Dehydration causes uterine cramps. Science.

Every so often during my early morning treadmill hillwork, I get muscle cramps when running.  

No, not leg or back cramps or even a side stitch.  

I experience what feels like menstrual cramps- especially during a real tough workout.  I thought maybe at first it was due to my posture, or maybe a case of the Bubblies, but it happened again yesterday on my 3 miles of steep hillwork, where I was holding a pretty quick pace, the day after my PR 10K.  I thought maybe my rectus abdominis was sore from some ab work a few days ago, but no- this was exactly like a menstrual cramp, and it lasted a few minutes, but was so bad I had to stop running and drink water until it washed away.  The funny thing is, whenever this happens, it's never during that time of the month, it's usually in the week or two preceeding it.  I think. 

So I did some research into my chief suspect:
DEHYDRATION-INDUCED UTERINE CRAMPS.

Turns out, there are lots of internet voices out there who have dealt with this same situation and unfortunately been sneered at by their primary care provider, with no help!

But I can help with what I've learned.  I hope!!

It's all in our brains, to begin with, well...sort of.  Here's our pituitary gland:  It's less colorful in real life. 

Not a scrotum, but yes, that's a uterus.  Grumpy one!

 The posterior pituitary produces 2 hormones as shown above: ADH (antidiuretic hormone) and oxytocin, and as they are made in the same factory, these chemical structures look very similar to our body.  

ADH is produced when we are dehydrated, and acts on our kidneys to help us stay hydrated by decreasing the amount of water we eliminate in urine, hence "anti-diuretic."  

Oxytocin acts on the uterine muscle.  It's primary purpose it to cause uterine contractions for baby delivery!  You may have heard of pitocin, or even used it to induce labor- it's based on the hormone oxytocin.  

When we are dehydrated, like during an especially strenuous aerobic workout, our uterine oxytocin receptors see the extra ADH and think it's oxytocin and commence cramping.  When we then drink water, our body no longer releases the ADH, and the spillover to our uterus stops.  Yay, no more cramping!  Save that for when it's actually my period please.  Actually, please don't save it at all :)

By this same logic, staying well hydrated during your period can ameliorate those cramps. 

This is exactly why pregnant women should stay hydrated, especially when feeling crampy!  And with the holidays nigh upon us and August and September the months with the most birthdays, I'm sure some gals out there might use this information in the near future :)

I also wondered why this cramping usually only occurred a week or two before my period, similar to what many of the anonymous gals found on some women's health websites- and this study here found that in nonpregnant women, during the pre-menstrual (the two weeks before your period) phase of the cycle, ADH is four times (!) more potent than oxytocin in causing uterine cramping. What a naughty little chemical this ADH is!

Wow, do I ever feel like drinking more water before heading to my early morning workouts- overnight dehydration certainly plays a role, too.  And I'm pretty sure this dehydration situation is why I felt these cramps yesterday.

I hope this helps those who have been turned away and made to feel that their pain was unimportant.

Of course, persistent abdominal pain should always be checked out with your health care provider.   

Please tell me I'm not the only one out there with this??

Bikram Yoga Benefits?

During my foray into Bikram Yoga, I googled "Bikram Yoga health benefits" repeatedly (remember the definition of insanity, anyone?) in a vain attempt to find something specific.  I found things like "reduced anxiety" (a tad subjective, I think) and "body detoxification" (so is pooping) and "blood thinning" (scary, quite scary...and nebulous).  

These intangibilities bother me no end!

In my yoga stint, I didn't feel particularly thin of blood (or thin at all, really) but I did sleep better.  Nothing is as comforting as evidence so I did a literature search and found one salient article by some great neuromuscular scientists, Brian Tracey and Cady Hart, out of Colorado State.  I love that these guys admit in their abstract that there really hasn't been much in the way of high-grade yoga research.  Hence their study, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research!

After 8 weeks of 3x weekly 90 minute Bikram yoga classes (and for anyone just joining us on our yogavestigation, that means hot hot hot hot yoga), the study group of 32 young and healthy but mostly sedentary adults had stronger and more flexible hamstrings, stronger glutes, and increased shoulder flexibility as compared to their non-yogi counterparts.  Of course, these are not facts and science, merely "facts" and "science" dusted with the stink of statistical magic.

Feel free to read the study, but be aware of the limitations--we already could surmise that physical activity of any variety is a boon to anyone who is mostly sedentary.  This study did not dwell on blood thinning or inner peace, but still demonstrated that Bikram Yoga has a positive impact on flexibility and strength, two key components of physical fitness.

So what is my takeaway?  Yoga is fun to do with a friend.  It's a nice break.  It's nice to relax in a hot room in the evening.  But it's not going to increase my VO2 max or transform me into a skinny mini any time soon.  So I'd better keep running.

Good thing the Pub Run is for (TOMORROW)...more on that in a bit!

Who wants to argue with me about the benefits of yoga?  I liked it, I really did, I promise...but I'm not sure I'm a Bikram devotee...

Barefoot running...lit review

 

I am pretty set in my ways and never caught on to the minimalist or barefoot running technique, despite some friends who insist on it.  I'd actually forgotten the whole issue until a few days ago when I saw a gentleman character running barefoot on a treadmill at the gym.  Yes, gross and confusing at the same time. 


So I did a little more looking into this barefoot running thing.  Reading about it in a popular magazine is somehow just not satisfying.  To the library, then, to investigate how the scientists study these matters!


The take home message in the study I read (Altman and Davis, above) regardless of the shoes you have?  No more heel strike for you...heel strike was linked to elevated pressure in the front of the lower leg (since you have to keep your tibialis anterior contracted to maintain dorsiflexion, I assume), and injury in general occurred 2.5 times more frequently than in people running with midfoot and forefoot strike.  We're talking back, hip, knee, ankle and foot pain, derived from the increased transmission of ground forces through your bones and joints when heel striking.

All that being studied, I've decided to stick with my shod ways.  I am not particularly a heel-striker.  The change I've made, though, is to completely avoid using that treadmill in the gym...

Of course, the researchers admitted that long-term top-tier research studies on this shod vs barefoot subject just don't exist yet.  I'm willing to collect some data and do some research:

Gonna need some input from minimalist types, subjectively, what benefits do you derive?

Product review: PowerBar Energy Blasts

Off day today for me- no running (well, maybe I'll go for an evening run if time allows, no promises though!) as tomorrow is a big day in my career and I have lots of prep to do for it.  Exciting stuff, I'll share after the big day :)

For now, let's talk about sweets!  My favorite type of candy has always been on the "chewy" end of the lickies-and-chewies spectrum...those big bins of candy at bulk stores?  I love me some cola bottles, cinnamon bears, peachy penguins, green apple frogs...really anything made by The Happy World of Haribo is at the top of my list, so it's no small wonder that I prefer gummy-type exercise sweets over gels.  My local grocery store stocks Power Bar Energy Blast Gel-Filled Chews.  I usually find them on sale for $1.00 per bag, and in three flavors each with a different level of caffeine:

Raspberry is my favorite and even has some vit C

So what is the big selling point here?  How are these better than a handful of jellybeans?  PowerBar touts their proprietary C2 Max energy blend...which is just a 2:1 glucose:fructose (fruit sugar, honey, corn syrup) sugar ratio.  These monosaccharides are very similar (in fact, glucose + fructose = sucrose, aka table sugar) but the reason they are included in this proportion in these Power Bar Energy Blasts is all based on these guys and their time-trial of cyclists:

 

Currell and Jeukendrup reminded me that the transporters that take nutrients from your intestine to blood stream come in many different permutations.  In a very simplified manner, when there's a lot of glucose to be put into the blood (ie, after a meal), the glucose transporter (SGLT1) can get backed up with glucose traffic.  When glucose and fructose are combined, the fructose uses its own separate transporter (GLUT5) which is off limits to glucose, and everyone can get out of the intestinal lining and into the blood more efficiently via the backdoor from the intestinal cells into the bloodstream (GLUT2).  This is especially important in exercise as we need energy more quickly and don't want to wait for glucose to file out.

The researchers determined that a ratio of 2:1 glucose:fructose (1.2g to 0.6g) was more effective (an 8% decrease in the amount of time it took the cyclists to complete their cycling time trial as compared to 1.8g of straight glucose (which showed a 10% improvement over the placebo group who just had water without carbohydrate).  The scientists also indicated that the ingestion of the glucose:fructose blend staved off the body's need to use liver glycogen stores, allowing for these stores to be accessed later in the time trial.

So this is maybe how PowerBar formulated the 2:1 C2 Max blend.  I am glad to see there is real science behind it.  Do I personally need a perfect monosaccharide blend?  Nah, I am not nearly on that end of the performance curve.  In my "research" (sample size: me) I do notice that after having some gels or candies after about an hour into a marathon or century cycling event that I perk up a bit.  I also feel more energized after having regular foods, too, like a few graham crackers, or sips of carbohydrate beverage, so I know there's something to it and it's not particular to fancy lab-created food blends- in my case, it's probably a combination of the added glucose/fructose and a placebo effect.

I like a chewy candy while I run.  It fights boredom and doesn't gag me like some of the gels which seem more like a dentist's fluoridated sealant paste.  It's also easy for me to unwrap a few packages of gummies pre-race and put them in a small sandwich baggie and tuck into my sports bra or shorts pocket which doesn't cause the same level of underboob chafe as the scratchy edges of the gel packs.  Plus, it's easy to share a few chewy candies with a stranger, don't get me wrong, I love people and all, but I'm not letting all y'all have a quick suckle on a shared PowerBar Gel as you run past.

I'll continue to buy this type of stuff for my longer runs and races.  On the road bike I can pretty much dig into leftover Kung Pao chicken and not suffer tummy trouble.

Does anyone know more about this fructose/glucose nonsense?  What's your favorite pick-me-up during a run?  I'd love a diagram or at least an interpretive dance of the intestinal luminal cotransporters...

Carbs + protein for optimal recovery...lit review

Inspired by an old red hot seeking refuge under the couch.  10s of thousands of glucose!

I ran 8 miles in 66 minutes today at the gym, which is just fine by me, but I didn't have a chance to eat afterwards and I spent my whole work day feeling like doodoo causing me to buy ice cream on the way home today.  I just really needed to re-up my glycogen I guess.

Glycogen is the fuel for our skeletal muscles.  It's made and stored by the liver, and is our body's preferred storage form of fuel.  Think of it as the same energy currency as glucose, but a big bushy branched glucose shrub centered around a protein core.  Glycogen is converted into glucose by the liver and our muscles and this glucose is our body's energy source...but during endurance exercise, we deplete our glycogen stores and must refill with glucose.

Ideally, we'd start exercising with a full glycogen tank.

Realistically, I run on an empty stomach (ok, with some sugar-free Red Bull sloshing around in there, true, true) and I'm lucky to get more than a bottle of water or handful of crackers after a long run while scurrying to shower, change, and arrive at work on time.

You might think at first, well, if I'm low on glycogen, I need to replace with glucose, and go for pure carbohydrates (the source of glucose).  I thought that was true until reading this study, which found that refueling with carbs plus protein is a better recovery than pure carbohydrates, even of equivalent caloric value:

I love this stuff...

Especially when you are doing twice a day workouts!  With 24-26 hours between workouts, there isn't such a rush to replenish glycogen.

Protein is a superhero and aids in the body's uptake of glucose (and thus increases our glycogen stores) because it signals an enhanced insulin response- insulin, our buddy which gets sugar (glucose) out of the blood and into cells where it creates energy and is used for sustaining life.

So what does this article mean to me?  It means I'm going to throw a Luna bar into my gym bag instead of a baggie of pretzels or handful of Cheerios.  I do love Cheerios though, so maybe I'll have them with chocolate milk.  And this article tells me it's best to ingest your post-workout snack soon after exercising, within 30 minutes.  So maybe I'll eat that Luna bar in the shower then.

Other research has shown that more than 20-25g of protein at any one meal or snack is just going to end up in poop, there's no meat-to-muscle direct pipeline.  For all those guys out there eating piles of steak or the old 47-egg white omelet because you are trying to "bulk up," (you know who you are) well, you're going to get some bulk, but mostly, you're going to be making some stinky poops and stressing your kidneys.  I'd still like to sell you some organic free-range eggs anyway.

As a reference, this is what 18g of protein looks like:

3 oz can of lemon-pepper tuna...anyone else thinking of Jim Halpert?

Here's some good (scientifically proven!!) recovery carbohydrate + protein choices, no need for fancy concoctions and $$$ supplements:

• Chocolate milk
• Cereal and milk
• PB&J
• Cheese and crackers
• Yogurt
• Brownies
• Brownies + ice cream (heh)

But really, it's only good if you're going to eat it...time to get creative and tell me all about your favorite post-workout snack...I personally like lemon Luna bars and chocolate milk.  I probably don't need both...I would also please like a brownie now to go with my ice cream...