organ

Dietary Fats

dietary, fat, oil, fish, avocado, nut, olive

What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m interested in nutrition to stay in shape. I read some advice from Arnold Schwarzenegger and I learned some good stuff.

Of the 3 macronutriments, fats are the nutrients that are the most dense in energy. Fat is composed of the same thing as carbohydrates (carbon, hydrogen and oxygen) but the difference is that the atoms are not linked together in the same way. Fat is in plants and animals. Oils are liquid fats. Fats are insoluble in water. Fats are organized in 3 categories:

  • Simple fats (triglycerides)
  • Compound fats (phospholipid, glucolipid, lipoprotein)
  • Derived fats (cholesterol)

Here are the 3 fat’s functions in your body:

  1. Fats are the main source of stored energy (body fat)
  2. Fats help to protect and cushion the major organs
  3. Fats have an insulator effect, preserving body heat and protecting against excessive cold.

Fat is the most dense nutrient in calories 1 pound (453gr) of fat contains 4000 calories while 1 pound (453gr) of protein or carbohydrate contains about 1800 calories.

When you do exercise and stay within your aerobic capacity, it means you don’t run out of breath, your body uses fats and carbohydrates as a source of energy at around 50/50. But if you continue, your body will use more fat than carbohydrates as a source of energy. If you train for 3 hours, your body can use fat to create 80% energy for your body.

As you could read, there is different type of fat: saturated, unsaturated and polyunsaturated. These terms mean the number of hydrogen atoms attached to the molecule. Here is an analogy with a string’s ball so that it’s easier to understand. Saturated fat is like a length of string in a messy clutter. Unsaturated is like a rope with some entanglements. And polyunsaturated is like a rope carefully wrapped without the sign of a tangle. The more fat is saturated (tangled), the more likely it’s to remain in the body and clog the arteries, which increase the risk of heart disease.

There are also other factors. Diets rich in saturated fat tend to increase cholesterol levels in the blood. Health experts advise that 2/3 of your fat intake is polyunsaturated fat.

Saturated fats are found in:

  • Beef
  • Lamb
  • Pork
  • Chicken
  • Shellfish
  • Egg yolks
  • Cream
  • Milk
  • Cheese
  • Butter
  • Vegetable shortening
  • Chocolate
  • Lard

Unsaturated fats are found in:

  • Avocados
  • Cashews
  • Olives and olive oil
  • Peanuts, peanuts oil, peanut butter

Polyunsaturated fats are found in:

  • Almonds
  • Cottonseed oil
  • Margarine (usually)
  • Pecans
  • Sunflower oil
  • Corn oil
  • Fish
  • Mayonnaise
  • Safflower oil
  • Soybean oil
  • Walnuts

Essential Fatty Acids

fatty, acid, saturated, unsaturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, omega,3,6,9,linolenic, linoleic, cla, gla, arachidonic, epa, dha, oleic, lauric, myristic,palmitic, stearic

Essential fatty acids are inevitable in a healthy diet because your body can’t create it itself- That’s why it’s essential that you eat foods containing essential fatty acids. It’s a shame because many bodybuilders have low fat diets and they develop deficiencies in dietary fat. Fortunately there are foods and supplements that provide “good fats” to avoid this extreme. Here are some examples:

Fish oil

Instead of eating low-fat fish, test salmon, trout or mackerel. Fish oil is needed by organs, especially the brain. You can also take fish oils as supplements.

Polyunsaturated vegetable oil

In vegetable oils, there are 2 acids that are valuable: linoleic acid and linolenic acid. Supermarket oils such as corn oil, sunflower oil and safflower oil don’t contain linoleic acid. Soybean oil is the only supermarket oil containing linoleic acid but you need ot pay attention to GMO. For linolenic acid, you can find that in linseed oil, walnut oil, pumpkin seed oil.

Monounsaturated fatty acids

There are the most harmless fatty acids compared to some polyunsaturated fatty acids because they don’t affect your cholesterol or your prostaglandins (regulators of the hormones action). Monounsaturated fatty acids are found in olive oil and macadamia nuts.

Supplements of fatty acid

These supplements contain essential fatty acids from fish oils and other sources.

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-Steph

P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here .

Basic Nutrients

nutrient, nutrition, carbohydrate, lipide, fat, oil, protein, macro, food

What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m interested in nutrition to stay in shape. I read some advices from Arnold Schwarzenegger and I learned some good stuff.

There are 3 basics nutrients called macronutrients :

Protein

A protein is made of different amino acids to provide the materials constituting the muscle tissue. A protein is also a component used in all body organs such as tendons, bones, skin structure and other bodily functions because all enzymes are proteins.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are fuel for energy. They’re made of different molecules more or less complex than those of sugar or starch.

Fats

Fats or oils contain the densest energy reserves.

Water

Water is an essential element. It make up about 72% of the muscle and most bodybuilders drink several liters of water a day.

There are several nutrients called micronutrients :

nutrient, nutrition, food, vitamin, mineral, fruit, vegetable, micro

Vitamins

Vitamins are essential chemical elements that allow several biochemical reactions.

Minerals

Minerals are essential for many vital functions of the body.

Essential amino acids

Amino acids are part of the protein that we receive from food.

Essential fatty acids

Essential acids are elements that we receive from plants or fish oils.

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-Steph

P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here .

Nutrition

nutrition, food, energy, diet, metabolism, nutrient, calorie,

What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m interested in nutrition to stay in shape. I read a Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book « Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding » and I learned some good stuff.

Training stimulate muscle growth. To have an effective training, it’s necessary that your body has the sufficient amount of energy and enough raw materials. The role of nutrition is to carry this energy and these raw materials.

The function of nutrition is to learn how to stay lean, mean and muscular. With nutrition we learn how much food to eat in order to have the best results possible. This allows you to study the basic nutrients and calculate the amount you need. This also includes studying protein, vitamin, mineral and other supplements.

Learning nutrition allows you to be more muscular. It improves your health and improves your immune system to be able to do all your training sessions without being sick (cold for example). Good nutrition has other advantages, such as improving our recovery after training with very heavyweights, having a beautiful healthy skin, having excellent internal organs and the list is long.

Precious

precious, value, priceless, worth, rare,

For a bodybuilder, the basic of nutrition are as precious as the basic principles of training. Exercices requires energy and the amount of nutrients you eat is essential to having the body you want.

During the Arnold Classic, athletes are interviewed after their appearance on stage. At the question « What do you feel was the most important factor that helped you get in such tremendous shape for this contest ? », athletes don’t respond that it’s thanks to bench press, squat or muscle isolation. In the majortiy of cases, they explain that they improve their nutrition or their supplement to gain muscle, lose fat and be able to train with maximum energy until the competition’s day.

It’s important to say that advance in nutrition and supplements are the main reason why we’re seeing athletes with this excellent level today. Attention, progress has improved the training with the years but training has not been revolutionized as nutrition. Training and nutrition are complementary because it’s impossible to create a champion only with good nutrition. It’s essential that athletes have an intensive training, a good mental attitude and a good knowledge of nutrition.

In the past, bodybuilders approached nutrition on instinct, seat-of-the-pants basis. In a first phase, they were building muscle and getting big, but not really ripped. In a second phase, they were getting thinner (like Harnold Poole or Vince Gironda) but they were getting small. They hadn’t found the trick yet to stay big and getting ripped at the same time.

Nutrition’s fundamental are quite simple. In fact, I can’t say that it’s simple because each body is unique. It’s important to study these basic principles to apply them to your training, to understand the needs of your body and to see how your body reacts to different diets to gain or lose weight. There is always this instinctive aspect but with this nutritive knowledge, it’s easier to adjust the quantity to have the body that you want.

Subscribe to my newsletter and share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here.

MRSA Infections

mrsa infection anatomy

What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m interested in biomechanics to avoid injuries. I read « Sport Medicine Media Guide » and I learned some good stuff.

Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (S. Aureaus), or MRSA, is a bacterium that creates skin infections and other types of infections. The first time that MRSA was seen in US hospitals during the 1970s. Recently, there is a new strain of MRSA know as Community Acquired Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or CA-MRSA, has left hospitals and began to spread in the community.

This is the strain that is prevalent among athletes. The difference between CA-MRSA and Healthcare-Associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) is in their effects. CA-MRSA usually creates skin infections while HA-MRSA causes bloodstream, urinary tract and surgical site infections. This make CA-MRSA less dangerous than HA-MRSA. Another difference is that CA-MRSA is more vulnerable to antimicrobial.

Symptoms

Signs of infections are :

  • Redness

  • Warmth, Swelling

  • Pus

  • Pain at sites where there are skin wounds

  • Abrasions or cuts

MRSA has the ability to spread to other organs in the body and when that happens, symptoms are more severe.

At this stage, symptoms are :

  • Fever

  • Chills

  • Low blood pressure

  • Joint pain

  • Severe headaches

  • Shortness of breath

  • An extensive rash over the body

These more advanced systemic symptoms require immediate medical attention.

Treatment

The 1st choice for treating MRSA skin infection is to use an antibiotic that has been created to kill bacteria with mild side effects. Most early infections with no widespread symptoms can be treated with oral antibiotics. Because of the nature of this decease and antibiotic options, many patients think they’re « cured » after only a few doses and decide by themselves to stop taking the prescribed drugs. However, MRSA is able to re-infect the patient and become resistant to antibiotics used previously.

For moderate to severe infections, treatment may be with intravenous antibiotics.

These infections associated with deep abscesses or boils require open surgical drainage in addition to antibiotic therapy. Most infections resolve in 7-10 days with an adequate treatment despite the fact that a deep abscess can take up to 4 weeks to eradicate the infection by resolving the abscess cavity.

Early identification and treatment of MRSA infections decrease the amount of playing time lost and decrease the chance that the infection will become severe. Skin may be protected by protective clothing or gear designed to prevent skin abrasions or cuts.

Prevention

mrsa infection anatomy

It’s necessary that athletes have good personal hygiene but it must be added that athletes and visitors to athletes facilities must also keep their hands clean by washing them often with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand rub. The minimum is to have clean hands before and after sports and activities. For example when we use weight training equipment that is shared by all gym members, it’s important to have clean hands after using toilette or when someone is injured taking care the wounds (including changing bandage).

Ordinary and antimicrobial soaps are effective for washing hands. It’s noted that liquid soap is a better option because it’s not possible to share this type of soap compared to bar soap. Alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contain at least 60% alcohol are the perfect choice.

Athletes should shower immediately after exercise and shouldn’t share soap and towels. Washing all uniforms and clothes after each use is important. Athlete should avoid sharing items that are in contact with the skin and avoid sharing personal items as they contact the skin. Fortunately, most surfaces don’t provoke a risk of spreading staph and MRSA.

Athletes who have had MRSA

Several high school, college and professional athletes have contracted MRSA infections. There have already been epidemics among athletes on the same team. A study published in « The New England Journal of Medicine » shows an infection MRSA among St. Louis Rams professional football franchise (USA) athletes. During a single season, MRSA infections were found among 5 of 58 Rams athletes (9 percents) that was tested. All infections developed on areas of the body that are common places for turf injury.

Stats

  • Today, MRSA accounts for about 50-70% of the S. Aureus infections that are present in healthcare facilities across the world.

  • Statistics fro the Kaiser foundation in 2007 indicated that approximately 1.2 million hospitalized patients contract MRSA infections.

  • Serious MRSA infection is still predominantly related to exposure in the healthcare setting, where approximately 85 percent of all serious MRSA infections occur.

  • Fortunately, in children under 18 years old, mortality rates are much lower (1%), even though the number of hospitalized children with MRSA has almost tripled since 2002.

Subscribe to my newsletter and share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here .

Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries

anterior cruciate ligament injury tear

What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m interested in biomechanics to avoid injuries. I read « Sport Medicine Media Guide » and I learned some good stuff.

Knee is the largest and most complex joint of the body. There are 4 primary ligaments (with their muscles and tendons) and secondary ligaments for the knee to function properly. Here are the ligaments of the knee : there are 2 ligaments on the side the medial collateral ligament (MCL) and the lateral collateral ligament (LCL) and two crossed ligaments in the center of the knee, the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL).

Anterior cruciate ligament connects the front top part of the shine bone to the back bottom part of the thigh bone and keeps the shin bone from sliding forward.

anterior cruciate ligament

Injury

anterior cruciate ligament injury tear

There are several ways to have an injury to the anterior cruciate ligament :

  • The injury can be done because of a direct hit on the knee, which often happens in team sport.

  • The injury can be done without contact with an object in a situation where the knee forced to be in a abnormal position, which causes a tear in one or more ligaments of the knee. Or when an athlete in the race change direction. Or when an athlete make a hyperextend of the knee when landing a jump, which often happends in agility sports.

Diagnostic

In the majority of cases, the doctor is able to identify what is the injured ligament. But the knee can also be injured at the joint on the surface and in this situation, it’s more difficult to diagnose because of knee swelling. To make an accurate diagnosis, it will be necessary to use a MRI scan or arthroscopy.

Prevent

There are several fast, powerful movements that lengthen (eccentric phase) and shorten (concentric phase) a muscle. These prevention programs are for injuries without contact. These exercises are to improve the nerves/muscle control of the knee. These prevention programs use plymetrics, balance and strength/stability exercises.

Plymetrics

It’s a fast, powerful movement that lengthens (eccentric phase) and shortens (concentric phase) a muscle. The concentric phase increases the muscle power. Here is an example, an athlete who jumps from a box and immediately jumps into the air after touching the floor.

Balance

Balance exercices are done with the wobble or balance board. It’s also possible to perfom exercices by throwing a ball with a partner while balancing on one leg.

Strength/stability

To improve single-leg core strength and stability, there are excellent exercices such as jumping and landing on one leg with the knee flexed and momentarily maintaining this position.

Surgical treatment

In the past, there was a technique that consisted of stitching the ligament together but it was rarely successful. Currently, the technique involves reconstructing the anterior cruciate ligament by building a new ligament from tissue taken from one of the other tendons around the knee or from on organ donation. This tissue passed through drill holes in the thigh bone and the shin bone, and then ancored in place to create a new anterior cruciate ligament. Over time, this transplant becomes mature and becomes a new living ligament in your knee.

Recovery

recovery

Rheabilitation of the knee after the reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament requires time and work. To have a complete function, this can last between 6 weeks and 6 months depending on the severity and level of activity. Rehabilitation rate may take time depending on the specific requirements of the sport/physical activity of the individual.

The overall success rate of the anterior cruciate ligament surgery is very good. A lot of study show that more than 90% of patients are able to return to sport without symptoms of knee instability. It’s true that some patients complain of stiffness and pain after surgery, that is why it’s necessary to make an aggressive rehabilitation until the new surgical technique to reduce these problems.

Statistics

  • One of the most commonly injured ligament in the knee

  • Female athletes participating in basketball and soccer are 2-8 times more likely to suffer anterior cruciate ligament injury.

  • Athlete who suffer anterior cruciate ligament injury at increased risk of arthritis development later in life.

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-Steph

Proteins And Kideys

protein

I watched a Jamcore DZ’s video  and I learned a lot of stuff.

When I started to train in a gym. I often asked myself this question : « How much protein do I have to eat at each meal ? ». I asked this question to people in the gym and I had several different answers. For example, someone told me that if I ate too much protein, it could destroy my kidneys or that whey (shaker) was better protein than protein from food (chicken, beef, eggs, etc).

I think you also ask yourself this type of questions so I will help you understand better.

Firstly, everyone knows that protein is very used in fitness and bodybuilding. You can find protein in food or as a dietary supplement such as whey, casein and amino acids. Protein are composed of amino acids.

kidney

1) How much daily protein is recommended for someone who doesn’t do fitness  ?

It’s 0.8 grams (gr) of protein per kilogram (kg) of body weight or 0.36 grams per pound. For this article, I will use the unit of mesure kilograms (kg).

I will take the example of Jamo who is a former professional bodybuilder who continues to train. Jamo weighs 95kg. 95kg at 0.8gr per kilo of bodyweight gives as a result that Jamo eats 76gr of protein per meal. Jamo want to keep his bodybuilder body without steroids. For this, he must eat several times a day and that makes a total of 360gr per day.

2) With sport, do these recommendations change ?

Yes, because a sedentary person will use more of his/her body, which means that this person will use more his/her muscles. The meals content changes with the sport and the type of sport. If we compare a person who is doing fitness and a person doing marathons, we see that the meals are different.

A person doing marathons needs to eat more carbohydrates than protein to have endurance. A person who does fitness/bodybuilding need to eat more protein than carbohydrates for muscles rebuilding and muscle growth.

3) Depending on the intensity, do these recommendations change ?

Depending on the intensity, the answer is yes and no. It also depends on the muscle mass. When a person is doing a really intensive workout, the most important marcro is carbohydrate.

An increase of protein is necessary when a person decreases carbohydrates to be shredded. Increase protein helps maintain muscle mass.

4) With age, these recommendations change ?

change

With the latest scientific studies, we learned that proteins need to be increased with age. When a person start to become old, that person loses muscle mass naturally (and it’s normal). It’s for this reason that it’s important to play sport to maintain muscle mass. And to help to maintain this muscle mass, it’s necessary to increase protein.

This a scientific study about it, click here. 

5) Consume a large amount of protein destroys kidneys ?

The answer is yes and no. In a case where a person has pre-existing kidney problems before playing sport, it’s important to see a nephrologist (kidney specialist) or a doctor. For people who have healthy kidneys, proteins don’t destoy the kidneys. Kidneys are the most detoxifiying organs of the human body and we (human being) have been created to eat meat. The human being is made to eat a lot of meat. Until now, no study has shown that the protein destory kidneys, except for people with pre-exiting kidney problems.

Here is a scientific study on the effects of high protein intake on the kidneys, click here . This study shows that is a myth and a lie.

6) Assimilation and MPS (mass protein synthesis)

Assimilation is when you eat protein. A part of the protein you eat will be assimilated for protein synthesis. Everything else, your body will assimilate because your body is made of 80% amino acids, so these proteins will be used for your skin, your hair, your eyes, your organs. Absolutely all the protein that you eat will be absorbed by your body, nothing is thrown away. There is no protein in you pee.

The goal of protein synthesis is to repair or eliminate damaged proteins and to build new proteins that are copies of the original. New proteins are stronger, denser and more resistant to stress. Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS) is the reconstruction of muscle caused by stress placed on the body. This can be an injury (muscle tear) or because you intentionally damage a muscle (lifting weights creating micro tears in muscles). MPS process activated right after micro tears and can last up to 48 hours on a damaged site before being repaired.

A part of protein you eat is used for protein synthesis, which will create the state of hypertrophy with hormones. Protein synthesis doesn’t buid muscle, it’s muscle protein synthesis (MPS).

I just read again my text and I see that it’s a bit difficult to understand (for me too ?!?). To make it simpler, protein synthesis repairs your skin, your hair, your eyes, your organs and create the state of hypertrophy. Muscle protein synthesis repair only your muscles.

Here is a scientific study on nutrition and muscle protein synthesis, click here .

7) Liquid and solid protein

Liquid proteins are whey and casein (shaker). Solid proteins are chicken, beef eggs, etc. The diffrence is that the body assimilates liquid proteins faster than solid proteins. The problem is that the quality of liquid proteins is 75% bad on the market, so it’s up to you to study ingredients (as for food in supermarkets) to find the best quality possible. I wrote an article on this subject, click here. 

8) Number of grams of protein per meal

  • For men, it’s about 30-35gr of protein per meal. For women, it’s about 20-25gr of protein per meal.
  • For older men, it’s about 35-40gr per meal. For older women, it’s about 25-30gr per meal.

Here is an interesting study for women. Eating a large amount of protein has harmful effects on the bones. Click here .

Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

Fitness History- China and India (2 500-250 BC.) (Part 2)

ancient civilisation

China

ancient civilisation china

In China, the philosophy taught by Confucius encouraging regular physical activity. It was recognized that physical inactivity was associated with certain diseases (organ dysfunction such as heart disease and diabetes) that were preventable with regular exercise. Consequently, gymnastics Cong Fu was developed to keep the body in good conditions. Cong Fu exercise program consisted of different poses and movements characterized by foot positions and imitating different animals fighting style. In addition to gymnastics Cong Fu, there were other forms of physical activities through ancient China such as archery, badminton, dancing, fencing and wrestling.

India

ancient civilisation india

In India, physical activity was discouraged because of religious beliefs of Buddhism and Hinduism who insisted on spirituality and neglect development of the body. Consequently, the importance of physical activity in society was really low. However, a similar exercise program to Chinese Cong Fu was developed and still comply with religious beliefs, it’s Yoga. The exact origins of Yoga have not yet been found. Yoga has exist for around at least 5000 years. Yoga word translation means union and refers to one of the classic systems of Hindu philosophy of bringing together all personal development of the body, mind and spirituality. Originally Yoga was developed by Hindu priests who had a lifestyle characterized by discipline and meditation. With the observation and imitation of animal movements, priests hoped to achieve the same balance with nature that animals seemed to possess. This aspect of Yoga, known as Hatha Yoga is the form with which Westerners are most familiar and is defined by a series of exercises with physical postures and breath control. Apart balance with nature, the ancient Indian philosophies recognize the beneficial health effects with a good organ function and well-being. These health benefits have also been known today to the United States with an estimated 12 million people regularly practicing yoga.

That’s all for today. Soon the rest of fitness history.

-Steph