Categories
Nutrition

Is it Time to Turn Over a New Leaf?

One of my favorite go-to meals is a super smoothie, loaded with leafy greens and protein. It’s light but filling and packed with micro and macro nutrients. Not only is the taste super, but it is super good for me! I often ask though, “Can too much of a good thing be too much?” Usually after five days of eating a batch of raw spinach that chalky grit across my teeth makes me feel less excited about another helping of calcium oxalate and has me reaching for the kale. While the antioxidants and calcium are what I came for here at the bushel of spinach, rotating the greens seems like a great idea. Kale gets a turn on the menu, and maybe dandelion greens for a week, bok choy, chard and arugula to finish out the month. So with all the options out there, why risk eating too much of a good thing?

How much might be too much? I think once you start stacking bunches and bags of spinach leaves like cord wood, that might be a good time to turn over a new leaf. There is not an upper-level limit of these awesome vitamin rich foods (as long as there is no underlying health issue), but rather a general suggestion of listening to your body and paying attention to the cues it gives you about what feels good and what it needs.

Spinach is by far the easiest to blend into a smoothie with its mild flavor and relative ease of digestion. Other greens might be best on their own or in a salad, but they can be blended too. So whether your greens are on your plate or in your glass, variety keeps you coming back for more. I find the greens rotation a healthy balanced approach to my super smoothie meals. I get a variety or micronutrients (vitamins and minerals); I don’t burn out on one flavor; and I reduce the risk of developing an allergy, intolerance, or health issue from over-consumption. I know lots of us are on this same smoothie kick. What is your favorite super smoothie recipe?

Categories
Exercise Tutorials Flexibility/Recovery Strength Training

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness: DOMS

We just returned from a two-day adventure around Penobscot Bay. The winds and skies were varied and we adjusted our course accordingly. Day one was a smooth ride around the south side of Vinalhaven, where our hardest decisions were regarding snack management and music choices. In the evening we explored our anchorage, read books, and watched the shooting stars. After a calm night and placid morning the wind picked up and our sail home was sporty and challenging. It was quite a romp across the bay for the quick return to Rockland Harbor. Day one was filled with subtle sail trim and a few bow maneuvers. Day two had a lot more action, quick decision making, but still enough time to think about a few things. I started thinking about cause and effect that is obvious in sailing. When you trim the sail, move the tiller, or gybe the main you get instant feedback from the boat, you know what is going to happen and there is an immediate outcome. In contrast this is not the case this week at the gym for a lot of people.

I heard and saw countless stories of the dreaded Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) after this and last week’s workout. DOMS has a way of sneaking up on you long after your workout. It can begin anywhere from 6-8 hours after exercise to 24-36 hours later. This is nothing like the immediate response of a well trimmed sail. DOMS is pretty mysterious. Several studies try to pinpoint cause and variables of severity with inconsistent findings. Let’s just say it is a scientific perfect storm in our muscles perhaps a result of metabolic stress, trauma, and other factors. Despite the inconclusive findings, there are a few things we know about DOMS.

For many people DOMS occurs after a hard workout, with new exercises or a particular challenge. Anything beyond one’s normal range of intensity can cause soreness. (Always seek medical attention if you suspect an acute injury or something serious.) In particular we experience this type of soreness after a series of eccentric exercises. The eccentric phase of a lift occurs when a muscle contracts when lengthening, for example the downward motion of a biceps curl. Eccentric training is where we achieve our greatest muscle growth, so we certainly don’t want to skip it, and it makes sense it would hurt the most.

Things to know about DOMS:

  • Everyone experiences DOMS differently: onset, duration, intensity.
  • The severity of DOMS is not necessarily a reflection of how hard you worked.
  • The severity of DOMS is not a testimony of your strength or lack of it or your fitness level.
  • DOMS will decrease as your muscles adapt to the same motion. (subsequent weeks will hurt less)
  • It is impossible to avoid DOMS, even for competitive athletes.
  • The best thing to do for DOMS is to keep moving, gently.

While inconclusive as to whether or not it helps, it is best to stay hydrated and well rested, do a full dynamic warm-up, and stretch and foam roll after a workout.

I always get excited when I see “tempo” written on the board. I know I’m going to get some good work in with anything that has this kind of directive. These tempos remind us to slow down on the negative, the lengthening motion, and not just let our muscles fall with gravity. By doing this we are maximizing our gains from the movement. Unlike adjusting a sail, I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to experience after I’ve done 10 reps of a dumbbell incline bench press with a 1 up, 3 down tempo.. And personally this never hits until 36 hours later. Sometimes I’ll go to get out of bed, and I will wonder how I managed to get myself under a turf roller and home again without waking up in the middle of the night. Then I’ll remember I didn’t sleep walk and get rolled over, I just have sore muscles from the gym two evenings ago.

So while you are wobbling a little this week, and putting things on close surfaces with your t-rex arms, take solace in knowing your muscles are strengthening; you’re not the only one; and it will get better even though you didn’t see this coming.

Categories
Updates

Fundraiser SUCCESS for Special Olympics

This past Saturday a group of us gathered together at the gym, dressed up in our 80’s workout gear, and went through a “Sweating to the Oldies” workout.

Everyone brought donations (and even some members at the gym who didn’t participate donated) and we were able to fund raise just under $200 for the Special Olympics.

Thank you to everyone who participated.
BTW… this was a such a fun time. We set up the projection screen and followed along on the big screen.

We’ll definitely be doing one of these again!

Have a Great Thursday!

Hunter G.

Categories
Strength Training

Target Toning and Spot Reduction

It comes as no surprise that infomercials are not the best source of fitness knowledge. Strewn with outrageous claims…$19.95/month and free shipping if you order now will not guarantee a slimmer waist in just three minutes a day, even if they say so on t.v. I was sorting through a box from the 90s, and I discovered the notorious Thigh Master! I somehow acquired this in a dorm move and always thought it was hysterical. It is a relic of those years when thinner thighs were just three minutes a day away. Hmmm…

The myth that target toning and spot reduction are interchangeable is still used as a marketing strategy today. I am sure there are products out there that promise big results for those “trouble areas.” To put a rest to infomercial misconceptions, know that the gimmicks for spot reduction don’t work. Just because you are working a certain muscle group does not mean you’re losing the fat that covers that muscle. During a workout our muscles are fueled by carbohydrates, fat, and protein pulled from anywhere in the body, not just your targeted spot. Subcutaneous fat loss is more systemic and general than that. The good news is with our workouts we will see overall fat loss, and with target toning we can tone certain muscle groups. So arm curls will not necessarily help shed the extra weight we sometimes carry in our arms, but they will help tone and strengthen those muscles. While sit ups won’t give us a slimmer waistline, they do help strengthen our core.

Our best exercise offense to our fat loss goals is building muscle so that our metabolism increases and we burn more calories. A whole body workout (with proper nutrition) is more efficient for this goal. Couple this with target toning exercises and you can definitely feel results and eventually see them as well. As for the Thigh Master, I’m going to box it up for another ten years and get another laugh from it when I sell it on eBay as a collectable.