Health and Fitness

Since Wimbledon starts today and you’ll all be getting the tennis bug like everyone in the U.K does at this time of year I thought we’d look at Tennis elbow, you don’t have to play tennis to get it. 

Tennis elbow (medically known as Lateral epicondylitis) is a condition characterized by excruciating pain over the outer aspect of your elbow. This is one of the most prominent overuse injuries you can get. This is a misnomer; the disease can occur in other activities which also which involve extensive use of the forearm.

The main symptom of tennis elbow is recurrent pain over the outer aspect of upper limb, near to the elbow. Sometimes, the pain can radiate up to the wrist joint. The person can not lift or grasp any object; even writing becomes difficult in advanced cases. You can not extend your hand fully; pain in the elbow will restrict your normal activities.

Once started, the acute stage of pain will last for at least 6-12 weeks. It can remain for up to years in a milder form.

The cause of Tennis elbow is repeated minute tear in the tendons of the muscles. Initially the tear heals itself. But with repeated tear, the muscle and the whole tendon becomes inflamed. Collagen tissue comes out and aggravates the situation. There is formation of granulation tissue in the places of normal tendinous tissue. The friction against the bony prominence makes the condition worse.

The best way to treat a case of tennis elbow is complete rest. This will normalize the situation early. You may have to stop playing games if the condition does not improve.

Gradual stretching exercise will help in the betterment of the situation. Corticosteroids may be prescribed in refractory cases.

If medical management fails, surgical removal of the inflamed tendon and lengthening of the tendons will definitely improve the condition.

Amino acids are precursors of protein. Several different amino acids after joining by chemical bonds form a protein structure. The chemical and other properties of protein depend upon the sequence of amino acids in the chain.

There will be two separate protein molecules if the sequence of the amino acids is different, no matter if the combination of amino acids is same in two proteins.

Branched chain amino acids are non-linear amino acids containing aliphatic side chain. There are three amino acids in this category – valine, leucine and isoleucine. These three amino acids are very essential to build the skeletal and muscular structure in our body. They also produce different proteins in different combinations. At present, there is much discussion about branched chain amino acids in lowering mental fatigue as it is seen that they can reduce the serotonin level in the brain. They are also used to treat burn patients in their convalescence stage.

An essential amino acid is such that it can not be synthesized de novo, i.e. our body can not synthesize this amino acid from other resources.

Therefore, this group of amino acid has to be supplied by food. There are nine essential amino acids – lysine, leucine, isoleucine, histidine, valine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine and tryptophan.

The non-essential amino acids can be synthesized in our body. They are – alanine, cysteine, cystine, glutamic acid, glutathione, glycine, serine, taurine, threonine, asparagine and proline.

Shin splints are injuries over the frontal aspect of the lower leg. It is not a disease by itself, but a combination of symptoms for which there may be number of reasons.

It is an aftereffect of an inflammation of the periosteum (covering of the bone) of the lower limb (tibia) or due to injury to the posterior peroneal tendon along with adjacent musculature. According to sports medicine, shin splints occur due to overuse of the lower limb.

The pain in shin splints characteristically occurs to the frontal aspect of the shin bone (tibia) area. The pain usually comes during the initial phase of exercise and gradually reduces as the person goes on doing exercise. In the beginning, the pain is dull aching in its nature. But after some time, with continuing inflammatory process, it becomes so intense, that the affected person is forced to stop doing exercise. There may be swelling over the same area in advanced cases of shin splint.

The first and foremost thing to do in a case of shin splints is to stop doing any kind of exercise. You can apply ice over the area to reduce pain, but never massage the area. Stretching of the muscles of the lower limb is also helpful. You may try putting some shock absorbing insoles inside your shoe. Oral anti inflamatory pain killer medicine is prescribed in resistant cases.

Are you continuing your morning session of running even you are suffering from excruciating pain in the left heel? Have you ever felt a binding for treadmill running even when you are having a low grade fever? Continue to skip even when your friends have given up long before?

If anyone of these is true, you may be having some kind of exercise addiction my friend. Whereas regular exercise is necessary to keep your health hale and hearty, doing excessive exercise will cause no good, instead it can ruin your life.

How do you know that you are addicted to exercise? Let us find out –

• You feel extremely anxious if you miss any time of your daily exercise schedule.
• You continue to exercise each day, even when you are so sick that it is better to remain in the bed.
• You are missing classes, reaching late in the workplace or skipping social gathering to do some more exercise.
• If you miss any schedule, you do twice or thrice on the very next day.

If your answer is yes in any case, it is time to have a look into the deeper aspect of life as to who is driving your mind for doing exercise or how. Experts say that maintaining an exercise dairy will enable you to track the progress.

If you are progressing, there is no need to continue over exercising. It may land you in personal injury in a short time or you may become a patient of osteoarthritis at an early age.

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What happens when you exercise too much? 

Doing adequate exercise is healthy, but when a person gets obsessed with exercise, it becomes a disease. It is has multiple names – exercise addiction, exercise dependence, compulsive athleticism and exercise abuse.

This addiction will affect your career, family and other social engagements. Addiction to exercise is both physically and psychosocially damaging.

Those who are obsessed to exercising may have their own motivations. They feel a ‘high’ from doing exercise. It makes them feel they can adequately control their body weight and keep it in shape. They will do exercise even if they are injured or sick. They usually exercise alone to avoid any silly comments from others. They miss important arrangements, workplace, school, college and other social gatherings.

Recent studies have shown that, exercise addiction is also associated with other psychological disorders like bulimia nervosa. They become a serious patient of chronic fatigue syndrome. Long standing patients of exercise addiction suffer from stress fracture of long bones.

They are also a strong contender of nutritional disorders like protein deficiency, avitaminosis and others.

As they continue doing exercise even when injured, it calls for an immediate medical attention. They don’t feel like going to the doctors as they fear they will be banned doing exercise.

Runners Stitch What causes it? 

Are you an executive or living a sedentary life? Have you participated in sports activities with your office colleagues and felt pain over the upper abdomen?

You had a ‘stitch’.

Let’s see what stitch is all about. Classically, stitch is felt over the right upper abdomen. Sometimes it may also happen in the left upper abdomen. Or it may radiate to your back and limbs. Characteristically, stitch occurs to the novice person who takes part in exhaustive sports activities.

The stitch is caused due to insufficient blood supply to the main muscle of respiration – the diaphragm. During each inspiration, the diaphragm moves downwards and during each expiration it goes back upwards. Most of the abdominal organs are supported from the ligamental attachment from the lower surface of diaphragm. When running or doing any sort of exercise, the frequency of respiration increases.

The continuous to and fro movement causes the diaphragm to be fatigued.  Moreover, when we do exercise, there is an increased need for oxygen and other nutrients to our muscles.

If the oxygen supply to the diaphragm is less, it induces the nociceptors (pain receptors) present in the diaphragm – the stitch occurs. Stitches are most commonly felt over the right upper side due to the presence of the liver – the heaviest of all organs.

How Can you cure/relieve stitch?

You must bend over and try to touch your toes and put firm pressure over the pain areas. This will reduce the stitch. You must stop doing all activities while you feel any sort of pain as well.

It is better to ‘warm up’ your muscles before doing any kind of exercise.

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Fast and Slow twitch muscle fibres 

Muscles are made of two types of fiber, these are slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibres.

The ratio of these muscle fibers is 50:50, muscles are made up of up to 100,000 different fibres.

The number of fibres in each of each muscle gets determined when the sperm gets fertilized in the womb in other words it is genetically determined. 

Activities like running and weight lifting would determine which particular type of muscle fiber gets developed.

Fast Twitch Muscles

Fast twitch muscle fibers work faster than the slow twitch muscle fibers (surprising). Fast twitch muscles emit more power, but the  drawback of this kind of muscle fiber is that it cannot emit energy for long periods of time.

Fast twitch muscles are used in  anaerobic activities such as sprint running and body building. Fast twitch muscles receive signals from the brain at a much faster rate and thus the action of these muscles fiber is faster. Fast twitch muscles remain in contraction for a very low period of time before they need to rest or fail.

Slow Twitch Muscles

Slow Twitch muscle fibers work slower. These kinds of muscle fibers are termed as type1 muscle fibers, and can withstand energy for longer periods of time. Slow twitch muscle fiber do not emit the same force in comparison with fast twitch muscles. Slow twitching muscles are useful for aerobic activities such as long distance running, swimming, biking and activities that need stamina. Slow twitch muscles are a kind of backup for the fast twitch muscles. The higher the repetition of the work the more the energy is expelled by the muscle.

Going down the Gym and training hard is probably the easy part of trying to build muscle and strength, in order to successfully see results you need the correct Nutrion.

What Nutrition do you need?

You need to increase your protein intake this can be done be increasing the amount of protein rich food you eat, egg whites for example are an excellent source of protein. Egg Yolks however contain quite a bit of fat and egg whites on their own tast Yuk, a protein supplement can help deliver the muscle building material your body needs without the belly building lard.

You may want to look at more sports specific nutrition such as supplements for wrestling.

Creatine is another good muscle builder a natural ingredient found in foods mainly from animal origin. Red meat like beef, veal and mutton are rich sources of creatine. Creatine has been much discussed in recent years. The bodybuilders and weightlifting champions are using this element with a good result so I believe are many football clubs including the England National side at one point.

Before buying for this product, you should consult your doctor who will be able to tell you about all the health benefits you will derive from creatine.

But here are some of the benefits of creatine for your ready reference –

• In our body, a substance called ATP (Adenosine TriPhosphate) helps to transfer energy from food to our muscles. Creatine is required in the process to produce ATP.
• Glycogen stored in our muscles releases energy during vigorous exercises. Creatine helps in breaking down process of glycogen.
• As creatine is available only in the foods of animal origin, the vegetarian people lack this element. By taking creatine supplements, they can replenish the need of their body.
• Cardiovascular activities are closely related to creatine. It helps in the blood supply in the vital organs. During any vigorous exercise program, the vital organs like heart, brain, liver and kidney need extra amount of blood to work properly. Creatine helps them to overcome the workload.
• It also helps in the fat burning process. Our stored body fat is essential to provide extra energy. Creatine helps in the fat braking pathway.

Protein and nutrition supplements will definitely help you to gain optimum benefit from exercise. For more information on which nutritional supplements you need see this nutritional supplements 101.

Creatine side effects

Creatine is a molecule, naturally present in our foods of animal origin. It facilitates in various bodily enzymatic processes. The major action of creatine is to help generating ATP. ATP is the prime factor to transfer energy in any bodily function. It also helps to build muscle mass.

As creatine is found only in the foods of animal origin (red meat, veal, mutton), vegetarian people usually lack the element if they opt for a stringent exercise schedule to build muscle. Creatine supplements are suitable for everybody but vegetarians may find them particularly beneficial.

In random double-blind control studies, no severe side effect of creatine has been noticed by the experts. However creatine side effects include muscle cramping, the usually wanted side effect of increased weight as creatine helps in water retention from the kidney. You may appear flabby due to increased water in your body. As the muscles also store a huge amount of water (almost 50% of the total body water), it may feel softer to touch. But with regular exercise, the water retention decreases and your muscles feel normal as ever. Some experts link creatine to formation of kidney stones. But it can not be ascertained due to lack of enough evidence. We have a misconception that creatine is an addictive product like anabolic steroids (nandrolone, testosterone). These all are baseless. The chemical property of creatine does not match with steroids. In fact it is a precursor of proteins.