Post #4 (Week 12)

So this week, I’ll be talking about a research article that I have found on www.pubmed.com about lifestyle intervention, which includes physical activity as well as diet, for people who are at risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus. This research was done to compare the results of individual interventions and group interventions and its effect on diabetes risk-factors. The exact article can be found here, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3247299/?tool=pubmed. The research article is split into 4 sections: background, method, results, and conclusion. Although the article is relatively easy to understand, there are a lot of figures and a bit of scientific jargon in the article and I shall try my best to summarize the article, by sections, in colloquial terms

The first section of the article is the background, which is basically an introduction to the article and a very brief overview of the trial. The article begins talking about type 2 diabetes and facts about the disease. Next the article discusses that a combination of diet and exercise is best when it comes to reducing type 2 diabetes risk factors. This research is randomized and controlled with a focus on seeing the effectiveness of interventions, by a physician, on a group versus being alone. It should be noted the lifestyle interventions are relatively the same except that the group based interventions have group meetings.

Basic timeline of the 2 groups

  The methods section of the article discusses the "how's" of this article. So test subjects were referred by their doctors who used the "Finnish Diabetes Risk score" (FINDRISC) to screen at-risk individuals. The FINDRISC accounts for waist circumference, body mass index (BMI), age, blood pressure, level of physical activity, insulin history and daily consumption of vegetables. The referred individuals were then examined, all by the same physician, and asked if they would like to participate in the study. If they agreed they were given the advice, the same for all, and randomly selected to participate as an individual (IG) or part of a group (2G). In summary, the advice was to eat healthily and to exercise regularly in order to decrease risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The 1G participants, individuals, were basically free to do as they pleased and were only required to meet 3 times (6 months apart) with their study physician, who basically just interviewed, assessed, and motivated the individual. The 2G group participants had to do the same as the 1G except that they also needed to have 7 group meetings, all once a week and the first 6 in 6 consecutive weeks with the last meeting occurring 6 weeks after the last previous meeting. During the meetings, general information about diabetes was given out as well as a few group physical activities. During the assessments with the study physician, data about the subject’s blood pressure, waist circumference, height, weight, diet, and physical tests were taken in. So to sum it all up the study split the subjects into 2 categories to see the results of lifestyle intervention on individuals versus groups with assessments by physicians during the duration of the study.

Number of participants from referral to the end

  The results showed a multitude of statistical data in relation to their findings. Basically the statistics of the study are being examined and there’s a lot of numbers all over the page, so I will attempt to summarize the entire section. There was a 15% dropout rate in the study and the dropouts were generally unhealthier, at consultation, than those who finished the study. The randomization of individuals to the 2 categories seemed successful except that the individuals in 1G (individuals) were overall healthier than those of 2G at consultation. There was an emphasis on the improvement of aerobic ability and the overall improvement in dieting. Overall, both groups made improvements to their health, in terms of reducing diabetes risk-factors from consultation to the end of the project.

The article also notes the limitations that the study has:

1.      The information on diets was self-reported, meaning individuals could have lied about their diets to appease their physicians.

2.      28% of those who completed the study did not perform the treadmill test, which actually lowers the results of the fitness portion

3.      The study physician, the same one for 1G and 2G was aware of the randomisation of the participants which may of lead to some sort of biasness.

4.      The dropouts were “unhealthier” than those who completed the study, which means that the withdrawal in the study is more common among individuals who are “fed up” with the study. This creates a major healthcare challenge; a paradox, that those who are in desperate need of a lifestyle change are also those who are most likely to give up on the intervention.

5.      The results could be skewered due to the referral and selection process which could have been bias. But it should also be noted that the FINDRISC screening is a quantative analysis and shows that subjects were indeed at-risk of diabetes.

 The conclusion was short and sweet; group intervention is not necessarily better or worse than individual intervention even with the additional awareness and a group setting. Also, that improving diet and regular exercise makes one healthier... what a surprise.

This will be my last blog post for awhile and I hope I have been able to entertain you and shown you the importance of physical activity, although diet should not have been neglected as well.

Tim Cho.

 Works Cited:

Nilsen, Vegard, Per S. Bakke, and Frode Gallefoss. Effects of Lifestyle Intervention in Persons at Risk for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus - Results from a Randomised, Controlled Trial. Rep. no. PMC3247299. PubMed, 25 Nov. 2011. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3247299/?tool=pubmed>.

Post #3 (Week 8)

This week I will be talking about a controversy in physical activity; I will be talking specifically about contact sports in adolescents. The big question is whether playing contact sports is worth all the associated risks, especially in adolescents. I’d like to present both sides of the argument and then give my personal opinion on the matter.

Firstly, on the side against contact sports, the main argument is that they’re dangerous. Even when an athlete is fully geared in protective equipment, there still can be bone, muscle, connective tissue, and even brain damage that can occur from contact sports.
One common injury from contact sports is concussions. Concussions are basically heavy blows to the head which can cause acute to chronic discomfort. Symptoms included, but are not limited to, headaches, dizziness, amnesia or blurry vision (Moser & Schatz, 92). Recently, a big subject of discussion has been on concussions due to Sidney Crosby’s (a high level NHL player). More focus and research has now come to light, because of Crosby, explaining the chronic effects of concussions. Concussions have been thought to be an injury that lasts for a few months; however, the effects can persist past a year and a full recovery may not even be possible. Furthermore, the average life expectancy of a retired NFL football player is 55 years, arguably due to concussions, which is 25 years less than the average male. Now, if a fully grown, geared, and trained elite athlete is severely damaged by hits in their sport, how will a growing teenager cope with these blows and their problems, especially since they are not even fully mentally developed yet? Obviously, there are many complications and life-shortening consequences from repeated concussions, which stem from contact sports and there is good reason just from concussions alone for contact sports for adolescents.

Another point that has been made about contact sports on adolescents is the issues of broken bones and fractured bones. Although, children and adolescents recover faster from fractured and broken bones than adults, there are still complications associated with bone damage (Patel & Nelson). If the bone is fractured or broken there is a good chance that the growth plate, the ends of a bone, may be damaged. If the growth plate of a bone is damaged, growth complications may arise, which can stunt the growth of a child or teen (Orthoinfo). Additionally, there is a positive co-relation between number of broken bone incidences and fractures with decreased bone mineral content. That means that the more you break your bones, the less minerals (Vitamin D and Calcium) your bones will have which may onset osteoporosis (loss of bone mineral content) earlier in an individual. Teens and adolescents want to maximize bone mineral content loading because the average human’s peak bone mineral content occurs at age 20, and from there on it’s downhill; therefore, by playing contact sports a teenagers may reduce their bone mineral content due to injuries.

Contrarily, on the side for contact sports, the argument is mostly based on cultural, sexual, and social factors than science (Gard & Meyenn, 30-31). Some argue that contact sports have been played that way and should always be played that way and that the violence is part of the game and by removing it would be like murdering the sport itself. Others say that the protective equipment and stricter rules make the game “safe” enough. Society has portrayed contact sports as a "man's game" and has depicted pain as being a “character-building” and stereotypical co-relation of a man and violence support contact sports. Even media portrays violence as “manly”, examples include movies like 300, Gladiator, and pretty much any action movie with a male protagonist. Society also endorses contact sports, the UFC, NFL, and NHL are incredibly popular sports being watched and if you watch the NHL the crowd usually goes in an uproar at the start of a hockey fight. Most of the reasons supporting contact sports are social and psychological factors that correlate violence with greatness.  

From my personal view, I think that adolescents should be allowed to participate in contact sports, but with firm conditions. I believe that protective gear needs to be worn by all players and that the players themselves should not be playing if they either injured in any way or unfamiliar with the rules, especially on hits, of their sport. Secondly, I think that the rules of contact sports, except fighting, need to be revised to the point where blows to the head, especially intentional, have huge repercussions and penalties because currently they are, in my opinion, tolerated in current sports when they should be intolerable at any level. To conclude, I think that adolescents should be allowed to play contact sports because it’s ultimately their decision but I believe that injuries should be minimized by having all the preventative methods in place with revised rules that have firm penalties in place.

Works Cited

Dilip R. Patel, Terry L. Nelson, SPORTS INJURIES IN ADOLESCENTS, Medical Clinics of North America, Volume 84, Issue 4, 1 July 2000, Pages 983-1007, ISSN 0025-7125, 10.1016/S0025-7125(05)70270-4.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025712505702704)


Rosemarie Scolaro Moser, Philip Schatz, Enduring effects of concussion in youth athletes, Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2002, Pages 91-100, ISSN 0887-6177, 10.1016/S0887-6177(01)00108-1. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887617701001081) 


Michael Gard & Robert Meyenn (2000): Boys, Bodies, Pleasure and Pain: Interrogating Contact Sports in Schools, Sport, Education and Society, 5:1, 19-34 


American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons: Orthoinfo, Growth Plate Fractures (2010)
Retrieved from: http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00040

Post #2 (Week 6)

So this week my main focus will be about a specific website in the exercise industry that lacks credibility and evidence on their product. The website I will analyze this week will be www.shakeweight.com and https://www.shakeweightformen.com, 2 websites that sell a piece of exercise equipment known as the "shakeweight".

5 specific things I see on this page that are incredibly questionable are:

1.

How does shakeweight conclude that their product is exactly 7 times more effective than a dumbbell? Produces 7 times more strength? Size? Muscular endurance? Is it 7 times heavier? I think you get the point, basically the website is not able to justify without any direct scientific evidence as to why their product is "7 times better" than a regular dumbbell.

2.

The product claims that in 6 minutes a day it will make a man "stronger and ripped" which probably means that this product will make a man stronger and bigger. Now from a scientific view, to become bigger and stronger one must induce muscle hypertrophy, meaning one must make their muscle fibers larger and in order to induce muscle hypertrophy one must adhere to the "overload" principle which says that the muscle needs to be challenged in order to develop (Leyland, ch.4, p.10). Muscle hypertrophy is best achieved when one is working anaerobically, without oxygen readily available to the muscles, meaning that one needs to be exercising at very high intensity for approximately 1-15 seconds (ExRx, 2012). The shakeweight is an exercise that lasts for 6 minutes continuously; therefore, the shakeweight makes one exercise aerobically or when oxygen is readily available to the muscles. Alternatively, a better option for muscle hypertrophy would be weight-training which is an anaerobic and high intensity series of exercises. If you want results, in terms of strength and size, weight-training is a much better option than the shakeweight.

3.

Compare this screenshot to the previous screenshot. Notice the difference? Both these products are near identical except for the fact that the female version is 2.5lbs whereas the male version is 5lbs. The product is to be used for 6 minutes and apparently a 2.5lbs difference is enough to make a man "stronger and ripped" while for a woman it "shapes and tones". Now I'd love to see the scientific evidence as to the reasoning behind that.

4.

I'd like to challenge the statement that the shakeweight being 300% more effective than a dumbbell. Firstly, there's no data provided to prove this claim. However, controlled scientific studies have been made on the shakeweight and according to one study, by the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, the shakeweight actually activates more upper body muscles than a dumbbell of the same weight (John Porcari, Jennah Hackbarth, Thomas Kernozek, Scott Doberstein & Carl Foster, 2011, p. 599). But it is unpractical to say one would be training constantly on a 2.5lb or 5lb dumbbell as one usually progresses to heavier weights and therefore intensity and resistance is increased. Whereas shakeweights come only in 2 relatively light weights, leaving little room for progressive resistance; which means that shakeweight users would "plateau" (progression being slowed or stopped) sooner than dumbbell users.

Furthermore, according to the same shakeweight study, the types of contractions that the shakeweight generates are closely related to isometric contractions otherwise known as static contractions where the muscle does not change its length (John Porcari et al, 2011, p599). Whereas dumbbells, when curled, produce an isotonic muscle contraction which consist of muscle concentric (shortening) and eccentric (lengthening) phases. Muscular strength is joint-specific and by using isometric contractions, one would be exercising in a very limited range of motion and only be relatively "strong" at a limited range of joint-angles; while it would be the opposite for isotonic contractions ( Leyland, ch.4, p7). Other disadvantages of isometric contractions, when compared to isotonic contractions, include:

• Isometric training does not optimally improve the ability to exert force rapidly (i.e., to be powerful).
• Motivation is poor with isometric exercises. Unlike isotonic (free-weight or machine) exercises, it can be difficult to observe progress.
• Straining-type activities, which involve sustained isometric muscle contractions, greatly increase resistance to blood flow and cause large increases in arterial blood pressure and workload of the heart.
  (Leyland, ch.4, p.4)

A dumbbell, that can challenge an individual, is definitely going to make an individual stronger, bigger, and definitely more functional than the shakeweight.

5. To be fair, in order to get the "science" behind this product you have to watch the video. Within the first 15 seconds, the video ties to compare 240 repetitions/minute of throwing/catching a medicine ball with their shake weight product. Couldn't one argue that finger tapping is an excellent exercise because one can tap their fingers over 300 times in a minute? Again like I explained earlier in problem #2, you have to look at the quantity and quality of an exercise in order to "fully" evaluate it.

I'd like to present to you a great video on Ben Goldacre, a medical doctor, talking about "bad science" or science which lacks credibility on TEDtalks:

The simple take home message for today is that the fitness industry does not have miracle products, such as the shakeweight, that can give amazing results in an absurdly short amount of time. Results take time and dedication and traditional workouts at the gym are still being widely used today for a good reason.

Works Cited:
ExRx. (2012, January 30). Muscle Mass Tips. Retrieved from http://www.exrx.net/Questions/MuscleMass.html
John Porcari, Jennah Hackbarth, Thomas Kernozek, Scott Doberstein and Carl Foster (2011). Does the Shake Weight® live up to its hype?. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, Retrieved from https://jssm.org/
Leyland, Anthony (2011). Exercise: Health and Performance, Kendall Hunt.

Post #1 (Week 4)

Hi, I'm Timothy Cho, currently a Kinesiolology student at SFU concentrating in active heath and rehabilitation and this blog is about physical activity, specifically exercise. I am a huge advocate for healthy living and I believe that exercise and a healthy diet are the key ingredients to good health. My goal in this blog is to discuss various topics on physical activity, examining articles, attempting to debunk misconceptions, and to just give my readers more insight on exercise in today's society. The messages on my blog are meant for everybody, not just for the science majors, exercise junkies, or those who are in desperate need of exercise.

It is undeniable that exercise is crucial to human life; humans not only require exercise but were built for it as well and in today's day and age it is overwhelmingly obvious, due to surges in obesity and other conditions, that people aren't exercising enough. Although it's easy to put the blame and label people as "lazy", one has to realize that society has changed. I mean who'd want to eat vegetables and go outside to play soccer when one can just stay home play the latest "Call of Duty" and eat "convenient" microwaveable dinners? The simple are usually more appealing choice in today's day and age is also the unhealthy choice whereas a few generations ago it was the opposite. 

Through blogging, I hope to be able to not only explore and help correct misconceptions on physical activity but also to encourage fitness. One should definitely exercise to be fit. But what defines "fitness"? The first thing that probably comes to mind are elite athletes and the "exercise junkies". This is usually because people rely on visuals to assess fitness, meaning they only look at body comoposition and judge based solely on what they see. The CrossFit journal, a renown exercise program, views fitness as 10 abilities to do various tasks as listed:

"1. Cardiovascular / respiratory endurance- The ability of body systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen.

2. Stamina - The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy.

3. Strength - The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.

4. Flexibility - The ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.

5. Power - The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.

6. Speed - The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.

7. Coordination - The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement.

8. Agility - The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another.

9. Balance - The ability to control the placement of the body's center of gravity in relation to its support base.

10. Accuracy - The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity."

(The CrossFit Journal, 2002, p4)

These 10 qualities are definitely a good way of assessing fitness but I find that when individuals see these terms they think of only the elite athletes and how fitness is all performance-based. A definition for fitness that I've grown to like is the definition used by a professor at my university, "Physical fitness is the ability to carry out daily tasks with vigor and alertness, without undue fatigue, and with ample energy to enjoy leisure time pursuits and to meet unforeseen emergencies." (Exercise: Health and Performance, 2011, ch.1,p.4)

Aric Sudicky
Retrieved from:  http://redcatfilm.com/fitness/

But okay... What's the point of all this? The point I'm trying to make is that modern society's view on fitness are usually based on either visual body comoposition and elite performance. Too often people think that only elite athletes and those who "look fit" can be fit. For example, bodybuilders are fit for lifting weights but usually they are not fit for running long distances. I'm not trying to say that bodybuilders aren't fit, but too often people exercise the sake of "looking better" and that other qualities of fitness, or even fitness itself, are unobtainable and only available to "elite athletes".There's more to fitness than just being "big and strong"; but fine, realistically speaking if one wants to exercise to look better than so be it; some exercise is overwhelmingly better than none.

In conclusion, I hope that I have been able to expand your knowledge of physical activity and fitness from this post and to change your perception or stereotype of what fitness really is. The take home message is that even the non-elite athletes and the average person can be fit with just adequate amounts of exercise.

References: 
The CrossFit Journal (2002, October). General Physical Skills. Retrieved from http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ-trial.pdf

Leyland, Anthony (2011). Exercise: Health and Performance, Kendall Hunt.