Surviving the Cold and Flu Season
Of all of our biological systems, the immune system is one of the most complex and amazing. Given that we have daily exposure to countless bugs and viruses it is incredible that we don’t get sick more often than we do, all thanks to our immune system.
As a graduate student I was intrigued by how the immune system worked and specifically,...
Water Melon and DOMS
Non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can damage the stomach and also the small intestine. Within hours of taking NSAIDs it can make our gut leaky and inflame our bowels. All in all they can disrupt the intestinal barrier function and, as I mentioned previously, they can inhibit our ability to adapt to exercise stress.
An Ode to Oranges
When asked what his favorite fruit is, Michael Arnstein, my favorite ultra-runner/fruitarian, replied that it was oranges. Why? Part of the reason, he says, it that he likes high water content fruit, and oranges certainly meet that criteria. But I wonder if he is aware of some of the health promoting and possible performance enhancing benefits...
Distance Running and Cherry Juice
In the last blog I talked about how consumption of tart cherry juice decreased muscle soreness and reduced strength loss following eccentric induced muscle damage. However, my eccentric induced muscle damage comes from running downhill on rocky trails, not in the weight room. So, can tart cherry juice help that?
Long distance...
Tart Cherry Juice for DOMS
DOMS or delayed onset muscle soreness is familiar for the elite or novice athlete. It occurs 12-48 hours after eccentric exercise (such as downhill running) or after doing an activity that you are not used to. Symptoms can range from muscle tenderness to severe debilitating pain. For many years researchers have tried to figure out what is...
Improved Performance with Beet Juice
There is a fundamental truth of exercise and that is that during submaximal aerobic exercise for every “x” amount of oxygen you consume you can do “x” amount of work. There are standard equations to calculate oxygen consumption and caloric expenditure based on how much work is being performed. For example, if I am putting out 100 watts of...
Fruit and Veggie Benefits for Athletes, continued
A recent study looked at the effect of die on gene expression of superoxide dismutase (remember this plays a role in our internal antioxidant defense systems). What the researchers found was that those eating more plants (vegetarians) had 3x the gene expression of superoxide dismutase. Thus, this study would suggest that diet can impact mitochondrial...
Fruit and Veggie Benefits for Athletes
Michael Arnstein, an elite ultra-runner, got me turned on to eating more fruit. He is a fruitarian which means he eats mostly fruits and vegetables, and lots of them---6,000 calories per day. He swears it helps his performance and recovery. He does crazy stuff like run a 100 mile race on weekend and then race a marathon the next (and do...
Fruit, Insulin Release and Meat
This is a picture of my fruit bowel. This is just a portion of the fruit I eat during a week. Not shown are all the frozen fruits and berries I also eat during the week. I think fruit is an athlete’s best friend (or anybody’s for that matter). It is fast food at its best. All it requires is washing and maybe peeling (and perhaps thawing)....
Why I am a plant powered athlete
I don’t understand the love affair that Americans (or other Western countries for that matter) have with meat. In its raw form it is really quite unappealing. It is bloody and smelly and full of e-coli, salmonella, campylobacter, listeria and toxoplasma (to name a few) all from fecal matter that gets into meat during the slaughtering process....