Monday, 6 March 2017
Sunday, 5 March 2017
How to Tell If You’re Overtraining or Just Sore
You’ve likely heard the saying, “no pain, no gain.” If you’ve gotten the impression that some soreness while working out is normal, you would be correct. But it can be a fine line between when that soreness becomes classified as pain. Walking this line correctly is the difference between pushing just the right amount and overusing your muscles. Even though everyone’s threshold for pain is different, there is an answer that’s universal.
WHY OUR MUSCLES GET SORE
As our muscles repair themselves, one of the side effects many people experience is a dull, aching pain. Known as delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), no one is immune from experiencing this pain, but the severity will vary based on type of activity and how much the muscles have adapted to that activity over time.
“It is theorized that the eccentric motion (or lengthening) of the muscles repeatedly is the actual cause of DOMS,” explains Kyle Golden, owner and personal trainer at Work It Personal Training in Austin, Texas. “During this movement, the muscle tissue incurs small tears, which breaks down the muscle so that it can rebuild to get bigger and stronger. It is this breakdown and rebuilding process that is thought to cause the delayed soreness we experience.”
The American College of Sports Medicine recommends progressing slowly when starting a new exercise routine to reduce the severity of DOMS — and advises that the soreness experienced rarely requires medical attention.
FATIGUE VS. OVERUSE
How DOMS relates to muscle fatigue and how you can gauge pain to prevent injury lies in the difference between fatigue and overuse.
Muscle fatigue is common in exercise and is the feeling you get when you can no longer perform a specific movement. DOMS and “feeling the burn” during a workout can both fall into this category.
“Both of these sensations are positive changes taking place within the muscle fibers,” says Jennifer McCamish, a Pilates instructor and personal trainer who owns Dancer’s Shape in Austin, Texas. “You unfortunately need to experience some discomfort to build muscle mass.”
With muscle fatigue, the burning sensation usually subsides shortly after you stop the movement — such as lifting weights — and your body uses this to signal that the muscles are too tired to continue.
Overuse, however, involves pushing your muscles past the point of fatigue — and this is what can lead to injury. It doesn’t just involve straining the muscle during a workout, but it can happen when you don’t give yourself adequate time to rest and recover.
“Overuse of a muscle may result in many types of damage including muscle strain, tears, tendonitis and stress fractures,” says Golden. “Most of the time, these injuries are accompanied by fairly acute and sometimes severe, long-lasting pain.”
GOOD VS. BAD PAIN
With pain being a common denominator in the discussion of fatigue versus overuse, it is important to distinguish good pain from bad pain. Of course, pain is relative and will vary from person to person, but there are some general guidelines that athletes should know.
“In general, good sore muscle pain is a dull mild pain sensation that usually begins about 24–48 hours after exercise,” notes Golden. “With a little use and stretching, the muscle soreness should subside a little and may last a couple of days before going away completely.”
It is when the pain gets more severe, that may be a sign that an injury has occurred or that something has been strained. This bad pain can indicate that the muscles were overused.
McCamish adds that if you are experiencing consistent sharp or nagging pain that does not go away, you are most likely overtraining and have developed some type of minor injury that needs to be addressed.
HOW THIS KNOWLEDGE AFFECTS YOUR WORKOUTS
Varying your workouts is key to prevent overusing your muscles. McCamish explains that cross-training helps you to avoid the likelihood of the same muscles experiencing the same repetitious movements, which causes injuries.
There is no one-size-fits-all workout or rule of thumb for everyone, though the signs of overtraining can be felt no matter the workout regimen. Golden explains that how you exercise your muscles and to what point depends on your goals — and working to at least a light fatigued state is often part of reaching them.
“Once you start to feel the burn, due to lactic-acid buildup, you will know you have worked your muscles to their fatigued point and should consider easing up or stopping,” he concludes. “If you experience any acute pain, you are physically unable to perform a motion or exercise you could before, or are having difficulty with usual muscle function, you should stop exercising and get seek medical attention and advice.”
McCamish echoes that because everyone’s goals are different, in this case, pain should be your guide. If you experience chronic pain, it is an indication that you may have overused your muscles, and a break is warranted (if not also a medical evaluation).
“If you mix it up and do different things every day with one or two days off in a week, you should feel good and energized after working out,” she says.
http://blog.mapmyrun.com/how-to-tell-if-youre-overtraining-or-just-sore/
Saturday, 4 March 2017
Friday, 3 March 2017
5 Tips to Stay on Track When Life Gets Busy
25 Ways You Could Get Back on Track Today
Don't Give Up on Your Goals!
Not long ago, you were energetic and determined to start your healthy lifestyle. Starting with enthusiasm and hope, you watched your food intake diligently, exercised like it was going out of style, and even avoided the temptation that seemed to lurk around every corner. You were confident that you were going to reach your goals once and for all!
Then certain tragedy struck! You ate an extra piece of birthday cake. Realizing you had “blown” your diet, you ate another and another and couldn’t get it together the next day either. Or worse, you missed one workout, and that turned into a whole week away from the gym. After that, your momentum to start over again was gone, and your gym bag hasn’t left the closet since.
Every time you misstep on your healthy journey, you have two choices: to keep walking backwards, which will surely take you even further away from your goals; or to accept your lack of perfection as normal and forgivable, and take not one, but two positive steps down the path that brings your closer to the future you want.
If you’re reading this, you might have been walking backwards for a while. But instead of waiting for the next day, week, month or even year to overhaul your habits, start TODAY. And start small. You can’t go from the recliner to running or from burgers to Brussels sprouts in an afternoon. But you can do one, two or even a handful of small things that will help you regain your momentum for healthy living.
When you feel like getting back on track is overwhelming, try one (or more) of these small steps each day.
1. Try a short workout. Even five minutes is better than nothing. For ideas browse our video library or workout generator.
2. Try a new recipe. Cooking healthy foods can be fun and it never has to be bland.
3. Eat a healthy breakfast. Your morning meal sets the stage for the rest of your day, so start if off right! Get lots of breakfast ideas here.
4. Drink your water. Try to aim for 8 cups each day and you’ll feel the difference!
5. Look at Motivational SparkPages. Seeing how others overcome similar struggles and obstacles can be a great source of motivation.
6. Track your food today. No matter how it adds up, you’ll learn from it.
7. Update your SparkPage. It’s a visual way to track your ups and downs, but also your progress.
8. Share your goals. Whether you post them on the Message Boards or share them with a friend, you’ll be more accountable.
9. Exercise for 10 minutes. Jump rope, march in place, or do some crunches. Small amounts do add up to something big!
10. Find a buddy. Get support from friends, whether you need someone to listen or a mentor to give you ideas and encouragement.
11. Take a walk. Don’t worry about how long or far you go—just get out there!
12. Create a motivational collage. Include pictures of your goal and reasons why you want to get there.
13. Go shopping for some healthy foods. Use this shopping list for ideas.
14. Check the nutrition facts before you go out to eat. That way, you can make an informed choice.
15. Ride your bike. Even a leisurely ride has benefits for your body and mind.
16. Work in the yard. Gardening and yard work is a great way to add activity to your day.
17. Take the stairs. Even if this is the only thing you do all day, you’ll feel stronger for it.
18. Rack up those SparkPoints! You earn them for every healthy task you do on the site—talk about motivating! Aim for a certain milestone, such as 100 points, and then reward yourself with a SparkGoodie!
19. Listen to an inspirational song. Better yet, make a playlist of them so you can turn to it whenever you need a boost.
20. Re-start your SparkPeople program. Sometimes it’s easier to get back on track when you have a clean slate.
21. Measure your portions. It’s a simple way to learn how much you’re eating.
22. Eat a piece of fruit. Even if 5-9 servings of fruit and vegetables sounds impossible to you, one is doable.
23. Slow down during meals. You’ll be less likely to overeat and more likely to enjoy your meal.
24. Play! What kids call “play,” we often call “exercise.” Play a sport, a game, or use the playground equipment to bring the fun back into fitness.
25. Learn something new. Sometimes simply taking a quiz or reading an article about nutrition, fitness, or health can change your mindset and get you back on track.
In tennis, losing one point isn’t the end of the world. It happens to the best of them. In fact, if you can consistently win a few more points that you lose, you may end up in the hall of fame. With healthy eating and exercising, as long as you’re consistently out-stepping your steps back, you’re ahead of the game. If you expect perfection (and many of us do), you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and guilt.
You CAN get back on track today. Even if you’re moving slowly, you’ll be moving in the right direction!
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/motivation_articles.asp?id=1062&page=2
Thursday, 2 March 2017
Ice for Muscle Recovery
For many, it’s second nature to slap an ice pack or bag of frozen peas on an injury. It’s even likely your doctor recommended that you “RICE” an injury. This acronym that stands for “rest, ice, compression and elevation” has been the go-to post-injury prescription for nearly 40 years.
But does ice really help the healing process? Believe it or not, there’s no existing research to show that it helps reduce inflammation or enhance healing of damaged tissues. In fact, a 2012 review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine stated: “Ice is commonly used after acute muscle strains but there are no clinical studies of its effectiveness.”
What’s more, Dr. Gabe Mirkin, the man who coined the term RICE in 1978, recently recantedthe “R” and “I” in his protocol, saying that, “it appears that both ice and complete rest may delay healing instead of helping.”
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS WHEN YOU ICE
When you go out for a long run or do a tough workout at the gym, you get sore. Your muscles sustain damage, and a small amount of inflammation occurs to help your muscles heal. (Remember, inflammation is your immune system’s response to an injury and is a natural part of healing.) The soreness will go away over a few days, but it’s human nature to want to do something about that tired, achy feeling, so many people slap an ice pack on their throbbing muscles.
Ice can certainly make you feel better. It numbs the sore area by reducing nerve conduction velocity, which means that pain signals between your muscles and your brain slow down so you don’t feel as sore. Studies have shown that even people with chronic pain feel better after using ice or cold therapy.
Remember, ice only dulls the pain. It doesn’t help your tissues heal, so you may be tempted to work out again before your body is ready. This false sense of security could lead to more pain down the road.
HOW INFLAMMATION WORKS
As mentioned earlier, your body needs inflammation to heal. When your body triggers an inflammatory response to muscular damage, white blood cells rush to the site of an injury to sweep away cellular debris and deliver healing nutrients. As a precaution, damaged blood vessels constrict to quarantine the injury, while surrounding vessels expand to let nutrient-rich fluid in, causing the initial swelling you experience after an injury.
This swelling reduces naturally via the lymphatic system, a map of one-way vessels that remove waste products from the body. However, the lymphatic system is passive, meaning it doesn’t work automatically. It only removes waste when muscles contract, so if you sit still and ice your muscles, waste doesn’t get removed. Applying ice to an inflamed area actually slows down the healing process. The metabolic process described above slows to a halt and puts the brakes on the outflow of swelling and influx of healing nutrients. Essentially, ice hits the pause button on the healing process, which delays muscle recovery as demonstrated by a 2013 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
So if ice slows healing, what can we do instead to get back on our feet?
THE ACTIVE RECOVERY ALTERNATIVE
Since the lymphatic system relies on muscle activation to remove waste, light exercise and pain-free movement can jumpstart the healing process. Ever noticed how you’re naturally inclined to rub or move a muscle that’s sore? That’s because movement sparks recovery.
Instead of lounging on the couch with an ice pack, try light foam rolling or dynamic stretching through pain-free range of motion. Simply contracting and relaxing muscles around the sore ones (e.g. your calves or glutes if your hamstrings are sore) can bring the lymphatic system to life.
Recent research has shown that active recovery is effective for reducing inflammation and cellular stress post-exercise, something that many athletes have known for years. Sprinters have been using active recovery for ages in the form of light jogging to recover from all-out sprints. Many high-level runners use cross-training and short runs to prepare and recovery for longer runs. Even weight lifters and general fitness folks can benefit from active recovery to reduce soreness and fatigue.
THE COLD CONCLUSION
Ice is effective for reducing pain, but it doesn’t speed up the healing process or reduce inflammation. If you want a quick, medicine-free painkiller, feel free to use ice. But if you want to get back to training as soon as possible, ice fails where active recovery succeeds.
http://blog.mapmyrun.com/truth-ice-muscle-recovery/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=FB%20MyFitnessPal
Wednesday, 1 March 2017
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