Exercise Guide

Many sports injuries cause a progressive permanent osteoarthritis that will prevent a person from exercising to cause the very diseases that a regular exercise program is supposed to prevent. Sports medicine surgeon James Garrick, writing in the medical journal Lancet (December 2005), explains why. You are supposed to exercise. It makes you stronger, faster, healthier and may even prolong your life. However, every time you exercise, you risk injury and many sports injuries last forever. Depression, heart attacks, strokes, obesity and diabetes are all associated with a sedentary lifestyle. A twisted ankle can change an active person into a sedentary one. A torn anterior cruciate ligament or meniscus of the knee has a greater than 50 percent chance of causing permanent pain within five years, regardless of the treatment.

If you tear your anterior cruciate ligament of you knee, you must have it repaired as soon as possible. After it is repaired at surgery, you have an almost certain chance of tearing it again if you try to return to a competitive sport. When your heel hits the ground during running, your foot stops moving suddenly, forcing the upper femur bone to slide forward on the lower tibia bone at the knee. The anterior cruciate ligament prevents the femur from sliding too far forward and shearing off the cartilage in your knee. Once you tear your anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), even if it is successfully repaired, you have a weaker ACL that still lets the top femur slide forward on the tibia and shear off cartilage. So running causes you to lose cartilage until you lose it all, bone rubs against bone and you hurt 24 hours a day. The only treatment then is a knee replacement. So anyone who has broken cartilage or ACL in his or he knee should never run again for the rest of his or her life.

On the other hand, strengthening the muscles of your upper leg stabilizes the knee and helps to delay and prevent a knee replacement. Anyone with broken cartilage or a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the knee should try to pedal a bicycle every day. Pedaling is done in a smooth rotary motion without sudden stopping, so it does not cause sudden forward movement of the femur on the tibia and does not shear off additional cartilage from the knee joint. If you pedal against increasing resistance you will strengthen the muscles around the knees and increase their stability so there is less wear on the cartilage.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

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A study from the Netherlands shows that sugar in sports drinks slows absorption and increases stomach cramping in running races shorter than 12 miles. (International Journal of Sports Medicine, Volume 26, 2005). Fluids pass through your stomach and are absorbed almost immediately in your intestines. Exercise slows fluid passage from the stomach but does not affect intestinal absorption. Sugar added to drinks can delay stomach emptying to increase risk for cramps.

Another study from the University of Utah, reported in the same journal, shows that taking a salty drink just before exercise increases endurance. Dehydration is the most common cause of fatigue during exercise in fit men and women. This study used salted drinks or placebo (unsalted) drinks with two groups of cyclists, and demonstrated a significant improvement in an endurance time trial as well as better maintenance of blood volume in the group that had the salted drinks.

Anything that increases blood volume should increase endurance. Taking in fluid before exercising increases blood volume, and using salty drinks increases blood volume more than pure water. But a major problem with salty drinks is that they usually taste awful. You can accomplish the same results by drinking water, soda or any other beverage you like and eat a handful of salted peanuts or other salty food before and during your endurance events.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

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No, I’m not talking about war veterans, though at times, we probably feel like it. Sport veterans are the hot topic. Even if only because I’m feeling every ache and pain of competing in my first Grand Final in twenty years. You see, I’m a hockey player. Er, that’s field hockey not the icebound version. Right through from the time I picked up my first hockey stick [at age12 and not knowing what on earth it was for] to the time I undertook semi-retirement to pursue a family life [I was pregnant]. Including the nearly twenty years I wasn’t actually playing hockey, up to last year, when I registered with a team and started playing all over again.

The whistle blew on that first game and I burst onto the field with a fervour I hadn’t felt in oh so long and haven’t felt since. What I have felt is every year of absence and age, groaning about the stupidity of running around a field chasing a ball with a stick in my hands at the grand old age of 41. It hasn’t stopped me though. I think to myself, “I’m too old for this” as the ball whizzes past, and [like one of Pavlov’s dogs] I automatically react. “That’s my ball!” the hockey player inside my head says and orders my legs to start running. It would all be quite pathetic if it wasn’t such good fun.

The camaraderie of the team is something I’d nearly forgotten about. The slaps on the back as we’d chased, tackled, jostled, and occasionally scored goals is a wonderful boost to moral. As is the concern when once again I’ve forgotten to stop running, barrelled into another player and somersaulted through the air to land with a thud on the ground. Or the shouts of “Don’t worry, you’ll get ‘em next time!” when one of us has completely stuffed up a tackle or shot. The emphasis has been, and continues to be, less on winning [though that always remains our goal] and more on being a team, supporting each other and having fun. It’s much more fun now than when I was a teenager and winning was everything. If I can get through a whole game without gasping for the need to rest before quarter time, I’m happy. If I can manage the game without injuries I’m even happier. To score a goal is the ultimate high!

I returned to competition last year without much thought to personal fitness. That is, I did think about a bit at first, worried about it a good deal more and then realised I’d never get back into the game if I waited until I was fit, and went for it. With all good intentions, I told myself I’d get back into running, go to the gym, attend training sessions and by the end of the season I’d be as fit as ever. Season two has come and gone [with a grand final appearance, mind you] and I’m still working on those intentions, planning a summer season [during which I really will get fit] and having a lot of fun.

Playing a team sport is a great way to get back into something you love, competing for a goal, achieving a few plays you can be proud of and getting red-faced and sweaty with a bunch of like-minded people. You don’t have to be experienced at the sport. This year, our hockey team had several players who had never picked up a stick before. Yet their kids, along side mine and several dozen others, cheered as loud as everyone else for their mums to put sticks down and start running. A few of us have teenage daughters who want to join the team next season - a mums & bubs team, of sorts.

There are plenty of sports you can go out and try - netball, basketball hockey. Whatever you like. It won’t be easy, you’ll be tired, achey and quite possibly a little bruised and battered, but you’ll be better for the exertion and the wrenching out of the relatively small world of family, home and job and into the greater world of The Team! Fitness, even if just a taste of it, will be yours. A lifting of your competitive spirit [much better than passively watching sport on TV] will help you find a way out of any mental and emotional ruts [yes, really - once you feel stronger, you think stronger!]. Being part of something bigger than yourself for 60 sweaty minutes a week is just the tonic [or sport drink] a lot of us are looking for.

Find a team and start running

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