Kelly Frankson DOT COM

As Patty termed it, I am on Sabbatical for the next few months.

Bright and early Monday morning I am going to fly back to San Jose.

Coaching in the mornings, teaching at langara during the day, o-lifting at nights and working on nutrition stuff in-between burnt my adrenals out.  I knew I could only do it for so long…it was one of those do as I say, not as I do things-Its time I actually start doing!

In San Jose I am able to sleep in, get plenty of work done on Fit4YouNutrition.com in the morning when my mind is fresh, train under the watchful eyes of Greg Everett at Catalyst Athletics and get home in plenty of time to eat a proper dinner, unwind and go to bed at a half decent time.

As much as I will miss my clients, Olifting and Nutrition are where my passions lie, and this is where I want to be able to focus my attention.  I’m an all or nothing type of person and right now I’m just spread too thin!  I will still be associated with crossfit Vancouver, am looking at the possibility of starting our own olifting club in November and will continue to hold seminars and clinics when I am in town, but I will no longer run the morning classes.  But with Andy continuing to do his thing, Popeye taking over my time slots, and Corey growing into a great coach on his own, the mornings will be in good hands!

Machine Out

Nutritional therapists frequently come across people who eat a good diet but still have nutritional deficiency symptoms. This is because they are not digesting and absorbing their food properly. If your digestion is weak, you probably suffer form boats of intestinal gas, bloating and discomfort. To combat this relax while eating-stress can switch off your production of stomach acid and other digestive juices and reduces the activity of the nerves and muscle that help the digestive process. Also make sure you chew your food throughout and don’t use water or liquids to wash down food (as this dilutes the digestive enzymes).

Its been a busy two weeks home (Coachig crossfit, doing nutritrtion consultations, hosting 2 nutrition seminars and 4 oliting seminars, and competing up in Kelowna) and I realized that I was crazy living the schedule I used to live. No wonder my adrenals were burnt out! Second day of starting coaching at 6am and training olifting at 7pm I was a walking zombie. Ive definitely decided my body likes sleep!!! (that was one of those do as I say not as I do things

Kelowna comp went well. Was kind of fun because I was coachless, so me and my good friend Josh (who was at his second ever competition and lifted GREAT!) had to fumble our way through figuring out warmup attempts and weight changes. A couple minor errors were made a long the way, but all and all it worked out and I got best female lifter.

Big changes on there way. As of the end of the day tomorrow, I will no longer be incharge of coaching the morning classes at crossfit vancouver. I will still be associated with the gym and offer nutrition seminars/consultations and olifting clinics (with the potential of starting an olifting club in November), but will no longer have my own morning classes. Popeye is going to be moving to the mornings to help out sack, and Corey, my apprentice, is ready to make big things happen on his own!

Bright and early monday morning (5:30am ) Im going to be flying back to san jose where I will stay until olifting provincials (date will either be november 7th, november 21st or December 5th). While in san jose, I will be training at catalyst athletics, continue to work with Dr. Shunney at integrative medicine (the coolest clinic ever that integrates naturopathic medicine with mds and the rest of it) and take fit4younutrition.com to the next level (Live your life by the fit4you5 pocket guides will be ready for christmas!!!).

A substantial amount of work has been done updating the guides and there are several new articles about to be released so stay tunned! Over the next few weeks, blog entries will highlight some of the key changes made.

Interesting article posted by Kelly Starett on the Crossfit Sanfransisco site. Check it out:

All right, let’s set the record straight about this stuff.

The Disclaimer: Medicine is serious business. Always follow the advice of your doctor.

Sorted?

Ok. Ibuprofen has no place in the life of the athlete obsessed with chasing performance.

Taking an anti-inflammatory drug of any kind makes tendons and ligaments weaker, and stops muscles from getting stronger.

Here’s the low down. Ibuprofen is an NSAID (Non-Steroidal-Anti-Inflammatory-Drug) which is believed to work through the inhibition of cyclooxygenase (COX), thus inhibiting prostaglandin synthesis. Prostaglandins, are like hormones in that they act as chemical messengers, but do not move to other sites, but work right within the cells where they are synthesized. Prostaglandins are vital mediators of the inflammatory cascade. The swelling and subsequent prostaglandin production signals all of the important cells circulating in your body to come and fix/reinforce the challenged tissues. That’s right, all that soreness you feel after Fran is the resultant swelling from all the micro-damage you’ve done to your muscles. It’s this very inflammatory response that is responsible for making you a BETTER ATHLETE. The Worst thing you can do is to go through a horrible workout like Fran and then not reap the resultant gains from the training stimulus.

No good coach should allow their athletes to take ibuprofen at anytime. Even if they are hung over..

Why?

NSAIDs have been shown to delay and hamper the healing in all the soft tissues, including muscles, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. Anti-inflammatories can delay healing and delay it significantly, even in muscles with their tremendous blood supply. In one study on muscle strains, Piroxicam (an NSAID) essentially wiped out the entire inflammatory proliferative phase of healing (days 0-4). At day two there were essentially no macrophages (cells that clean up the area) in the area and by day four after the muscle strain, there was very little muscle regeneration compared to the normal healing process.

Long term NSAID use is hard on your tissues and directly responsible from some pretty gnarly chronic body issues.

So how do we treat acute inflammatory/inflammation pain?

You know the answer.

Ice. (Maybe a little Tylenol if you really, really need it, it’s not an NSAID after all)

But remember, Acetaminophen causes three times as many cases of liver failure as all other drugs combined and is the most common cause of acute liver failure in the United States. Even recommended doses especially combined with even small amounts of alcohol (Yes you Crossfitters) have caused irreversible liver failure. Don’t be so cavalier about treating your muscle soreness with drugs. Taking pain meds of any kind is serious.

Can you see the difference between treating pain and treating inflammation? Control swelling and Pain with Ice as seen below, it won’t short circuit the way your body actually heals itself and becomes stronger. (Hell, the Ice bath might make you a little stronger too.)

Bask in your soreness! Brag about it at work as your friends help you get up off the toliet. And above all, practice all the recovery tricks you know! These include: Proper nutrition, fluid intake, ice bath, fish oil, active recovery, stretching, massage, etc.

Hell, you can even sneak in another quick workout the next day before the 48 hour soreness beat down really kicks in! Quick, let’s do Fight Gone Bad before you get too sore from yesterday’s double fran! For example.

Seriously. Knock it off. Get off the Vitamin I.

I recently read about a diet called the “Shangri-La Diet” where the author advises having between 2-4 tablespoons of oil per day (one of the oils that he recommends being flax oil). The idea being that twice throughout the day you have half your “dosage” of oil within a 2 hour non eating window (don’t eat for 1 hour, have 1 tbs of oil, don’t eat for 1 hour-this is too ensure that there is no calorie association with the oil that you are consuming).

If you are using something like extra light olive oil that has no taste you can just consume it, but when you are eating something like flaxseed oil, with its strong flavor, you need to pinch your nose while you are eating it again to avoid a calorie association to it.

Anyone heard of this before?

My originial theory was that it worked because more of your calories are comming from good fats (assuming you are not downing canola oil) so you are not as hungry to eat the crap, but as I read into it more, the original study started with people drinking sugar water-it appears to be the idea of consuming calories without calorie association that produces the results.

Any thoughts?