Dr Steve's Chiropractic Blog

Hello,

When exercising if you choose a sport or activity you enjoy it makes it much easier for you to get yourself going.  I found this article that talks about body types and your personality when choosing a sport.  Please enjoy.

Pick the sport that fits your personality

Excerpted from ‘The Best Diet & Fitness Tips’ magazine8:30a.m. EST March 9, 2013

Four activities that may work for you: swimming, biking, playing basketball or tennis.

Story Highlights

• Swimming is great for fit and unfit individuals
• Cycling is great for those who love being outdoors
• Basketball is good for all body types

Exercise is always easier when you select an activity or sport that’s suited to your body type and personality, according to a story in The Best Diet & Fitness Tips, on newsstands now. The magazine, the first in a new series of USA TODAY publications called The Best, features advice from USA TODAY, Shape and Men’s Fitness.

Here are the benefits for four different sports, according to New York-based exercise expert Edward Jackowski, author of Escape Your Shape.

Swimming

Health benefits: Aerobic, cardio, easy on the joints, full-body exercise, good for both fit and unfit individuals.

Body and personality type: Great for all body types and all ages, and well-suited for individuals with strong personalities who don’t like group activities and prefer privacy.

Calories burned per hour: Swimming with moderate intensity burns up 300 calories for a 150-pound person and 400 calories for a 200-pound person.

Cycling

Health benefits: Great cardio, aerobic, builds strength and endurance for the entire lower body and balance.

Body and personality type: Good for all body types, but people who are bottom heavy will especially benefit. It’s also a great exercise for those who love the outdoors.

Calories burned per hour: 200 calories for a 150-pound individual and 300 calories for a 200-pound individual cycling at a moderate pace. Biking hills? You burn twice as many calories

Tennis

Health benefits: Both aerobic and anaerobic (toning), depending on whether you play vigorous singles or more leisurely doubles. Great for hand-eye coordination and bone health, as your feet strike the ground.

Body type and personality: People with hourglass figures — equal top and bottom — excel because they have both upper- and lower-body strength.

Calories burned per hour: In singles, 225 for 150-pound person and 310 for a 200-pound person. In doubles, 150 for a 150-pound player and 200 for a 200-pound person.

Basketball

Health benefits: For full-court hoops, great aerobic conditioning and endurance; for half-court, less aerobic. Great for hand-eye coordination, agility, balance, jumping, running forward and backward.

Body and personality type: Good for all body types but appeals to more aggressive folks who aren’t afraid of body contact or confrontation.

Calories burned per hour: In half-court play, 200 calories for a 150-pound person and 300 calories for a 200-pound person. In full-court play, 350 and 450, respectively.

Hello,

Much has been said about brain injuries and concussions in sports today.  This New York Times article talks about the long term effects of brain injuries.  Please enjoy.

Does a Long-Ago Head Injury Pose
Risks for the Everyday Athlete?

By GRETCHEN
REYNOLDS

Much has been
studied and reported, particularly in this newspaper, about the
short-term effects of concussions on young athletes, as well as the potential
longer-term outcomes for professional athletes who engage in high-level contact
sports like football and ice hockey for many years, putting themselves at risk for
multiple concussions and the lesser but still consequential subconcussive
injuries.

But until
recently, far less has been understood about the long-term implications, if
any, of concussions experienced years ago by recreational athletes. Does a
55-year-old man who played high school football in the ’70s and perhaps grew
dizzy or “had his bell rung” after a tackle or two need to worry about the
state of his brain today, even if he never had a formal diagnosis of
concussion? Or do I, because I bounced my head hard against the slopes several
times while learning to snowboard 10 years ago?

The emerging
answer, according to recent research, would seem to be a cautious “probably
not,” although there may be reason to monitor how easily names and places come
to mind.

For a study published
in May in the journal Cerebral Cortex, researchers at the University
of Montreal examined the brains of a group of healthy, middle-aged former
athletes, all of whom had played contact sports in college about 30 years ago
and some of whom had sustained concussions while doing so.

In the years
since, the athletes had stopped competing but had remained physically active.
None complained of failing memories or other symptoms of cognitive impairment —
or at least, not more so than any group of 50- and 60-year-olds would be
expected to complain.

The researchers
scanned the volunteers’ brains using M.R.I. machines and automated measuring
techniques that precisely determine the volume and other structural components
of various brain segments. They also used separate scanning technology that
looks at the metabolic health of particular neurons. Finally, they had
volunteers complete tests of their long- and short-term memory, including their
ability to dredge up specific words, a task that many of us who’ve reached
middle age find daunting.

When the
Canadian scientists closely parsed the data from the former athletes, they
found small dissimilarities between the brains of those who’d been concussed
and those who had not. Many of those who’d been hit in the head decades ago now
had slightly less volume in the hippocampus, a brain area associated with
memory and learning, than those who hadn’t been concussed. Many also had
slightly thinner cortexes, especially in portions of the brain known to thin
with age. Some also showed signs of metabolic slowing and other abnormalities
within their brain cells. And many were just a bit less able to recall events
and dredge up words and names than the volunteers who’d never been hit in the
head.

The
differences, subtle as they were, were reminiscent, the authors concluded, of
“abnormal aging.” In effect, the concussed brains seemed to be biologically
older than the uninjured brains. The 50-year-olds who’d been hit in the head
had brains that were structurally and metabolically similar to those of
uninjured 60-year-olds.

And this
premature brain aging is a potential consequence of past concussions that bears
watching, says Steven P. Broglio, a professor of kinesiology with the Michigan
Neurosport program at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Broglio,
who has extensively studied concussions in college students, is an author of a
new review, published this month in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews,
of possible links between sports-related concussions and premature brain aging.
In his work, he’s seen lingering if slight declines in college students’
ability to concentrate and attend to information, as well as in their balance
and bodily control several years after a concussion, changes that somewhat
mimic those in the bodies and brains of elderly people.

“It seems
possible, according to our data and that from other labs,” that concussions
“may accelerate some of the normal deterioration in cognitive and motor
function that we’d expect with aging,” he says.

But it is also
likely that any such effects will vary widely from person to person. “We know
right now that some athletes are more affected by a single concussion than
others,” says Kevin M. Guskiewicz, chairman of exercise and sports science at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and winner of a MacArthur
“genius grant” last year for his work studying sports-related concussions. “And
we don’t know why.”

Meanwhile,
long-term studies, following people who’ve experienced a concussion “from their
teens into old age,” have not yet been done, Dr. Broglio says, although he and
others are hoping to start such studies soon.

So for now,
given the limited state of the available science, what should someone with a
history of concussion do? “I don’t think people need to worry too much,” Dr.
Guskiewicz says.

The Canadian
former athletes, after all, even those with signs of accelerated aging, were
still functioning fine in their daily lives.

“But it’s not a
bad idea to do some brain training,” he adds. “Exercise. Do puzzles. Read.
Learn new things. Those are all good for your brain anyway,” whether you’ve had
a concussion or not.

“I’ve had three
concussions,” as a high school and collegiate athlete years ago, he continues.
“I work out and do puzzles all the time. It certainly can’t hurt.”

Medical research has made great advances in recent years. Gene testing may become a predictor for many conditions and diseases in the future. The article below caught my interest, do we really want to use gene testing to determine if your child will be a sports star.
AP
By LINDSEY TANNER, Associated Press Lindsey Tanner, Associated Press – Tue Mar 8, 7:05 pm ET
CHICAGO – Was your kid born to be an elite athlete? Marketers of genetic tests claim the answer is in mail-order kits costing less than $200.
Some customers say the test results help them steer their children to appropriate sports. But skeptical doctors and ethicists say the tests are putting profit before science and have a much greater price tag — potentially robbing perfectly capable youngsters of a chance to enjoy activities of their choice.
“In the `winning is everything’ sports culture, societal pressure to use these tests in children may increasingly present a challenge to unsuspecting physicians,” according to a commentary in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Scientists have identified several genes that may play a role in determining strength, speed and other aspects of athletic performance. But there are likely hundreds more, plus many other traits and experiences that help determine athletic ability, said Dr. Alison Brooks, a pediatrician and sports medicine specialist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Brooks and University of Michigan physician Dr. Beth Tarini wrote the commentary to raise awareness about the issue.
A handful of companies are selling these tests online. In some cases, the tests screen for genes that are common even among non-athletes. As science advances, Brooks said, “My guess is we’re going to see more of this, not less.”
Bradley Marston of Bountiful, Utah, bought a test online a year ago for his daughter Elizabeth, then 9.
She’s “a very talented soccer player,” and Marston wanted to know if she had a variation of a gene called ACTN3, which influences production of a protein involved in certain muscle activity.
One form of the gene has been linked with explosive bursts of strength needed for activities such as sprinting and weight lifting.
The ACTN3 test sold by Atlas Sports Genetics was developed by Genetic Technologies Limited, an Australian firm. Atlas’ $169 kit consists of two swabs to scrape cells from the inside of the cheek. Customers return the used swabs to the Boulder, Colo., company and receive an analysis several days later.
Elizabeth Marston’s test showed she has a sprinting-related gene form — results her father hopes will help her get into elite sports programs or win a sports scholarship to college.
Marston said he ordered the test partly out of curiosity, but approached it cautiously and talked with Elizabeth to make sure she could handle it.
“She told me, `Well, Daddy, I just have to try harder’” if the results came back negative, Marston said.
Elizabeth has loved soccer since age 4 and said she’s happy with the results.
But even at age 10, she knows it will take more than genes to reach her goal of playing in the Olympics.
“I think I would have to train hard,” she said.
Nat Carruthers, operations president for Atlas Sports Genetics, says the company has sold several hundred test kits since it began marketing them in 2008.
“Our goal is to help people become the athlete they were born to be,” not to exclude kids from certain sports, Carruthers said.
He said critics have misrepresented the test “to sound like we’re telling parents what their kid should do and how good their kid will be. That’s not at all our claim or desire,” he said.
I would enjoy reading your comments.