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Lumbar Disc Herniation
It is common for people to wonder if they have a herniated disc in their lower back when they feel pain radiate down the leg. There are several differential diagnoses that must first be ruled out before that conclusion is made. The only way to confirm a herniation diagnosis is with an MRI but a good physical and neurologic assessment is often enough to determine the cause of lower back pain that refers into the leg. If you are wondering if you are suffering from a herniated disc in the lumbar spine and you want to know what your options are, this posting is for you.
- Sudden onset of lower back pain with severe pain down the leg possibly beyond the knee.
- The leg pain may be more severe than the back pain.
- Pain may result from heavy lifting, twisting or repetitive stress trauma.
- The leg pain is described as “electrical”, “sharp” or “shooting.” The pain follows a dermatomal pattern determined by the spinal level of the herniation as pictured below.
- The leg pain is worsened by increases in intra-disc pressure: coughing, sneezing, weight bearing, and positional changes that involve forward flexion of the low back and at the hip.
Additional findings: Dermatomal numbness/ decreased sensation, weakness, decreased reflexes.
- Age 25-45 this is when the nucleus is most hydrated
- male >female 3:2
- Prevalence: 1-3% lower back pain cases
- 95% of lumbar herniations occur at the L4-5, L5-S1 levels
Differential Diagnosis
- Piriformis/sciatica- Sciatica feels like a disc herniation but it is not. Sciatica is when the sciatic nerve is entrapped distally from the spine, typically by a muscle such as the piriformis. This still presents with pain down the back of the leg to the foot and is best treated with chiropractic manipulation of the sacrum and soft tissue work on the piriformis muscle.
- Myofascial Trigger Point- A trigger point is a small region within a muscle that refers pain distally. They are easily treated with trigger point therapy involving light repeated pressure into the source muscle. The source of this referred pain can be quite a distance from where it manifests as is illustrated in the trigger point map pictured below. Acupuncture also has very effective treatment strategies for trigger points.
- Acute hamstring spasm or strain must also be ruled out as a possible source of sharp pain down the back of the leg.
- Lower Cross Syndrome: A postural shift toward anterior pelvic tilt caused by imbalanced forces across the hips as pictured below. Weak abdominals, a tight lower back, and tight, weak hamstrings and glutes result in excess pressure on the posterior disc fibers.
- Lack of exercise/ poor general health and nutrition. This is why I promote vigorous physical activity with my patient population. I encourage my patients to learn how to safely move very heavy weights and to practice those motions regularly.
Conservative:
Cauda Equina Syndrome presents with saddle parasthesia and urinary retention. It is an emergency situation. Care of all presentations except Cauda Equina should begin with conservative care.
Conservative care of a disc herniation is the non-surgical and drug free route. Except in the case of Cauda Equina Syndrome, this is where all initial care should begin. It involves mobilizing the vertebrae to accomodate the return of the disc material out of the intervertebral foramen. In chiropractic, several techniques are used including Flexion/Extension, The McKenzie Protocol and Chiropractic manipulative therapy. Yes, it is safe to adjust a spine with a disc herniation. It is infact the standard of care. [2] [4] An estimate of the risk of spinal manipulation causing a clinically worsened disc herniation in a patient presenting with lumbar disc herniation is calculated from published data to be less than 1 in 3.7 million. [1] Alternative conservative care modalities include Massage, Acupuncture, and physical therapy.
Surgical:
This is the best option with acute Cauda Equina Syndrome, and is the last option when progressive neurological deficiencies are present during the course of conservative management. That means you are doing the exercises and being adjusted but you continue to digress measurably with loss of muscle strength, tone, and reflexes. Surgery is also the preferred treatment option in cases of sequestration of the disc material into the spinal canal as pictured above. This is a last resort in care because of recent reviews of the literature that reveal even in successful spinal surgeries, the benefits are short-lived and are indistinguishable from conservative outcomes on an 8 year time line. [3] I nearly placed photo of a lumbar surgery in progress here but after the achilles shot last week, I thought that might be too much. For the curious in the group, click here for link to a short youtube video. When going through these videos I found the most interesting part to be the comments left by viewers. They all have had the procedures themselves and they are a solid random sampling of outcomes that reflect a hit and miss level of relief.
Recent MRI studies of asymptomatic populations find that as many as 52% of asymptomatic people have lumbar disc bulges and hernitations! [5] The difference between a benign asymptomatic lesion and a debilitating one is likely your personal biomechanics and how you use your spine day to day. Because of this, the best way to treat a symptomatic disc herniation is to avoid one. An assessment of the biomechanical forces that your lower back is exposed to both statically and with your lifting technique will have you on the right path. If it is too late for that and you already present with symptoms, beginning a course of conservative care now will typically result in 50% improvement in symptoms within the first 3 weeks of initiating care.
Achilles Tendon Injury
Injuries to this part of the body go by many different names depending on location and severity of injury: Achilles rupture, achilles tendinitis, achilles tendinosis, tennis leg, gastroc strain, soleus strain, the list goes on but I will refer to the rupture of a lower leg tissue generally as an achilles strain from here on out. The purpose of this post is to help the reader avoid ever having this injury by recognizing risk factors and developing skills that neutralize those risks.
The achilles tendon is the largest and strongest tendon in the body. It can sustain a tensile load of 1 ton. That is the weight of a VW beetle. Despite it’s inherent strength, it remains the second most frequently torn tendon in the human body. The achilles is as substantial as it is because it is made to withstand the dynamic stress of an eccentric load. What that means is that when you jump and land on your toes, the gastrocnemius contracts to slow your heel from hitting the ground at the same time that it lengthens to accommodate dorsiflexion at the ankle. That makes the achilles tendon a rope in a powerful tug of war. When you gain strenth, weight, or increase work load rapidly, you run the risk of out pacing the relatively avascular tendon’s ability to adapt resulting in pulling it apart with your own body’s forces.
Because of the inherent strength of this structure, it is unlikely for it to tear or rupture when it is healthy. It is far more common for a previously inflamed gastroc-achillis complex to give way to a major tear. This is a peculiar tissue that runs when it is torn, much like a piece of paper with a small tear in it- pull on both ends and you’ll soon have two pieces of paper. Athletes are used to performing through discomfort and pain and rarely take the necessary steps required to avoid an impending tear. Most of the successful athletes that I know don’t “listen to their bodies.” They have another chain of command where their bodies do as they are told. That being said, have a look at the wrecked tendon below. This is what was left of my older brother’s achilles after he blew it out in a basketball game. He played through the pain. He went to the gym the next day! He didn’t get in to have it looked at for 3 days. I love him, but he’s a big dumb animal. Don’t be a big dumb animal.
Know when you are vulnerable:
There are 3 major ways that you may be vulnerable to an achilles injury right now.
1) Demographic:
Are you an athlete between the age of 25 and 40?
Have you recently gained weight or increased your strength?
2) Achilles Abuse
Do you like to train cold? Take off from a stop to a sprint? Do you do workouts with rapid repetitive jumps? Do you frequently run on the road? Are you experimenting with barefoot running?
3) Previous Injury
Are you sore and tight above your heel when you first wake up in the morning? Does it wear off as the day goes on?
Have you noticed any swelling making one calf muscle appear larger than the other? Remember it doesn’t have to be painful.
Have you noticed a “twang” in that area. The day after a REALLY long run I felt the sensation of guitar strings being strummed in my achilles followed by them being cut one by one. I iced it and steered clear of dynamic training for a week.
This injury can still be avoided even if you meet several of the at risk criteria above:
Be Proactive:
Listen to your body- I know. You don’t want to but when your body speaks from your lower leg you listen. When your lower leg hurts even a little, ice it and give it space.
Warm the area. I don’t mean “warm up.” Waving your arms and crunching your core won’t warm your achilles tendons. Use the muscle before you stress it and for God’s sake don’t warm up with double jumps or you’re asking for trouble.
Make gradual progressions- The 10% rule is a conservative way of extending your distances by 10% per outing.
Train on diverse surfaces- Consistently running forward on pavement will overwork the mid line structures of your lower leg.
If you are experimenting with the idea of bare foot running, do it step by step- Losing the heel you’ve had you’re entire adult life places an additional 1/2 inch stress on your achilles/gastrosoleus junction.
Stretch the gastroc statically post work out and throughout the week- This can be done with simple moves such as down dog but I like this wall stretch posted to MWOD last month. The guy (K Starr) yammers on for 3 minutes before he gets down to it, but there is a quality mobility in the end:
Keep in mind that the gastroc is part of a larger fascial plane that runs from the bottom of your foot to the origin of your hamstring at your ischial tuberosity. Maintain global range of motion all the way to the toe by working a ball into the base of the foot while you are at your desk.
Summary:
If you injure your lower leg it is typically all or nothing:
All- you feel like you’ve been kicked, hit, or shot in the back of the calf. You will probably even turn around to see who did it. It may hurt a lot as in a 1st or 2nd degree tear, or it may only hurt a little as with a total rupture which can be less painful due to the nerve damage. Either way, it will probably swell and a palpable lesion may be present. Tape your ankle into plantar flexion and get to a sports medicine doc as soon as possible. Do Not Stretch It.
Nothing- This is the small lesion or inflammation that later leads to “All” as described above. With a chronic presentation of lasting discomfort in the lower leg, fascial adhesions are likely built up between the muscle and the fascia. The soft tissue modalities of ART and Graston Technique (tools pictured below) are the methods of choice for releasing those adhesions before they cause larger problems.
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With an acute onset PRICE is the rule here: Protect, Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate. Remember that the P in protect may require you to Protect your lower leg from your ego and whatever achilles busting plans you had for it when you woke up this morning.
GOMAD Part II
There is only one week left in the GOMAD Project. Here is an update.
The Plan: Drink One Gallon of Cheap Whole Milk in Addition Other Foods Daily For One Month or Until I gain 13 pounds. Whichever happens first.
Background:
I did not invent the GOMAD (Gallon Of Milk A Day) diet. It is a common choice among young men in a pinch to put on pounds fast. The reason why GOMAD works is simple. For one thing there are two thousand five hundred and sixty calories in a gallon of whole milk. In addition to that caloric push, milk has unique hormonal attributes including IGF-1 that drive growth. Dairy products also drive a strong insulin response that is out of proportion with its modest volume of sugar.
This is my third consecutive intervention experiment: July= Paleo, August= Vegan, September=Milk
This is a good way to contrast the acute effects on strength, energy, body composition, beard growth etc.
Results so Far:
Beard? Luxurious. Energy? Down. Strength? Up. Handsomeness? Down. Markedly. (Friends tell me I’m beginning to resemble Vince Vaughn. Not his charm or his height. His trademark puffy eyes and his pasty swollen party face.)
Body Composition:
My numbers have plateaued. I was initially gaining weight at an alarming rate. A full pound every other day going from 192.6 on 9/11/10 to 196.2 on 9/17/10. That is just 6 days. Imagine what that looks like after 6 months?! As I told my wife “imagine how great it will be when there is twice as much of me!” A surprising thing happened after that. I plateaued and then lost weight leveling out for the last ten days at 194.4 pounds. I am today only 3 pounds heavier than I was when I was a vegan nearly a month ago. This doesn’t seem reasonable.
The 3 Phases of Acceptance-
1) Confrontation:
The scale doesn’t lie. I came across some facts about the dairy industry that made cheap milk an unacceptable option. If you would like to continue to enjoy the simple pleasure of cheap milk then do not follow this link. You can’t unring the bell. It made me question why on earth I was doing this to my body and I made the switch to organic milk.
2) Blame:
There is something wrong with this milk. It clearly doesn’t work. I wish I could take it back but is too late. What kind of dwarven pygmy cattle are they milking at Horizon? I blame the cows. Maybe I should have stuck to my guns and stayed on the cheap milk.
3) Acceptance:
I Blame Myself.
I became complacent. I depended too often on the Moo Juice to supply all that I needed. I’d occasionally pull down half a gallon after my morning workout then charge off to the clinic without breakfast.
With only a week to go the question is what to do now? I’ll complete the task but I’ve been told to switch to chocolate milk if I want to get past this weight plateau. Interesting. I’ll let you know how it goes next week. Moo.
GOMAD: Gallon Of Milk A Day
So what’s the best way to rebound from eating vegan for a month? Exactly. Drink a gallon of cheap whole milk every day and hope for the best.
I’ve been at it for a week now. My first day was rough. I started late in the day and tried to down the gallon during my lunch break. I think that physically I could have done it. What I failed to account for was the time needed for naps and long sour looks into the mirror. I came up one cup short of a gallon in 3 hours.
So to get you up to speed; eating vegan left me strong but battered. My body fat increased 33% in just 23 days taking me to a personal record of 13%. My muscle mass dropped by four pounds. Those are ominous figures if I was to stick it out for the long haul. After the first 5 days of this GOMAD experiment my numbers all rebounded: back down to 10% bf and the 4 pounds of muscle came back.
So far so good. The biggest challenge thus far has been one of storage. I’m keeping a jug at the clinic, one at Crossfit and a couple at home. I’m going with the cheap stuff because I’m looking for growth right? Why pass on the free growth hormone that conventional cattle are pumped full of? I should probably get a full blood panel at the end of this one.
Gandhi DLP Part II: Eat Like a Hippie/ Lift Like a Bull
The plan was to train for one month eating completely vegan to see if I could make a significant strength gain in the absence of meat based protein.
I stuck to this plan for the most part only having some egg in a birthday cake I had and an insignificant amount of soy. The training cycle had to be cut a week short not giving me much time to make an increase but I did the most I could with a 23 day cycle.
I went with a dead lift regimen designed by Zach at CFWS: 5×5 deficit lifts, single rep rack pulls, these terrible things called front squat 1 1/2’s, and some Crossfit Football WODs on off days. The plan was to grind me into a fine powder and see if my body could recover from these beatings while eating like a hippie.
I tried to do this without supplementing any processed protein: no hemp powder, no soy, nothing weird. I went at it like this:
I ate a lot of vegetables.
I ate a whole lot of quinoa.
I drank olive oil like it was my job.
Here is my first attempt at #455 after 23 days training vegan:
It is a little known fact that olive oil has a whopping 120 calories per tablespoon. That is nearly the same number of calories that you’ll find in an entire cup of 2% milk (130 cals.) Whole milk gives you 160/cup and causes spikes in insulin which may cause long-term health problems. I kept my caloric intake high by adding one to two salads per day with 1/2 cup one each = 1000-2000 salad cals per day.
I realize that this isn’t the typical vegan diet but it worked for me. I failed to wither away. I gained 1.5 lbs.
I came off of the Paleo Diet heading into this vegan experiment and the stark contrast of meat intake is not the biggest difference between the two diets. The biggest difference is the wide amount of options that you have as a vegan. When you eat Paleo you would have to go a long way out of your way to eat poorly.
Example: Eat nothing but celery and ham for 30 days.
You have to go a long way out of your way to be a healthy vegan. You can follow STRICT vegan and have a destructive lifestyle with crappy nutrition.
Example:
First tie-up your pleather shoes and walk to your favorite brunch spot.
Pancakes, mimosa, and bagels with soy spread for breakfast-
Red Vines and two American Spirit cigarettes, and a liter of diet Coke for a snack-
Engage in domestic violence then have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and malt liquor for lunch-
Chips and salsa with a salad for dinner- Then kick an old man down some stairs.
You see- Destructive right?
The way I did vegan worked. The predetermined marker of success for this program was to pull #455 (a #15 gain) in a 23 day training cycle. I took on a ridiculous amount of volume training from Coach Z, recovered from each training session well and pulled a much bigger weight off the ground than I had hoped.
Here is the #475 pull: I changed my form a little and it turned out ugly.
I’d like to thank my friend Eric for inadvertently editing this cut. His shirt is better looking then that pull but it doesn’t have to be pretty to count. At the end of the day I went from #440 to #475 bringing me just over a 2.5 body weight DL after 23 days intensive pulling training. I gained 1.5 pounds but my body fat went up 3%!
Conclusions:
1) The body fat increase may have been due to the relatively high sugar intake.
2) Don’t believe the hype. Vegans can get strong.
3) Gandhi probably had a sick dead lift.
Garage Gym: Make Your Own Medicine Ball
The medicine ball is the simplest and most versatile piece of functional equipment you can own. The best medicine balls are the size of a large pumpkin, are equally weighted and cost about $100. “$100 for flippin heavy ball?” you say? I agree.
I made my own beloved med-ball and I wouldn’t trade it for any other. It weighs 44 lbs when it’s dry but because I often toss it in dewy grass, it is rarely dry and weighs as much as 52 lbs.
Barefoot Running Technique
The following video has great British accents as well as quality drills that will help you to adapt a running posture more conducive to minimalist running.
Learning the Skill of Barefoot Running from Terra Plana on Vimeo.The first problem people make when they begin to experiment with a barefoot style of running is that they try to avoid heel striking. This happens naturally when your posture is correct. This video does a great job of illustrating how to lean forward from the ankles not at the hips.
Adjust Your Strength: Studies Demonstrate Significant Strength Increases With Spinal Adjustments
I can be a bit of a skeptical person. This makes me difficult to live with but it also makes me a pretty good researcher. It is because of this trait that I shy away from emotion-driven claims on the power of chiropractic to raise the dead and heal all wounds. That being said, a recent review of the literature has opened my eyes and has me a little emotional myself. The research states that my two favorite things- chiropractic and strength gains make each other better. I’m stoked.
I performed a very simple review of literature where I searched the terms “Chiropractic, Strength” in a Pubmed search engine. This is what I found:
I found seven studies that compared full force isometric contraction of muscles including the quadriceps, rotator cuff, cervical extensors and low back extensors before and after chiropractic adjustment of the spine. All seven found increased strength and/or decreased muscle inhibition post adjustment (1,4,6,7,9,10,11). One study showed as much as 66.8% increase in muscle recruitment as tested with surface electromyography (4). These results are compared to placebo groups and control groups. Summary: This is a big deal.
Two of these studies were of particular interest from a sports medicine perspective as they studied the effect of chiropractic adjustment on the vastus medialis oblique of subjects with anterior knee pain (6,7). Both studies found decreased inhibition immediately post adjustment. This is very useful information to anyone trying to regain strength after a knee injury. As any Physical Therapist will tell you, post injury the primary focus of rehabilitation is to activate the VMO which easily inhibits and leads to lifelong strength and stability problems. Take home- if your knee is injured, get your spine adjusted.
The first question I am usually asked when I tell people about the previous studies is “how long after the adjustment do these effects last?” I like this question. It means to me that the patient is trying to plan how fast they’ll have to drive after leaving my office to take full advantage of this phenomena. Two of the above studies attempted to answer this question by performing multiple strength assessments at predetermined intervals following the adjustment. Wang and Meadows 2010 (9) found a measurable increase in the strength of the rotatror cuff muscles for up to ten minutes after the cervical spine was aligned and Grindstaff, Hertel 2009 (10) found acute measurable increases in quadriceps strength of 3% and muscle recruitment of 5% for twenty minutes post adjustment. 3% may not sound like much but if you have a 400 pound back squat, 3% means another twelve hard-earned pounds.
These serial assessments are a difficult way to determine how long the effects last because fatigue obscures maximum efforts. What is also missed by these studies are the accumulative effects of multiple adjustments over the span of a treatment period. These only measure the acute changes after a single adjustment.
I did come across a long-term case study (2) that followed the treatment of an 18 year old patient who had a greatly reduced lumbar curve. The clinician sent the patient to his high school strength coach to test his baseline bench press single repetition max which was 245 pounds. Over the course of a 16 week treatment period which restored his lumbar curve to 31 degrees his bench press max increased by 60 pounds to 305 pounds and he was not bench pressing at all over that entire four month stretch. You would expect his numbers to go down not up. This study supports the premise that a normal lumbar lordosis provides inherent biomechanical stability and strength.
This case study shows the potential for long-term effects but the duration of the study allows for potential confounding factors that can be difficult to control: was he eating and sleeping the same? Was he under the same amounts of stress? It is hard to say. With a larger study with more subjects to compare individual results to you can account for these factors and that sort of a follow-up study is necessary to validate the findings of this case study.
Discussion:
These findings are exciting to most people and everyone who I’ve told about them wants to know: “Why are people stronger after adjustment?” They typically speculate that increased circulation is at work but the idea of increased circulation does not look likely. That wouldn’t explain why adjusting the lower back benefits the strength of muscles up stream in the neck and shoulder girdle (2,3).
It is my opinion that there are two contributing factors to this phenomena:
1) Decreased muscle inhibition, and 2) the effect of stability on strength.
1) Muscle inhibition (MI)-
Would you rather lift a weight with 90 or 99% of your available muscle cells? Decreased muscle inhibition as was demonstrated in the above studies (4,9) means that you have access to a greater percent of your total muscle mass. Inhibited muscle is the percent of your muscle cells that are dormant even during maximum effort. When you decrease MI you are firing on more cylinders. This factor has far reaching potential for long-term strength gains far superior to the acute effects documented in these studies. Accessing and training a greater percent of your muscle mass chronically would have a potentially compounded training effect.
“Why are muscles inhibited in the first place?”
Injury frequently results in muscle inhibition. You could also argue that our modern lifestyle is one that actively fosters MI. How many hours a day do you spend in arch supported shoes and low back supporting chairs?
2) The effect of stability on strength: If the hips are out of alignment and it is potentially dangerous to have the strength to pull 300 pounds over your head your body may have neurologic controls to ensure that you don’t have the muscular strength to over shoot the limitations of your stability. Having a huge overhead press and no lumbar curve is like having a cannon on a canoe.
The old adage “the iron never lies” explains why post adjustment strength is an excellent outcome to measure objectively. The previous studies isolate the effect of an adjustment on a single muscle or group of muscles involved in a motor task but the measurable impact of an adjustment is most likely body wide as is demonstrated by Giggey, Tepe (3) in a 2000 study that exhibited an 8.18 lbs. increase in cervical muscle extensors following a sacroiliac adjustment. This is also evident from the 2009 study by Smith and Dianoff (8) that demonstrated a 9.2% improvement in fine motor skills with a movement time test (rapidly point a pointer at a target on a computer screen) post adjustment compared to control groups.
To better understand the body wide effects of the chiropractic adjustment on the body, a more diverse set of outcome markers that include more motor units would be essential. The above studies only use isometric/static contractions to measure strength changes and it is likely the case that the sort of neurological adaptation facilitated by adjustments is best displayed with explosive movements that involve motor skills and maximal muscle recruitment. Olympic style functional movements such as snatch and clean and jerk would assess both motor skills and muscle strength.
All of your basic body functions may very well benefit from these same adjustments just as skeletal muscle does but it is not as easily studied or measured. The general strength of your immune system for instance may be enhanced post-adjustment but until a “maximum effort contraction” of the immune system is devised we won’t be able to quantify that effect. That will take some clever research design and I will report back when it happens.
1) Hillermann, Gomes, Journal Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics – 2006
2) Morningstar, Grand Blanc, Journal Chiropractic Medicine, Autumn 2003; 2(3):137-41
3) Giggey K, Tepe R., Journal of Chiropractic Medicine 2009 June
4) Keller TS, Colloca CJ, Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics. 2000, Nov-Dec
5) Jorgen Sandell, Palmgren, Journal of Chiropractic Medicine. 2008 June
6) Suter, McMorland, Herzog, Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics. 1999. March-April
7) Suter, McMorland, Herzog. Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics. 2000 Feb
8) Smith, Dianoff, Smith. Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine 2009 March
9) Wang SS., Meadows J. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. 2010 Feb
The Ghandi Deadlift Project
Many of you may already know that I grew up on a strict vegetarian diet. My parents have been eating vegetarian for the past forty years and meat was not really considered food in my childhood. This is not such a big deal now but back in the 80’s in rural Washington in a hot bed of meat, mullets, and musk it was a much bigger deal. It was a rare meal that I had without someone asking a brilliant question that warranted an answer such as:
“Well that’s a good question but no, turkeys are not effing vegetables so no, I don’t eat them.”
This continued through undergrad where I played division I men’s rugby. It blew my mind how a person who I just literally spent an entire afternoon kicking around a field would inform me after that “you can’t grow muscle without meat.” Rage. Blind Rage.
Despite medical advice from authorities the vegetarian diet worked fine for me until my early 20’s when I met my beautiful, meat cooking wife Alicia. I now eat large pieces of flesh at every meal and I will admit that I am significantly stronger now then I was in my early 20’s (ten years ago.) I’m the same size and weight that I’ve always been but my training is more intense and focused on strength gains so to determine if it is the meat or the training that has me strong I am undergoing what I call:
4 weeks strict vegan (not vegetarian) diet
Intensive deadlift training similar to deadlift cycles I have done over the last several months.
Culminating in a deadlift single rep max attempt to beat my current record which stands at #440 on 5/1/10.
This lift was a #25 pound jump for me and was the result of a 6 week long deadlift strength program.
For this experiment to be a success and prove that Ghandi most likely had a SICK deadlift I will have to make a jump that big in only 4 weeks instead of 6 bringing me up to #465.
The project begins Monday, August 9th.
The max is on Monday September 6th. I’ll report back then.
Barefoot Running Part II: Nike joins the party
Always one step ahead of the curve, Nike provides 3 shoes that fill the gap between what I referred in the last posting as the “modern shoe” and the minimalist approach of barefoot and Vibrams. I hope that is clear from the last post that a gradual transition is absolutely necessary in order to harden the intrinsic ligaments of your feet as well as the tendons that flex your ankles. You’ll notice that the heel remains raised in both the 7.0 and 5.0 versions and is not significantly lower until the 3.0 model. This gives the gastrocs and achillis tendons time to adapt to the significant increase in tension placed on them in a flatter shoe. Because of this the Nike Free series may be the most comfortable way to progressively reduce your foot’s dependence on external support.
A friend at Nike provided me with the following review of the Nike Free series in response to my last posting. It looks like round #2 goes to Nike.
Nike Free Shoes
The Revolutionary Running Shoes
The first shoe in the Nike Free shoes series is the 7.0, which is designed for Beginning Foot Strength Training that provides excellent everyday support.
1. Nike Free Barefoot Running Concept For Stability
Nike Free Shoes Among the Nike Free shoes, this shoe is the one that provides the most support, which makes it great for starters of the barefoot running concept. The Nike Free 7.0 is very flexible and has a very strong surface grip for better stability.
The shoe helps the foot retain a stable position, which assists in the natural transition of the feet from the strike of the heel to when the toe sets off. The 7.0 also distributes the impact of landing well so that impact will not hurt the legs and knees a lot. Both men and women can benefit from the offers of this shoe.
Let us look at some of the other editions :
Nike Free Running Shoes: The 5.0 Edition
The Nike Free 5.0, the second shoe in the series, is for Increased Foot Strength Training and provides medium support. It has deeper grooves for greater flexibility both on the forefoot and the rearfoot, thus allowing the feet to move the way it wants to. Despite this, the Nike Free 5.0 provides adequate support to the foot where it’s needed.
The shoe provides additional cushioning for shock absorption. The sturdy but comfortable cushioning also gives a stronger and more solid thrust forward to the foot, which propels the runner on a faster, more powerful stride. Even with the flexibility that the shoe has, it still provides sufficient protection on the sole for when you are running on rough surfaces. The shoe also comes with a comfortable upper with a suede feel. Even this small detail is specifically designed to move as your feet do. Most users remark that the shoe fits like a glove but still does the work that a good running shoe should do.
This is great for runners who want to feel the freedom of running practically on bare feet but still need support and cushioning for their feet. If you find that this is the shoe for you, check out the special training schedule for the shoe that Nike has prepared to help you ease into the shoe.
Nike Free Shoes: The 3.0 Edition
And for Advanced Foot Strength Training, there’s the Nike Free 3.0, which provides minimal support. This shoe is highly responsive. Using it is almost like running barefoot, and it can also promote foot strength. The shoe is more widely known for its track spikes minus the weight.
Very comfortable and very lightweight, the shoe also offers an unexpected cushioning support centered on the compression-molded EVA midsole.The shoe also has two panels of mesh and synthetic leather for a snug fit and a BRS 1000 outsole.
Barefoot Running Part I: The Cheap Shoe Revolution
I bought my beige Crocs at noon the next day.
objects. Four decades of technology and innovation have brought us motion control, arch support, inflatable parts-don’t forget the Reebok Pump, and heel cushions made of gel, air, foam and springs resulting in the modern running shoe. The result: nothing. Today runners experience the same injury rate as they did before these technologies were introduced.
This is a great topic because it is very difficult to demonstrate in a study the superiority of either barefoot/minimalist or the modern shoe. In my mind, the only way to demonstrate such superiority is to show a causative relationship resulting in greater injury prevention and improved performance. The data is there but great care must be taken in order to establish a causitive relationship. For instance an observational study that shows that those in worn shoes ran faster in a given race may do so because they run more often thus always having shoes that appear “worn.” Or, those same results may have been caused by the fact that people with injuries seek motion control shoes and it is the injury that is causitive, not the footwear.
Many intervention studies are flawed as well such as when a group of heel strikers is taught to run on the balls of their feet to see if they are faster and less prone to injury. Well they’re not faster and they often get hurt because in a short 2 week study they are thrown into taking the lion’s share of the impact in their untrained achillis tendon and gastrocs. There are many clever studies out there that demonstrate a causitive relationship. We’ll look at some that support and some that dismiss the utility of the modern running shoe.
2) It’s “natural” to run barefoot.
Again, it may be true that bare feet is natural but before you march your Reebok Pumps to your local shoe burning keep in mind that Leprosy is natural and so are poisonous berries. Nature has more interests than your health and safety. Until there is some data to sink our greedy little teeth into we’ll curb this line of logic under the “interesting but irrelevant” category.
It turned out that when subjects thought they were landing on the soft, high-tech material (Deceptive trial), the impact forces were actually HIGHER than in the Warning trial when they expected the cheap and ineffective material. And barefoot had the lowest impact forces of all. The other amazing finding, as is shown in the graph above, is that in the barefoot and cheap material trials, the impact forces get lower and lower as the subjects repeat the step, which shows a learning effect that is not present in the ‘Deceptive’ trial where subjects thought they were landing on a soft material. So this is remarkable – it shows how an expectation of impact can actually alter impact, and again, it supports what Benno Nigg and others are saying about anticipation of impact, with the ability to adjust muscle activity to defend some other variable.
Motion control shoe delays fatigue of shank muscles in runners with overpronating feet.
Cheung RT, Ng GY.
Running in new and worn shoes: a comparison of three types of cushioning footwear.
Kong PW, Candelaria NG, Smith DR.
Proprioception and stability: foot position awareness as a function of age and footwear.
Robbins S, Waked E, McClaran J.
Is your prescription of distance running shoes evidence-based Richards CE, Magin PJ, Callister R.
Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners. Lieberman DE, Venkadesan M, Werbel WA, Daoud AI, D’Andrea S, Davis IS, Mang’eni RO, Pitsiladis Y.
Hazard of deceptive advertising of athletic footwear.
Paleo Challenge Summer 2010
The official Challenge runs from July 12th through August 11th.
If you have to start late just run late and complete the 30 days.
To get started, email me at sk**********@gm***.com and I’ll send you a pdf of the food journal and schedule a time for you to get your body composition numbers for your before and after comparison.
There is a $10 buy-in for all participants and the money and prizes are divided among the winners. There is a point system to quantify compliance and a before and after body-composition test to reward your training efforts as well.
This will be a running posting throughout the month. Post your questions, recipes, and heart felt grievances to comments and I’ll post a reply. When you come across a novel solution to a Paleo-Problem: ie– “What on earth do I eat for breakfast when I am sick of eggs?” or “Where do I get macha?” or if you come across a good sale on meats at a local store please post that golden info to comments. This challenge can be difficult at first but it is a LOT easier when we share ideas and do our best to keep our diets diversified.