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Mid-Valley Newspapers
March 2014
A guide to well wellness l and healthy living in the Mid-Willamette Valley
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Concussion facts
Michael Chung leaps over a balance beam while running an obstacle course during a parkour training class in Brookline, Mass., on Jan. 29. AP PHOTO | CHARLES KRUPA
From YouTube to fitness craze Parkour, a French import from the ’80s, goes mainstream BY RODRIQUE NGOWI ASSOCIATED PRESS
ROOKLINE, Mass. — The spirited sport known as parkour that treats the world as one big obstacle course is gaining traction outside of the urban enthusiasts whose YouTube-worthy acrobatics spread its popularity. Once the domain of the outdoor anti-athlete, it’s becoming the go-to sport for people who just want a good workout. Jessamyn Hodge, a 32-year-old software and information engineer from South Boston, recently prepped for her first parkour class at a high school gym in suburban Brookline. She was hoping to learn the kind of wall-scaling, fence-vaulting, obstacleconquering moves she’d already seen in online videos shared by her rock-climbing friends. “It’s like dancing at high speed,” she said. “It reminds me of being a kid again, like monkeying around on anything and everything, clambering about, generally having fun while getting around.” Parkour, developed in France in the 1980s, borrows elements from martial arts, gymnastics, rock climbing and other athletic fields to
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Jessamyn Hodge of Boston leaps over a railing during a class in Brookline. enable participants to turn obstacles like benches, trees, guardrails, and buildings into tools they can use to nimbly propel themselves forward. Parkour’s developers were influenced by military training principles. Since then, some of the sport’s most spectacular moves have been featured in movie sequences, video games and advertisements. One of the most recognizable is a chase scene in the 2006 James Bond movie “Casino Royale.” Beginners who want to hit the
ground running — but maybe not by running up a construction crane, James Bond-style — have the option of classes like those offered by London-Based Parkour Generations, a business with affiliates in California, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin, and that offers instruction in several countries including Thailand and Brazil. Classes include a warm-up, technical drills to learn the basics of safety, and games to teach and reinforce parkour techniques. At
the Brookline class, instructors set up metal bars they called scaffolding and vault boxes in the gym, teaching students how to walk on or hurtle over balance beams and lift, leap or weave their way through whatever else was in their path. Both newcomers and advanced learners trained together, but those more experienced were given more challenges. Instructor Blake Evitt said many of the new students he sees view parkour as a functional way to get fit. But parkour offers more than flashy stunts — it’s a way for people to test their physical and mental limits. “It’s almost a way of life,” said Evitt, of Parkour Generations. Julio Sepulveda, a climatechange researcher, who takes classes in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Mass., said parkour is accessible because learners don’t need access to fancy, expensive gear to get into it. They can simply walk to a nearby park and use the existing environment to practice. “And it’s really all about your flow ... the flow of your movements and ... your mind, which is really cool,” Sepulveda said after catching his breath. “So it’s a nice connection between your mind and your body.”
Experts say anywhere from 1.6 million to 3.8 million concussions occur each year. Immediate symptoms include headache, nausea, dizziness, mental fogginess and sensitivity to light. Less than 10 percent of sport-related concussions involve loss of consciousness. Up to half of all concussions are not reported. Nearly half (47 percent) of athletes feel no symptoms directly after receiving a concussive blow. Football is the most common sport with concussion risk for males; soccer for females. Females are twice as likely to sustain a concussion as males in a similar sport. If a person has already had one concussion, they are twice as likely to suffer another. Those odds increase drastically after a second one. — St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Younger Alzheimer’s Younger onset Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 250,000 Americans in their prime, before they reach age 65. Only about 5 percent of the nation’s Alzheimer’s cases occur in people who haven’t yet reached their mid-60s. That proportion has remained steady through the decades, but the huge age wave of the baby boom has ramped up the raw numbers behind the data. “Many of us in this field are really noticing that the numbers of younger people with Alzheimer’s disease are ballooning,” said Elizabeth Edgerly, of the Alzheimer’s Association of Northern California. Cases of Alzheimer’s involve the death of brain cells, which are choked by abnormal tangles and plaques of protein. People with high blood pressure, circulation problems and diabetes are considered at higher risk of developing the disease, as are people with a family history of Alzheimer’s. But science can’t yet pinpoint why some people with those risk factors get dementia and some don’t. — The Sacramento Bee
Battery hazards
7 ways to improve your healthy lifestyle Even if you’re healthy, you probably still need some changes BY LESLIE BARKER DALLAS-MORNING NEWS
Every die-hard fitness fanatic cheers the benefits of eating right and exercising: Reduced risk of disease! Increased energy! A better sense of mental, physical, emotional self! But there is a caveat to all that rahrah: You can overdo it. While that won’t necessarily negate what you’re doing, it can make your lifestyle less effective than you might think. To help you stop, we asked a couple of experts for specifics on how too much of a good thing can be bad for you. Megan Lyons recently opened a health-coaching company in Dallas. Kathy Dieringer is a board member of the Dallas-based National Athletic Trainers’ Association. 1. WORKING OUT HARD EVERY DAY The reason: “Our bodies need rest,” Lyons says, “and performing high-intensity exercise every single day does not allow adequate time for muscle repair and recovery.” Adds Dieringer: “Rest between
exercising is just as important as the exercise itself. If you don’t allow your body to rest and recover between bouts, it will break down eventually.” The solution: If you must do something every day, make sure it’s lower intensity, like a non-power walk or stretching, Lyons says. Vary the intensity of your workouts, says Dieringer, owner of D&D Sports Med in Denton, Sanger and Aubrey, Texas. Take a few days off if you show such signs of overtraining as insomnia, restlessness, continued soreness, burnout or irritability. If you’re injured, take time to heal. 2. SWEARING BY ONLY ONE EXERCISE OR ROUTINE The reason: In addition to the boredom factor, doing the same workout over and over increases your risk of overuse injury, Lyons says. Additionally, “you’ll neglect other muscles. This often leads to muscle imbalances, which can cause or exacerbate injuries.” The solution: Try a new class, or exercise with a friend who does a workout you don’t. 3. BELIEVING THAT PAIN EQUALS GAIN The reason: Being sore is one thing; pain is another. Pain often signals an injury, which means you’ll have to stop working out for a while.
The solution: Your body lets you know when it’s time to rest and time to move, Dieringer says, so listen to it. “Pushing through soreness is OK, as long as we’re sure that’s what it is, but you should not try to push through pain,” she says. “Any type of soreness or discomfort that doesn’t go away with rest and proper care after a few days should not be pushed through.” At that point, seek professional help, she says. 4. LOADING UP ON SPORTS DRINKS AND ENERGY BARS The reason: You probably don’t need these, which are geared for athletes exercising “under intense conditions for prolonged time periods,” Lyons says. They contain excess sugar that can quickly add up and even counteract the workout. In other words, you may be eating more than you’re burning off. The solution: Refuel with carbheavy gels and drinks only when your workout lasts longer than an hour, or 30 minutes “in incredibly hot conditions,” she says. Your best bet for a beverage? Water. 5. THINKING GLUTEN-FREE IS A PANACEA The reason: Gluten-free items are trendy but fall prey to what Lyons
calls the “halo effect.” That is, “causing us to assume anything labeled gluten-free is automatically healthy.” In many instances, they have “fewer nutrients, more calories and more sugar than the real thing,” she says. The solution: Unless your body has a true intolerance for gluten, you’re better off choosing whole grains and whole-grain products without that gluten-free label, she says. 6. OVERDOING DIET PRODUCTS The reason: Many are overly processed and contain additives and preservatives our bodies don’t recognize as food, Lyons says. “Even when a product is marketed as healthy or diet, the calories still add up,” she says. Unfortunately, many of us think of these as “free food.” The solution: Choose a whole-food option such as a piece of fruit or a vegetable-based salad, she says. 7. STICKING WITH THE TRIED-AND-TRUE The reason: Doing what we’ve always done or what we were taught as young athletes isn’t necessarily valid, Dieringer says. The solution: Do your research; seek advice from experts, not from fads.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission first warned about button batteries in 1983, saying they should be kept away from children. And yet each year, about 3,000 children are injured and several die after swallowing button batteries or sticking them up their nose. “I wish we could get the message out about button batteries,” said Glenn Isaacson, a professor of otolaryngology at Temple University School of Medicine. “They’re in everything. Everything. That’s part of the problem.” Progress is being made, said Ian Jacobs, medical director of the Center for Pediatric Airway Disorders at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, to lead the task force. The electronics industry, greeting-card companies, and battery makers are working with health professionals and consumer groups. Together, Jacobs said, they are developing warning labels, designing more secure battery compartments, and producing smaller batteries that won’t get lodged even in the narrow passages inside a child’s body. — The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Tuesday, March 11, 2014
To Your Health