Thursday, September 30, 2010

EPO 101: Crash Course in Pro Cheating

Pro Cycling and dirty racing again made headlines yesterday with Alberto Contador, 3 time Tour de France winner testing positive for Clenbuterol.  It seems it's never ending.  No one really seemed surprised.  It seems cycling has been dirty longer then it has been clean.  Back in the day, the drug of choice was Erythropoieiten  (EPO).  It was very common in the 80's and 90's.  A test came out in 2000 to check for some forms of EPO, but as recently as 2007 some big name pro cyclists have been caught using EPO.  Chances are there will always be new versions and new ways of using it.  Recently they were micro cycling EPO, small amounts that wouldn't be picked up in a urine test, but gradually, very slowly brings the levels up.

EPO is a chemical form of blood doping that increases the number of red blood cells.  Our kidneys make the natural erythropoieten, a hormone that makes red blood cells.  If you have more red blood cells, you will pick up more oxygen from your lungs to transport from the blood into the muscles.  The more oxygen you have, the longer, harder your workouts can be.   You can see the appeal.

Anemics would have low levels of this hormone.  When you take the synthetic drug, since your red blood cells go up, your blood is thicker.  This could be dangerous as it could lead to strokes and heart attacks.

There is a short synopsis of what EPO is, so the next time you hear someone got busted for EPO, and you will, you will know exactly what they risked their life and reputation for.

The Cori Cycle and What it Means for Fat Loss

So the last post explained the Cori Cycle in hopefully easy enough terms to understand  what's going on.  Now let me explain on why this is important.

Everyone wants to lose fat.  Hey guess what, if you haven't heard, long slow distance isn't the answer.  We all know at this point that intervals do a much better job.  Here's why.

When you fill yourself with lactate, which means working hard, the Cori Cycle kicks in.  Read again, with an emphasis on hard.  Now the main time the Cori Cycle will be prevalent is at rest.  So your resting and the Cori Cycle is working full bore.  Now it takes more energy to run the Cori Cycle then the energy the Cori Cycle produces.  You are creating a negative energy balance.  Whats that mean?  You are burning calories by resting.

Hows that for cool fat burning.   Key points, work hard enough to get lactate into the body.  Flood yourself with lactic acid.  Rest.  Repeat.  Burn energy, lose fat.  Thank the Cori Cycle.  

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Cori Cycle Explained

High intensity exercise will mostly get it's energy or ATP from the pathway of the glycolitic system.  Less intense activity will receive its energy or ATP from the aerobic pathway utilizing the Krebs cycle.  When utilizing the glycolitic system, cycle after cycle, lactate will start to build up.  Lactate from the glycolitic system will diffuse from the muscles into the bloodstream.  It will then be transported into the liver.  In the liver it is converted from lactate back to pyruvate back to glucose, which is then available to the muscles again for energy, this is called gluconeogenesis.  The whole process is called the Cori Cycle.  The more you train with high intensity exercise, the more capable the enzymes and transporters become that are needed for the Cori Cycle.  Your liver gets better at using the lactate, not more efficient (it still needs the same amount of ATP to run the Cori Cycle)  but it will do the cycle faster.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Monday Motivation

I took this picture on the University of Washingtons shoreline where their rowing teams compete and practice every day. I think it pretty much sums up a lot. Apply it this week.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Your Office Chair is Killing You!

How's that for a headline,  patterned it after the evening news in about every city in America.  Sell Fear. Make a astounding claim to keep you riveted at your seat.  The problem is, physiologists may be proving that keeping you in your seat, may indeed be really, really bad for your health.  

Physiologists have been studying obesity, diabetes and heart disease and have linked sitting to shutting down the enzyme lipase.  Lipase is a big fat absorber.  Simply put, standing engages muscles and turns on the enzyme lipase (puts it in your system) regardless of exercise, to process fat and cholesterol.  Standing up also uses blood glucose.  No brainer there, muscles are used more in standing then sitting, they need energy from somewhere.  

Dr. Marc Hamilton, Ph.D., a professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Missouri in Columbia, states that heart disease, obesity and diabetes are 2-3x higher in people that sit a lot.  
He goes on to say that standing increases lipase and so fat is absorbed by the muscles and when we sit it virtually shuts down allowing the fat to circulate in the blood stream and be deposited as body fat or go and clog arteries. 

People who sat also reduced their good cholesterol levels by 22%.  His advice, chose to stand in every activity that you can and take frequent breaks from the chair.

I know here in Grand Rapids, MI that Herman Miller the furniture manufacturer has made a stand up work station that is actually has treadmill that you walk on while working.  Pretty interesting.  The evidence is in, stand up for your health, literally.  

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Tire Core Grip Combo

Here is another way to make use of a tire. Attach a jump stretch band for some extra resistance and now you're really working the grip, full body tension and core.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Monday Motivation: Jerry Rice Talks About "the Hill"

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from Jerry Rice. They say if you want to be successful, copy successful people. Do what they did. Come early, stay late, work harder then anyone, be prepared.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

My Introduction to Cyclocross in Grand Rapids

Cyclocross was born in Belgium, by road bikers looking to extend their season come fall and early winter.  It's done with a typical road frame with knobby tires like you would find on a mountain bike.  That's where the similarities end for me.

I've done both road rides and mountain biking.  I love to hit some of the great trails in the Grand Rapids area.  (Outside Magazine rated us #1)  Cyclocross was definitely unique.  In Grand Rapids the series is known as KissCross.  Keep it simple, stupid.  You don't have to have a licence to race, just show up and pay your 20 dollars.  There is no chip for timing, you count your own laps.  Beginner category is 30min.  Intermediate or B riders are 45min and Expert or A riders are 60 min.

One of the unique attributes about cyclocross is that every lap there are usually a few barriers about 2 ft tall that you have to dismount your bike and jump over them.  This requires a lot of practice and skill.  If you don't practice and just stop your bike, jump off and then hop on your bike, you will lose a lot of time.  I found that out pretty quick.

I raced in the Beginner category which required you doing 5 laps.  At lap 3 I wasn't sure if this was that fun.  Lap 4 I thought I might puke in my mouth.  Lap 5 I actually felt the blinders closing in.  But it was awesome!

How did I do?  Well, lets just say I can only improve!  OK, I got passed by everyone, I actually thought I got last, but the results say I beat another person.  Maybe he dropped out.

Cyclocross is a pain fest, you are at your redline thresh hold the whole time.  But the people I met were really friendly.  It's spectator friendly, since you do laps, you can usually see the whole race from one spot.  It's also one of the fastest growing amateur sports in America.  You don't need a cyclocross bike, if you race beginner you can use your mountain bike.  I used my single speed 29er.  All you need is an enjoyment of pain and 20 bucks.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

My notes on the movie "FOOD MATTERS"

These are my notes for the movie Food Matters.  I was going to put my notes in some type of order.  But in actuality, I think the best thing to do is just watch the movie and make your own impressions.  Here are the notes I took on the fly.  I recommend watching the movie.

let thy food be thy medicine, thy medicine be thy food

he believed the human body had an innate capacity for self healing.  (funny same thing as chiropractors)

First, do no harm.  It is still the hippocratic oath taken by modern doctors

Modern doctors have little to no nutritional education.

Modern medicine revolves around a "pill for every ill"

Sickness industry.

Financial industry says the biggest way to save money is to get healthy stay healthy.

39,000 people die due to unnecessary surgery and other errors in hospitals.

80,000 people die due to other infections in hospitals.

106,000 people die due to adverse drug reactions

The message, you are what you eat!

Pesticides, herbacides, larvacide, fungicides,  We're putting chemicals on everything!  ..big problem is the soil.  No nutrients in it anymore.   average distance of our food is 1500-2000 miles away.  week old food, how much nutritional value are we losing?

Soils become the new dessert when crops aren't rotated or just used up.

Fertalisers,  NPK  (nitrogen, phosphorous, potasium)  problem is the soil needs 52 minerals.

Soil is deficient, plants are deficient and weak.  Bugs can attack and destroy, so you reach for the pesticide.

Live enzymes in raw food, that help with body digestion.  When you cook your food, even steaming, you start to kill the live enzymes.

when you cook food the immune system acts to it as a toxin, digestive leukocytosis is the process
starts to generate white cell activity against the cooked food you've just eaten.

Dr. Paul Kouchakoff  showed that your immune system acts with cooked food over 51%, under 50% you will not show white cell activity.   The study was done in 1930.

Think of it as chronic malnutrition.

Leads to the discover of superfoods.

Spirulina is the highest protein content food in the world.  Was consumed for 5000 years in Mexico.
50% of protein is destroyed by heat.  So the future liquid protein will be important.  Spirulina is 75% protein.  A steak after cooking will get 25%.

Cacao beans stack up against anything in the world in terms of minerals.  It's the highest natural source of magnesium.  Highest natural source of chromium.  Very likely the highest natural source of iron.  Very likely the highest manganese.  One of the highest contents of zinc.  One of the highest in copper. One of the highest in Vit C, but chocolate has none, because heat destroys Vitamin C.

Big idea is that we have inverted what we pay for, what we value. Pay for rent and cars but won't pay for food.

You can take vitamins to stay healthy, you can take vitamins to treat illness.  Why don't you hear of this?
How can that be?  News reports say you shouldn't take too much.  (wheres evidence)  Not belief but facts.  Over the last 23 years, according to poison control, there have been 10 deaths attributed to vitamin consumption.    Lists some of the evidence vs the "negative propoganda" that is being thrown around.
No evidence for vitamin C and kidney stone.  MYTH

Less then 6% of graduating physicians in the USA receive any formal training in nutrition.

Reading papers by WIlliam J McCormack, Frederick Rober Klenner, they were curing viral conditions with high dose Vit C in the 1940's.

Linus Pauling the first to suggest that vit C could be useful to fight colds.

Problem is one nutrient is good at many things??  Vit E.  Good for heart disease, good for healing burns, good for epilepsy.  Pretty diverse.
Vit C:  anti-toxin, anti-histamine, anti-viral, blood sugar regulation, mood elevator,
Why can one thing be so important, because one deficiency can cause so many different things.  There are only about two dozen nutrients, but in the body there are countless thousands of chemical reactions.

You cannot heal selectively, if you truly heal, everything heals.

When you take vitamins, the vitamins aren't healing you, the body is healing you, they enable to the body to do it, to heal itself.

"its the doctors duty to activate and reactivate the body's own healing mechanism"  Max Gershon,  Founder of Gershon therapy.

We've tried many models.  How about healthy boost!

Problems with many vitamin studies is they are very low dose,  so you get conflicting results, one says vit help a little, others say vit doesn't help

The RDA is the recommended daily allowance so that you don't get a disease such as rickets.
If you have High Stress job you're need for vit c goes up, you are producing more adrenaline, therefor your vit C levels are going way down.  Cardiovascular system is under attack.  Link between stress and heart attack.

Cardiovascular disease is a disease of civilization.  Not eating the right things or doing the right things.
Modern medicine says cardiovascular disease is irriversable.

Dr Dean Ornish has gotten amazing results with people with cardio disease.  He puts them on a strict diet which is basically a vegetarian diet. Plant based, high fiber, loaded with vit, minerals.  He also has them do a stress reduction.

1/2 of cardiovascular disease the first symptom is death.

Enter drug therapy.  In the UK about 10,000 people die from adverse drug reactions.  3,300 from motor vehicle accidents.  Prostate cancer 9000

Pharmaceutical companies aren't designed to make drugs, they are to designed to make money.
Drug companies actually are the ones that pay the drug regulators and those that control the drug research.

Some research articles that show high dosage of vitamins cures disease have been black listed.

There is no money in health.

For a drug to get approved it has to shown to be more effective than a placebo in two trials.  That doesn't mean it can't run several several trials until it gets what it wants.  It doesn't have to show the regulators that we ran 100 trials, 98 were worse, but these two were better.

Drugs: Short term, life saving perfectly fine.  The problem is the long term drug prescription.  These are the problems that they don't really work great for.

B3 (3000mg)  niacin has shown to help depression.  Alcholics Annonymous.

Two handfuls of cashews give you the therapeutic equivalent of one dosage of prozoc.

Whatever is going on in the mind, can be influenced by what goes on in the body.

Drink 1 liter of water first thing in the morning.  Must detoxify.  Get the stuff out, to get the good stuff in.

Paradigm shift.  Tumor is not the cancer.  Medicine is still attacking the wrong thing.  Cancer cure isn't around the corner.

Gershon in the 1940's fought cancer with fresh fruit, vegetable juice.  He had about 50% success with terminal cancer.

Shows some impressive before and after photos of fighting cancer with foods.

They (drug companies) have manipulated the statistics.  They have changed the word survivor.  Survivor now means 5 years.  If you die from cancer 5 years 6 months after treatment.  You are still considered a cancer survivor!

It is illegal in most countries to treat cancer with nutritional therapies.  The only legal treatments in these countries are surgery, radiation therapy and chemo therapy.

One of the supreme choices you have is what you will or will not eat.

Gives examples of high dose vit C intravenously 30-100,000mg a day.  Vit C selectively kills cancer cells.
If this were so good how come no one does it?  No one knows about it?  Where is it?

Orthomolecular is nutritional medicine.

Thoughts of my own.  Cacao is something that should be added to my diet.  Stick more with my vitamin regiment.  Drink more water.  Going to try drinking 20 ounces of water on waking.  I got a sweet new juicer from my wife as a present and should use it a heck of a lot more.  I too have had a backward view of the cost of food.  I have been willing to pay for the best computer (apple) but I will pass on blueberries when they get to be 3.00 a pint, or will have no problem forking over 4.00 for my cappucino.  I too have to shift my food priorities.  Health is priceless.  You are what you eat.  Cells are made from food.  You are made of cells.  What are you using as building blocks?

I recommend this movie for the simple fact that maybe it will inspire one more good habit.  It will cause you to think.  I think the bad thing is that sometime you can become paralized with information.  Is this food local? organic? what was the soil like?  ect.  Pick a few good habits and go after them.

Like Dave Ramsey and his snow ball debt effect, look at your health as the same thing.  Start with one habit and go after it, then the next one.  Don't try to do everything at once.  Good luck.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Exercise is Cement?

Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables.
     Spanish Proverb

This quotation can sum up many things but in this case I want to talk about exercise.  Many patients after getting treated want to jump into an aggressive exercise program.  I don't give them anything.  This surprises many as I am big on exercise, lifting and corrective movements.  But even after getting treated and being out of pain, doesn't mean they will move correctly.

If you give these patients or athletes exercises, most likely, they will revert to their old habits, their old way of moving.  So they are going to end up taking a step back in their rehabilitation process.  In this case exercise will be cementing dysfunction.

When you change the movement pattern through chiropractic adjustments, soft tissue work, muscle activation, stretching, foam rolling, then you can use exercise to cement function.

Exercise should always answer a question.  Why is this important for my health, why is this important to my performance.  Will it increase one or both.  Don't jump ahead in the process of recovery.  Don't cement dysfunction, cement function.  Then habits that are cables work for you, not against you.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Monday Motivation: What Drives Us?

This is a great little explanation of some surprising information that was studied about what really motivates us.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Product Review for September: Gymboss

I had been hesitant for awhile to order the Gymboss, for the simple fact that I have a digital watch and I wear it constantly when I work out. But, a few weeks ago, I went ahead an bought it for 20 bucks. It was worth it. It's amazing how much more on point my metabolic workouts have become. That beep that you hear, for however long you set it for, keeps you brutally honest. Was that really 20 seconds already? It has to be at least in the 4th round right? It just removes excuses. Do x amount of work, rest x amount. Repeat x times. Just work and don't worry about the time. I full heartedly endorse it.  It was much smaller then what I thought it would be for some reason.  Here's a link to get yours if you find yourself so inclined.  Gymboss   My favorite uses are 10 seconds on the airdyne, 20 sec rest.  Repeat 8x.  20 seconds with the battling ropes, 10 seconds rest.  Repeat 8x.  Kettlebell swings.  20 seconds on, 20 seconds rest.  Repeat for 5 minutes.  Enjoy

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Y Raise with a sled indoors

Here is a way you can use a sled indoors. I like the way a sled feels for exercises like the Y raise, vs using dumbells. I do like the trx for this exercise, but this loads it slightly better in my opinion.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Monday Motivation: Football is Here Again

If you have played this game, you will understand. If you never played, it will give you a glimpse into why this is the greatest game. Hope you all have a great Labor Day.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Train Out Pain Chiropractic Patients Making Headlines

Congratulations to T.O.P.  athlete Danielle Musto for winning the 24 hours Salsa race in Minnesota this past weekend.  24 hours on a bike.  Seems crazy to me.  But how she rides for Salsa, so that's pretty cool to win a big race in front of your sponsor!  We had two other patients go down to the Ironman in Louisville, KY.  They came back with each having qualified for the Kona Ironman in early October.  The interesting kicker, they were a mother/son duo.  You read that right, mother and son.  How awesome is that?  

Whatever your goal is, go after it.  If we can help in any fashion, let us know!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Recap of Performance Enhancement Seminar Indianapolis 2010

This past weekend I was down in Indianapolis for the 3rd annual Performance Enhancement Seminar. I was there for the first one and out of the country for the second. I was a little disappointed in the fact that I thought it would be held at the IFAST gym, but was held in the Hilton. Mens Health ranked it a top 10 gym in the country recently.

First up was Mike Robertson with a topic about Single leg training. Mike broke down single leg training, some progressions that you can employ and also explained why you still need to do double leg training, ie. don't give up your deads and squats. Truth is everyone should be doing some type of single leg work. Your stabilizers will never get as strong as they can without them and it's also a valuable tool in balancing out strength discrepancies in each leg.

2nd up was Lee Taft. Lee is a speed coach and presented a topic on lateral conditioning. Proper form, looking at different cues for your athletes to use. His favorite saying is "load to explode." Simply put, proper foot and ankle will load the knee, which loads the hip, which propels the athlete. He has some interesting low box (4ich) drills. I'm not completely sold on the carryover aspect for actual sport. I think much of what he talks about would have application for combine testing, 40 yard dash, pro shuttle. Where you practice over and over exact steps to maximize performance. But in a chaos situation, an actual game, I'm not sure.

3rd was Evan Osar. Evan is a really smart chiropractor and trainer out of Chicago. I don't buy a lot of peoples products, but I bought Evan's Lower Extremity Conditioning manual. He had some really interesting information on the hip. His topic covered bracing the corset, top of diaphragm to pelvic floor, to free up the hips. His views were stabilize the lumbar spine and the hips free up. A little opposite of working so much on hip mobility to achieve lumbar stability.

4th was Pat Rigbsy. Pat is a business guy and had a few pointers on how to get better coin for your time. Bootcamps, networking group training. The one thing I took away was spend your time doing what your good at.

5th was Bill Hartman. I thought this was the most interesting talk of the day. Bill has been called the smartest man in Fitness. His talk was on energy development for field athletes. He had some really controversial points that makes you stop and think. One was slow twitch hypertrophy will help explosive athletes. Hmmm....never thought of that. The other was incorporating some training in the sub 120bpm training. Glycolitic training can be reached in around 3 weeks. Tabatta isn't as effective as you think, and went on to break down the original tabatta study. Overall an awesome presentation.

Last was Brent Jones. Brent is a kettlebell guy. The one thing I took away was an arm bar for mobility. I will try to get a video posted up of this exercise as I think it will be helpful for glenohumeral stability and thoracic mobility. He also reawoken my desire to get better with my Indian clubs. I bought some 1890 original Spaulding Indian clubs when I was in chiropractic school. They are some of the first "weights" and they train using circular patterns. Pretty cool stuff.

Overall, this was a pretty good seminar. I look at things this way. Did I learn at least one thing that will change the way I treat patients? Did I learn one thing that will change the way I train athletes? If I did, my tool box got bigger, which means I get better, which means it was a success.