Survival of the Fittest

[From left to right: what a tendon is supposed to look like; one with tendinitis; one with tendinosis. Credit: Vicky Earle]

Did you know that most athletes who believe they’re plagued by tendinitis (also spelled tendonitis) actually have tendinosis (also spelled tendonosis)? Stupid athletes.

Just kidding — in many instances, a doctor or physical therapist misdiagnosed the problem, and that misdiagnosis can mean wasted treatment time, prolonged pain and lost sports seasons. Stupid doctors. (Kidding again!)

But there are some pretty important distinctions. Tendinitis involves inflammation of the tendon, doesn’t last longer than a couple weeks and heals just as fast, while tendinosis involves degeneration and can go on and on (and on), until you’re able to stimulate collagen regeneration in the injured area.

As far as treatment options go, while tendinitis responds well to ice, rest and anti-inflammatories to treat the inflammation, tendinosis does better with therapeutic exercises — mainly of the eccentric, or negative, variety.

Had I known that five years ago, I might have had a less irritating relationship with my knees. Some of the same strengthening therapies would have held true, but I wasted an awful lot of time treating inflammation that wasn’t there.

The differences between the conditions, as well as some of the best treatment options, are covered in more depth in the May Experience Life article “Tendon Trouble,” which, if you’ve ever struggled with a case of tennis elbow or runner’s knee that you can’t shake, is worth a read.

I also really like this article at Runnersweb.com. Some highlights:

• At least 25 percent of athletes treated for knee problems at major sports clinics are typically diagnosed with tendonitis, but there is strong evidence that the majority of athletes diagnosed with tendonitis are not really suffering from the disorder.
• The “tendonitis plague” may actually be a severe outbreak of tendonosis, not tendonitis.
• A reasonable course of therapy for tendonitis, an inflammatory condition, would involve the use of anti-inflammatory drugs; in fact, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications have become the mainstay of treatment for so-called “overuse” injuries to tendons. The trouble is that there is evidence that anti-inflammatory drugs can actually have a negative impact on the progress of tendonosis, in effect retarding the healing process.
• It is clear that a tendon [suffering from tendinosis] needs to be mechanically stimulated in order to begin the process of activating its fibroblasts and synthesizing significant quantities of new collagen fibers; complete rest would prevent this from happening.
• One tried-and-true treatment for tendinosis involves the deliberate, eccentric loading of a painful tendon and its muscle, a process which seems to accelerate strengthening of both the tendon and its associated sinew.

In other words, rather than endlessly icing, resting and popping anti-inflammatories, those of us with suspiciously long-lasting “tendinitis” might be better served by adjusting our routines and doing eccentric exercises to stimulate healing.

[photo courtesy of shoeboxin on flickr]

I cannot be stopped. From writing about pull-ups, anyway. I can be stopped all-too-easily from actually doing them.

But after this post, I promise to try to attempt to consider writing about pull-ups less often. (Sorry — as far as promises go, that’s the best I can do right now. Kelly at Fitness Fixation and Crabby at Cranky Fitness are talking about pull-ups, too, so that reeled me in all over again.)

If you’re new here, please allow me to inundate you with previous pull-up posts so you, too, can choose between feeling irritated or inspired: “How to Do a Pull-up (or 15),” “Pull-Ups Ad Nauseam,” “Tomorrow’s Work Out: Pull-Ups” and “Lax in L.A.”

After “How to Do a Pull-up (or 15),” my former rugby teammate and longtime friend Halvo left a comment announcing that not only can she do 37 consecutive pull-ups, but that she’s recently been working toward one-armed pull-ups. (What?!) To add insult to injury, she then advocated trying pull-ups with added weight. Which is great advice, don’t get me wrong — if you can already do at least a handful of pull-ups. Or more than a handful.

But many of us are struggling to get to that point, so I wasn’t surprised when I received an indignant email from a reader saying, “Who IS that girl, anyway?!”

[Pull-ups are whatEVER.]

WHO IS HALVO? She’s a Mensa-belonging, Wedge Co-op-loving, rugby-playing, sweet-as-pie fitness freak who occasionally likes to break things in dark alleys. (Things people put out as trash. And she cleans up her mess afterward.) And she will be visiting Philadelphia next weekend, so if you’re in the area and you’d like to feel her biceps, let me know.

At my request, she took some video of herself doing her thang on the pull-up bar, and she sent me three videos in all. One of her cranking out some very impressive almost-one-armed pull-ups; one of her doing a few with added weight; and one of her doing a superhuman number of pull-ups. Pretty amazing stuff, even if you don’t bother with pull-ups yourself. Something is up with the last video, so you’ll have to settle for the first two.

Single-Armed Halvo

Warning: She appears to attack the videographer afterward, so the camera gets a little Blair Witch Project for a second there. Get your barf bag.

Heavy Halvo

Warning: Extreme jealousy may ensue after watching this video.

Halvo says: “I started really working on pull-ups about a year and a half ago. I think I could already do 12 in a row, but my form was probably pretty bad. I do pull-ups two or three times a week, on the same days that I lift my shoulders, back and biceps. I do three sets of as many regular pull-ups as I can, resting 30 to 60 seconds in between. Interspersed throughout the rest of my workout, I do a set each of wide-grip pull-ups, parallel-grip pull-ups, chin-ups (underhand grip), one-armed pull-ups and L-pull-ups. I add weight to all but the L- and one-armed pull-ups.”

If you didn’t get that barf bag yet, might want to grab it now. Oh, to be that strong … [wistful sigh] (But take heart — she has little bitty stick legs.)

IN PURSUIT OF THAT KIND OF STRENGTH — or at least the kind of strength it takes to do a single pull-up, which is enough of a feat — Experience Life published the article “Clear the Bar,” which features an exercise progression that, if all goes well, will result in your doing an unassisted pull-up.

If you recall, the photo shoot for the article was held in L.A., at the gym where the reality TV show Work Out is filmed. (Yes, I met Jackie Warner, and as with most celebrities, she’s tiny in person.)

The night before the shoot, I was informed that we would be shooting some accompanying video of the exercises, and that I would be providing commentary.

This is what I said: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!”

This is what my editor said: “You’ll be great. Good luck!”

Well, I was decidedly NOT great. The idea of being in front of a camera wipes my brain perfectly clean, which I proved with take after (mis)take where I appeared not to know my own name or where I worked.

The only thing I could have answered for sure was the question, “Do you like being on camera?” (NO.)

Regardless, the finished product can now be found in Experience Life’s video section (who knew we had one of those?!). Also posted below. No promises about the quality — it’s literally our art director Lydia holding the camera and me reading the descriptions from the article as our fitness models Megan and Kaese did the exercises. But sometimes it’s just nice to see exercise demos, and the video serves that purpose adequately enough.

Experience Life Pull-Up Series

Warning: I should have introduced myself by saying, “Hello, I’m a giant toolbox.”

Oh, and since in the video I completely forgot to introduce each exercise, they are as follows: standing lat pull-downs, assisted L-pull-ups, resistance-band pull-ups, eccentric (or negative) pull-ups and partner pull-ups. Enjoy!

[Chia seeds: delicious, nutritious and itty bitty.]

I had intended to write this post at 9 a.m., when I arrived home in a particularly good mood after a long walk with my dog, Zoey.

[She may not be pretty, but she’s got a great personality.]

It was already 68 degrees in Philly (6 hours later, it’s now 78 — no complaints from this former Midwesterner), and I’d taken a detour past my favorite sign in the city, pictured below. (For Philly natives, it’s on the back side — pun totally intended — of the Free Library on 7th and Carpenter.)

[Why is “poop” in quotation marks?! What does it really mean?]

After deciding it was a banana vanilla Wallaby yogurt kind of morning, I took it a step further and decided to add two tablespoons of the chia seeds I’d received in the mail the other day.

Chia as in Ch-ch-ch-chia Pets? Yes, the very same.

Turns out chia seeds are high in soluble fiber (7 grams per 2 tablespoons), calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, copper, niacin and zinc. They contain powerful antioxidants (chlorogenic and caffeic acids, myricetin, quercetin and kaempferol flavonols). Plus, they’re a good source of protein and higher in omega-3 fatty acids — which protect against inflammation and heart disease — than any other plant source (higher even than flaxseed). To boot, they’re gluten free and have very little sodium.

I heard about chia seeds through two of my favorite fitness bloggers, Crabby McSlacker at Cranky Fitness and MizFit of MizFit Online. More specifically, when MizFit wrote this guest post on the topic back in March, I was convinced enough to place my order same day.

I did some further digging, and wouldn’tchia (<it’s like taking candy from a baby) know it, it’s looking like chia is poised to be the next superfood.

Mehmet Oz, MD, was on Oprah speaking to the benefits of chia (see the clip here), and Andrew Weil, MD, wrote an article in Prevention magazine called “Chia Seeds Are Good for the Heart.” There are even books extolling the virtues of the chia seed — take The Magic of Chia: Revival of an Ancient Wonder Food by James Scheer, and Chia: Rediscovering A Forgotten Crop Of The Aztecs by Ricardo Ayerza Jr. and Wayne Coates. And — I can’t resist this little plug — Experience Life featured these Omega3 Chia Energy bars in the May issue.

Now for a few disclaimers. I’m in Mark Sisson’s camp when it comes to so-called “miracle foods.” (Click here to see his assessment of goji berries.) As with the goji, chia seeds are probably not a solution to all of your health problems. They are just really good for you, is all. And adding something to your diet that isn’t processed to the hilt and full of additives — that is, on the other hand, packed with nutrients? To me, that seems like good sense, but probably not a miracle. Or maybe it is a miracle that we, collectively, seem to be starting to have better sense about what we put in our mouths. Your call.

My other disclaimer is that while the taste of chia seeds was completely inoffensive — in fact, I really liked the nutty crunch they added to my yogurt — when I got distracted for a bit and then came back to my dish, I discovered a slippery, gelatinous coating around the seeds. Also not offensive, but definitely something to be prepared for.

According to the article “Chia Seeds: The Ancient Food of the Future” at www.living-foods.com, “This gel-forming reaction is due to the soluble fiber in the chia. Research[ers] believe this same gel-forming phenomenon takes place in the stomach when food containing these gummy fibers, known as mucilages, are eaten. The gel that is formed in the stomach creates a physical barrier between carbohydrates and the digestive enzymes that break them down, thus slowing the conversion of carbohydrates into sugar. In addition to the obvious benefits for diabetics, this slowing in the conversion of carbohydrates into sugar offers the ability for creating endurance. Carbohydrates are the fuel for energy in our bodies. Prolonging their conversion into sugar stabilizes metabolic changes, diminishing the surges of highs and lows [and] creating a longer duration in their fueling effects.”

Think of it as all-natural Gu, I guess.