HIIT (high intensity exercise) and Parkinson's disease.

High intensity exercise may help to curb Parkinson's disease. Helping the gait riddle in this neurodegenerative disease.

Parkinsonian gait is a debilitating and challenging gait for anyone. Often catching this neurodegenerative disease early on bodes well for a client's outcome and quality of life in many respects. 60 thousand will be diagnosed with Parkinson's this year, and currently about 1 million live with the disease making this a very common disease. Parkinson's is a disorder of movement, of balance, talking, motor control, walking to name a few, so this is a very debilitating disease to most who experience it, either as a patient or as a care giver.

"A team of researchers at Northwestern Medicine and the University of Colorado School of Medicine wanted to find out whether high- or moderate-intensity exercise was safe for patients with Parkinson’s disease. Would it help with the disease’s symptoms, the progressive loss of muscle control, tremors, stiffness?"
"Five years later, those scientists have an answer: Yes. Increasing disease severity in early-stage Parkinson’s disease patients can be slowed with a few days of exercise weekly. The results of their trial, published Monday in JAMA Neurology, found vigorous exercise is a safe way to potentially delay the progression of Parkinson’s disease."

Here is the big question that the researchers proposed after the results of this study , "Is there any disease or any disorder for which exercise is not good?"

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/ct-met-parkinsons-disease-progression-exercise-20171207-story.html

Podcast #13: Caffeine, Nicotine & Lance

here is the link for podcast 13

http://thegaitguys.libsyn.com/webpage

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1- Malcolm gladwells piece on drug doping (PEDs) in sports:

“Gladwell argued that we should think about cycling the same way we think about auto racing — where teams should be rewarded for using science and bending the rules to their breaking point to succeed.
"When you look at what Lance is alleged to have done. Basically he was better than everyone else at using PEDs,” Gladwell said. “He was the guy who sat down and was rigorous and focused and thoughtful and intelligent and cutting edge in how to use them, and apply them and make himself better. Like, I don’t know, so is that a bad thing?”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-lance-armstrong-2012-10#ixzz29QBKJpAJ

2- Caffeine: A PED ?
Mens health online magazine, also found in our Sunday edition Oct 14th, 2012 newspaper:

http://news.menshealth.com/chew-gum-before-races/2012/04/12/

Chew on this: Caffeinated gum can improve your athletic performance—if you start chewing it at the right moment, finds a new study from Kent State University.

NICOTINE: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/50_hits_of_nicotine
Nicotine has been used in energy drinks in Japan for years.
stimulates the release of acetylcholine, providing a sense of increased energy. Arnold used to do commercials for them.
Nicotine can improve reaction time.
Nicotine can be addictive, much like caffeine. But addiction to nicotine gum, lozenges, or patches is rare, if not unheard of.
MAYO clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-edge-newspaper-2009/apr-24b.html

3- DISCLAIMER:We are not your doctors so anything you hear here should not be taken as medical advice. For that you need to visit YOUR doctors and ask them the questions. We have not examined you, we do not know you, we know very little about your medical status. So, do not hold us responsible for taking our advice when we have just told you not to !  Again, we are NOT your doctors !

4: Maryland Guy Running a marathon in flip flops:

“Some of the rules: It can’t be a heal strap. There can’t be any other means to hold the flip flop on your shoe besides just the normal thing between your toes,” Levasseur said. “I don’t know what happens if I get a blowout.”

Read more: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/sports/Man-to-run-Baltimore-marathon-in-flip-flops/-/9379464/16917220/-/remeou/-/index.html#ixzz29QDIyW4d

5-Managing Ankle Sprains:
http://www.running-physio.com/anklesprain/

6- HIIT
 http://www.the15minutes.info/2012/10/12/what-is-hiit-and-what-can-it-do-for-you/

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/anatomyandphysiology/a/Deconditioning.htm
Studies have shown that you can maintain your fitness level even if you need to change or cut back on you exercise for several months. In order to do so, you need to exercise at about 70 percent of your VO2 max at least once per week.

7- EMAIL FROM A Blog follower:

middleagedathlete asked you:
I searched the site and didn’t see anything on bow-leggedness (if that’s a word) and it’s impact on gait. I have mild to moderate bow legs and never even knew it until I started running and it was pointed out to me by a PT I was seeing for knee pain. Is there an optimal (or at a minimum least bad) strategy for running with bow legs? I am 6'0" tall and have a gap of about 2" between my knees when standing with my ankles together and my legs straight. I am curious to hear your thoughts.

8- from the newspaper:
from Barefoot Running University.com
Article: Running up Hill

 http://barefootrunninguniversity.com/2012/10/12/uphill-running-technique/
9- Blog post we liked recently: October 5th, Gait Running and Sound. Are you listening to your body ?
 
 
10- Random topic: Wednesday october 10th Peter larson who runs Runblogger did a review of the following article:

Minimalist Running Results in Fewer Injuries?: Survey Suggests that Traditionally Shod Runners are 3.41 Times More Likely to Get Hurt

we have not gotten through the research article yet but we will, and we will try to address out thoughts on it and pete’s in the next 1-2 podcasts.  We want to make sure our thoughts are heard as well.  We bet Pete did a phenomenal job but we like to see things for ourselves, just like pete does. He is a stickler to details like we are, which is why we like alot of his work.  So, stay tuned !

11- Our dvd’s and efile downloads
Are all on payloadz. Link is in the show notes.
Link: http://store.payloadz.com/results/results.asp?m=80204

A 30 second workout has similar results as a 90 minute one ?→

McMaster University (Canada) studies on the effectiveness of high intensity interval workouts. 

Sprint Results Set the Stage

The 2005 study and others (links provided above), published in the Journal of Applied Physiology and , showed that three to seven all-out sprints on a stationary bicycle (250% of VO2 max), 30-seconds each, with four-minute rest periods, six times over two weeks, are as effective as 90 to 120 minutes of cycling at moderate intensity (65% of VO2 max) six times over two weeks. Both workouts improved endurance capacity by almost 100%, increasing time to fatigue at 80% effort from 26 minutes to 51 minutes. In short, about 15 minutes of hard sprints spread over two weeks produced the same results as nine to 12 hours of moderate intensity effort.

Both the sprinters and the traditional riders showed a substantial increase in citrate synthase, a mitochondrial enzyme that indicates the power to use oxygen, along with increased glycogen (muscle sugar) content. Neither group, however, showed a change in maximum oxygen uptake (VO2 Max, or the ability to utilize oxygen per kg of body weight in liters per minute; it can be approximated to % max heart rate with the formula %MHR = 0.64 × %VO2max + 37) or anaerobic work capacity (ability to produce lactate, a byproduct of anaerobic metabolism).

The interesting thing about this study, is that the high intensity exercise group should have produced more anaerobic work (ie more lactate) and probably did BUT were able to clear it faster because of the short duration of the exercise. Remember that the 1st few seconds of the 30 second sprint would have been using creatine phosphate stores, before tapping into the glycogen stores.

The lower intensity exercise at 65% VO2 Max works predominantly the aerobic system (incidently, 65% of VO2 Max is probably a “moderate exercise” and is probably less demanding); thus these folks would be better able to recycle lactic acid, should the levels rise to levels requiring it. Changes in VO2Max would be able to be changed much less (3-5%) in trained individuals than untrained (up to 20%), so the findings are not that surprising.

The bottom line is that high intensity training offers some gains that are similar to traditional aerobic training with less time, and should probably be included in your training regimen.

Shawn and Ivo……..Striving to increase your knowledge base more efficiently