IS YOUR SPORTS DRINK HELPING OR HINDERING YOUR PERFORMANCE?
Do energy and sports drinks help performance or do they just add empty calories?  Expensive and highly visible advertising campaigns and celebrity athlete spokespersons give many people the impression that these drinks are healthy and essential during or after a workout to replace lost electrolytes, carbohydrates and fluids. Although simple carbohydrates are helpful for athletes engaging in high-intensity exercise, are sports drinks effective? Studies seem to be split on the matter.
In one study, researchers prepared beverages containing glucose, maltodextrin or neither, so that they tasted identical, and gave them to athletes, who rinsed the drinks around in their mouths before spitting them out during exercise. Despite not reaping the energizing effects of the carbohydrates in the drinks, the rinsing of the simple sugar mixes were shown to "significantly reduce the time to complete the cycle time trial," while the placebo drinks had no such effect. The data was so impressive that the researchers concluded "much of the benefit from carbohydrate in sports drinks is provided by signaling directly from mouth to brain rather than providing energy for the working muscle."
Another study found that citric acid, commonly found in sports drinks, ate away at the enamel coating on teeth. As a result, the drinks could easily leak into the bone-like material underneath, causing a weakening and softening of the tooth that could result in severe tooth damage and even tooth loss if left untreated. Sports drinks are up to 30 times more erosive to your teeth than water. As this recent study pointed out, brushing your teeth does not help because citric acid in the sports drink will soften tooth enamel so much it could be damaged just by brushing.
The leading brands of sports drinks on the market typically contain as much as two-thirds the sugar of sodas and more sodium. They also often contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), artificial flavors, and food coloring, none of which belong in your body.
Sports drinks and energy drinks will cause weight gain, similar to drinking soda. It is a sad irony that many people work hard and sweat to lose weight, only to gain weight from drinking sports drinks. And although these drinks are often referred to as "energy" drinks, in the long run the sugar they contain does just the opposite. A quick explosion of energy followed by a plummet in blood, as your pancreas floods the body with insulin to balance out the toxic stimulation to your blood sugar. So the quick energy you may feel from the sugar soon becomes less energy as your blood sugar drops.
"Energy drinks" were popularized in the U.S. with the 1997 introduction of Red Bull, a carbonated beverage from Austria that contains 80 mg of caffeine in every bottle - about the same amount as is found in a cup of coffee. For comparison, classic Coca Cola contains 23 mg caffeine and Mountain Dew contains 37 mg caffeine.
The calories in these drinks do provide some energy, but mostly their content of caffeine and taurine turn up one's feelings of alertness and may produce troublesome side effects such as anxiety, irritability, heart palpitations, difficulty sleeping, and indigestion. These manifestations are more likely to occur with "energy drinks" than with hot coffee, which is usually drunk more slowly than the chilled "energy drinks". "Energy drinks" can also lead to dehydration because caffeine stimulates urination and thus increases water loss. Dehydration during athletic activities not only reduces performance, but also can cause painful muscle cramping.
Because it is metabolized by the liver, the fructose in high fructose corn syrup does not cause the pancreas to release insulin the way it normally does. Fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar. This is most likely a big reason Americans continue to get fatter. Fructose raises serum triglycerides significantly. For complete internal conversion of fructose into glucose and acetates, it must rob ATP energy stores from the liver. ATP is the fuel, which supplies the energy to muscles, especially while exercising. If you are robbing your muscles' energy stores, then actually the sports drink is decreasing your athletic performance.
And if your sports drink is low calorie and sugar-free, be warned that it likely contains an artificial sweetener, which is even worse for you than high-fructose corn syrup or sugar.
Sports drinks also contain large quantities of salt, which is there to replace electrolytes. However, unless you're sweating profusely and for a prolonged period, that extra salt is simply unnecessary, and possibly harmful.
Also the excess salt will actually make you thirstier and make you want to drink more, while causing you to retain water and feel heavier. In many ways drinking sports drinks is not a whole lot better than chugging a can of soda after your workout. Less than 1 percent of those who use sports drinks actually benefit from them.
Unless you exercise for more than 30 minutes at a time, sports drinks are unnecessary. It's only when you've been exercising for longer periods, such as 60 minutes or more, or at an extreme intensity, such as on a very hot day or at your full exertion level, that you may need something more than water to replenish your body.
Anything less than 45 minutes will not result in a large enough fluid loss to justify using these high-sodium, high-sugar drinks. WHY BUTTER IS BETTER We have a health crisis today. Our children are suffering from allergies, asthma, learning and behavioral problems. Obesity, diabetes, degenerative diseases and infertility are increasing and our medical systems and hospitals are in chaos. There is much agonizing and discussion about what is causing these problems but a large part of the answer is blindingly obvious and there is a great body of research already done! In the 1930s, Dr. Weston A. Price, a dentist from Ohio, traveled the world to study the diets of indigenous peoples who exclusively ate local traditional foods. He compared the glowing good health, freedom from tooth decay, excellent bone structure and mental stability of these indigenous peoples to the Americans of his day who were suffering from dental problems, mental illness, allergies, arthritis, asthma, heart disease and cancer. His book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, documents his research and has become a classic work in the field of nutrition. It is still published by the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. He found that when indigenous people adopted diets consisting of processed and denatured foods such as white flour, sugar, canned foods, vegetable oils and pasteurized and reduced-fat dairy products, they developed the same chronic diseases that plague us today. Dr. Price analyzed the foods that the healthy people he found were eating. He discovered that traditional diets contained an abundance of minerals & vitamins, especially vitamins A and D found in seafood, eggs and the fat and organ meats of grass-fed animals. Traditional diets varied tremendously throughout the world - however all traditional diets contained at least four times the minerals and water-soluble vitamins and ten times the amount of fat-soluble vitamins as the ‘modern' diet of his day. It is these fat soluble vitamins that are missing in our diets today. And why is this so? Because fear of saturated fat and cholesterol underpins most nutritional advice and makes us afraid to eat traditional foods rich in natural fat and cholesterol such as butter, cream, full-fat natural milk in addition to organ meats, tallow (beef and lamb fat) and lard (pork fat). Many traditional cultures valued foods high in animal fat and rich in nutrients. Our bodies require these nutrient-dense foods to function properly at a cellular level and for reproduction. These fats do not cause obesity or heart disease and cholesterol is needed for many vital processes in the body. However we are told to avoid these foods and ‘low fat' and ‘cholesterol free' are promoted - even for children just 2 years old!  Fear of fat is making us sick - and fat! Think back to our grandparents' day. Children did not have masses of allergies and learning problems or get fat when they were eating eggs and butter for breakfast instead of dry processed breakfast cereals, processed fruit juices and toast with margarine and jam! They also ate plenty of grass fed meat - chops with the fat on them and roasts with all the fat in the gravy. Nor did they eat foods cooked in unstable polyunsaturated vegetable oils and trans-fats.
We are becoming malnourished by over-eating the wrong foods. Generation after generation, we are depleting ourselves and reducing our ability to reproduce. Our reliance on synthetic substitutes is dangerous: foods labeled ‘health foods' - soy infant formula, highly processed breakfast cereals and health food bars for example are often nutrient-poor foods, high in sugar, additives, fillers, artificial sweeteners and trans-fats. We are literally ‘starving' ourselves of essential nutrients whilst becoming overweight. A huge amount of the food in our supermarkets is based on sugar, refined carbohydrates, refined vegetable oils, soy additives and trans fats - all produced for shelf life and profit. Next time you are in a supermarket, look at the relative shelf space of butter and margarines! When was the last time you saw a TV ad telling you how good butter is? Modern science is confirming that butter from grass fed cows is one of the healthiest whole foods you can include in your diet. Despite unjustified warnings about saturated fat from well-meaning, but misinformed nutrition and health "experts", the list of butter's benefits is impressive indeed. It is a rich source of easily-absorbed vitamin A - needed for a wide range of functions in the body from maintaining good vision to keeping the endocrine system in top shape. Butter also contains all the other fat-soluble vitamins (E, K, and D). It is rich in trace minerals and also contains butyric acid and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) both of which are known to help protect against cancer. Only grass-fed cows produce good levels of CLA in their milk and tallow (meat fat) so avoid "grain fed"! Butter from grass fed cows also has small, but equal, amounts of omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, the so-called essential fatty acids. Margarine on the other hand is an imitation food full of synthetic additives and colors and made from highly processed omega 6 rich vegetable oils which distort the omega 3/omega 6 balance and generate many health problems! So enjoy your butter! We can be happier and healthier and maintain normal weight by eating the nutrient-rich foods we have avoided for so long!
BEFORE & AFTER
JIMMY McQUEEN
My total weight loss has been about 25 pounds, lowered my blood pressure where I no longer have to take medication for it, sleep better, snore less, and don't crash in the afternoon at 3:00 anymore like I used to. I heard about crossfit through my wife hearing about it at work and I saw a friend's pictures from his crossfit gym in Myrtle Beach on facebook. I saw and heard about crossfit twice in a week, and was burnt out from going to Columbia Athletic Club and not seeing many results. I googled crossfit in columbia found Paul's box on Blanding and now here I am.
Age: 29
Occupation: Sales Rep for Discovery Health Record Solutions
CrossFit-ing since: June 2009
Something other members wouldn’t know about you: I got a blackbelt in Taekwondo when I was 15, a redbelt in Kuk Sool Won at eighteen, then college came and I started my decline.
Biggest accomplishment you think can be attributed to CrossFit: weight loss, improved strength, speed and gave me a little confidence boost.
Favorite WOD: I like most of the fallen hero WODs
Least favorite WOD: anything with OHS
What do you do outside of CrossFit: Carolina Football & concerts
A quote that inspires you: "I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon. Sue me. And since I don't have a butler I have to do it myself... so, most nights before I go to bed I will lay out 6 strips of bacon out on my foreman grill. Then I go to sleep. When I wake up I plug in the grill. I go back to sleep again, then I wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. It is delicious, it's good for me, it's a perfect way to start the day. Today I got up, I stepped on to the grill and it clamped on to my foot. That's it. I don't see what's so hard to believe about that." -Michael Scott SCALING YOUR WOD...LOSE THE EGO
The idea is to challenge yourself with all the exercises, neither holding back on a strength nor pushing too hard on a weakness.
As CrossFitters, we rightly take pride in setting high standards for ourselves, as evidenced by our benchmark “girl” and “hero” workouts, which are prescribed with standard loading parameters. These standards do play a positive role. They create a strong bond in the CrossFit community by allowing elite athletes from different affiliates, even different countries, to measure their performances against each other. For newer CrossFitters, the standards provide a measurable performance goal towards which they can build. So standards can be a good thing. But what’s the downside? To understand that, let’s go back to the basic description of what CrossFit is all about: “constantly varied, functional movements, executed at high intensity across a wide array of modal domains.” The description if made up of three parts. First, the types of movements performed; we want them to be constantly varied and functional for obvious reasons. Second, the level at which the movements are performed; while people can offer countless subjective definitions of what “high intensity” means, we in CrossFit define this mathematically as maximizing power output, or the amount of work (i.e. moving a given mass a specific distance) done in a given amount of time. Third, training across different modal domains; we design different CrossFit workouts to emphasize different metabolic pathways and elicit different training responses.
What happens when we scale WODs by loading them as close to “the standard” as possible, without paying much attention to how long it takes the athlete to complete the WOD? We certainly satisfy the first part of what CrossFit is about, since we’re generally prescribing the same or relatively similar movements as the “standard” WOD. The problem lies with the last two parts. Loading a WOD as close to standard as possible may make for a brutal and taxing workout. However, it usually fails to maximize the athlete’s power output, and it often runs the risk of eliciting a different or even sub-optimal training response than that for which the WOD is intended.
Here’s the general problem: making consistent fitness gains requires a careful calibration and variation of workout intensity. Working at moderate intensities relative to max has the benefit of producing neurological gains through neuropathway efficiency and motor unit recruitment while also providing some potential muscle building if working at increased volumes. Using lighter weights makes you better at the skill of moving the weight through a particular range of motion, which is useful for developing efficiency and economy of movement to use when training at higher load-based intensities. However, if loads remain sub-maximal at every training session with any and all variations in volume, then athletes will remain weak at best. Conversely, working with excessive volumes at greater than optimal percentages of max significantly increases the risk of injury and taxes the nervous system excessively, which results in a negative training response. Furthermore, in calibrating load scaling, intensity must match intent. By this I mean that it is important to match intensity relative to the desired training response and the intended modal domain for the workout in question. Simply put, “optimal intensity” will translateinto different loads depending on whether the WOD is supposed to involve a short burst of raw power or a more controlled use of pacing and endurance.
The key then is to find a way to scale the load so as to maximize power output within the prescribed modal domain. We want to scale the WOD so that the athlete is moving as much weight as possible in as short a time as possible. That means scaling the WOD to a load where the athlete can be reasonably expected to complete the WOD in an amount of time that will match the intent of the WOD.
The basic method of Relative Intensity training is simple: First, use a barbell strength training program to measure maximum power outputs for basic movements, defined as 1 RM (rep maximum). Second, scale WOD loads as a percentage of 1 RM for the movement in question, depending on the desired training response and modal domain being trained. Third, use the barbell strength training program to progressively increase 1 RM, and in so doing progressively scale the WOD loads higher and higher.
In the case of Diane, as well as other similar WODs (most involving the 21-15-9 set format), athletes maximize power output somewhere between 45-55 percent of 1 RM. So for this athlete, with a max deadlift of 350 lbs., the prescribed “standard” of 225 lbs. is 65 percent of 1 RM, which is suboptimal. Instead of having him slog through the WOD “to standard,” I would scale the load to 50 percent of 1 RM, which is 175 lbs. As for the handstand pushups, he can get through 14 consecutively, so instead of a 21-15-9 progression, I would prescribe a 12-9-6 progression (for the handstand pushups only, not the deadlifts).
But wait, you might ask yourself, isn’t that letting the athlete off easy? Shouldn’t we be pushing our athletes to work as hard as possible? To which I reply no, there’s
nothing easy about this approach, and yes, we should push our athletes as hard as possible, and that is precisely what this scaling method allows us to do. We can see the difference by using a simple power output calculator, like the one available online at the Catalyst Athletics website. We know that it takes the athlete ten minutes to complete “Diane” “to standard.” That translates to a power output of 0.1 horsepower. In contrast, with the scaled load, the athlete is now able to complete the WOD in three minutes. That translates to a power output of 0.26 horsepower, more than two and a half times greater than doing the WOD “to standard.” Which performance looks like the more impressive accomplishment now?
WHAT IS IT?
Ingredients you may have heard of, but you don’t know how to use them or where to get them. Learn on...
 FENNEL
The fennel in the produce section of a grocery store is Florence fennel, or finocchio. On top are fragrant emerald fronds that look much like dill. Below are stout stalks that resemble celery and shoot upward like fingers being counted. The edible white "bulb" is actually not a bulb at all, but tightly stacked leaves that unpack like the base of a celery stalk. Though all parts of the Florence fennel are edible, the stalks tend to be fibrous, like celery, while the fronds can have an anise intensity that might turn off some people. The thick white leaves of the base offer the most versatile use. When cooked, the leaves become supple, the same way onions lose their firmness, and retain only a faint hint of anise. Fennel can be eaten raw, braised, sauteed, etc. If you have never tried fennel as a vegetable, you've almost certainly tasted it in its other form: a spice. The greenish-brown seeds from the variety called common fennel are used to season Italian sausages, meaty stews and rustic breads. When ground up, the spice is used in rubs for fish, pork and lamb dishes and in other spice mixes. Fennel spice also is a key ingredient in Indian curries and is one of the five essential spices in Chinese five-spice powder. And if all this isn't enough, this versatile vegetable has been used throughout history to cure stomach ailments, prepare absinthe, freshen breath and help fight weight gain. It also is high in vitamin C. Where to find it:
The produce section of any Grocery Store!
FEATURED RECIPE
Fennel and Apple Slaw
Ingredients
2 bulbs of fennels
2 tart, firm apples (granny smith, crisp pink, pink lady, etc.)
1/2 red onion
1/4 c olive oil
1/4 c red wine vinegar
1 squeeze of the honey bear
Salt & lots of Pepper
Method
In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, honey, salt and pepper. Chop off the fronds of the fennel bulbs and reserve. Remove the outside layer of the fennel bulb. Slice the remaining fennel in 1/2, and remove the triangle shaped core with a knife--it's very tough and fibrous. Slice the fennel as thinly as possible and add to the bowl. Stem and core the apples. Slice them, along with the red onion, as thinly as you can and add to the bowl. Roughly chop about 1/4 c of the fennel fronds and add the bowl. Toss everything to coat and serve immediately or reserve in the fridge.
Fore more recipes and ideas visit: www.health-bent.com
Sources:
Catherine Ebeling, RN BSN
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