Category Archives: Anatomy & Physiology

PRP

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PRP. Platelet-rich plasma.  It’s a relatively new treatment used for rehab of injured tissues, and is considered a “regenerative medicine” modality. Blood is taken from the athlete, placed in a centrifuge so that platelets, which are fragments of blood cells involved in the clotting process, are concentrated.  The injection of these platelets into injured tissues stimulates the release of the body’s own growth factors, which in turn stimulate an increase in cells that repair injured tissues.  In theory, the body should in time be able to do the job on its own.  But where there is chronic tendinopathy, as is often the case with proximal hamstring tendons, it’s hard for the body to get ahead of it and an acute problem becomes chronic.  PRP has been shown to be a viable option as reported in the Muscle, Ligaments, and Tendons Journal (is there not a research journal for everything!) Hamstrings are often the runner’s nemesis.  Yet we couldn’t run without them. Our hamstrings allow us to pull our leg backward (concentric movement) so we move forward and when the leg is extending in front of us, they serve as an eccentric brake to keep our gait controlled and rhythmic. They work in concert with the quadriceps.  One … Continue reading →

Broken Pieces

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For the past 20 months, I have had a desk in a co-working facility in Burlington, Vermont called HULA.  It’s an amazing place.  Visitors marvel that THIS could be located in northern Vermont.  It’s an old oven factory located on Lake Champlain that has been completely modernized and added to.  It’s spacious, very bright due to huge windows everywhere, and boasts net-zero energy usage due to solar panels covering the entire roof.  Like most projects of this scale, it took entrepreneurs with vision and a high-risk tolerance to make it happen.  By all measures, it’s a great success.  There are over 400 “members.”  About half are connected to the 50+ businesses based here with enclosed office spaces.  Another 200 or so are “air disk” members, typical of co-working places everywhere – they have 24/7 access and sit wherever they find open spaces and desks, never a problem to find.   About 50 of us have “designated desks,” which provides us with our own sit-to-stand desk situated next to a window, with a filing cabinet, a small bookcase, and dividers between desks.  There are 16 conference rooms and about 20 phone booths available to all members for meetings or extended call or Zoom. The reason this is relevant to my Run Strategies blog … Continue reading →

The Senior Runner YouTube Channel

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The Run Strategies website was created in 2015 primarily to explore issues related to aging runners.  To date, the content has primarily been blog posts through my own journey as an aging runner.  I recently surpassed 100 posts and have been thinking about next steps.   When I was taking exercise physiology classes at UVM, I came across Andy Galpin, a research professor at Cal State Fullerton and Director of CSUF’s Center for Sports Performance. Andy has created around 40 YouTube videos, ranging from five minutes to over an hour on a range of exercise physiology topics.  These are fun and informative with interactive video elements.  He hasn’t posted a new one in a year and maybe he feels he’s exhausted the most relevant topics. The primary principles of exercise physiology pertain to all ages.  We all function within the same planes of movement and depend on such things at VO2 max and moving oxygen and glucose in and CO2 and lactic acid out of our muscles during performance.  However, each aging runner need only look at their own experience to know there are differences with aging.  But what are these differences and what drives the change? The Run Strategies blog posts have looked at some of these issues.  But I … Continue reading →

Why We Age

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We’re all getting older.  So, what else isn’t new?  Recently I was reviewing Peter Reaburn’s The Masters Athlete.  The first chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book by describing the aging mechanism.  Ultimately, it comes down to what is happening in our cells, the building blocks of our bodies.  I thought it might be of interest to readers to review the major theories of cellular aging and function.  The caveat is we are each somewhat unique individuals and as we age our differences are increasingly revealed.  Also, the factors discussed are interactive and some may be more dominant in one part of our lives than others.  Full disclosure, I have drawn liberally from Peter’s book in writing this post. So, here are six theories of aging impacting the senior runner listed in The Masters Athlete: Genetics. Reaburn suggests this is probably the major determinant.  Somewhat jokingly he suggests we pick our parents well!  In any event, our genes influence the other five factors discussed in terms of timing and degree.  Also, the expression of genes is affected by environmental factors, such as whether we smoke or live high-stress lives. Bottom line, genes guide our immune response, the function that helps keeps us healthy. Cellular Degeneration.  Cells respond variably to free-radical oxidation, which is … Continue reading →

Covid Part 2

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As noted in my May 23 post, I lost all hearing suddenly in one ear after a track workout two weeks after contracting Covid.  It’s now two months further down the road and maybe 5% of the hearing has returned in that ear.  The good news is the right ear is holding its own, and I’m doing my best to navigate life in monotone.   After taking steroids for two weeks, I did four weeks of hyperbaric oxygen treatments (HBOT).  These are two-hour sessions in a chamber at 2.4 times normal atmosphere (simulates ~45 feet underwater) with 100% oxygen (normally we breathe 21% oxygen.)  The idea is that oxygen forced into the tissues encourages healing.  While this is proven to help many conditions, including those with open wounds or undergoing cancer treatments, and has been used by athletes to supercharge their recovery for some time, it only succeeds about 40% of the time for hearing loss.  And that’s when started within two weeks.  For various reasons, it was 26 days before I started HBOT. At this point, it’s likely I will never recover much of my hearing, though of course I’ll keep hoping. The ENT specialists I’m working with indicate viruses have been shown to cause permanent hearing loss. The … Continue reading →

Our Brains on the Run

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It’s old news that moderate to intense exercise is good for our hearts, muscles. skeleton, and lungs.  Running is particularly good since it’s weight-bearing and stresses the joints.  Some feel that creates wear and tear.  But the research is clear that running combined with strength-training, stretching, adequate rest and recovery, and a reasonable training load, in most people builds cartilage at joint surfaces rather than wearing it away.  This is due, in part, to nutrients being drawn into our joint capsules from physical activity.  Otherwise, the avascular (no blood vessels) cartilage is left to fend for itself and it’s not a fair fight.  So, for the most part, us runners feel we’re doing what we can to keep the chassis in decent shape, hoping to keep it on the road more than in the garage.  Whether or not we’ve come completely to terms with slowing down, we are at least out there putting in a good effort. That is all well and good, but lurking in many people’s minds, literally, is what is going on in our heads, in our brains. We may have instances of forgetting things and not being as quick on the fly in spirited conversations.  We … Continue reading →

Goals for Senior Runners

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In my Sports Psychology class at UVM this fall, we were able to choose a topic for a research project on goal setting.  Of course, I jumped at the chance to do this for senior runners!  And for this post, I’m drawing from my project write-up.  Goal setting theory (GST) is used to improve performance in many endeavors.  In sport, GST has been applied to both teams and individuals, with clear links to building skills and task achievement.  Goals have been broadly grouped as subjective or objective.  Subjective goals could include “I want to keep running” while an objective goal might be “I want to run competitively until age 80 and maintain a 70% age-grade standard”.  Objective goals can be subdivided into process, performance, and outcome goals. In sport, objective goals should be: (1) moderately difficult to achieve; (2) both short and long term; (3) specific; (4) feedback looped.  An oft-used acronym to critique goals is SMART, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timebound.  It’s no secret we senior runners encounter constraints not faced by younger runners. These include various physiological changes that begin to appear in our 30s but accelerate with aging.  These include changes in: (1) … Continue reading →

Hamstrings and Balance

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Most runners have frequent and recurring hamstring problems.  It seems endemic to the sport.  And it’s debilitating – if your hamstring is talking to you, then in Bob Dylan’s words, “You Ain’t Going Nowhere.” The anatomy and biomechanics of the lower extremity is complicated.  A chart noting interrelated muscular actions in Joseph Hamill’s Biomechanical Basis of Human Movement  provides a clear picture of how each muscle, joint, and tendon plays a role in proper movement in running gait.  The three hamstring muscles (semimembranosus, biceps femoris, and semitendinosus) form the “meat” of the posterior (backside) thigh.  And attached to these three, either directly or indirectly, are about a dozen muscles attaching to the hip and knee.  If that isn’t involved enough there are the anterior (frontside) muscles that serve as antagonists to the posterior muscles.  For example, the four quadriceps flex the hip while the hamstrings extend it.  It’s a beautiful system when it works as designed! But few of us have perfect biomechanics and things happen, the most noteworthy being imbalances. These may be minor, for which we tend to compensate without notice.  But over time these imbalances build up and result in some muscles having to work harder than … Continue reading →

Stress and Stressors

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We all know stress!  Life without stress is not a vibrant life.  While there is a great deal of attention on reducing stress, the real need is to manage and channel it in productive ways. Stress can be either a noun or verb.  As a noun, it describes something.  For example, the pressure placed on our joints or muscles from physical activity is stress.  Emotionally, something that bothers us causes stress, with research showing this impacts us mentally and physically in various ways.  In physiologic terms, stress is defined as the damage caused by “adverse” circumstances.  Of course, that is an important element of training: breaking down and then building back stronger.  As a verb, stress describes an action or effect: e.g., an exercise that stresses our quads (presumably with the aim of strengthening it.)  For sure, we have all experienced the feeling of being “stressed out”. Hans Selye, an endocrinologist who lived from 1907-1982, is known as the founder of stress theory, described by the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS).  Selye suggested the initial response to stress is alarm, followed by resistance, and if continued exhaustion.  In running, the alarm phase alerts the body to fatigue, soreness, stiffness, and a … Continue reading →

Slingshot Form

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This week I finished my graduate program in clinical and translational science at UVM and last week presented at the department’s weekly seminar, summarizing my research interests in runner biomechanics, which I explored during my program.  Suffice it to say, at this point I thought I’d have a clear idea of next steps.  Not so!  However, in preparing for the presentation, I leafed through three running books in my library: Running Anatomy by Joe Puleo and Patrick Milroy, Running Form by Owen Anderson, and Anatomy for Runners by Jay Dicharry.  They deliver the same message in different ways: to run fast and avoid injury, you need a strong chassis and you’ve got to be efficient in how you use your energy.  I looked through my blog posts and saw one from June 25th, 2019 drawing from Dicharry’s book that I entitled Gait Keeping.  I’m going to expand on this here, but recommend looking at that prior post too.   Dicharry suggests thinking about a slingshot, as we probably played with as kids.  You pull it back and there’s tension.  Depending on the thickness of the band and how far you pull it back, the projectile shoots out.  To maximize distance, … Continue reading →