The following list of advances in sports medicine will improve your running, your health, and even your mood. Give each of them a try.
We live in a high-tech, progressive world, so it’s natural to expect new scientific breakthroughs that will help your running. And indeed, the studies keep coming. Medical researchers are constantly investigating new ways to build strength, speed, endurance, injury prevention, heart health, and much, much more. Some of the results point the way to new practices you should consider adopting as a regular part of your fitness lifestyle. Others reveal hyped-up claims for the empty promises they are.
In this chapter, you’ll learn about a variety of sports medicine breakthroughs that have been proven effective in research-based studies. Think about them, and decide which ones could make you a healthier, happier runner. Remember: It often takes just one or two changes to make a dramatic improvement in your running and overall fitness.
You’ll also learn about a trio of products you don’t need to waste your hard-earned money on. When it comes to these, you’d be better off walking (or running) away as fast as possible. Focus on what has been proven helpful, ignore the empty hype of other products, and you’ll have more time and energy for the workouts that should be the cornerstone of your training program.
1. Kill pain with massage. Runners have long believed that massage helps their muscles rebound from tough workouts. Only recently, however, have researchers tried to prove this. In a study at the University of Montana, 18 men did 100 leg extensions, which induced muscle damage. One hour later the men either rested, cycled, or got a massage for a half hour. All of the men did the same thing again 24 hours later. Then the researchers tested a specific area of the men’s sore leg muscles. Those who had received massage treatments were able to withstand more pressure than those who had not; their legs had apparently recovered better from the 100 leg extensions.
“I was very surprised by the results,” says former massage skeptic Brent Ruby, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the Human Performance Lab at Montana. While massage may speed healing by increasing circulation, Dr. Ruby suspects that it mostly masks pain much the same way taking a painkiller would. “Massage tends to treat the symptom, but probably doesn’t alleviate the actual muscle damage,” says Dr. Ruby.
So don’t assume that massage will completely erase the effects of a hard workout. It probably won’t. But massage can help, and it can certainly help you feel better after hard efforts.
Q : What’s the best kind of massage you can have?
A : The one that feels best to you and produces the greatest overall benefits. The range of massage types keeps getting wider. Some runners prefer a relaxing, calming massage that gives the whole body a light going-over. Others want their massage therapist to attack them with a painful ferocity. It might depend on whether or not you have a specific, chronic injury (in which case, you might need the attacking kind of massage). At any rate, try different types of massage to find out what they’re like and what they can do for you.
2. Lower blood pressure by running for just 10 minutes. New findings show you need only 10 minutes of exercise to have a positive effect on blood pressure. Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, asked people to cycle for 10, 15, 30, and 45 minutes, then monitored their blood pressure for an hour after exercising. All of the exercise sessions lowered blood pressure, even the 10-minute one. Exercise was especially beneficial for people with borderline hypertension, says study coauthor Duncan MacDougall. So next time you try to talk yourself out of a run because you don’t have a spare 30 minutes, remember that even 10 minutes of exercise is better than none.
3. Use an elliptical trainer when you’re unable to run. We’ve known for some time that you can use an elliptical trainer to cross-train while you’re injured. But does using this exercise machine really burn as many calories and give you as good an aerobic workout as the real thing? Yes, say a pair of studies from the University of Oregon and Indiana State University. Researchers at both universities monitored heart rate, oxygen consumption, perceived exertion, and blood pressure of people who exercised on a treadmill or on an elliptical trainer. Both machines offered similar benefits, as long as the runners worked out at similar intensities.
“Remember that even 10 minutes of exercise is better than none.”
4. Prevent heart disease with vigorous exercise. Despite what you may have heard, vigorous exercise boosts health more than moderate exercise for just about every heart disease risk factor, including cholesterol and insulin levels. On the other hand, if you have high blood pressure, research shows that moderate exercise may do you more good, says I-Min Lee, Sc.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard, who recently reviewed the available research.
5. Strength train to improve running performance. Some runners shy away from weight lifting because they fear the practice will bulk up their muscles and make running feel harder. According to a new study, though, it doesn’t. In fact, in addition to preventing injuries, weight training may even improve your running. New Zealand researcher Robert Nicholson asked runners to do a series of weight-lifting exercises two or three times a week. The runners lifted a weight that was heavy enough to prevent them from doing more than eight repetitions of each exercise.
After 21 weeks, the weight lifters had significantly improved their lactate threshold, max VO2, running economy, and 10-K times. “At the beginning of the study, the group assigned to weight lifting had a faster 10-K time than the group that didn’t lift weights,” says Nicholson. “But the weight-lifting group improved by a greater amount than the running-only group by the end of the study.” He believes the weight lifters would have improved even more if most of the study participants hadn’t caught the flu at the end of the study.
This study could add more incentive to your stretching program. Researchers from Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, put 12 men and women through a battery of tests, which included a 40-yard dash. Then they asked the men and women to run downhill, making their legs tired and sore. Two days later, researchers asked half of the study group to stretch, while the other half did not. Both groups then repeated the initial series of tests. Those who had stretched improved their times in the 40-yard dash, while those who hadn’t stretched did worse.
6. To beat muscle soreness, avoid alcoholic drinks. Researchers from Kent State University asked a group of men to drink enough alcohol for their blood alcohol level to reach 0.15 (about eight beers for a 175-pound man), while another group of men abstained. Twelve hours later, researchers asked both groups to run 9 × 5-minute repeats. The men who drank the night before had longer-lasting, more intense muscle soreness than the group that abstained.
7. Stay hydrated, especially if you have asthma. Here’s one more reason to make sure you drink up, particularly if you have asthma. A study from the State University of New York at Buffalo found that asthmatics are more sensitive to dehydration. Researchers tested 16 people, once while hydrated and once while dehydrated. Dehydration decreased the asthmatics’ resting and postexercise pulmonary function, which makes it more difficult to breathe in enough air. Make sure you’re hydrated by sipping water or sports drinks throughout the day and consuming 5 to 8 ounces of fluid every 20 minutes during exercise.
8. Boost motivation with carbohydrate. Eating or drinking calories while you run a marathon can do more than just keep your muscles fueled. A new study has found that carbohydrate can keep your brain energized as well. Researchers from the University of South Carolina asked 10 men and women to drink a sports drink or water before and during vigorous exercise that lasted more than an hour. Those who consumed the sports drink not only were able to run longer—they also had better hand-eye coordination, moods, and concentration than those who drank water. Carbohydrate may work by maintaining levels of the brain chemical dopamine, which boosts energy, motivation, and awareness, says Mark Davis, Ph.D., director of the exercise biochemistry lab at the University of South Carolina.
9. Eat protein to control your cravings. As a runner, eating too much protein can tax your kidneys, increase your risk of dehydration, and hamper calcium absorption. Yet there may be a kernel of truth to all the high-protein diet hype. Recent studies show that unlike carbohydrate, protein may take a long time to digest, which could increase the number of calories your body has to burn to break it down. Protein also may help you feel fuller than carbohydrate can. To use protein to your advantage without limiting muscle-fueling carbs, forgo the high-protein diets; instead, simply include in every meal a protein-rich food such as fish, peanut butter, beans, a low-fat dairy product, or egg whites.
“It often takes just one or two changes to make a dramatic improvement in your running and overall fitness.”
With more and more people jumping on the fitness bandwagon every year, it’s inevitable that lots of unproven-but-highly-promoted products will follow them. Here are three that don’t work. They won’t hurt you, but you’d be much smarter to sink your dollars into quality running shoes and apparel.
Magnets. Plenty of runners are already using magnet therapy in the hope of reducing joint and muscle pain, but only a few studies have tested its effectiveness. Other studies have shown that magnets may reduce the discomfort of painful health conditions such as diabetic neuropathy, a burning sensation caused by nerve breakdown. So it seemed logical that magnets would reduce muscle soreness as well.
Apparently they don’t. In a study done at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, researchers asked 13 people to run downhill for 10 minutes to induce muscle soreness. Some of the runners then had 500-gauss magnets placed on their sore muscles 2 hours a day for 3 days, while the other runners used fakes. The magnets didn’t reduce muscle soreness.
Ginseng. Some runners take the herb ginseng to boost their energy. But a growing number of studies are calling ginseng’s bluff. One done on cyclists at the University of Southern Mississippi found that 1,200 daily milligrams of Siberian ginseng didn’t boost performance. Another study done at the University of Detroit found that 400 milligrams of panax ginseng didn’t improve anaerobic power or delay fatigue.
Cellulite creams. You probably suspected they didn’t work. Now there’s research to back you up. Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill asked 11 women to use a cellulite cream on one thigh and a placebo cream on the other. The creams did not reduce thigh size, but interestingly, both the cellulite and placebo creams made the women think their thighs were smaller.
Thanks to the Web, it’s easy to do your own medical research. The PubMed site allows you to input one or several keywords and then to search the same medical-text abstracts that M.D.s and Ph.D.s use in their research.
Three things to remember about this chapter:
1. You can’t go wrong with the good carbs. If you want to exercise regularly, you need to eat ample amounts of carbohydrates, because the body is designed to burn carbs more efficiently than other fuels. That said, you should eliminate as many “simple” carbs (sugar and high-fructose corn syrup) as possible, and concentrate on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Also, eat a little protein at every meal to make your body feel full.
2. Strength training is the perfect yang to the yin of running. Running builds your cardiovascular system—your heart and blood vessels. Wholebody strength training builds your muscles. You need both to live a healthy, balanced life, and you should include both in your workout plan. Spend about 80 percent of your workout time on running and other aerobic activities, and about 20 percent on strength training.
3. Live longer with exercise. People are concerned, as they should be, when they read about runners who die during a race or workout. But the facts are crystal clear: Greater fitness leads to a longer, more vibrant life. Still, vigorous exercise temporarily increases your risk of a heart attack. That’s why it’s important to arrange regular checkups with your doctor.