On Injury & Inflammation, Part II: Basic steps to keep inflammation working for you

The inflammation from training isn't necessarily a bad thing..to a point. Heavy training blocks and/or workouts often result in compounded residual muscle fatigue leading to recovery and further adaptation. What matters is keeping inflammation in check and keeping us training at a higher level and avoiding injury. giving your body the building blocks it needs and pushing the biochemical cascades of recovery always in your favor can keep training at a level otherwise impossible to maintain.
Sifting through all the hype that can easily stump folks, here are my top picks for keeping inflammation at productive, health levels:

1. Diet- I will not stress this enough. Crap in, Crap out. There are numerous ways to fuel the body and frankly there is no "truly right way" to go about it. One thing I can stress is making sure to get quality fruits and vegetables (organic), consuming good amounts of raw, unadulterated dietary fat, and focusing on consistently meeting your protein needs for muscle/tissue repair. Sugar, hydrogenated fats, and foods out of boxes are NOT your friend.

[That is brief private diet counseling in two sentences :)]

2. Massage- I see a massage therapist twice a month to get the aches out. It's an investment in my body that I feel has kept me free from getting a constant crop of aches and pains. It also has improved my blood pressure (stress hypertension).

3. Trigger Point/Foam Rolling- I got my first foam roller when I was in High School. The industry was just taking off, but I knew at that point foam rolling would be something I always stayed with. These days I use the TriggerPoint product line to keep my muscles in check between massages. These have been instrumental in my recovery from the ankle injury.

4. Sleep- I'm guilty of not getting enough. I do try, but being a workaholic and holding down a lot of professional projects does have drawbacks on my sleep. Shooting  for 7-8 hrs of sleep is ideal. I fall in the 6-7 hrs range myself.

5. Supplements- for the average American, I don't recommend a whole lot of supplementation outside of Vitamin D and Probiotic. Athletes however should embrace additional supplements as a way to boost recovery and speed along to adaptation faster. The key is nutrient timing and learning what you're needing to get the results you want!
    Supplements that I recommend:
Protein powders-- they're convenient, rapidly digested, and versatile. If following exercise they can be paired with carbohydrates to yield greater muscle adaptation. A great product to consider is Recoverite from Hammer-- it has garnered countless rave reviews and plenty of my own acquaintances enjoy the products with good result. With my dairy allergy I use their Vegan Protein powders

Branch-Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs)-- while found in some protein powders, these are often found in exclusive product lines.  Branch Chains are glucogenic, meaning they are readily utilized by the body in tissue maintenance because they metabolize much more like glucose. The BCAA travel in metabolic pathways that are exclusive of other amino acids, and yield gains in muscle tissue greater than protein doses with far less branch chain amino acid content but of equal volume.

Digestive Enzymes-In the late 70s and through the 80s the East Germany national teams used a great deal of systemic digestive enzymes for boosting recovery and one only has to look at the medal counts around that time to see their credit. Digestive Enzymes allow the body to 'switch' the immune cells in the body that are involved in the unspecific, or innate, inflammatory response to tame excessive inflammation. The enzymes have been used in place of non-steroidal drugs with good success and a certain Dr. Rodriguez of New York has given them credit for cancer treatment.
With my ankle injury I used Hammer Tissue Rejuvenator for limiting excessive inflammation in the joints and muscle tissues. The product includes a whole host of additional complementary anti-inflammatory and joint-building ingredients like Turmeric, Burdock, and Glucosamine. I recommend the product for daily or periodic use in heavy training blocks
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training is a volatile process-- it involves the body's combustion of energy-yielding substrates while being put under a  complex metabolic thicket of physiological adaptations, only to do the thankless job of putting our bodies back together after the fact. The urgent need to create inflammation for handling this task should be understood as favorable and the process of recovery taken with patience and diligence.  Delivering the necessary substrates needed for the body to recover is the second-most important thing an athlete can do to improve (the first going out and training!)


"I don't believe in over-training, there's only under-recovery."

~Floyd Landis

How much? How soon before or after? How often? Nutrient Timing is KEY. stay tuned for future blog posts! 

On Injury & Inflammation, Part I: the good, the bad...and a badly sprained ankle.

We all hear about how inflammation is bad stuff. In a way, some people see all inflammation as a bad thing,  but providing we give ourselves proper time for recovery and adaptation there are instances where inflammation is the right thing to push our fitness to the next level. Other times inflammation results in acute injuries and overtraining.
Recently, I dealt with the frustration of a bad sprain in my ankle (not appropriate inflammation!). "Oh Patrick, we ALL get them. Shake it off." Unfortunately, this was my first ankle sprain EVER. I'm not known for the most stable feet on the trail, but I'm certainly known for the most durable ankles. I was horrified with the swelling, bruising, and aching pain that developed from the trauma. The blessing is that I was able to get off my feet and control the swelling and inflammation through ice, elevation, fluids, and plenty of anti-inflammatory foods/supplements. I had a pretty tough time with several of the ankle tendons and saw PT for rehab who diagnosed it with a class II mid-ankle sprain.

An introduction to inflammation: Welcome to my world
I deal with inflammation on a daily basis whether it is through seeing a patient with systemic body infections in the ICU or my aching muscles/tendons that are feeling the strain of training load. In medicine, we try to limit the damage done by the inflammation brought on by disease process and/or trauma. Whereas in sport, we focus on creating inflammation (workout) -- but not too much--and the ability to adapt from those stresses (recovery.

How inflammation develops in the athlete
The very event of "working out" generates inflammation in the body. The movement of substrate, fluid shifts, and blood gases create a volatile environment in which our body is perfectly adapted to deal with. Yes, that's right: exercise is natural. Back before we all worked behind desks or machines,  many people called it manual labor or daily farm chores. But one should never be afraid of exercise doing them harm!
The element of work is quickly followed with the period of recovery and subsequent adaptation-- substrates from food, hydration, and intracellular mechanisms (the details of which are for a different post!). Work followed by rest; we adapt from the stresses on our body. In the case of an athlete this adaptation means performance gains.

How inflammation can hurt us
There must be a time of recovery from the stresses of training. Adaptation is only after the body is ready for more work. Increasing volume, intensity, or having a change in the kind of activity (including spraining your ankle, doh) too quickly means the stress mounts up faster than the body can adapt. In the athlete this detrimental event can be seen as a drop in performance (HR, watts, pace, etc.) or outright injury.


So how do we keep inflammation in check and use it to our benefit? check out Part Two