Endurance for Your Health: How to Stay Cold Free This Winter

You hate getting sick. Who doesn’t? Cold and flu season isn’t over yet, and there are a lot of bugs going around. While you may have heard the best option is to get a flu shot, the reality is that vaccines only work against viruses that are the same, or very similar to the vaccine. So, if you get vaccinated against one strain of influenza, you’re not protected from a rhinovirus – not good. Here’s how to deal with colds this year so that doesn’t require you to take crazy risks and rely solely on flu shots.

 

Stock Up On Ginger

Ginger is an under-appreciated root. Go to the store and stock up on fresh ginger root. Buy about a pound or two when you first feel the effects of a cold come on. Don’t stall with this remedy or it may not work – mince the ginger, process it in a food processor, or just try to get it chopped up as finely as you can, and throw it in a pot of water that completely covers the ginger.

 

Boil it for about a half hour, and keep an eye on it, adding water to the pot periodically to account for evaporation. When you’re done, you’ll have authentic ginger tea. Strain the water and sip it throughout the day. It’s pretty intense, so be prepared.

 

Alternatively, you can juice the ginger is you have a juicer, or you can blend it in a Blentec or Vitamix-style blender – something that will essentially pulverize the root.

 

Squeeze out the juice from the ginger and ditch the pulp. Drink cold or hot with a dash of cayenne pepper and a pinch of cinnamon – make sure you’re just sipping on it throughout the day. A pound of ginger should last you a couple of days.

 

Ginger that is juiced is even more intense than the ginger tea, but it’s also a bit more effective. Raw, fresh, ginger is a potent tonic that knocks out nausea within minutes (sometimes seconds), aids in digestion, and can even shorten the length of a cold or flue.

 

Get Plenty of Vitamin C and Zinc

You can get vitamin C from sports drinks that contain it, or look for deals for supplements or drinks on SportPursuit.com, but it’s also easy to just squeeze an orange, lemon, or lime, eat lots of strawberries, broccoli, and sweet peppers. All of these foods are extremely high in vitamin C – especially mini sweet peppers.

 

Zinc is another important mineral that’s crucial for your immune system. Foods that are rich in zinc include meats of all kinds, spinach, nuts, beans, and mushrooms.

 

Actually, it’s a good idea to get loads of other nutrients like calcium and magnesium, also found in nuts and almost all leafy green veggies.

 

Drink Lots of Bone Broth

 

Get back to basics. Go to the store and buy ox tale, cow hoofs, or marrow bones (sometimes called “soup bones”). Sometimes, these bones are sold at pet bones, but they’re actually really good for making homemade bone broth (AKA soup stock). Knuckle bones, marrow bones, and ox tale and hooves are an extremely rich source of gelatin (important for soothing your stomach, and a rich source of glycine, which can help stomach inflammation) and nutrients like magnesium, potassium, sulphur, and phosphorous.

 

Throw bones in a crockpot, a tablespoon of vinegar, a tablespoon or so of salt, and enough water to cover the bones. Toss in rough chopped onions and celery, and cook them overnight and you’ll wake up to one of the most nutritious cold fighters known to man.

 

Nancy Rider is a retired nurse. When not blogging about basic healthcare, she enjoys babysitting her grandsons and tending her vegetable garden.

Categories: endurance, health, winter

Study: Should Endurance Athletes Avoid Vitamins C and E?

While the jury is still out on whether or not you should take supplements for your general, overall wellbeing, a lot of people hail the benefits of taking such pills for fitness and athletic performance. Whether you take little gels with you on your long runs, or pump up with a protein shake after long strength-training workouts, fitness experts and enthusiasts believe in the wellness benefits of supplementation – which may make a new study quite a hard pill to swallow. Researchers in Norway have suggested that, if you are an endurance athlete, taking some types of vitamin supplement may make it harder to train for big events like marathons.

 

The findings of the study, which were published in The Journal of Physiology, led the researchers to conclude that you should use vitamins C and E with caution as they may “blunt” the way your muscles respond to exercise. That said, other leading experts have questioned the research, as the 11-week trial results revealed that actual athletic performance was not affected. The team of researchers at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo argued vitamin supplements were readily taken and available, but they did admit they were unsure if they affected athletic ability.

 

The trial went on for 11 weeks and, during this time, the 54 participants were given either 1,000mg of vitamin C plus 235mg vitamin E or a sugar pill and trained up to four times per week. The participants were given a beep test – in which you run faster and faster between two points 20m apart – but there was no difference in their performance during this test. The blood samples and tissue biopsies, on the other hand, suggested there were differences developing inside the muscle. Your muscle cells gain energy from lots of internal tiny mitochondria, and taking the supplements seemed to cause the participants to produce fewer extra mitochondria to cope with the increasing demands placed on the muscle.

 

Researcher Dr Goran Paulsen commented, ‘Our results show that vitamin C and E supplements blunted the endurance-training-induced increase of mitochondrial proteins, which are needed to improve muscular endurance. Our results indicate that high dosages of vitamin C and E, as commonly found in supplements, should be used with caution, especially if you are undertaking endurance training.’ However, Mike Gleeson, a professor of exercise biochemistry at Loughborough University, was less than convinced by the study results. According to Gleeson, the biggest factor in performance is actually how fast your heart and lungs can get oxygen to your muscles, not mitochondria. He added that the lack of a difference in athletic performance ‘makes it difficult to interpret,’ noting ‘The bottom line is studies show changes in the ability to adapt to exercise could be impaired by high-dose vitamins, but until there are studies showing them affecting athletic performance people shouldn’t be worried.’

 

Dr Emma Derbyshire, from the industry-backed Health Supplements Information Service, commented that some studies had shown a benefit. ‘In a four-week randomised controlled trial evaluating vitamin C and E supplementation among female athletes, supplementation reduced markers of oxidative stress compared with a placebo tablet and reduced muscle damage markers associated with aerobic exercise,’ she said. ‘This latest study is essentially preliminary and the research findings would need to be re-assessed in further work. Eating as healthy a diet as possible is very important for sports people and athletes. However, if they have a hectic training schedule, particularly for those doing endurance training who are not able to eat as well as they should, a multivitamin and mineral supplement provides a method of ensuring that the intakes of these essential nutrients, including vitamin C and E, follow recommended guidelines.’

Categories: athletic performance, endurance, Endurance Athletes, endurance training, performance, Research, study, Supplements, vitamin

What Are The Best Ways to Improve Your Endurance?

It may be that you are looking to lose some weight for the first time. It may be that you are an established fitness fanatic. Or it may simply be that you want to improve your general wellness and wellbeing, and have realised that physical activity is a really good way to go about this. Whatever your background and whatever your reasons, you can improve your strength and your endurance, and it may be easier than you think.

 

Steer clear of supplements that claim to boost your endurance, as these are constantly changing and there is not one clear, proven way of helping to improve your muscles in the supplements market. There is, however, a kind of complementary therapy that has been proven to help, and that is Traditional Chinese Medicine. Chinese Olympic athletes have been using the methods associated with Chinese medicine for years, such as acupuncture, tuina bodywork and Chinese herbs, to help naturally enhance their endurance and strength, as well as to speed up the healing of injuries.

 

Acupuncture has been proved to have all kinds of beneficial effects. It improves the blood circulation and also reduces pain and inflammation, meaning that it shortens the time that the body takes to recover from injuries. It also increases strength and endurance, meaning that injuries are far less likely to occur in the first place. Tuina also improves circulation and removes toxins from the blood stream, as well as lubricating the joints and increasing their range of motion. All of this also helps to release stress, which can have a very negative effect on performance and make injury far more likely. Tuina works by establishing a more harmonious flow of the body’s chi (vital energy) as well as bodily fluids through the body, allowing it to function at the optimum level.

 

Categories: chinese, Chinese medicine, endurance, improve, injuries, strength

Absolute Physical Workout for Oil and Gas Drillers

Physically draining jobs, like those in the oil and gas industries, require extra physical strength and endurance. Generally, if drillers wanted to survive on this lucrative field, they have to be physically strong, mentally sound and emotionally stable.

As an outdoors and health enthusiast, I truly believe that health is one of the greatest secrets to achieving success in every endeavor or activity. So, if you belonged to this group of hard working professionals and you wanted to have a successful career on this challenging industry, you need to learn how to take care of your overall health.

There are different ways to improve our health like recommended diet, proper rest, positive thinking, and regular physical exercise. The last item is one of the most significant thing we can do to build our physical and mental well-being. It is very important, most especially to those who are in the drilling fields and are always with the oilfield tanks and drilling equipment.

The truth, however, is that there a lot of people doing random physical exercises on their fitness program. Along this line, we need to check if we were using the right program for our health and fitness goals. But if you would like to achieve absolute health and fitness, you need to cover all four essential categories of exercises—endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility.

Oil and gas drillers need endurance considering the nature of their job. Strength is vital to their survival. Balance is crucial to their safety. And flexibility is a must to handle different tasks on the field. How these four exercise will help you?

Exercises for endurance

These types of physical exercises are important in improving and maintaining our breathing and heart rate. Running, biking and swimming for example are good cardio exercises that help improve overall wellness and prevent different illnesses.

Exercises for strength

When you lift weights or do resistance training, you are also boosting your physical strength. Regular strength exercises develop the muscles, increase its power and allow it to handle heavier physical tasks.

Exercises for balance

The exercises under this category are somewhat physically challenging. Balance exercises require strength from the weaker points of the body like the foot and toe. But by regularly doing these exercises, it will help strengthen the lower parts of the body which are crucial to maintaining balance.

 

 

Exercises for flexibility

Moving from one physical exercise to another could be very difficult when you are not flexible. Flexibility exercises will allow you to move your muscles freely and adjust to various types of exercises. Simple stretching on the shoulder and arms are good ways to start developing flexibility.

In order to be able to adapt easily to these categories, you need to check out those exercises that you are comfortable doing. Make it a habit and it will do you really good. And since health is vital to your daily drilling life, you need to take it seriously along with maintaining proper diet and complete rest.

Author Bio:

Brandon Peters is an entrepreneur, writer and a travel, gadgets, health, and outdoors enthusiast. He loves sharing his insights, knowledge and experience in different fields. You can follow him through Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Categories: Balance, endurance, exercises, gas drillers, physical exercise, physical exercises, physical strength, strength, Workout