The First Rule of Crashes

Great Post on Road Bike Rider Review...
 
"It may be the first thing I heard on one of my first group rides: It's not a question of if you will crash, but when.
 
I now call it The First Rule of Crashes.
 
And it's a maxim that I've seen realized numerous times over the years in my own neighborhood group, the Domestiques. Thankfully, only one of those crashes involved a car, and we've all lived to ride another day.
 
What all of the Domestiques' crashes illustrate is the banality of roadie wrecks -- they occur for just about every possible reason, and most often are not the fault of the rider.
 
I witnessed one friend hit an invisible sheen of thin mud left behind by a water-and-sewer crew on a 90-degree curve. His tires simply lost all traction and flew up from the road, leaving him to go down and skid along on his side -- including, barely, the side of his face.
 
Another buddy hit the far lip of an inadequately filled pothole and sprawled onto the sidewalk adjacent to the road.
 
Yet another friend -- a powerhouse of a guy -- snapped off a pedal at the axle mid-stroke and slid into the opposite lane of the two-lane road. Thank goodness there was no traffic at the time.
 
And then there was me. 
 
I was finishing a lap on the dedicated bike path that circles Stone Mountain. Near the bottom of a short downhill, at about 26 mph (42kmh), a 10-year-old boy walking a dog darted off the sidewalk directly into my path. I managed to avoid both the boy and the dog, but the leash snagged my head tube, and I hit the pavement all along my right side.
 
I ended up with a deep thigh bruise, a scraped-up knee, elbow and top of the shoulder, and a separated shoulder. Only when I finally sat up and took off my helmet did I realize that my head had also hit the ground -- hard enough to split the helmet completely through at the temple. I remain amazed that I did not even have a headache from that impact.
 
In all the crashes just described, helmets did their job -- whether it was dispersing the force of a full-on impact with the pavement or keeping (most of) a face an inch off the road as a head skidded along. Without the helmet, each crash would have been far worse.
 
Crashes happen. Wearing a helmet helps. But you already knew that. Read on for confirmation, and continue to . . . 
 
Enjoy your ride!
 
John Marsh
Editor & Publisher"

My Comment: I have had many a patient bring in their bike helmet or motorcycle helmet in post-crash. Many of them would not have walked in had they not worn their helmet. Wear your helmet!

Snow Removal Safety Tips

No, shoveling snow is not yet an Olympic sport, but it has put many top athletes down and out for the count.

Here are my safety tips:

1. Don't shovel if you have had serious spinal, lung, or cardiovascular problems, or are out of shape.
2. Drink 8 oz of water or Gatorade type drink before you shovel. It may be cold, but you will get dehydrated after shoveling if you are not careful.
3. Warm up first! Do this warm-up before you shovel - it is all of 6 minutes!
4. Dress warmly in layers, and wear an extra-long sweater to protect the lower back.
5. You may want to wear a support or weight belt.
6. Always stand erect and bend from the hips and knees, not the waist (mini squat). Handle small to moderate loads of snow. You may want to try one of the bent handle shovels like the one below.

Read more...

The Anti-Inflammatory Diet - You Are What You Eat

When we hear the term, "anti-inflammatory," many Americans thing of drugs, pills, and injections. What is a pro-inflammatory substance? What might we unwittingly be doing that's compromising our health? Can we reduce inflammation, naturally? Here are some facts and tips, courtesy of the Unified Virginia Chiropractic Association.

Excessive inflammation can cause a number of problems, including (1) pain, (2) disuse and related mis-patterning that can predispose to future injury, and (3) risk of chronic inflammation. Normal people do not enjoy pain for pain's sake, so we commonly seek out ways to reduce pain. Cold therapy (cryotherapy) is a natural choice; yet many seek out pain-killing drugs such as aspirin, Ibuprofen, Cox-II inhibitors, and steroids. The risks of commonly-used anti-inflammatory and pain medications are considerable.2 Doctors of chiropractic (DCs) are trained in natural methods to address inflammation while balancing inflammation's inherent value to healing; and DCs will help tissues recover, fast, using hands-on methods designed to maximize short-term and long-term function. But what if your own dietary choices are working against you?

Just like anti-inflammatory drugs combat the inflammatory cycle, pro-inflammatory substances in our diet can predispose our bodies towards inflammation.3 Historically, our (human) diet favored a relatively even balance of fats (fatty acids) called Omega 3s and Omega 6s. We can tolerate a 4:1 Omega-6:Omega-3 ratio, but the modern diet tends towards 10:1 or even far worse. These Omega-3 fatty acids are very easily converted to something called prostaglandin E2, which is one of the very same substances certain anti-inflammatory drugs tries to combat, i.e., prostaglanding E2 is pro-(promoting) inflammation. Inflammation plays a role not only in pain and injury, but also in heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. Doesn't it seem futile to eat fats that ramp up inflammation, only to take drugs to combat the effects of our diet -- and then have to take other drugs to combat the short-term and long-term effects and diseases those anti-inflammatory drugs cause?

The tables below will help you and your family to make healthy, informed choices. Also, remember to limit raw sugar and high glycemic-index foods4 that can ramp up inflammation and disease all on their own. A diet must be healthy and balanced, not consisting exclusively of fats (regardless of how healthy they might otherwise be), protein, carbohydrate, or any other substance. Please consider what foods you choose for yourself (and your family) at the dinner table, at the restaurant, and at the grocery store. Your body will thank you... and reward you, amply.

Sources of Omega-6 Fatty Acids ("Bad Fat"):
• All grains
• Cereals
• Flour products
• Most processed packaged foods
• Soybean oil, peanut oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, and cottonseed oil
• Grain- and corn-fed domestic meat and eggs from unfit and/or obese animals

Sources of Omega-3 Fatty Acids ("Healthy Fat"):
• Most fruits and vegetables
• Kale
• Swiss Chard
• Chicory
• Collard Greens
• Most oily fish
• Omega-3 eggs
• Meat, chicken, and eggs from grass-fed, fit animals

1 Conservative Management of Sports Injuries. Hyde, Thomas E. DC; Gengenbach, Marianne S., DC, Editors. Williams & Wilkins, 1997. Pg. 701.
2 See Celebrate Wellness!, Vol I, number 1.
3 See resources and references at www.deflame.com. Special thanks to Dr. David Seaman for his contributions to the field of anti-inflammatory nutrition.
4 High glycemic index: White bread, Pasta, Rice, Low-fiber cereals, Baked goods. Low glycemic index foods: Fruits, Vegetables, Whole and minimally processed grains, Legumes. SO: http://diabetes.webmd.com/glycemic-index-good-versus-bad-carbs.

Slinger High School Football Player Dies Weightlifting - December 3, 2010

The death of this high school athlete saddens me greatly. It did not have to happen. Weightroom safety is of paramount importance.

First rule: Never train alone

Second rule: Know what you are doing. Technique, technique, technique!

See the video below. If you bench in a proper rack with
safety bars, use proper technique, and have a spotter you will prevent serious injury (except straining a muscle). With the safety bars set at the correct height, even if you do drop the weight (which is highly unlikely with the proper grip) it will not crush your head, neck, or chest!



Safety comes first!

Posture, Posture, Posture

I LOVE THIS BOOK! If you don't start with proper posture, then it is all downhill from there. Posture is more important than any exercise. Poor posture is habit, not a deformity (very rare). It can be corrected at any age!

Pay close attention to the pictures in this book, especially the author's husband as a young man and then around 50 years old... What a difference!

Buy this book and follow the guidelines. You will see and feel the difference.

Sports Specialization - Good or Bad?

My take has always been....bad idea.

Read this fascinating article in Psychology today entitled, "How to Create a Sports Superstar"

Click Here!

Enjoy!

Children Can Lift Weights at Any Age!

This is another great post by Dr. Gabe Mirkin. A few comments:
1. Some might take issue with Dr. Mirkin's comments about Naim Suleymanoglu. Others who should be mentioned are Tommy Kono, Pyrros Dimas, Vasili Alexeyev, and of course, Paul Anderson.
2. Muscle growth is dependent on genetics (myostatin), training, nutrition, and recovery.
3. Stronger bones are the key. The more weight you lift, the more the muscle pulls on the bone which causes the bone to make more bone tissue.
4. Read the final paragraph several times and show it to your child's coach!

Enjoy!


Lifting weights before puberty makes children stronger and has not been shown to stunt growth or damage the growth plates in their bones (Pediatrics, November 2010). The older the child, the greater the gain in muscle strength from resistance training. The more and the heavier weights they lift, the stronger they became. A surprising finding was that children did not show a significant increase in strength when they enter puberty, a time when their testosterone levels rise significantly.

The best time for future competitive athletes to start training is before they reach puberty. Having large strong muscles makes you a better athlete, and starting training before puberty enlarges the bones that are used primarily in that sport. Muscles growth is limited by the size of the bones on which they attach. The larger the bone, the stronger the muscle. Children who start to play tennis before they go into puberty have larger bones in the arm that holds the racquet. They also have larger bones in their tennis arm than those who start to play tennis later in life. The larger and stronger your muscles, the harder you can hit a tennis ball. As little as four weeks of hard exercise in growing animals increases bone mass (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, October 2000). This suggests that children who start training while they are still growing will have an advantage over athletes who start training after puberty, because having larger bones allow a person to grow larger muscles.

Lifting weights during growth has not been shown to prevent children from growing to their full potential height. Bones grow from epiphyses, growth centers that are the weakest part of bone, but strength training during growth has not been shown to damage these growth centers. Children who lift weights in supervised programs do not suffer more injuries than adults. With increased strength comes increased speed and increased coordination in movements requiring strength.

In most sports, the strongest athlete wins. Weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu of Turkey, who won three Olympic gold medals and is probably the greatest weightlifter who ever lived, started lifting weights when he was eight years old. Muscles can only grow to be as strong as the strength of the bones on which they attach, so people with the biggest bones are the ones who can grow the biggest muscles.

Children who lift weights do not grow muscles as large as older people do. Muscles are made up of thousands of individual muscle fibers. Each muscle fiber is innervated by a single nerve, although each nerve can innervate many muscle fibers. When you contract a muscle, you contract only a few muscle fibers at one time. With strength training, children learn to contract more muscle fibers at the same time, so they become stronger primarily by being able to contract more muscle fibers. Adults commonly grow larger muscles.

There is great concern that children may be subjected to unreasonable coaches and inconsiderate parents who place athletic training above the child's own needs and desires. In one study from Southern California, 90 percent of female cross country runners who stated running before they were nine stopped running before they reached high school. In 1967, I started competitive long distance running for young children and was the first national chairman of the age group committee of the Amateur Athletic Union and The Road Runners Club of America. Children came from all over the United States and Canada to compete in age group cross country and track running. Many were coached by experienced runners and trained with the same types of workouts used by the older runners. These children rarely suffered from injuries, and when they were injured, they recovered faster than the older runners. However, the real problem of starting children in competition at an early age is burnout. My own son started serious running when he was five and ran a mile in four minutes and 52 seconds when he was nine. He stopped competitive running when he was eleven.

The concern about serious athletic training for young children is more mental than physical. Children should not begin serious athletic training unless they want to do it. They should take days off from training when they want to, and their coaches and parents must allow them to be children.