Pain Part 1 - Understanding it

What is pain?

Pain, in the sense of physical pain, is a typical sensory experience that may be described as the unpleasant awareness of a noxious stimulus or bodily harm. Individuals experience pain by various daily hurts and aches, and sometimes through more serious injuries or illnesses.

 

Usually pain stops without treatment or responds to simple measures such as resting or taking an analgesic, and it is then called ‘acute’ pain. But it may also become intractable and develop into a condition called chronic pain, in which pain is no longer considered a symptom but an illness by itself.

 

Pain is part of the body's defense system, triggering a reflex reaction to retract from a painful stimulus, and helps adjust behavior to increase avoidance of that particular harmful situation in the future.

 

Acute Pain.

Pain due to acute injuries includes things like sprained joints, strained muscles and other minor injuries. Best Protocol for such injury is R.I.C.E

• Rest - After Injury it's very important to rest in order to protect the injured muscle from further injury.
• Ice - Using Ice bag immediately after an Injury helps in short term pain relief, applying ice also helps in reducing swelling as it restricts the blood flow. Keep the injured area covered with ice for 15 mins, several times a day.
• Compression - An easy way to compress an area is by wrapping it in ACE bandage. This is helpful esp. in cases of Sprain
• Elevation - Elevating an injury reduces swelling. It's most effective when the injured area is raised above the level of the heart.

Heat can be used after 48 hrs of injury when it has moved out of acute face and swelling has stopped.

Acute pain can be easily healed using simple technique; the focus of rest of the discussion would be of chronic pain and how get relief from it.

 

Chronic Pain.

Chronic pain is defined as pain that persists longer than the temporal course of natural healing, Its like a bad feeling that you get when u wake up in the morning or after 10 minutes on computer your fingers starts to get numb and you get excruciating pain in your wrist. This type of pain is not due to some sudden injury but due to bad posture or immobility over a long time. 

 

Fixing chronic pain is not easy as in most of the cases the cause of the pain is not located at the source of the pain for example if you have Elbow pain the problem area can be anything from wrist, biceps, triceps or shoulder. And if we are looking into lower back pain then the problem area can be any thing from neck to feet.

 

Fascia - Fixing the puzzle

Fascia is the soft tissue component of the connective tissue system that permeates the human body. It interpenetrates and surrounds muscles, bones, organs, nerves, blood vessels and other structures. Fascia is an uninterrupted, three-dimensional web of tissue that extends from head to toe, from front to back, from interior to exterior. It is responsible for maintaining structural integrity; for providing support and protection; and acts as a shock absorber.

 

Fascia functions as the body's first line of defense against pathogenic agents and infections. After injury, it is the fascia that creates an environment for tissue repair.

 

Here are five lines of Fascia that runs through out the body -

• Superficial back line- starts at the bottom of your feet and goes up and over the top of your head.
• Superficial front line- Starts on the top of your feet at the toes and ends behind the ear.
• Lateral line- Runs along the side of your lower body, hips, and oblique.
• Spiral line- Wraps from side to side along the body.
• Deep front line- Runs along the spine and jaw.

Everything is connected through Fascia, so a problem in one area can cause pain/ stiffness in other area. 

 

In next parts I will try to help you find the source of pain and some easy ways to fix it.

Birthday Workout.

Cheers all,
Yesterday was my B'day and I decided to celebrate this with a special workout. It goes like 20 rounds of
1. 5 pullups
2. 25 Squats (normal stance)
3. Stair run (4 floors)
4. 10 Pushups
5. 25 Squats (Wide stance)

Combining into 100 pullups, 200 Pushups and 1000 Squats...The whole workout took little over 2 hour. The toughest part were pullups considering the fact I can only do 4 pullups in one go..and I needed to replace pullups with chinups to finish the routine...
As for workout goes 2 sets were toughest after the I got used to it and finished strong with gas left to 5 more sets which i would have done If lunch had not arrived..

Surprisingly I am half as sore as i expected it to be, which is really good and i would be able to hit gym today..

Another year gone and I am stronger then what I was previous year, hopefully next year would be better.

Stay strong,
Harsh

Ten things that work much better than any food supplement under the sun

Doug Hepburn and APOLLON WHEELS

Below is the extract from Brooks Kubik, The Dinosaur Strength Training Notebook:

Ten things that work much better than any food supplement under the sun

1. Squats.

2. Abbreviated training programs that focus on heavy duty compound exercises with barbell and dumbbells.

3. Supplementing your barbell and dumbbell work with heavy awkward objects (bags, barrels, beams etc).

4. Dropping the heaviest dumbbell you can find on the head of any self proclaimed ''weight train authority'' who tells you that ''genetics are everything.''

5. Ditto to anyone who advocates slow motion training. Twice.

6. The heavy pulling movements that Olympic lifters use...the exercises that have been building the biggest, thickest, strongest backs in the world for close to a century: power cleans, power pulls, power snatches and the clean and press.

7. The type of HEAVY dumbbell lifting detailed on my training tape, The Lost Art of Dumbbell Training.

8. A no nonsense, never say die, never give up attitude...a strength of mind and power of will that allows you to SMASH through any sort of adversity or obstacle.

9. Plenty of good, nutritious food.

10. Heavy partials to build tendon and ligament strength.


First preference for anyone should be good nutrition, supplements should come second. Making good food choice is also cost effective.

I have made 2 comparison below :

Comparison 1
Take for example, 5lbs Whey Protein costs around Rs 3500 here in India and makes 75 serving days which will last about 90 days.

At same price you can get following for 3 Months, daily
1. 5 Eggs daily each @ Rs 2 = Rs 900
2. 500 ml milk @ Rs 25 per Liter = Rs 1125
3. 100 Gm Cottage cheese @ Rs 140 per Kg= 1260

Totals comes to about Rs 3285

Comparison 2
Now Total protein content in a 5lb jar @ 23 gm per scoop = 1725 gm (based upon label, can't be sure if supplement company are screwing us here.)

1. 5 Eggs daily each @ 6gm per egg = 30 gm daily and 2700 Gm for 3 months
2. 500 ml milk @ 6.5 gm per glass = 13 gm daily and 1170 gm for 3 months
3. 100 Gm Cottage cheese @ 20gm per 100gm = 20gm daily and 1800 for 3 months.
This amounts to 63 gm daily and 5670 gm for 3 months.

Though a vague comparison but we can conclude that natural protein source is better than any supplement both quality and money wise.

I am gonna ditch whey protein from this month and concentrate on good nutrition.

Self Myofascial Release: Purpose, Methods and Techniques

A great read by Mike Robertson. Brought by RTS newsletter.

A Day at the Gym - Female Training 3

Check for Part1 and Part2 before reading this.

Here a basic routine is given based upon Exercise mentioned in previous post.
Do not forget to do proper Warm up before starting. Here is a good warmup routine courtesy Lauren Fitness.

Best Warmup Ever from Lauren B on Vimeo.

Routine:

Workout A

1. Warmup
2. Knee Dominant.
3. Horizontal Push.
4. Horizontal Pull.
5. GPP
6. Streching.

Workout B

1. Warmup
2. Hip Dominant.
3. Vertical Push.
4. Vertical Pull.
5. GPP (Diffrent from one used in Workout A)
6. Streching.

Reps and Sets:
Start with 3 sets of 8 reps and each week try to increase rep by at least 1. when you have reached 15 reps increase the difficulty of the exercise by adding more weights or making it more challenging. For eg if you were doing pushup from wall, then now try to do these from a bench.

Exercise Selection:
Pick an exercise from here. Feel free to modify exercise as per your needs.

Schedule:
If you workout 2 times a week choose :
Monday : Workout A ; Friday: Workout B

If you workout 3 times a week Choose :
Week 1 :- Monday : Workout A ; Wednesday: Workout B; Friday: Workout A
Week 2 :- Monday : Workout B ; Wednesday: Workout A; Friday: Workout B
Repeat

I recommend to go for at least 3 days a week , also try to maintain active life style on rest of the days.

Also feel free to add moderate intensity cardio like skipping, bike, brisk walk on off day 2-3 times a week for better recovery and to boost additional fat loss by calorie deficit.