Feb

Bone Mineral Density and The Athlete

Start thinking about Bone Mineral Density. It’s an important factor in injury prevention, now and in your future health–and it’s cumulative. That means if you’re an athlete and aren’t getting the proper nutrition, rest and relaxation your body needs now, you’re setting your body up for failure later.

Bone Mineral Density is a cumulative history of energy availability, hormonal fluctuations, genetics, good nutrition, behaviors and environmental factors. As you get older, bone mineral density falls as our muscular infrastructure changes. When you do damage to your body, by starving/binging yourself, exercising too hard, not getting enough sleep and allowing stress to become a regular component in your life, you seriously alter your future body.

Jan

Wake Up Call: The Importance of Sleep

Rebuilding Mode

Sleep is an essential functional part of being and staying healthy. For athletes, it is a strong factor in performance. Most of the repair and strengthening in your body occurs during stage 4 of the sleep cycle–your deepest sleep. But if you don’t go through all the cycles appropriately, you won’t get to the 4th stage, inhibiting many vital functions needed to repair, restore and strengthen your body.

Stage 1: In the first stage, your muscles relax as you fall asleep.

Stage 2: Five to ten minutes after falling asleep, you enter a deeper slumber and your brain starts to produce chemicals that release hormones.

Stage 3 & 4: These are the deepest and most reparative stages. The body releases growth hormone, which helps repair bone and muscle.

REM Stage: The 5th stage of sleep is vital for pain tolerance and motor skills. It strengthens cognitive and nervous system function.

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According to the National Sleep Foundation, 75% of Americans have problems sleeping and are not getting the recommended 7-9 hours per night our bodies need to recuperate from the daily grind.

Here’s how sleep affects our system:

Cellular Repair
Repair for the daily wear and tear on the body is correlated with how much deep sleep you get. If you don’t have a regulated night cycle, you won’t get to the deepest stage of sleep that is required for release of growth hormone. These hormones shift the body’s process to anabolic–where it is able to initiate muscular repair, break down fat and stimulate cell division to replace old or malfunctioning cells.

Digestion and Weight Regulation
It is a digestion regulator, releasing hormones that break down fat to supply energy for tissue repair. Adequate sleep is required for weight management. Sleep deprivation causes hormones like leptin–a hormone that regulates a feeling of fullness–to decrease. You end up feeling hungrier without being satisfied by what you eat, causing you to eat more and gain weight.

Muscle Relaxation
During the night muscles can take a break and relax. Respiratory muscles also relax, resulting in the breathing rate slowing down. During REM sleep, muscles become so relaxed that they actually become temporarily paralyzed, called muscle atonia. When muscles are relaxed, there are less metabolites formed, allowing for additional cellular repair and replenishing.

Immunity
It keeps the immune system in check by releasing hormones that act as messengers, telling the immune system to produce antibodies, kill potentially cancerous cells and decrease inflammation.

Cognitive Function
It also enhances cognitive function by consolidating memory. Storing short term memory to long term memory occurs during sleep through the strengthening of neuronal connections.

Jan

Focus: ACL Injury Prevention

An estimated 70% of ACL injuries do not involve contact, and may be from a simple misstep. How can you help avoid these injuries and stay off the sidelines?

Athletes who have suffered an ACL injury are at increased risk of developing arthritis later on in life, even if they have surgery for the injury. It

Dec

5 Golden Gifts of Rehab

1. Gaiam Yoga Block $10.95

2. Soybu Compression Pants $70

3. KT Athletic Tape $19.99

4. Yoga Tune Up Trigger Point Massage Ball $9.95

5. Garden of Life Vitamin Code Multi-Vitamin $24.99

Dec

The Athlete and The Anti-Inflammatory

Bullet Points:

Ibuprofen use prior to or during exercise, hampers the ability of muscles to rebuild themselves after exercise

Frequent use of ibuprofen, causes higher overall levels of bodily inflammation

In America, the average athlete has been trained to think that an ibuprofen will heal any injury. In fact, 70 percent of

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Nov

Mild Concussion=Permanent Damage?

Action Points

*Mild traumatic brain injury disrupts the brain’s “default mode” in a way that shows up on functional MRI and correlates with symptoms.
*Note that the abnormalities in default-mode network connectivity were associated with cognitive dysfunction, depression, anxiety, fatigue, and post-concussion syndrome.

In a small study published in Radioloy mild brain trauma was found to have long term symptoms in default brain functions like memory encoding, consolidation, and environmental monitoring. Also affected was the medial prefrontal cortex associated with self relevance, rapid error identification and social functions. Problems with this network have been seen in Alzheimer’s disease, autism, and schizophrenia.

Nov

Compression for Recovery and Performance

You’ve probably seen it on professional athletes–those tell-tale tights; They are actually compression garmets.

Q) What do compression garmets actually do?

A) They compress the affected area creating a higher pressure of blood flow. Blood flow is really important as an aid for recuperation, but it can also be a good tool for preventing your muscles from fatigue.

Q) When can I wear compression garmets?

A) You can wear compression garmets as a tool during competition, activity or post exercise for a quicker recovery.

Nov

Clock Work: The Perfect Fit Day

If you spend an hour a day at the gym and 23 hours dedicated to undoing all that good, you haven’t really made any leeway in the general direction of health. Consider this, the more you indulge your body in the little healthy maneuvers, the easier it will be at the gym. Check out The Perfect Fit Day and try your hand at a little clock work.

8am: Get 8 hours of sleep! Seriously. No I am not kidding. Sleep is one of the most under-utilized methods in training, mostly because you think you are some kind of robot that doesn’t need it. But guess what? Sleep is integral to reducing stress, losing weight and recuperating from the beating you gave your bod the day before.

8:30am: Have breakfast! A big one. Your diet should actually flow the opposite way you are probably used to; biggest meal is brekkie, lunch is second, dinner should be an afterthought. It preps your body for optimal calorie expenditure. Along with breakfast have a cup of coffee–the caffeine jolt amps up your metabolism.

9am: Don’t hang out by the coffee maker chatting, head over to the H20. Ideally you should be drinking half your body weight in ounces of water. Water flushes your system of toxins and hydrates you so you have more energy and as a bonus, you’ll feel more full.

11am: Get up and stretch for a minute. Stretching increases circulation in your body, allowing it to repair itself. Also, drink more H20!

12pm: Lunch! Make sure it’s healthy–something full of good fats (grilled salmon) and antioxidants (spinach). Your midday meal is when you should be taking in lots of leafy greens and bright colored veggies. And don’t wash it down with an alcoholic drink–opt for more H20.

3pm: More stretching and physical activity. Most people are the most productive during the stretch from lunch to 3pm, but this is prime time for your body to digest and utilize those cals. If you are on a roll with whatever you are doing, be a good example to those around you and make sure to get up every 30 minutes or so and stretch/move around a bit.

6pm: If you haven’t already worked out in the morning, this is your last opportunity to get a good 30-60min of physical activity in. I suggest working out in the morning is probably the best time to burn some energy, but anytime you can find the time to be physically active is the right way to judge what’s best for you. Try sprinting on the treadmill, pushups, crunches, planks, lunges, step ups, presses, and squats. These are all exercises that will keep your whole body injury-free.

Sep

Avoid Nerve Damage: Goal Line Balance

NFL trainers use sport specific exercises to strengthen stabilizers for goal line success

Ever wonder how NFL pro-athletes avoid injury? They practice sport specific training. But even those highly paid professionals have physical issues and anyone who typically practices some form of cardiovascular exercise has experienced it. One of the most prevalent issues that affect regular exercisers is the nagging numb tingly that occurs sometime in the middle of your workout. You try to shake it off and assume it’s a circulation issue, but there is another culprit at play here; nerve damage.

Nerve damage is a common sports injury that sometimes gets overlooked because it can be sporadic or only prevalent during the actual exercise and then may subside after.

Sep

Holiday Prep

There are three optimum times of year to start getting fit: January–the start of the new year, April–start of the summer season, September–prep for holidays. This time of year is my favorite; the leaves are turning, the air is cool and crisp, there’s a new sense of starting fresh (think going-back-to-school) and we’re all getting prepped to see friends and family for holidays. I love to do comprehensive routines that tone and re-shape your body from all the fun eating and drinking you’ve been doing all summer long. I’m not one to fore-go a good party, so I have to get back to the core exercises my body knows and loves. Here are three great exercises to do every day to shape and tone your body in prep for the holidays. Combine it with cardio 5x per week and you body will stay stunning–even after the pumpkin pie.

Spiderman Pushup: x10 each leg

Split Lunges: x10 each leg

Lean-To Twists: x10 each direction

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