Boost Your Bod With Eccentric Exercise

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June 4th 2024
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Eccentric exercises are a fantastic way to keep your muscles strong and flexible while preventing injuries and speeding up recovery. Focusing on the controlled lengthening of muscles, these exercises help build resilience and improve overall muscle health.

Here’s everything you need to know!

What is eccentric strength training?

Unless you’re a bodybuilder or another pro, you might not know the 3 key parts of an exercise:

  • Concentric phase involves muscle shortening to overcome resistance, such as lifting a dumbbell.
  • Eccentric phase involves muscle lengthening to control resistance, such as lowering a dumbbell.
  • Isometric phase involves muscle length consistency, such as holding a plank or wall sit.

Eccentric exercise usually focuses on slowing down the movement involved in the lengthening part of an exercise. Examples include:

  • lowering into a squat
  • lowering into a push-up
  • lowering a weight after you lift it
  • running down a hill

When running downhill, your knee extensors and quads perform vital eccentric work. Going slowly, you’ll feel muscles lengthening and strengthening.

Concentric contraction (aka positive work) differs from eccentric lengthening (aka negative work), where muscles absorb energy as they lengthen.

Benefits of eccentric strength training

A 2019 review of eccentric muscle contractions suggests that eccentric training may increase muscle strength more than isometric and concentric moves. Researchers also concluded that eccentric training is more efficient, requiring less energy for the same amount of work.

Here are some more potential benefits of incorporating eccentric training into your workout routine:

  • Allows you to handle heavier weights during the lowering phase, making your workouts more effective.
  • Uses less oxygen and energy, making it more efficient than other types of exercise.
  • Boosts muscle growth (hypertrophy) more than just lifting alone.
  • Enhances joint stability and reduces injury risk by improving strength and control.
  • Safe for people with arthritis, inflammatory muscle disease, and Parkinson’s disease, according to 2021 research.
  • Helps older adults increase mobility safely.

Eccentric vs. concentric strength training

An exercise’s concentric (muscle-shortening phase) is essentially the opposite of the eccentric (muscle-lengthening phase).

  • bicep curls (during the lift)
  • push-ups (during the push)
  • squats (during the push)
  • leg raises (during the lift)
  • crunches (during the “crunch”)

Essentially any exercise where you overcome resistance to contract the muscles is a concentric contraction.

Eccentric vs. isometric strength training

Isometric or static exercises include:

Essentially any exercise where you maintain consistent muscle contraction without visibly moving the joint is an isometric contraction.  

FAQs

How is eccentric training used in rehabilitation and PT?

Physical therapists often use Eccentric training to help rehabilitate patients recovering from various injuries and conditions.

Because exercises that emphasize the eccentric phase can improve joint stability and mobility, strengthening this aspect of exercise, which is often overlooked, may reduce the risk of injury in the future.

How often should you do eccentric training?

Eccentric training can safely be done 2–4 times a week, but it ultimately depends on your level of expertise and goals. In rehab settings, your PT may recommend doing these exercises more frequently but at a lower intensity.

Like most exercises, it’s best to play it safe by starting slowly and working your way up.  

How to avoid injuries

Here are some tips to help you avoid injuries:

  • Start light and gradually increase weight to avoid injury and poor form.
  • Maintain a controlled pace to ensure effectiveness and safety.
  • Allow adequate recovery time between workouts to prevent soreness and injury.
  • Avoid pushing beyond your limits — no pain doesn’t always mean no gain.

Takeaway

Eccentric training is a super effective but often neglected phase of exercise that can be useful in maximizing strength, growing muscle, and improving joint health. Just be sure to maintain proper form and don’t push past your limits. You got this!

Read the full article here:
https://greatist.com/health/eccentric-lifting

Foamy Urine and What It Could Mean for Your Health

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June 4th 2024
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Ever seen your pee fizz like a shaken soda and thought your toilet was pranking you? Don’t panic! Here’s everything you need to know about foamy urine, including common causes and treatments.

What causes foamy urine?

Seeing foam in your pee may catch you off guard. However, it doesn’t necessarily signal that a serious health issue is brewing. It could be due to something benign, like a rapid restroom visit, rather than something more concerning.

Kidney disease

If you see more foam in the toilet bowl than your favorite latte, your kidneys could be waving a little red flag. 

Healthy kidneys filter blood, removing waste while keeping essential proteins. Damaged kidneys struggle to filter effectively, allowing the protein to pass into the urine, causing frothiness.

Fast urine stream

A speedy pee stream can whip up a frothy frenzy from the sheer force of hitting the water. It’s usually no biggie — just your bladder doing its best impression of a forceful waterfall.

Toilet cleaner

Sometimes, the cleaning products you use in the loo can react too enthusiastically with your pee, leading to a foam party in the bowl.

Dehydration

Dehydration can cause concentrated urine with higher solute levels, including proteins and minerals. This concentration can create foam when urine hits toilet water.

Diabetes

High sugar levels, common in diabetes, can harm kidneys, causing protein leakage into urine and foam. If you have diabetes and notice bubbly urine, consult a healthcare professional for tests and advice.

What to do if you have foamy urine

Noticing too much foam in your pee? It’s time to tune into your body’s signals to reduce foamy urine. Keep an eye on any additional symptoms or changes in urine frequency and color, as these could provide clues to what’s going on. 

It’s also a good idea to have a chat with a healthcare professional. They can do a thorough check-up, starting with a urine test to measure protein levels. Depending on the results, they might suggest more tests, like blood tests or imaging, to get a clearer picture of what’s going on.

FAQs

What does foaming urine indicate?

Foamy urine causes can range from totally tame, like after a rapid pee or a reaction with toilet cleaner, to a sign of something needing medical attention, such as kidney issues or complications from diabetes.

What stage of kidney disease Is foamy urine?

Foamy urine may appear at various stages of kidney disease, typically when there’s enough protein buildup to throw a bubble bath in your loo. You’ll need tests to determine your kidney health to get the specifics.

Is foamy urine diabetes?

Foamy urine isn’t a direct symptom of diabetes, but there’s a link. Diabetes can harm kidneys, causing protein leakage, which can lead to foamy urine. If you manage diabetes and notice foamy urine, inform your healthcare team for closer kidney monitoring.

How do you get rid of protein in your urine?

Managing protein in your urine, or proteinuria, involves addressing the root causes and making key lifestyle changes. 

If the cause is high blood pressure or diabetes, your doctor may prescribe medications. Once your blood pressure or blood sugar is checked, protein leakage into the urine can be reduced.

Your doctor may also recommend lifestyle tweaks to kick that protein-rich pee to the curb.

Takeaway

Foamy urine isn’t always a reason to panic. Often, it’s just a quirk of hydration or how quickly you’re peeing. But if the foam appears regularly, it’s a good idea to check in with a healthcare professional. 

Whether it’s harmless or a heads-up, keeping an eye on what’s going down in the bowl is smart for your health.

Read the full article here:
https://greatist.com/health/foamy-urine

Do You Even Pro, Bro? 7 Symptoms of Protein Deficiency

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June 4th 2024
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If you’re concerned you’re not getting enough protein in your diet, let us be the first to share some good news: Most Americans consume around 15% of their calories from this macro, making true protein deficiency rare in the U.S.

Still, that doesn’t mean protein deficiency never happens. Here are signs and symptoms to watch out for.

What is protein deficiency?

Protein is responsible for giving structure to your cells, creating hormones and enzymes, and building muscle. A deficiency means you’re not taking in enough to support your body’s needs. Your doctor can diagnose a protein deficiency by testing your blood for total protein, albumin (a specific protein), and the ratio of albumin to globulin (another protein).

What are the symptoms of protein deficiency?

These seven symptoms could be indicators that you’re not hitting your protein recommendations.

You might get swole… but not in a good way

When people become severely low in protein — a condition known as kwashiorkor — the body responds by removing water from blood vessels and sending it into tissues. The result: edema (aka swelling).

It’s worth noting, though that this symptom is highly unlikely in the developed world. Most cases of kwashiorkor occur in poverty-stricken regions of the world where people experience starvation.

Your appetite could go through the roof

Research shows that protein is the most satiating of the three macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbs). Don’t be surprised if you feel extra hungry when you’re not eating enough of it.

To keep yourself feeling full, try increasing your protein intake with foods like:

  • chicken
  • turkey
  • eggs
  • fish
  • tofu
  • beans
  • nuts
  • whole grains

You could land with a fatty liver

Especially in developing countries, low protein intake has been linked to fatty liver, a condition that can cause liver inflammation, scarring, and even liver failure. Though the mechanism behind this connection isn’t totally clear, research suggests that high-protein diets are more beneficial for fatty liver than low-protein diets.

Your skin, hair, and nails might suffer

Since protein provides the backbone for skin, hair, and nail cells, a deficiency can cause undesirable changes to these body parts. Brittle nails, thinning hair, and flaky skin may all indicate a need for more protein.

Your muscle mass might shrink

Protein builds muscle, so it only makes sense that you may have lower muscle mass when you’re deficient. In a 2022 study on nearly 16,000 adults, the prevalence of low muscle mass significantly increased with lower protein intake.

On the other hand, eating enough protein can boost muscle growth and strength. According to a 2018 study, protein intake promotes gains in lean body mass beyond what you’ll get with resistance exercise alone. (Though combining protein with strength training is the best way to build and tone muscles.)

You could risk bone fractures

When you think “protein,” muscle may be the first thing that comes to mind. But muscles aren’t the only body parts impacted by this macro. Protein deficiency also affects bones.

An older study found that protein deficiency caused marked bone mass deterioration, while 2019 research found that a higher protein intake was associated with reduced hip fractures in older people.

You might have a hard time fighting off infections

If you’ve ever had a serious infection, your doctor may have told you to load up on high-protein foods. That’s because protein is pivotal in the body’s immune defenses. The less protein in your system, the greater your susceptibility to infection.

Takeaway

Worried you’re not getting enough of the muscle-building macro? Ask your doctor to run a blood test. If you’re truly deficient, focus on getting more protein from lean meats, eggs, fish, beans, legumes, soy foods, and dairy products.

Read the full article here:
https://greatist.com/health/symptoms-of-protein-deficiency

Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need

by | | Curated Content

June 3rd 2024
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Metabolic health is key to preventing chronic diseases, which means it’s crucial for us to understand how our dietary choices impact our overall wellbeing. Simple changes in our eating habits can improve our insulin response and balance blood sugar levels, which offers immediate health benefits. In this episode, Jessie Inchauspe, Dr. Casey Means, and Dr. Ben Bikman share their actionable insights on boosting your metabolism through food. We delve into the latest research and provide practical tips for incorporating metabolism-friendly nutrition into your daily routine.

Jessie Inchauspé is on a mission to translate cutting-edge science into easy tips to help people improve their physical and mental health. She’s the founder of the wildly popular Instagram account GlucoseGoddess, where she teaches life-changing food habits to hundreds of thousands of people. Jessie holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from King’s College London and a master’s degree in biochemistry from Georgetown University. Her work at a genetic analysis start-up in Silicon Valley made her realize that, as the key to good health, food habits beat genetics. In her first book, Glucose Revolution, Jessie shares her startling discovery about the essential role of blood sugar in every aspect of our lives, from cravings to fertility, and the surprising hacks to optimize it while still eating the foods we love.

Dr. Casey Means is a Stanford-trained physician, Chief Medical Officer and Co-founder of metabolic health company Levels, an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention, and a Lecturer at Stanford University. Her mission is to maximize human potential and reverse the epidemic of preventable chronic disease by empowering individuals with tools that can facilitate deep understanding of our bodies and inform personalized and sustainable dietary and lifestyle choices. Dr. Means’ perspective has been recently featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Men’s Health, Forbes, Business Insider, Techcrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, Metabolism, Endocrine Today, and more.

Dr. Benjamin Bikman is a renowned metabolic research scientist and a popular speaker on human metabolism and nutrition. Backed by years of research, Dr. Bikman’s mission is to help the world appreciate the prevalence and relevance of insulin resistance.

He is the author of the book, Why We Get Sick, which offers a thought-provoking yet real solution to insulin resistance and reversing pre-diabetes, improving brain function, shedding fat, and preventing diabetes. Dr. Bikman has a Doctor of Philosophy in Bioenergetics from East Carolina University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in metabolic disorders with the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School.

This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, Cozy Earth, Cymbiotika, and Momentous.

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Full-length episodes of these interviews can be found here:
Surprise Hacks To Balance Your Blood Sugar
The Secret to Longevity, Reversing Disease, and Optimizing Health: Fixing Metabolism
Reversing Chronic Disease And Aging By Fixing Insulin Resistance

Read the full article here:

Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need

Transform Your Fitness Mindset. How to Finally Make Time for Exercise and Make it Stick.

by | | Curated Content

May 31st 2024
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Anyone can tell you that exercise is good for you. And lots of people will—including me. But I’m not going to do that today, and here’s why: hotel room attendants.

In a 2007 study, Stanford University researchers educated 84 hotel room attendants on the benefits of exercise and shared the Center of Disease Control’s (CDC’s) guidelines for daily activity [1]. Then the scientists took half the attendants aside and gave them some additional information.

These participants were told that changing linens, vacuuming, and cleaning toilets all counted as exercise, and because they were servicing—on average—15 rooms a day, they were actually exceeding the CDC’s recommendations. 

What happened? Neither group changed their daily activity levels. But, surprisingly, after 4 weeks, the “informed group” had lost weight, body fat, and inches off their waist and significantly lowered their blood pressure. The “uniformed group” didn’t.

Which goes to show: How you think about exercise—and yourself—can have a profound effect on your health outcomes. What’s more, just telling people how great exercise is probably isn’t that helpful. 

That’s why I’m not going to try to convince you how important exercise is. Instead, I’m going to give you powerful strategies—from the insanely cool field of exercise psychology—that’ll help you eliminate what’s really in the way: common barriers and limiting mindsets such as “I don’t have time,” “I don’t have motivation,” and “I don’t like exercise.” It could be just what you need to transform your fitness forever. 

Obstacle #1: “I don’t have time to exercise.”

Lots of people say they’re “too busy to work out.” Maybe even you. But is that really true—or just what you believe? There’s a way to find out, and it’s based on a novel experiment from scientists at Leeds Metropolitan University [2].  

In the study, researchers had people exercise during work hours on some days, and do no activity on others. At the end of each day, participants rated their work productivity on a scale of 1 to 7 (1 = worst; 7 = best). 

The result: People were 15 percent more productive on the days they exercised than on days they didn’t. So, in an 8-hour workday, that level of increased productivity means you could fit in an hour of exercise—plus 12 minutes to clean up—and not see a dropoff in your overall performance. 

Don’t buy it? Put it to the test and track your own work productivity on the days you do and don’t exercise. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Obstacle #2: “I don’t feel motivated to exercise.”

I’m about to tell you the secret to motivation. But fair warning: It can be a bit of a mind-bending idea. That’s because it’s the opposite of what everyone thinks. Well, everyone except psychologists. 

Here it is: Taking action is what leads to motivation—not the other way around.  This concept is based on something called “self-perception theory,” which was introduced in the 1970s by Daryl Bem, PhD, a famed psychologist who’s now a professor emeritus at Cornell University.

Self-perception theory suggests that people develop their attitudes and emotions—key drivers of motivation—by observing their own behaviors. So by taking action, even when you don’t feel motivated, your brain infers that you are indeed motivated. 

As a result, just doing something can be a powerful momentum builder. For example, imagine you’re struggling to start a workout routine. Instead of waiting to feel motivated, you take a simple action—like putting on your workout clothes and going for a 5-minute walk. Anything that lets you check the “I exercised” box counts. The next day, you do it again. A few days later, you add one more minute to your walk, or toss in a set of pushups and bodyweight squats. 

Over time, these consistent actions—no matter how small—accumulate and create a positive feedback loop. As your brain observes this pattern of behavior, it starts to shift your attitudes and emotions, gradually building your motivation to exercise more regularly. That’s when the real magic starts to happen.

Obstacle #3: “I don’t like exercise.”

Admittedly, this can be a hard one to get around. The standard advice is to “find an activity you enjoy.” While I endorse this sentiment 100 percent, it’s often not that easy to do. For instance, maybe there’s not an obvious choice, or the one activity you’d love to do regularly is wildly impractical (you’re obsessed with horseback riding but live in downtown Detroit).  

So here’s another option: temptation bundling.

Temptation bundling is a concept developed by Katy Milkman, PhD, and a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. It involves bundling a “should” (exercise) with a “want” or “temptation” (something else you really enjoy).

In 2014, the researchers conducted a study to see if it’d work. They gave one group of gym goers a “tempting” audiobook of their choosing—The Hunger Games was most popular—but with an important caveat: The participants could only listen to it while exercising on a treadmill or other aerobic machine [3]. Turns out, these folks worked out 51 percent more frequently than gym members who weren’t given an audiobook. 

“This pairing makes ‘should’ activities more enticing and therefore more likely to be readily executed; it also makes ‘want’ activities less wasteful and guilt-inducing.” [4] 

So what’s your Hunger Games? What’s an audiobook, podcast, or TV show you love? Save it for your exercise session, and see if it makes working out feel more enticing. 

Obstacle #4: “I start out with good intentions, but I never stick with it.” 

If you find yourself struggling with this obstacle, ask yourself why. Applying Occam’s Razor—the idea that the simplest explanation is often the right one—might reveal that you’re choosing to do something that’s too hard for you.

For instance, if you go from not exercising at all to trying to exercise for an hour a day, it’s likely going to be too much. It completely changes your daily routine and can feel overwhelming. When something is too hard, it’s natural to want to quit. But there’s another option: Make it easier.

Start by deciding on an amount of exercise you feel you can do. Before committing, ask yourself, “On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being ‘it sounds impossible’ and 10 being ‘I can do this in my sleep,’ how likely am I to follow through?” If your answer isn’t a 9 or 10, make it easier. Repeat until you get there.

Obstacle #5: “When it comes to exercise, I’m an all-or-nothing person.”

Ever plan on doing a 30-minute workout, but realize you only have 26 minutes, so you skip the whole thing? You might defiantly say, “If I can’t do my full workout, it’s not worth doing at all!”

This type of all-or-nothing thinking is very common. So common, in fact, there’s a name for it: It’s a “cognitive distortion,” a term popularized by David Burns, MD, a renowned psychiatrist, to describe irrational thought patterns that skew your perceptions, hinder your progress, and mostly make you miserable.

To overcome this, practice thinking on a continuum. If you can’t do 30 minutes, can you do 26? Or 20? Or 10? Even a shorter workout is better than none and helps build the habit of consistency and keep your momentum going. (See Obstacle #2.) Each time you make a choice along the continuum—instead of sticking strictly to a binary option—you’re demonstrating what psychologists call “cognitive flexibility.” And who wouldn’t want that?

 

References

  1. Crum AJ, Langer EJ. Mind-set matters: exercise and the placebo effect. Psychol Sci. 2007 Feb;18(2):165–71.
  2. Coulson JC, McKenna J, Field M. Exercising at work and self‐reported work performance. Int J Workplace Health Manage. 2008 Jan 1;1(3):176–97.
  3. Milkman KL, Minson JA, Volpp KGM. Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: An Evaluation of Temptation Bundling. Manage Sci. 2014 Feb;60(2):283–99.
  4. Kirgios EL, Mandel GH, Park Y, Milkman KL, Gromet DM, Kay JS, et al. Teaching temptation bundling to boost exercise: A field experiment. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 2020 Nov 1;161:20–35.

Read the full article here:

Transform Your Fitness Mindset. How to Finally Make Time for Exercise and Make it Stick.