Breathe Easy — Your Action Plan


Whether it's time to hit the turf, track or squat rack, breathing isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind (not falling on your face tends to take priority). But smooth and efficient breathing is crucial for delivering the oxygen our body needs to perform its functions properly. Proper breathing can also help athletes exercise longer with less effort, nix side stitches and even calm the mind. With a little extra awareness — and some practice — that A Game could be just a few breaths away. Here's what to keep in mind: 



Running


Nailing the right running form, tempo and strategy can be challenging enough, but a runner's work doesn't end there. Huffing and puffing your way 'round the track won't get you to the finish line. In fact, studies show that improper breathing technique can impair speed and performance.

How to do it right: While there's no golden rule, many runners find it most comfortable to take one breath for every two foot strikes, says Alison McConnell, a breathing expert and author of "Breathe Strong Perform Better". This means taking two steps (one left, one right) while breathing in, and two steps while breathing out — also known as the 2:2 rhythm.

Why it works: Because the diaphragm and surrounding organs are all subject to the forces of gravity, McConnell says, synchronizing the breath to running cadence will keep the organs from putting unnecessary pressure on the diaphragm, which can impede breathing (and make running more uncomfortable than it needs to be!).

It’s all about moderation and balancing your food groups: protein and carbs, fruits and veggies, experts say.  So how do they all work together?

Before a workout, it’s all about the carbs, said Carol Kelly, a dietitian at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. “Carbohydrate is the fuel for our bodies, fuel for our brains.  If you think of your metabolism as a fire, carbohydrate is the fuel that helps the fire burn hot.”

You want a meal that includes quality carbohydrates, lean protein, heart-healthy fats and fluids.  Without a sufficient carb supply, you could be breaking down muscle when you exercise.

If you’re working out in the afternoon or after work, you want to make sure to eat a balanced lunch with some carbs.

ONE OF THE LONG-ENDURING TRADITIONS at bike events of all stripes is the pasta dinner the evening before the big ride. After all, who doesn't believe in the hearty, turbo-fueling quality of a whopping plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce?

As it turns out, the nonbelievers include a number of highly informed people, including Allen Lim, PhD, the brains behind much of Garmin-Slipstream's training and race preparation. "There's nothing nutritious about that," Lim says.

In fact, he has eliminated all processed wheat from the team's diet, and at races has replaced traditional starchy foods with balanced, whole-food fuel such as rice cakes made with eggs, olive oil, prosciutto and liquid amino acids. If this creates the impression that Lim knows something you don't, well, that's probably true. His job is to make sure that, unlike the rest of us, his team doesn't blithely adhere to old, counterproductive eating habits—habits that can lead to unnecessary weight fluctuation and diminished performance.

Here's the good news. We've tapped into this new school of food science led by the likes of Lim to correct popular misconceptions about food, particularly about carbs and fat. Proponents of this new approach believe, for example, that a diet heavy in starch causes your body to burn sugar instead of fat, so you bonk more easily, often eat too much and end up overweight rather than properly fueled.

Even Joe Friel, who relentlessly advocated carbohydrates in his training bible series of books, has done a 180, turning his back on starches and relying instead on vegetables, fruits and lean meats as fuel. Consider this our effort to correct myths and misconceptions you've been exposed to over the years. Follow this advice, and you won't just live lean. You'll also be able to ride longer on less food and never bonk.

“It’s almost like I need a sign on my back saying, ‘My head is broken.’ And you can’t see it. It’s like not visible and it’s like not many people understand, “said Allison in an interview with Rock Center’s Kate Snow.

Allison, who lives with her family in Chester Springs, Pa., has had at least five concussions.  She is only able to attend school four hours a day.  Her room is lit with soft blue light to ease her headaches and her family now eats dinner by candlelight.

Now that is unusual, I thought. Does it really help to eat so often during a 16-mile run?  Certainly a lot of athletes believe they need constant nourishment. My friend and running partner Jen Davis, who has entered more races and run more than I ever have, once went on a 30-mile training run with a guy wearing a CamelBak and bearing snacks. He stopped every 20 minutes along the way and then, about halfway through the run, pulled out a turkey sandwich.

“I’m not sure if he ever actually ran an ultra race,” Jen said. “He may have gotten injured after carrying that heavy pack on those long runs.”

There is no end to the crazy foods people will eat at endurance events. At the J.F.K. 50-Mile in Maryland, boiled potatoes and chicken broth are provided at aid stations. At the Rocky Raccoon Endurance Trail Run in Texas, runners can choose rice and beans or pasta, along with snacks like pretzels, cookies and candy.

At a 100-mile bike ride my husband and I have done several times, pumpkin pie is offered about 25 miles from the finish line. (My husband tried it one year and felt ill the rest of the ride.)

For the athlete determined to munch on the go, there are shelves worth of prepackaged “energy gels” and bars, even jelly beans, promising to raise performance.  But most athletes are not running 30 or 50 or 100 miles, nor are they doing the equivalent amount of exercise in another sport, like cycling or swimming or skiing. So most of us really do not need to keep eating during a race to maintain energy and stamina, said Nancy Rodriguez, a sports nutritionist at the University of Connecticut.

Girls take longer to recover from sports-related concussions than boys do, according to new research.

High school athletes, both boys and girls, also have longer recovery times than do college athletes, says researcher Tracey Covassin, PhD, associate professor of kinesiology and a certified athletic trainer at Michigan State University.

"We have known that high school kids will take longer," Covassin tells WebMD. "We are starting to show there are differences between female and male athletes."

Covassin's study evaluated 222 high school and college athletes who had sustained a concussion.

After a concussion, females also did worse than males on visual memory tests. They had more symptoms, Covassin found.

The study is published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine.

Concussion: The Problem

A concussion, a type of traumatic brain injury, results from an impact to the head. Those affected can have headaches, concentration problems, memory and balance problems, blurry vision, and nausea.

A concussion changes the way your brain functions, according to the CDC. It can occur even with a helmet on. Most do not involve loss of consciousness.

• Heavy (overweight) NFL players are twice as likely to die before the age of 50.

• Twenty-eight percent of all pro football players born in the last century who qualified as obese died before their 50th birthday, compared with 13 percent who were less overweight.

• One of every 69 nine players born since 1955 is now dead. Twenty-two percent of those players died of heart diseases; 19 percent died from homicides or suicides.

But unlike most Sundays, when you drive this Sunday coming home from your Super Bowl Party, be especially careful. Why?

Because unlike other Sundays when a football game is televised, researchers found that both non-fatal and fatal car accidents increase 41 percent on average. The risk is highest within an hour of the game’s end, when most people are driving home.

Scientists and many athletes have known for years, of course, that a cup of coffee before a workout jolts athletic performance, especially in endurance sports like distance running and cycling. Caffeine has been proven to increase the number of fatty acids circulating in the bloodstream, which enables people to run or pedal longer (since their muscles can absorb and burn that fat for fuel and save the body’s limited stores of carbohydrates until later in the workout). As a result, caffeine, which is legal under International Olympic Committee rules, is the most popular drug in sports. More than two-thirds of about 20,680 Olympic athletes studied for a recent report had caffeine in their urine, with use highest among triathletes, cyclists and rowers.

But whether and how caffeine affects other, less-aerobic activities, like weight training or playing a stop-and-go team sport like soccer or basketball, has been less clear.

In a paper published this month in Social Psychology Quarterly, Christian Vaccaro and his co-authors point out that men are often stereotyped as emotionless, or at least as out of touch with their emotions and inept at managing them. They add,

Gendered feeling rules that implore men not to express shame, pain, love, or fear [...] further create the impression that men's emotional lives are muted. It would seem, however, that keeping so many emotions under control would require much work.

The longtime Penn State head coach was diagnosed with what his family had called a treatable form of lung cancer shortly after the university’s Board of Trustees voted to fire him.

He had been hospitalized in December after breaking his pelvis in a fall at his home and again in January for what his son called minor complications from his cancer treatments.

Some of those fourteeners — gentle Bierstadt, for instance, or the twin peaks of Grays and Torreys — require nothing more than stamina and a good pair of shoes to get to the top. They are formidable, to be sure, but they entail hikes, not climbs. My goal this year was a far more challenging destination: Longs Peak.

I had wanted to climb Longs since arriving in Colorado a decade ago, but the mountain always seemed too daunting. Even the easiest route to the top requires scrambling over slick rocks along sheer cliffs. (Segments of the route are aptly named the Ledges and the Narrows.) One is well advised to begin the climb by 3 a.m. so as to be up and off the summit before afternoon thunderstorms roll in. The mountain — ably assisted by gravity — has claimed many lives.

Earlier:

A spokesperson for the Paterno family has denied a report by CBS that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has died. CBS previously reported that the 85-year-old college-football legend had succumbed in his battle with lung cancer.

Earlier on Saturday, the family announced that Paterno's condition had taken a turn for the worse.

"Over the last few days Joe Paterno has experienced further health complications," family spokesman Dan McGinn told The Associated Press. "His doctors have now characterized his status as serious

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Behind the flashy colors and designs, there are some key elements to a running shoe that can make one type of shoe a great match for one runner and yet completely wrong for another. At speciality running shops, employees will size a runner’s feet and watch their natural stride to observe their level of pronation, or the way the foot rolls when it strikes the ground. Based on a person’s pronation, they’ll need either a neutral, stability or motion-control shoe.

Running shoes can be a pricey investment, but finding the right pair is worth it. However, that perfect pair is different for everyone, and in the wake of the barefoot running trend (covered extensively by Runner’s World), the role of running shoes in injury prevention has been called into question, reports the New York Times.

Young athletes' knees get plenty of wear and tear, and now new research is shedding light on how often this frequently used joint gets injured.

Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia found a more than 400% jump in knee injuries in young people treated at this large urban medical center between 1999 and 2011. Their findings offer a glimpse at just how many kids' legs might be getting hurt when playing sports.

The study was presented at the 2011 Meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Boston.

After reviewing patient billing records, sports medicine experts noticed an overall rise in the number of cases of three common knee injuries during this 12-year period.

The number of young people diagnosed with a torn meniscus (also referred to as "torn cartilage") increased by an average of 14 injuries per year. Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears rose by 11 cases a year. Tibial spine fractures had a more modest growth of one injury a year.

Depending on your definition of "sport," you could be spending your time doing something highly active (tennis, anyone?) or something that's barely a step up off the couch (we're looking at you, bowlers). So what are really the "healthiest" sports? We set out to find which recreational activities give the best bang for your buck: burning calories, building strength and stamina and generally improving athletic performance. If you're looking for a way to make your next workout not feel so much like work, then try out one of these heart-pumping activities instead.

Can yoga improve your running performance? Kimberly Fowler, a running and yoga expert, thinks so. She's designed a series of yoga poses and stretches that can help lengthen and loosen the muscles that can get tight during runs. The moves can help prevent injury from overused or tightened muscles.

Last week, the American sprinter Justin Gatlin showed up at the World Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Daegu, South Korea, with frostbite on his feet. This condition was painful — he told reporters that he had blisters on both heels — but it was also improbable, given that he’d developed the frostbite in Florida in August. But Mr. Gatlin had been sampling one of the newest, trendiest innovations in elite athlete training. He’d gone into a whole-body cryotherapy chamber, and his feet had frozen there.

Whole-body cryotherapy is, essentially, ice baths taken to a new and otherworldly level, and it is drawing considerable attention among athletes, both elite and recreational. In the cryotherapy chambers, the ambient temperature is lowered to a numbing  minus 110 Celsius or minus 166 Fahrenheit. The chambers were originally intended to treat certain medical conditions, but athletes soon adopted the technology in hopes that supra-subzero temperatures would help them to recover from strenuous workouts more rapidly.

That they would place faith in cold therapy is surprising, given that studies examining the effects of simple ice baths have been, at best, “inconclusive,” said Joseph Costello, a doctoral student in the physical education and sports sciences department at the University of Limerick in Ireland, who is studying the effects of whole-body cryotherapy.

A 2007 study of ice baths found that young men who completed a punishing 90-minute shuttle run and then eased themselves into a frigid bathtub (with the water cooled to 50 degrees Fahrenheit) for 10 minutes reported feeling markedly less sore a few days later than a control group who did not soak. But ice baths did not lower the runners’ levels of creatine kinase, often considered a hallmark of muscle damage. They felt better, but their muscles were almost as damaged as if they hadn’t soaked.

Can exercise make the brain more fit? That absorbing question inspired a new study at the University of South Carolina during which scientists assembled mice and assigned half to run for an hour a day on little treadmills, while the rest lounged in their cages without exercising.

Earlier studies have shown that exercise sparks neurogenesis, or the creation of entirely new brain cells. But the South Carolina scientists were not looking for new cells. They were looking inside existing ones to see if exercise was whipping those cells into shape, similar to the way that exercise strengthens muscle.

For centuries, people have known that exercise remodels muscles, rendering them more durable and fatigue-resistant. In part, that process involves an increase in the number of muscle mitochondria, the tiny organelles that float around a cell’s nucleus and act as biological powerhouses, helping to create the energy that fuels almost all cellular activity. The greater the mitochondrial density in a cell, the greater its vitality.

Past experiments have shown persuasively that exercise spurs the birth of new mitochondria in muscle cells and improves the vigor of the existing organelles. This upsurge in mitochondria, in turn, has been linked not only to improvements in exercise endurance but to increased longevity in animals and reduced risk for obesity, diabetes and heart disease in people. It is a very potent cellular reaction.

SEVEN years ago Lucy Danziger, the editor in chief of Self magazine, was looking for a way to get excited about exercise again. She had been running almost daily for years, but a marathon had left her with painful shin splints, and she was tiring of her routine.

“I needed a gentler way to work my body and also something to combat the boredom I was feeling,” she said recently.

Her solution was to train for a triathlon. The combination of running, biking and swimming helped her lose 20 pounds in six months. It also reinvigorated her. At 51, she now has 25 races under her belt, and a whole lot of company.

The popularity of triathlons has surged in the last two decades, despite the contest’s rigor. Annual membership with USA Triathlon, the domestic governing organization for such competitions, climbed to 135,000 in 2010 from around 15,000 in 1993.

The New York City Triathlon, which was held on Aug. 7, has experienced similar growth: 3,000 people signed up for this year’s event, compared with 683 in 2001. John Korff, the event organizer, said the race wasn’t well known at first.

“The popularity was one step ahead of bocce, and it was a lot of elite athletes,” he said. “But now the interest has exploded, and we see a more diverse range of participants, including many first timers.”

A triathlon might evoke images of a costly Lance Armstrong-style bike and an expensive gym membership for pool access. But preparing for a race doesn’t have to empty the wallet. The New York region has plenty of jogging and biking trails, and a fancy bike isn’t necessary.

That said, these are tough events. Some triathlons, including New York City’s, have conducted reviews of safety protocols following the deaths and injuries of competitors. Because of the grueling regimen, experts recommend that those new to triathlon training seek a doctor’s approval first.

Triathlons are usually divided into four categories. The entry level is a sprint, which includes a half-mile swim, a 12- to 13-mile bike ride and a 3-mile run. The Olympic level, which Mr. Korff organizes, roughly doubles each distance. Half Ironman and Ironman events significantly increase the distances. The city will hold its first Ironman next August. (The 3,000 slots sold out in 11 minutes.)

Aaron Rodgers. Drew Brees. LaDainian Tomlinson. Reggie Bush. Besides being NFL Pro Bowlers, what do these guys have in common?

They're all trained by Todd Durkin, C.S.C.S., owner of FitnessQuest 10 in San Diego, a contributor to Men's Health, and author of The Impact! Body Plan.

Durkin makes his living training elite athletes, but he also helps average men (and women) achieve their ideal bodies too. And he does so with the very same strategies, exercises, and workout plans he gives top athletes. Walk into his gym, in fact, and you may very well see a grandmother training next to an NFL superstar. That's pretty cool.

We recently asked Durkin to how top NFL athletes get and stay in peak physical condition—and how you can do it, too. Here's what he told us.

Secret #1: Work Your Weaknesses
Durkin: The average guy avoids exercises he's not good that. Oftentimes, these should be his focus.

I do the same thing with my athletes. When I first started working with LaDainian in 2002, he had room for improvement on his balance. He since has become so much better. When I started working with Brees (pictured here training at Durkin's gym) that same year, his core wasn't as strong as it should be. So with an emphasis on joint integrity and core strength, he was able to really improve his game.

Many guys come to me and they're already strong. I want to try and make them faster, more explosive, and more flexible. You would be surprised that some of our workouts don't involve a lot of traditional “weight” training. I like to emphasize speed, agility, quickness, acceleration, power, and metabolic conditioning along with my strength and flexibility work.

And this variety goes beyond punishing your muscles. I love to create exercises that challenge the mind as well as the body. For example, while doing 45-second slide board drills [where you skate side-to-side on a frictionless surface], I like to force my athletes to catch tennis balls coming at them while they're sliding. Can you catch two balls coming at you at the same time? Can you catch playing cards that I am tossing up in the air while I am quizzing you on questions relating to your sport, your position, or other questions that challenge you to think while you are tired? By involving so many aspects, you train your body. But you also train reaction time and hand-eye coordination, and all of these aspects combine to create a better athlete.

During the card flip game, Drew and LT both caught 18 out of 20 cards with one hand. This is incredibly challenging and requires great focus. And Drew once caught 139 tennis balls in a row. Think about that: He is skating back and forth on a slideboard working his entire body as I toss two balls at him at the same time, and it took 140 attempts for him to drop a ball once. Amazing.

Our bodies are designed to remain in balance, and when they become unbalanced, a natural mechanism has been interfered with. Usually this occurs through decisions that we make which become habits. Decisions are conscious and can be reversed. Habits are unconscious and are considerably harder to reverse. Even so, the more awareness you can bring to any health issue, the better your chances of reaching a solution.

This is certainly true of a problem that nags at the majority of Americans — their weight. No one can claim that weight loss isn't a struggle. "But I'm on a diet," is the cry of countless people. Yet we can start to end the struggle by looking soberly at the part being played by conscious choices.

About one-third of Americans are overweight and an additional third are obese. But the problem isn't limited only to the U.S.: Obesity has become a global problem. More than one in 10 persons, worldwide, is obese. Nor are overweight and obesity problems only the ills of rich nations. About 65 percent of the world's population lives in countries where health issues related to being overweight kill more people than being underweight. And the costs of obesity are immense, in personal, societal and economic terms. In the U.S., the medical care costs of obesity totaled about $147 billion in 2008.

Obesity is generally defined using the body mass index (BMI). BMI is an individual's weight multiplied by 703 and then divided by twice his or her height in inches (BMI calculators are available online. Many doctors think your waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is a better indication of disease risk. Your WHR, which is found by dividing the circumference of your waist by that of your hips, is a relatively good indicator of whether you have excessive visceral fat inside your abdomen. A ratio of under .8 for women or .9 for men is thought to be healthy.

Obesity Factors 

Our country's current obesity epidemic is due to a "perfect storm" of cultural, social, economic, psychological and economic factors. Getting older and your genetic inheritance are two risk factors that influence your likelihood of becoming obese, but they don't determine it.

Fortunately, other risk factors for obesity can be helped through social and lifestyle changes. Social and economic influences, like your regional culinary traditions and the way you ate growing up play a big part. Surprisingly, lack of a good night's sleep — seven or eight hours is considered healthy for most people — is a factor in weight gain. What kind of food and how much food you eat, and the amount of physical activity you get, are also vitally important. Lastly, eating "junk" food — highly processed foods, fast foods and refined carbs like white sugar, white flour and white rice — is a major risk factor.

Forget Dieting

Although we are a nation of dieters, that has done little to nothing to stem the tide of obesity. Studies have shown that a minuscule percentage of dieters — generally less than 5 percent — are able to lose weight and keep it off for two years. In addition, the cycle of gaining and losing the same ten or twenty pounds places an unhealthy stress upon your body.

"It's medieval and unbelievable." That's how fitness expert David Jack describes this "barbell complex" — five exercises strung together to create one serious fat-loss routine. "It's a metabolic nightmare for your body, but in a good way," says Jack, a Men’s Health advisor and director of fitness at TeamWorks in Acton, Massachusetts. 

Here at Men's Health, we don't actually call it a complex. We call it the workout from Hell. Try it just once and you'll no doubt agree: It incinerates fat and lights your muscles on fire. It may even leave you begging for mercy. (And if you really like tough workouts, make sure to try The Ultimate Fitness Challenge.)

Here’s how it works: You first put weight on the barbell. That's normal. But once you pick the barbell up, you never put it down, using the same weight to perform 5 consecutive exercises: the deadlift, straight-leg deadlift, barbell row, jump shrug, and hang clean. Watch the video below to see exactly how to do the routine.

Today is the day! You have finally decided to make that body transformation you always wanted. Are you feeling a little déjà vu? I know, I know, you have been here before, but this time it's going to be different. You have the perfect plan, the perfect gym — everything's perfect. Wait! Isn't that what you said last time?

I want you to stop for one second, take a deep breath and ask yourself, "Why do I always start off with good intentions and wind up with fatter thighs?"

Don't despair, the two hardest things pertaining to fitness are starting a program and sticking with that program. So you got the first part down, now how do you get over that hump? What is stopping you from following through? Why can't you wear skinny jeans, or have a perfectly etched mid-section that is reminiscent of a Greek God? Why, Why, Why? I will let you in on a little secret: If you really are going to make it happen this time then you need to make sure your mind and body are in sync.