Russ's Grab-Bag Of Assorted PT Forum Goodness

[TheRuss]

Wow, whoda thunk that this thread would go from "TheRuss doles out miscellaneous PT advice" to "Let's discuss TheRuss's health and wellness" in just four pages?

Inasmuch as said discussion:
-serves as examples to make my ideas more tangible,
-leads to me figuring things out about training in my own life, or
-entertains someone...
then it's all good.

---

I kind of want to take up yoga, or something to that effect, but I don't think it'll have much (if any) effect on my rate of injury, because said injuries don't really result from inflexibility. Again, there may be links there that I'm not seeing, but I can't live my life based on assuming that everything that might work does. I'd wind up broke and broken.

(I'm kind of frustrated right now, if y'all can't tell... not because of this thread per se, though)

Anyways, if nothing else, it sounds like this Vince character has a fairly well-developed ability to suss out the roots of injuries, which is valuable.

[theotherserge]

Vince posts occassionally. I'll prompt him here...

[AeroChica]

Symptoms have been improving since I got off the ibuprofen and stopped running to catch buses (one of the reasons this is likely to be a bit terse).

I don't know how. I'm waiting on a letter from a neurologist. All of my attempts to get a family doctor who knows something about sports medicine have been rebuffed - "he's not taking patients and booking six months in advance", and I don't think I have any chips left with my connections at the university.

1. Walk in to ER. Stagger if possible.
2. Complain about worsening symptoms. Lie if necessary.

Normally I wouldn't advocate this but you need some real medical assistance and, given the doctor shortage and lack of interest/intelligence of the one you saw so far, it's probably your best option.

And there may be some value in getting in touch with an advocacy organization - they probably know where to find the knowlegable medical assistance, for starters.

[Lily]

Wow, what a timely thread. I always denied the existence of the '4th leg' and worked through setbacks, injuries...in fact even used to rail at people who had excuses. I've been very blase about my regime for the last 2 months and I'm hating myself but have little motivation to get back to it.

Anyway, to get ask TheRuss a question. Why? Why does it feel that the rate of 'losing fitness' is so much faster than gaining it?

[TheRuss]

Dollars to doughnuts says that if I go to the ER, they're going to tell me what I already know: I have a concussion, there's no treatment, don't do anything until it's healed on its own.

I don't need yet another set of single-serving doctors giving me bad advice (in case I wasn't clear, the list of "Got the..."s? They're all different doctors). I need to find a "family doctor" who knows what he's doing, has an office nearby, and will take me as a patient - so that I have someone to bother about problems that doctors/physiotherapists can treat.

I have been trying to arrange this, and it has not been working. The receptionist at the clinic across the street lied to me - she said that none of the doctors there had taken new patients in months, when one of my co-workers got in with one of them a few days ago.

(Edit: Hey, Lily beat me to it.)

[TheRuss]

Wow, what a timely thread. I always denied the existence of the '4th leg' and worked through setbacks, injuries...in fact even used to rail at people who had excuses. I've been very blase about my regime for the last 2 months and I'm hating myself but have little motivation to get back to it.

Anyway, to get ask TheRuss a question. Why? Why does it feel that the rate of 'losing fitness' is so much faster than gaining it?

One theory of training is that it's an attempt to disturb your body's equilibrium. You apply stimulus (exercise) that taxes a particular system, and your body reacts by shoring up whatever ability it is you were taxing. Once you stop taxing said system, your body begins to detrain.

The evolutionary jump-to-conclusions reasoning is that an organism that maintains a capability despite not using it for long periods of time will be inefficient. Example: According to Survival Of The Fattest (p. 63), a kilogram of muscle consumes 17 kcal/day (probably not counting the extra energy required to lug it around). In a time of famine, that muscle is a liability, and the ability to burn it for energy (with cortisol) is an asset.

The problem with evolutionary jump-to-conclusions reasoning is that it tends to gloss over crucial details. Another example (a topical one)...

Losing weight is simple - run a calorie deficit. Your body has to pay that debt somehow, and it does so by breaking down tissue. Bam, weight loss. But there's a catch - the human body has mechanisms to maintain equilibrium, and so what often happens when calorie intake is reduced is that calorie output decreases to match. A good diet attempts to disrupt this equilibrium and maintain the deficit.

Losing body fat without losing muscle requires the ability to place your body in a situation where it is maintaining ("sparing") muscle tissue, but not body fat tissue. This is a challenge because the two systems (muscle and fat maintenance) are linked at key points - most notably insulin, which triggers muscle and fat growth. Nutritional theories I've been exposed to lately focus on the idea of exploiting differences in responses from the two systems by manipulating timing, insulin sensitivity, etc.

---

But back to your question... make sure not to discount the psychological aspect of things. Detraining is real, but our perceptions are not always the same as our reality. To stay firmly rooted in the truth, find a way to objectively and quantitatively track your progress (or regress).

[TheRuss]

Great... time for some more concussion talk.

Dollars to doughnuts says that if I go to the ER, they're going to tell me what I already know: I have a concussion, there's no treatment, don't do anything until it's healed on its own.

Pop quiz, ladies and gentlemen: where's the flaw in this reasoning? Why do I owe AeroChica's idea more consideration than I've shown it thus far? Why did I just call in sick to work, and why am I planning to head over to the clinic yet again?

Two reasons:
1) After making that post last night, I did the math, and I've been waiting for the referral to a neurologist for three weeks now. I've been misplaced somewhere in the system. But the question remains - why bother seeing a neurologist? What can they do?

2) They can't do anything about a concussion - but I've had a wide variety of head trauma over the past decade and a half, and none of them have been anywhere near this bad for this long. So what I need to rule out are other symptoms of TBI (traumatic brain injury) that can be treated, particularly sources of increased intracranial pressure like subdural hematoma.

Subdural hematomas can also after a very minor head injury, especially in the elderly. These go unnoticed for many days to many weeks, and are called "chronic" subdural hematomas. During a subdural hematoma, tiny veins between the surface of the brain and its outer covering (the dura) stretch and tear, allowing blood to collect.

-Google Health, "Subdural Hematoma"

I recover from the concussion, I feel better. Hematoma manifests, I feel worse again. It fits.

[TheRuss]

Russ's Health Update:

Well, I'm getting a head and neck X-ray as soon as possible (no CT scan yet, though). I've decided to shelve any dietary restrictions for a while, given that brain healing takes priority over my waistline.

I also got my ultrasound results back today - they didn't find anything wrong with my knee (which is bad, because I know there's something wrong with it), but there's an issue with a nerve in my left arm (I wasn't expecting that) and it sounds serious, as in surgery serious.

---

Assuming I'm ever cleared to implement nutritional/training systems again, I'm thinking of turning it into a semi-scientific n=1 study. Aside from my current logging of calories/fat/carbs/fiber/protein, daily weight and (laughably inaccurate) body composition, and resistance training exercises, I'm thinking of including occasional body measurements, fair composition photographs, maybe a better BIA scale (or, as mentioned earlier, tape and calipers), and bloodwork.

So my questions for you are:
1) Does this interest you?
2) Are there any particular pieces of information I should track? (just brainstorming for now)
3) Are there any particular nutritional/training manipulations I should look into?

Right now I'm thinking:
Nutrition: Anabolic Diet, or perhaps a variant with post-workout carbohydrates if needed
Supplementation: caffeine and creatine
Resistance training: a few weeks of gentle anatomical adaptation, then perhaps 5x5 (still waffling on this one)
Other training: HIIT/Tabata/yoga

But yeah, it's all up in the air.
Obviously I want to find a combination of training and lifestyle factors that keep me in good (training) health while still making good progress towards my goals (initially body composition, then probably lean mass or powerlifting-style strength).
And I also want to keep track of as many variables as possible without it interfering with my training or my life.

This is all at least a month off, maybe quite a bit further, but it gives me something to think about beyond how much the here and now sucks, so play along, okay?

[theotherserge]

Assuming I'm ever cleared to implement nutritional/training systems again, I'm thinking of turning it into a semi-scientific n=1 study. Aside from my current logging of calories/fat/carbs/fiber/protein, daily weight and (laughably inaccurate) body composition, and resistance training exercises, I'm thinking of including occasional body measurements, fair composition photographs, maybe a better BIA scale (or, as mentioned earlier, tape and calipers), and bloodwork.

the old man, when he was training for Olympic-level power-lifting, would have blood drawn monthly to see what nutrients were lacking&such. Crazy Soviets.

So my questions for you are:
1) Does this interest you?
2) Are there any particular pieces of information I should track? (just brainstorming for now)
3) Are there any particular nutritional/training manipulations I should look into?

1) yes
2) I wonder if there's a study you could participate in-if its worth the effort. There's crap out there about amino acid levels, cumulative frequency/vulnerability of/to concussions etc?
3) more bourbon? ;-)

Right now I'm thinking:
Nutrition: Anabolic Diet, or perhaps a variant with post-workout carbohydrates if needed
Supplementation: caffeine and creatine
Resistance training: a few weeks of gentle anatomical adaptation, then perhaps 5x5 (still waffling on this one)
Other training: HIIT/Tabata/yoga

But yeah, it's all up in the air.
Obviously I want to find a combination of training and lifestyle factors that keep me in good (training) health while still making good progress towards my goals (initially body composition, then probably lean mass or powerlifting-style strength).
And I also want to keep track of as many variables as possible without it interfering with my training or my life.

This is all at least a month off, maybe quite a bit further, but it gives me something to think about beyond how much the here and now sucks, so play along, okay?

do keep us posted...

[Jack Rusher]

I kind of want to take up yoga, or something to that effect, but I don't think it'll have much (if any) effect on my rate of injury, because said injuries don't really result from inflexibility.

Yoga is relatively cheap and widely available. I understand your skepticism -- the same thing kept me away from it for years -- but this sort of exercise (yoga, pilates, qigong, taiji) is the single best activity I've found for my general health (N=1, of course), and most of the top-level grapplers with whom I've trained have either done yoga or ginastica natural (which is mostly yoga) for the same reason.

Your injuries may not be caused by an overall lack of flexibility, but what about strength and flexibility balance (left/right, front/back, &c)? Posture? Proprioception? There's more there than stretching, and -- although the mechanisms are poorly understood -- it seems to work. :icon_thum

In any case, good luck and godspeed.