Category: Fitness

By Alex Hutchinson

Researchers debate whether sex differences are in the mind or the muscles.

Earlier this year, researchers published a paper analyzing 92,000 marathon performances to determine that women are “better” at pacing themselves—that is, women slowed down by 11.7 percent on average in the second half of their races, while men slowed down by 15.6 percent.

The question is: why? Two of the authors of that paper have recently presented differing views of the source of sex differences in fatigue, competitiveness, and athletic performance. First, evolutionary psychologist Robert Deaner, of Grand Valley State University, who was the first author of the marathon pacing paper, has written an interesting essay for The Conversation, giving an overview his research from the past several years, titled “Distance running is a perfect lab to investigate whether men are more competitive than women.” (Amby Burfoot also wrote about Deaner’s research for Runner’s World a few years ago.)

Deaner’s research follows several different lines of reasoning. For example, as the marathon study showed, women tend to slow less than men, suggesting that men are more likely to undertake a “competitive, risky pace.” Among competitive college runners, even at the highest levels, women report training less and focusing more of their studies. And participation, particularly in settings like masters track where the focus is on competition, skews heavily male.

What causes these differences? One possibility, Deaner notes, is that “the sex difference in competitiveness reflects, at least in part, innate predispositions that evolved in response to the different challenges men and women faced during our evolutionary history.”

But might there be other explanations? At the ACSM conference last week, one of the keynote presentations was on sex differences in fatigue, by Marquette University exercise scientist Sandra Hunter, who also happens to be one of the authors of the marathon pacing paper. Her talk focused on actual physiological differences between men and women. As she pointed out, every cell in your body has a sex, as encoded in your chromosomes, and those differences manifest throughout the body. Men, for example, have more muscle mass, larger hearts, more hemoglobin, and less body fat.

What was surprising to me is the large body of research suggesting that women are usually less fatigable than men, as Hunter documented in a review in Acta Physiologica last year. Ask a group of people to perform a muscle contraction at a given percentage of max, then ask them to repeat it over and over, and it’s men whose force will generally decline first. Of course, men start from a higher initial force, because they’re stronger, so that may have something to do with it.

Interestingly, the differences in fatigability vary depending of the specific demands of the task— for example, Hunter and her colleagues had subjects sustain an elbow-flexor contraction at 20 percent of max for as long as they could while performing a cognitive task. When the task was simple (counting backward in increments of one), men and women were the same; when it was more complicated (counting backward in increments of 13 from a four-digit number), women fatigued more quickly than men.

What’s the conclusion from all this? First, it’s that there are physiological differences in fatigue between men and women. Second, it’s that we’re a long way from understanding these differences. Hunter also points out that the apparent differences could be skewed by the fact there are so many more studies of men than women, just as our perceptions of male-female differences in racing results may be skewed by the low participation numbers in many female age-groups.

Which brings us back to Deaner’s arguments. Are participation rates a consequence of underlying male-female differences in competitiveness, or a confounding factor? At this point, we simply don’t know. I agree with Deaner that distance running offers an interesting lab to study male-female differences, but I think we need to be careful to understand all the different factors that could affect the data.

By Alex Hutchinson

Check out these tips to help you kill the hills.

Australian miler Herb Elliott’s gut-churning sand dune workouts prior to his 1960 Olympic gold helped establish hill training as critical to every serious training plan. But simply sprinting up and down inclines isn’t a winning strategy, as Australian researchers discovered. The experts wired up a group of runners to monitor their speed, oxygen consumption, heart rate, and stride length, then sent them out for a six-mile time trial over a hilly course. This field trial captured how runners varied their pace and effort over real-world, hilly terrain and found that they ascended too fast and took more than a minute to recover. The results revealed valuable lessons.

On the Way Up

The most efficient way to run a flat course is to keep an even pace. On hills, you must maintain an even effort–one that’s equivalent to your effort on flats, and sustainable the whole way up–or risk burning energy that you can’t regain later on. Most of the runners in the study did just that: went too fast on climbs, causing their breathing and heart rate to spike as if they were sprinting.

Once or twice a week, practice running long hills to develop your ability to lock into a sustainable pace. Aim for ascents that take 10 minutes or longer. Mimic the effort you would expend on a flat run, no matter how slow it feels. Monitor it by listening to your breathing; if it gets noticeably heavier, ease up.

Cresting the Top

After reaching the top of a hill, the runners took an average of 78 seconds before they sped up to resume their normal pace. That’s partly because they were going too fast up the hill and partly because the hills broke their stride rhythm by shortening it. It’s human nature to maintain that shorter stride until you’ve recovered, and it takes a conscious effort to snap out of it.

Use “long strides” as a cue to open up your stride and accelerate. To practice making this transition–especially when you’re tired–find a hill that takes about 45 seconds to climb. Run hard to the top, then lengthen your stride and accelerate for 15 seconds to ingrain the quick transition. Jog down for recovery. Repeat six to 10 times.

Coming Down

Some people are better at downhills than others. While all the runners slowed on uphills by a similar amount–an average of 23 percent–they sped up on the way down by five to 25 percent. If you don’t practice, you’ll end up braking on descents simply because you’re not used to the pounding.

Good form is essential to using gravity to your advantage. After a regular run, do four to six relaxed 100-meter strides down a gentle slope; progress over time to a steeper decline. Keep your arms wide and low for balance, shorten your stride, and focus on quick turnover. Monitor your breathing: If it gets quieter and slower, you can push harder without any penalty.

http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/power-up-over-and-down-any-incline

“Hey guys, Dr. Axe here, and welcome again to the Chopping Block. Today on
the Chopping Block our special guest is the banana. I will tell you,
surprisingly one of the most common questions I get from people is: Are
bananas good for me?

Now we have heard of some of the great health benefits of bananas, but on
the other end I think a lot of people worry about the sugar content that’s
found in certain fruits like bananas today. I will tell you here, bananas
are teetering on the edge here of the Chopping Block. Let us talk about the
negatives of bananas, and then let us talk about the positives.

The negatives, without a doubt, is that it does contain a large amount of
sugar, and it doesn’t really have much protein or any healthy fat
whatsoever along with it. One medium sized banana has 27 grams of
carbohydrates. Fourteen of those grams are sugar. Then it contains about
one gram of protein and zero grams of fat. So if you’re eating a banana by
itself, there is no doubt it could affect your blood sugar levels in a
small amount. That is really the negative side of bananas is right there
because if you’re a person who is trying to lose weight, if you have
sensitive blood sugar, bananas, in terms of fruit, are higher on the
glycemic index, which means it will typically affect your insulin more or
affect your sugar more compared to most other fruits.

Now let us talk about the positives with the banana. Bananas are one of the
most potassium rich foods in the entire world. One single banana has 500 mg
of potassium. So it is packed with potassium. It has 32 mg of magnesium, so
it’s really loaded with electrolytes. So if you’re an athlete, if you are a
person that works out, this is an amazing food for you because again it can
really help fuel your cells.

Now another thing in defending the banana is that if you’re comparing this
banana even to a bowl of oatmeal, this is still lower on the glycemic index
and has a lower amount of carbohydrates than even healthier grains out
there like rice and quinoa. So again, this really is a better option
compared to any other grains out there in my book. But when you’re
comparing it to other fruits, like berries for instance; berries have more
antioxidants. They’re higher in fiber. Berries definitely have more
benefits as well as a lot of other fruits compared to a banana, but bananas
are still better than grains.

So what do I say about the banana in closing? Well, here’s what I would
say. If you’re a person who is trying to lose weight or has some digestive
issues, I really think if you’re trying to lose weight or have sensitive
blood sugar, I would remove bananas from your diet, but I would still eat
them before any other grains. If you’re an athlete or somebody who is
already pretty lean and healthy and just trying to stay healthy, I think
bananas are still a great option for you.

So when it comes to bananas getting chopped, we’re going to spare the
banana here, and we’re actually going to peel it here instead of chopping
it. I’m actually about to go on a run, so I’m going to eat a little bit of
this banana here, because again it’s still packed with potassium, has a
good amount of fiber, has magnesium, and number one thing that saved that
banana, it is a real food, unprocessed, unhybridized, completely real.
Again, the banana is staying here on the Chopping Block.”

By Cindy Kuzma

Train on descents – without getting hurt – to build strength, boost coordination, and even have some fun.

When most runners tackle hills, they focus on the difficulty of the climb. But downhill running poses its own set of challenges – and rewards.

Descending feels easy aerobically, but each step triggers muscle-damaging eccentric contractions in the quadriceps and lower legs, says Greg Wells, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist at the University of Toronto and the author of Superbodies: Peak Performance Secrets from the World’s Best Athletes. On level ground, these muscles shorten as they fire; on declines, they elongate while under tension as they work to control your speed. This creates more micro-tears in each fiber, which stimulates muscle growth but leaves you fatigued and sore. That’s one reason the Boston Marathon, with its four-mile downhill opening stretch, is such a hard course.

Practicing running down hills prepares your body to handle these eccentric contractions, decreasing the negative effects and improving your performance on net-descent courses like Boston’s. But even if you’re not training for a hilly race, you can benefit from incorporating regular downhill running into your routine: The muscle you build working on the decline translates into faster paces on any terrain. You will be able to run faster with less effort, giving you the ability to perfect your technique at near-top speeds. And then there’s something any kid could tell you: “Downhill training can be a tremendous amount of fun,” Wells says. Here’s how to safely enjoy the way down.

Select Your Slope

You can practice downhill running through either focused repeats or an extended run on a hilly route (see “Perfect the Plunge,” below). Either way, you’ll want to choose your hills wisely, says Sean Coster, an exercise physiologist and running coach at Complete Running in Portland, Oregon. Extreme grades – say, 20-percent drops – increase the impact too much (and the risk of ankle, hip, and knee injuries). Instead, look for a gradual slope of no more than eight percent. (To determine the grade, use a GPS watch that tracks elevation: Run up the hill and then scope your data for the elevation change. Divide this by the distance you ran in feet to get the slope – .08 equals eight percent.) Choose softer, more forgiving surfaces, such as grass or gravel, if you’re new to downhill work. But if you’re training for a hilly road race, progress to some paved declines in the months beforehand to practice, says Rebekah Mayer, national training manager at Minneapolis-based Life Time Run.

Focus On Form

Use mental cues to optimize your form and reduce your injury risk. Instead of looking at your feet, pretend you have a grapefruit nestled between your chin and your chest, Coster says. This keeps your gaze 10 to 15 meters in front of you and your posture upright. Engage your core and lean forward slightly from the ankles, aligning your upper body over your lower body or even slightly ahead of it – battling your natural tendency to lean backward and slow down, Mayer says. As you descend, shorten your stride and quicken your cadence. That way, you’ll take lighter steps and land more on your midfoot instead of using your heel as a brake. And keep a slight bend in your landing leg to avoid absorbing all the impact in your knee, Wells says.

Time It Wisely

If you’re planning for a descent-filled race, begin adding downhill workouts early in your training schedule. “As with any new training type, it’s always best to start small,” Mayer says. Begin with one downhill session every other week. Eventually, you can work up to one or two per week, but schedule another only when you’ve completely recovered from the previous one, Wells says. If you’re running a race with extremely steep downhills, make at least a few of these workouts race-effort runs that include similar terrain, Coster says – but avoid downhill repeats on such sharp declines. And dial things back again as your race nears. Avoid pushing the pace on downhills two to three weeks beforehand, when the risk of injury outweighs the benefits, Mayer advises.

http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/three-tips-for-running-downhill

Most of what I have researched says to take Diatomaceous Earth on an empty stomach and to make sure you use Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth.  I have also read warnings to wear a mask so you do not breath it into your lungs and to be careful not to get it into your eyes.   I started researching this when I met a woman in Sedona, AZ who shared with me how she used it with her livestock and even put it in their water.

Diatomaceous Earth (often referred to as “DE”) is an off white talc-like powder that is the fossilized remains of marine phytoplankton. When sprinkled on a bug that has an exoskeleton (such as spiders, ticks, cockroaches, ants or fleas) the diatomaceous earth particles stick to an insect and get stuck between its exoskeleton joints. As the insect moves, it gets physically cut up.

Diatomaceous earth is made from the fossilized remains of tiny, aquatic organisms called diatoms.  Their skeletons are made of a natural substance called silica. Over a long period of time, diatoms accumulated in the sediment of rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans. Today, silica deposits are mined from these areas. Silica is very common in nature and makes up 26% of the earth’s crust by weight. Various forms of silica include sand, emerald, quartz, feldspar, mica, clay, asbestos, and glass.  Food grade diatomaceous earth is 85% silica, and contains some 20 trace minerals. Did you know life can’t exist without silica?  It is essential for the building of healthy bones and teeth, skin, hair, and nails.  As our mineral resources are getting depleted, our food is containing less and less silica. 

When taken internally, the diatomaceous earth attracts and absorbs positively-charged pathogens into its cylinder.  It absorbs the things we want to stay away from, like viruses, pathogenic fungi and bacteria, heavy metals, prescription drug residues, pesticides, parasites, radiation,  and sweeps them out of our bodies.  Diatomaceous earth is also very hard. On a scale of “hardness”, if diamonds were a 9, diatomaceous earth would be a 7.  This helps us too.  As this powder makes its way through our digestive tract, it gently “scrubs” the packed on residue we have there and sweeps it out of our bodies.  Organisms such as parasites, lurking in our intestines, are sliced up and killed, and swept away when we empty our bowels, and we are left unharmed.

Farmers feed gobs of diatomaceous earth (food grade) to animals in the hopes that it will cure whatever ails them. Many farmers swear that the stuff kills all sorts of worms in their critters.

Health Benefits

If you’re interested in taking diatomaceous earth, we recommend you start with a small amount. If you choose to continue using DE, you can increase the amount slowly until you feel comfortable. All health benefits mentioned below are from customers’ experiences. Your experience may vary from the following list.

• – better digestive health
• – more regular bowel movements
• – detoxifies
• – healthier colon
• – reduced cholesterol
• – better food absorption
• – better night’s sleep
• – clearer skin
• – stronger teeth and gums
• – healthier hair and nails
• – less joint and ligament pain
• – helps arthritis
• – less sickness
• – more energy
• – soothes burns
• – insect bites
• – clears skin rashes
• – less acne
• – possible antiparasitic
• – could lower Candida levels

How-To Instructions

1. Get some Juice

Pour 6 to 8 oz of water or juice in a glass. Then add ½ teaspoon of FOOD GRADE diatomaceous earth.

2.  Mix it Together

Add the diatomaceous earth into your glass and stir. Diatomaceous earth will not dissolve in the liquid but will be suspended and distributed evenly in the liquid until given the time to settle. Drink the liquid right after stirring.

3.  Be Consistent

Repeat this process daily before a meal. You can increase the amount of diatomaceous earth you use in the liquid until you reach a level that works for you. DiatomaceousEarth.com recommends not exceeding 1 tablespoon per day.

I am NOT a doctor so I recommend that you do your own research to determine whether it is right for you and how you prefer to use it.

http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/degen.html

http://www.richsoil.com/diatomaceous-earth.jsp

http://www.diatomaceousearth.com/diatomaceous-earth-human/

http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2014/01/diatomaceous-earth-homestead.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25840631

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21673156