At the same time as building strength and endurance, hard training breaks down the body. Over-use injuries are common (muscle strains, joint and bone injury) while the body’s tolerance to infection is also lowered by a weakened immune system.
Heading into winter, and getting closer to Comrades race day, it is every runner’s nightmare to get injured or ill. Careful training and a healthy diet can go a long way to minimising the risks, but fetching your kids from crèche or sharing an open plan office with a bunch of wheezers cannot always be avoided.
Again, without opening any debates on certain diets, fancy shoes, marketing gimmicks or individual personal experiences, it is probably right that some facts, fallacies or legends be brought to the table – not to convince you otherwise, but rather help you make your decisions regarding your own health and well being.
So here goes:
- There is no cure for the common cold. But there are probably as many remedies as there are sufferers of the common cold. This is a virus, so antibiotics won’t help either. In this area, prevention is better than cure. And the best prevention comes from good hygiene (and this may include not hugging, kissing or shaking hands with your closest friends or work colleagues).
- There is no conclusive scientific proof that vitamin C supplements can help boost the immune system to prevent illness, let alone the common cold. Yet vitamin C supplements are the largest single vitamin supplement sold worldwide, an industry valued at around US$ 70bn annually.
- Side effects of excessive vitamin C consumption include nausea and diarrhea. Kidney stones have also been linked to long term excess use of vitamin C supplements. And there are studies that suggest that vitamin C lowers the effect of training at VO2 max level.
- Antibiotics kill bacteria. They may kill the bacteria that is causing an illness, but they also kill other bacteria in the body at the same time, some of which is actually critical to your wellbeing. They also cause imbalances in various flora in the body, which can have countless other side effects. Yet antibiotics remain the most frequently prescribed form of medicine.
- The antibiotic quinolone (specifically floroquinolone), which is most commonly prescribed for pneumonia, bronchitis and sinus infections, can cause severe tendon damage. Quinolones are claimed to be toxic to tendon fibres, and further restrict blood flow to tendons. Assuming you are sticking to the program, your tendons are going to be stretched and strained with all the hill work you are doing too. Quinolones have been linked to tendonitis, tendon rupture, as well as other liver, kidney, heart, brain and intestinal damages.
- The effects of antibiotics (especially quinolone) are further compounded when used with anti-inflammatory drugs.
- Anti-inflammatory drugs such as Ibuprofen, Brufen and Cataflam – all pretty common in the drug-free sport of running – significantly increase the risk of kidney and liver damage. With these organs already under strain as you take on an endurance event, you should seriously consider the risks before popping these pills. Other effects include cardiac arrhythmia, ulcers, insomnia and anxiety. (Anxiety probably due to the other side effects…)
- Pain killers can have serious side effects too. Besides masking the pain and leading to further injury, they can also put strain on the kidneys and liver. They also often lead to lowered blood pressure, nausea, and an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Nevermind the drowsiness and that you might fall asleep under a tree near the top of Inchanga.
- Negative ions can not be stored in a hologram. And even if they could, all that would happen when you wore it is you would get a static shock when you touched someone, causing both of you to lose your balance. These bracelets do nothing for your wellbeing or restoring balance to your body which might have been put out by using your cell phone. And as long as you believe that a bracelet with a ‘Made in China’ label on it can do all this for you while you bombard your food with radiation in the microwave, then you might want to start wearing one of those once fashionable yellow rubber bands around your wrist too.
- Magnets, on the other hand, have been proven to be beneficial to circulation and blood flow. This is due to haemoglobin being mildly diamagnetic when oxygenated. However, the level of external magnetism needed to be of any benefit to your circulation will require you to carry a power generator on your back and a massive electromagnet around your arm. This, I assure you, is less advantageous to your athletic performance than the associated benefit it may bring to your circulation. The magnets in small wrist bands are simply not strong enough to have any beneficial effect on your body.
- Strapping can offer support to joints, and limited support to muscles. It should also be noted that the body, in its dynamic design, will get used to this external support being offered, resulting in weakness in the muscles supporting the area that has been strapped. But this type of supportive strapping is extreme, and no benefit can be gained from a single piece of colourful fabric tape. And tape applied to the skin cannot ‘lift’ the skin away from the muscle tissue beneath to improve blood flow or range of motion. But colourful strapping does look cool, and it certainly attracts the attention of your running peers, who would hate to be beaten by a buddy publicly modelling their injury.
- The placebo effect is real, and should certainly not be discounted. So if you believe wearing a band around your wrist or some tape on your leg may be beneficial to your performance, or popping some white pills will get you through, save your cash and get down to the local stationery store and purchase a pack of rubber bands, a roll of packaging tape and a box of chalk. All this for under R20.
Now all that said, there are benefits to be found in the use of certain sports supplements. Even though most of the supplements you purchase at your favourite pharmacy contain a label warning that you should not use them in instances where you may be tested for performance enhancing substances, and most of the claims made by these supplement manufacturers are grossly overstated as part of their marketing campaign.
Still, find what works for you, taking into consideration the medical, physiological and placebo effects of whatever you choose. And read the label.
Enjoy the runner’s high!
Part 2
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