma (duty to behave righteously) to the hilltribe villagers. One monk was Kru Ba, a former soldier and Muay Thai (Thailand style martial arts) champion, known to boxing fans as Samerchai, and graduate of Ramkamhaeng University in Bangkok. To serve his land better, he became a monk. Another Thai man who wanted to do good gave the monastery a horse. Kru Ba took in more horses and orphaned hilltribe boys, and ordained the boys as nen (novice monks). Many of the nen had seen their families murdered by drug guerillas. Kru Ba taught the nen discipline, calisthenics, caring for the horses and other living things, the life of doing and saying good, and Muay Thai martial arts.

Soon more fully ordained monks and nuns became part of the monastery. Then Kru Ba started new monasteries. Today he has 10 monasteries in the northern hills. Except during periods when monks observe certain restrictions, they train Muay Thai outdoors, in the jungle, or in their thatched boxing ring each early morning and night.

Khru Ba and the monks and nen ride through local areas to show traffickers and locals they can stop contributing to drug addiction. Khru Ba says, "When we meet the Wa (one ethnic group involved), I try to engage them in dialogue, 'Why do you do this?' I ask them. 'How would you feel if these drugs were being consumed by your own sons and daughters?'"

On occasion, Kru Ba has used his Muay Thai to protect his nen and the monastery. As daily training, they incorporate the discipline of doing good into the physical discipline of their training. Kru Ba says, "Boxing for me is something which frees the body and releases the soul from barbarianism. When I box I use every single part of my body and my mind. Buddhism teaches you not to harm or take advantage of people which some may find to be in direct opposition to an aggressive looking sport like boxing. For me, boxing helps me to become a better Buddhist. I learn to control my emotions. I find beauty and peace and stillness in boxing. I get rid of my animal instincts and control them to the point that they become beautiful, an art form for sport, for education, for the discovery of truth. The word "Thai" means freedom and when I practice Muay Thai I feel free - free from my emotions, from anger."

A documentary made on the lives of Kru Ba and the nen has been called, "a heroic undertaking to create a better world." See more on www.BuddhasLostChildren.com. I will post more in the future about our part there.

Labels: drugs, martial arts, spirit, stress

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Rocky IV and Healthier Exercise

Even before Actor Sylvester Stallone made news this week for stating he used the performance-enhancing drug growth hormone, I was preparing a post about him. His movie Rocky IV was on television. Not long after this movie came out in late 1985, I saw it in the theater when I moved to the U.S. to study another graduate exercise physiology degree. It was the first Rocky movie I saw. I loved it for poking fun at exercise science, all the artificial movement used for training popularized in the 80s, and at my own Soviet Russian heritage (and our interactions with Americans). In the movie, the supposed stereotypes were personally familiar - Russians were stunningly physiqued, disciplined, straight-postured, stern, and humor-challenged. The Americans were comically rude, indulgent, hostile to foreigners, and flamboyant.

Dolph Lundgren (born Hans Lundgren in Sweden) played Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. The movie spotlights Drago and Rocky's training for their epic match in Russia. Drago has teams of lab-coated trainers pushing him on dozens of beeping machines with blinky lights, and hints of performance enhancing drugs. He runs on motorized treadmills and uses shiny equipment to simulate activity. Rocky runs through deep Russian country snow and clambers up freezing mountain slopes. He rescues horse carts stuck in ditches, heaves rocks, and chops wood. These activities train his muscles and outlook in the real ways he needs for fighting, while Drago is made to simulate movement in artificial conditions that did not directly prepare him, and lead to his on-screen loss of confidence and the match itself.

In real life, Lundgren knows real training. He was a full-contact karate champion, and looks it. He holds a 3rd Degree Black Belt in Kyokushin Karate. Lundgren also has a master's degree in chemical engineering and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on a Fulbright Scholarship. Mind and body.

I received an e-mail asking why the previous post was named Human Growth Hormone even though the injectable form is not human growth hormone (made from humans), but synthetic which has a different name. Human growth hormone for medical use was originally extracted from human pituitary glands (from cadavers), and abbreviated "hGH." By 1985, concerns about transmitting incurable fatal brain diseases like Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease led to replacing pituitary-derived hGH with synthetic growth hormone. Human growth hormone (hGH) is no longer used in medicine or sport doping. Instead, biosynthetic human growth hormone is used, called recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH), somatropin, somatotropin, or somatotrophin, to remind of the pituitary cells called somatotrophs where the human form is made. If products are marked "HGH" they would contain no growth hormone (and you would not want them to). Also know that the underground market of performance enhancing drugs is known for having many fake (counterfeit) drugs for sale, including fake growth hormone.

The post was named Human Growth Hormone because the point was that you can make your own Human Growth Hormone in your own body, safely, easily, and cheaply. You can be younger, leaner, and stronger without injections, through the three main things that stimulate human growth hormone - healthy exercise, sleep, and eating right, described throughout this Fitness Fixer blog.

Rocky IV was one of the highest-grossing sports movies ever. At the end, Rocky spoke to the crowd, saying that fighting in the ring was better than war between countries, and stressed respect over animosity. Remember to use the message of real training through real activity, not artificial movements in a gym. The crowd, including Politburo, stood and cheered when he declared, "If I can change and you can change, then everybody can change!"

More on effective, fun exercise, stretch, and improvement for body and mind, performance enhancing foods and drugs, avoiding injuries, and more are in the book Healthy Martial Arts.

Labels: drugs, martial arts, performance enhancing modality

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Human Growth Hormone

Actor Sylvester Stallone made news this week for being found with the drug Jintropin. Jintropin is a brand name for the drug growth hormone (GH).

Growth hormone is naturally made in the pituitary gland of your brain. It does several things, including stimulating protein to make muscle. Various bodybuilders and athletes get injections of synthetic growth hormone hoping to get bigger. Actors and models use growth hormone injections to look more muscular and lean, and some cosmetic procedure doctors promote it as a drug against various signs of aging. Growth hormone use is not yet detectable by drug testing.

In children, one function of growth hormone is to stimulate bone lengthening. When the pituitary doesn't produce enough, children don't grow enough, causing one form of dwarfism. Occasionally, with too much, a child can grow to a giant. An adult taking growth hormone will not increase long bone length, so cannot get taller. Instead the forehead, hands, feet, and jaw may elongate.

Growth hormone "doping" is expensive, and must be done for a long time before results occur. For bigger results, some bodybuilders and athletes combine, or "stack," growth hormones with anabolic steroids (body building hormones). Some users add the dangerous practice of injecting insulin in combination with growth hormone (and/or steroids) for bigger muscles, more veins showing, and the appearance of exceptionally thin skin, looking as if shrink-wrapped over the muscle (believed a desirable look by some). Insulin doping can cause serious, long-term illnesses.

Growth hormone use does not seem to cause the serious health problems produced by steroids (as far as known). Problems from GH can include joint pain, wrist pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, joint swelling, facial swelling, facial elongation, and increased blood pressure. Using large doses can decrease thyroid function and increase risk of diabetes. Sadly, users may think these are signs of aging, so they take more growth hormone believing it will stop this "aging." If the user already has cancer, it can increase growth of the tumor. Growth is what this hormone does. There is no need for too much of it.

Growth hormone is naturally produced in your body all your life. Older people produce less growth hormone, but they still produce it. Some advertising for GH tries to persuade that older people are somehow at a disadvantage without a lot. Remember that older people (above the age range of puberty) need less because they are not growing, although they still need enough for strength and tissue repair.

Aging alone is not what makes you not have enough growth hormone. Four main practices reduce your body's levels:

• Lack of exercise. That makes sense, because without exercise your muscles, bones, and other tissues have no reason to rebuild; you aren't using them, after all.
• High blood sugar from dietary sources - such as eating too much and eating junk food.
• Your body reduces its growth hormone levels if it already has too much. Growth hormone stimulates your liver and other tissues to secrete "insulin-like growth factor-I" (IGF-I), which is the real factor behind most of the effects of growth hormone. Having high blood levels of IGF-I decreases secretion of growth hormone as a normal regulatory function.
• Anti-inflammatory and immune-suppressive medicines called glucocorticoids (such as prednisone, dexamethasone, and hydrocortisone). Ongoing dosage with these can lead to osteoporosis, muscle weakness, delayed wound healing, and increased infection risk. This should be kept in mind by people taking them for injuries and pain.
  

How do you get more natural growth hormone in healthy amounts without side effects? Three main agents stimulate GH secretion:

• Exercise. Getting exercise in healthful ways, described throughout Fitness Fixer blog posts, boosts GH at all ages.
• Deep sleep. With good exercise, you will sleep well at night too.
• Low levels of sugar in your blood. It is shown that both high fat and high refined-sugar diets increase blood sugar. It is not rocket science to eat less junk and more fruit and vegetables to be healthier and to lower high blood sugar.

There is more to growth, metabolizing fat, or building muscle than taking hormones. Here are helpful posts on how to safely and naturally get a healthy muscular body:

Get Muscles for Christmas
and
Getting Stronger Without a Gym

My book Healthy Martial Arts has an entire chapter on performance enhancing foods and substances, good and bad, along with chapters on safe fun exercise, stretch, and improvement for body and mind. Not just for martial artists, it is for everyone who wants to move in healthier ways.

Labels: drugs, fix pain, martial arts, nutrition, osteoporosis, performance enhancing modality, stretch

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Stomach Acid Drugs Increase Osteoporosis and Hip Fractures

A study from the University of Pennsylvania reported in the BBC News found that taking a class of drugs that reduce stomach acid, called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), for at least a year increased risk of hip fracture by 44%. Taking the drugs for longer periods further increased risk. Proton pump inhibitors include Nexium, Prilosec, Prevacid, Zoton, Inhibitol, and others.

The study needs more work and questions remain, but this is not a surprising finding. The common practice of using proton pump inhibitors, as well as ordinary antacids, has long been identified in accepted studies to reduce calcium absorption.

Taking acid-reducing medicines contributes to other problems as well. You need stomach acid for health. Stomach acid is necessary to kill unhealthy germs and food-borne infection. Low stomach acid allows infectious organisms to grow in your system. Acid suppression is a known risk factor for traveler's diarrhea and other gastrointestinal illnesses. Although acid suppression is commonly used to treat ulcers, the resulting lack of stomach acid encourages overcolonization of the bacteria Helicobacter pylori that is associated with ulcers. H. pylori is not all bad, and has important functions in your system. But using acid suppression with H. pylori colonization present seems to be linked with an increase in the progression to gastric cancer.

What can you use for your stomach instead of acid-reducing medicines?

• Pain, reflux, and constant burping are often a sign of low acid, not high acid. Drink a little apple cider vinegar in water and sprinkle balsamic vinegar, wine vinegar, or other vinegar that you prefer in your food.
• Clinical trials indicate that the "good" yeasts and bacteria called probiotics in fermented food like sauerkraut and kimchi help control several diseases, such as reflux, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel.
• Cabbage has been found in studies to be an effective antibacterial for stomach ulcers associated with Helicobacter pylori.
• Broccoli sprouts have been found to specifically control H. pylori.
• It is established in scientific studies in standard Western medicine that several spices have bacteria-inhibiting properties. Seasoning food with raw crushed garlic, onions, and fresh ginger root may inhibit strains of Helicobacter, E. coli, Staphylococcus, and Streptococcus, without harming beneficial digestive bacteria.
• Garlic, allspice, and oregano have been found to have action against "bad" bacteria, followed by thyme, cinnamon, tarragon, and cumin.
• Capsicum, such as chilies and other hot peppers, have moderate antimicrobial action. White and black pepper, ginger, anise seed, celery seed, and lemon and lime juice follow.
• Researchers at the University of Kansas found garlic, cloves, cinnamon, oregano, and sage kill E. coli.
• Use ginger root to sooth stomach pain, rather than medicines.

To reduce risk of osteoporosis:

• Stop smoking.
• Avoid drinking large amounts of alcohol.
• Stop drinking colas. The high phosphorus content in both regular and diet colas are not good for your bones.
• Avoid agents that reduce calcium absorption, such as antacids, and eating animal protein
• Don't crash diet. Rapid weight loss is shown to lower hip bone density.
• Check for wheat intolerance. People with Celiac, which is an autoimmune reaction to the protein in wheat, have higher rates of osteoporosis.
• Read the post Exercise is More Important Than Calcium Supplements for Bones.
• Avoid inactivity.

To build bone, stay active. Sedentary people lose bone even if they supplement with calcium. Exercise is the stimulus for bones to use the calcium.

To build bone in your upper back and wrist (two of the three principal sites of osteoporosis):

• Do the plank exercise described in Change Common Exercises to Get Better Ab Exercise and Stop Back Pain.
• Do the Quick and Fun Arm and Body Strengthener.

To keep your hipbones dense and your hip joints mobile:

• Use the squat many times every day, described in the post How Good Would You Look From 400 Squats a Day - Just Stop Unhealthy Bending.
• Try the Quick and Easy Strength and Balance Exercise.
• Use the Ancient Shoe Exercise for Hip Stretch and Balance.

People with muscle and joint pain are frequently put on over-the-counter or prescription anti-inflammatory medicines. Several of these hurt the stomach lining. Acid-reducing medicines are often added to try to counter this problem. Along with the problems that acid suppression medicines can produce, a common, under-recognized side effect of acid suppression medicines is achy muscles and joints.

If stopping pain and helping your bones are New Year's Resolutions, reduce or stop the need for taking anti-inflammatories for joint pain by learning the healthy joint mechanics given throughout this blog. Often when people stop taking both their anti-inflammatories and stomach acid medicine, they feel better than when they were taking both together. You can stop your pain without medicine, then stop the need for the medicines so that your stomach, and your joints, can heal.


- Photo by plasticrevolver
- More nutrition for stomach, bones, and health for everyone, in the book Healthy Martial Arts.

Labels: celiac, drugs, fix pain,