Lactic acid is good for you

Lactic acid is the most efficient fuel that your muscles can use, even more than sugar. When you exercise as hard as you can, it helps you to go harder. A paper from Aukland University in New Zealand reviews the latest research showing that lactic acid is good for you (Sports Medicine, Volume 36, 2006). Your muscles use carbohydrates, fats and proteins for energy. Enzymes in muscles break down carbohydrates in a series of reactions that release small amounts of energy at a time. More than 80 percent of the energy used to power muscles is lost as heat, so burning fuel instantly for energy would produce so much heat that it would burn your muscles.

Enzymes require oxygen to turn food into energy. When you exercise so hard that you can’t get all the oxygen you need to break down food for energy, lactic acid accumulates in muscles and spills over into the bloodstream. This makes muscles acidic and it is the acidity that makes muscles burn and forces you to slow down. However, muscles require very little oxygen to turn lactic acid into energy. So when your muscles produce lots of lactic acid, they use this chemical for energy and require less oxygen. As soon as you slow down, you catch up on your oxygen debt and recover. So lactic acid is good for you. It helps you to exercise with less available oxygen.

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Cold hands

If your fingers turn white and start to hurt when you're out in the cold, you may have a condition called Raynaud's phenomenon. On exposing your fingers to cold, the blood vessels close, skin turns white and their temperature drops. When the temperature drops to 59 degrees, your body tries to save your skin by opening the blood vessels and the skin turns red and starts to itch and burn. If you warm your hands at this point, your skin will not be damaged, but if you do not get out of the cold, the blood vessels in your hands can close and the temperature in your hands can drop to freezing, resulting in frostbite.

People who have Raynaud's phenomenon have blood vessels in their hands that do not open when the skin temperature reaches 59 degrees. Several diseases, smoking and using vibrating equipment can cause Raynaud's phenomenon.

Wear two or more layers of gloves and mittens. When your fingers feel cold, swing your arms very rapidly about your shoulder with your elbow straight. This will drive blood, like a centrifuge, into your fingers and warm them. The blood pressure drugs called calcium channel blockers, such as Nifidipine, can help to treat and prevent Raynaud’s phenomenon (Rheumatology, November 2005). Another option is nitroglycerin ointment that is used to treat angina. When applied to the forearm, it opens blood vessels leading to the hands. Check with your doctor to see if these prescription medications would be appropriate for you.

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Awkward running form

Many people look terribly uncoordinated when they run. Telling them to change their form will just make them more uncoordinated. If a coach criticizes a team member for poor running form and doesn't correct the underlying causes, the person is likely to become self-conscious about how he or she looks, and run even more slowly. Coordination usually improves just with repeated practice in the chosen sport.

Running form can improve markedly if you can correct muscle imbalances and structural abnormalities with appropriate exercises and perhaps mechanical devices. A coach can videotape the athletes while they run, then review the tape in slow motion to analyze the mechanical defects. For example, leaning forward during running is often caused by weak back muscles, which can be treated with exercises to strengthen the back. Pointing the toes out is often caused by weak lower leg muscles and can be corrected by doing exercises to strengthen the shin muscles. Leaning back on the heels after foot plant can be caused by excessive rolling-in motion of the feet or weak calf muscles.

Treatment often includes special inserts in the shoes and calf strengthening exercises, such as toe raises while holding a heavy weight in the hands. Holding the shoulders up towards the ears during running is usually caused by weak shoulder muscles, which can be corrected by shrugging the shoulders while holding weights. A low knee-lift is often caused by weak quadriceps muscles in the front of the upper leg. The quadriceps can be strengthened by pedaling a bicycle, skating, or running up hills.

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Weight lifting for children

The best time for future Olympic 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.

Lifting weights during growth does not prevent children from growing to their full potential height. Bones grow from growth centers that are weakest part of bone, but strength training during growth does not damage these growth centers and children who lift weights in programs with experienced supervision do not suffer more injuries than adults. There used to be concern that growing large muscles would make people musclebound and interfere with coordination, but this is not true. With increased strength comes increased speed and increased coordination in movements requiring strength. The best time for future Olympians to start training is while their bones are still growing.

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Are you pre-diabetic?

You can tell if you are at high risk for diabetes if you store fat primarily in your belly. Pinch your belly; if you can pinch an inch, you are at increased risk and should get a blood test called HBA1C. Having high blood levels of triglycerides and low levels of the good HDL cholesterol that helps prevent heart attacks also increases your risk for diabetes. When you eat sugar or flour, your blood sugar rises too high. This causes your pancreas to release insulin that converts sugar to triglycerides, which are poured into your bloodstream. Then the good HDL cholesterol tries to remove triglycerides by carrying them back into the liver, so having high blood levels of triglycerides and low blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol are both individual risk factors for diabetes.

High blood levels of insulin constrict arteries to raise blood pressure, so many people who have high blood pressure are also prediabetic. High insulin levels also constrict the arteries leading to your heart to cause heart attacks directly. People with insulin resistance have an increase in small, dense, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, which is more likely to cause heart attacks than the large, buoyant regular LDL cholesterol. High levels of insulin also cause clotting to increase your risk for heart attacks. You can help to prevent diabetes and heart attacks by avoiding sugar and flour, exercising and eating lots of vegetables.

More on treatment of insulin resistance

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No weight loss from exercise?

When people start an exercise program, some lose a lot of weight, while others lose nothing. An effective exercise program for weight loss should be 1) continuous, 2) use all of your major muscle groups, 3) include one intense workout a week for each muscle group, and 4) be done on land, rather than in the water. Stop-and-start exercises, such as lifting weights, do not require that you use your muscles continuously enough to burn a lot of calories. Those that use just one muscle group, such as doing situps or pushups, won't help you to lose a lot of weight because the stressed muscle groups tire quickly so you can't exercise very long.

Exercising at a leisurely pace won't help you lose a lot of weight either. You burn calories while you exercise and after you finish exercising. Intense exercise raises body temperature which continues to be elevated and burn more calories for several hours after you finish exercising. This also explains why swimming is not the best exercise for weight loss, because water conducts heat away from your body so fast that your temperature does not rise. When you exercise on land, air insulates your body so your temperature rises.

Pick sports in which you can exercise intensely, but don't exercise very hard in one sport more often than once a week. Every time that you exercise, your muscle fibers are torn slightly. You can tell this has happened to you when you muscles feel sore on the day after you have exercised. If you exercise intensely on days when your muscles feel sore, you are at increased risk for injuring them. Instead, alternate two sports, one that stresses your upper body and one that stresses your lower body. And (of course) don't forget healthful eating habits.

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Urinary tract infections: treat with antibiotics

Many men suffer from constant irritation in their urinary tubes, urinating frequently at night, urgency to urinate when their bladders fill, and discomfort during urination. Often doctors do a culture which shows no cause, so they prescribe doxycycline antibiotics for a week or two, and their patients get no relief. A study from Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden shows that many of these patients are infected with a bacteria called mycoplasma genitalium which cannot be cured by taking doxycycline, but can be cured by taking an erythromycin antibiotic such as Zithromax, or Biaxin (Sexually Transmitted Infections, August 2006).

If you are a man or woman who suffers persistent urinary symptoms, check with your doctor and ask for a urine culture for mycoplasma or just an extended prescription for an erythromycin-type antibiotic.

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