The Yoga-Inspired Workout Moves Every Runner Needs to Try

When it comes to reaching your running goals, it’s not enough to just log multiple miles daily. You also need to implement a recovery plan that can help your body rest, while readying it for the next time you lace up those sneakers. The type of recovery we are talking about doesn’t involve vegging out on the couch with a pint of Häagen-Dazs, though (sorry!); it is more of an active approach that gets you moving through mobility and flexibility exercises, but isn’t super intense or taxing on the body. Luckily, Nike has just what you need.

This week, the athletic brand launched “Reach and Recharge,” its latest N+TC workout. Available for free on their handy Nike Training Club app and created by Nike Master Trainer Traci Copeland, this 30-minute dynamic series is designed to help runners improve their strength and balance while offering an active way to recover. (Not a runner? No problem. Copeland says any active person can benefit from these moves.)

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“It involves a lot of functional movements, so you are getting similar movements that you might get in a HIIT class, but it’s not as hard or intense,” says Copeland who suggests cycling through the series twice a week. “This is not your slower restorative practice, though. It’s active so that your body can recover faster and be ready for that next run.”

What to expect: a lot of lunging, squatting, twisting and core work, says Copeland. The result: opening up the body for better posture, helping to restore your range of motion for a better stride and giving you a tighter mind-body connection.

“I work with a lot of runners, and whether they are running 5 miles or 14, they all come in with the same body issues, including weakness in the core and tight hamstrings,” says Copeland. “In this workout, I make sure your core is covered, you work on lengthening the hamstrings as well as opening up muscles like the calves, soleus and hip flexors more.”

And she shared with Health five go-to active recovery moves a that are essential for pavement-pounders.

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IT Band Straddle Forward Fold

After a long run, your hammies can get pretty tight and this move works to stretch them out. “Folding forward with toes slightly inward activates more of the inner hamstring, rather than a regular forward fold which just hits the biceps femoris, which is the muscle directly underneath your glute,” explains Copeland.

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High Plank

Planks are good for upper body and core strength. Try holding one for 30 seconds to activate your core, suggests Copeland who notes that a lot of runners fail to activate theirs which can wreck havoc on running. “If your core isn’t activated, the hip flexors take over when you run, and that puts a lot of strain with every step you take,” she says.

Chaturanga Pushups

In addition to being a great core move, when you push down, you are working your triceps, ” which helps with arm drive and efficiency,” notes Copeland. Start in high plank, and lower your body into a push-up, keeping your elbows close to your torso.

RELATED: 10 Minute Workout: Get Toned From Head to Toe

Core Plank Twist Sequence

With this exercise, you’ll hit your external obliques, which hits the core even deeper,” explains Copeland. Plus it gets you moving laterally, which is a plane runners often ignore. Start in downward dog, with weight grounded into your heels. Move into downward dog split by raising right leg to the sky. Then move forward onto your hands bringing right knee to your right shoulder. Return to downward dog split, and then bring right knee to left shoulder. Repeat on the other side.

Chair Pose on Toes

This move is a great way to turn on the calf and soleus muscles. Plus your feet get in on the action, too. “Any time you are flexing your foot, you are stretching the fascia (soft tissue) underneath your foot,” says Copeland who reminds us that foot dorsiflexion is key for runners. Sit hips back and rise up into Chair Pose with arms up alongside ears, hold for 30 seconds. Rise onto toes.

Reclining Pigeon

This is great for hip mobility. “Runners tend to have tight hips, so this helps open them up without putting too much strain on body like a regular pigeon pose where you are forcing yourself down,” says Copeland. “When you are lying down, gravity is naturally opening up your hips.” Be sure to do stretch both sides.

To get the full workout, download the N+TC Nike Training Club App (free, iTunes and Google Play) and then search for “Reach and Recharge.” Your body will definitely be #betterforit!

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Main Dishes May Fall Flat After Stellar Appetizers

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A yummy appetizer might make your main course less satisfying, new research suggests.

Ordinary hors d’oeuvres, on the other hand, could make the food that follows seem a lot tastier.

“It’s always worth remembering that our experiences are contextual — that is, what we like and don’t like, or taste and don’t taste, is not objective, but related to the environment, our state of mind and many other variables,” study author Jacob Lahne, an assistant professor in Drexel University’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management, said in a university news release.

The study used Italian bruschetta — garlicky grilled bread topped with olive oil — as an example. The findings were published recently in the journal Food Quality and Preference.

“If you have a fantastic appetizer and then the main seems lackluster, that could be because of this type of contrast effect. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have fantastic appetizers!” Lahne noted.

The researchers examined people’s response to a bowl of pasta with garlic and oil after they had either an enhanced “good” bruschetta appetizer, made with fresher and better ingredients, or a “mediocre” version. The “good” bruschetta was made with balsamic vinegar, lemon zest, extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil. The “mediocre” version, in contrast, was made with blended olive oil and dried basil.

Study participants had more favorable views of the “good” bruschetta. But they liked the pasta dish better after having the “mediocre” bruschetta. The researchers suggested a main course may seem better if it’s preceded by and compared to a less tasty appetizer.

More information

The U.S. Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics provides more insight and tips on eating out.

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College Football Players Score More Injuries at Exam Time

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — College football players are much more likely to suffer injuries during weeks when they’re taking tests than during training camp, a new study finds.

Added stress is the culprit, said study author Bryan Mann.

“Stress is systemic,” explained Mann, an assistant professor of physical therapy at the University of Missouri.

“Everything players deal with on a daily basis creates stress. They don’t have separate accounts to withdraw from for practice, school and relationships,” he said. “Whenever there’s stress, something’s got to give. Otherwise, it’s similar to when unexpected expenses arise at the same time and you’re likely to overdraw your checking account. It’s the same idea but on a physiological basis rather than a monetary one.”

The link between increased levels of academic stress and more injuries was especially evident among starting players, the researchers found.

They looked at 101 players on a Division 1 college football team during a 20-week season. During that time, 60 athletes had 86 injury restrictions.

Players were about three times more likely to have an injury restriction during weeks with high academic stress — such as midterms or finals — than during weeks with low academic stress.

The study was recently published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers college health and safety tips.

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Mandatory Life Jacket Laws Could Reduce Boating Deaths

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A law requiring recreational boat operators to wear life jackets could reduce boating accident deaths in the United States by 80 percent, according to a new study.

That conclusion is based on an analysis of U.S. Coast Guard data on boating accidents between 2008 and 2011.

During that time, making life jacket use mandatory would likely have led to a 20 percent increase in life jacket use by recreational boaters. The researchers estimated the increased life jacket use would have saved more than 1,700 boaters and more than 1,200 drowning victims.

“The same policy restricted to boats 16- to 30-feet in length would have saved approximately 778 victims,” wrote the study authors, Christelle Viauroux of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Ali Gungor of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Standards Evaluation and Analysis Division.

Watercraft are required to carry life jackets, but many boaters don’t wear them.

The investigators concluded that the odds of dying are 86 percent higher than average if a boating accident involves a canoe or kayak. If more than one vessel is involved in an accident, the odds of dying are 80 percent lower, they said. If a boat operator has more than 100 hours of boating experience, the odds of dying are 34 percent lower than average, the researchers added.

The study was published online recently in the journal Risk Analysis.

The researchers said that a mandatory life jacket law is “a major and controversial policy.” And they said, such a law “cannot be implemented without a thorough investigation of life jacket effectiveness.”

Much of the previous research into how to reduce recreational boating deaths lacked data about life jacket use, and this study corrects that deficiency, the study authors said.

More information

The U.S. Coast Guard has more about life jackets.

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Climate Change May Bring More ER Visits, Deaths, Study Says

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — High temperatures lead to increased emergency department visits and deaths, and the numbers will grow as climate change makes summers even hotter by the end of the century, researchers warn.

They analyzed data from across Rhode Island and found that when temperatures rise above 75 degrees Fahrenheit, there is a significant increase in medical problems among people of all ages.

“Our primary finding is that as temperatures increase, the number of emergency room visits and deaths increase,” study author Samantha Kingsley, a graduate student in public health at Brown University in Providence, R.I., said in a university news release.

“But people were going to the hospital for heat-related reasons at temperatures below what we would typically consider extreme,” she added.

Heat-related ER visits were about 3 percent higher on days with a high of 75 degrees than on days with a high of 65, and almost 24 percent higher on days with a high of 85 degrees than on days with a high of 75.

Rhode Island’s death rate was 4 percent higher on a typical 85-degree day than on a typical 75-degree day, according to the study recently published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

“People should be aware that heat represents a significant public health threat,” senior author Gregory Wellenius, an associate professor of epidemiology at Brown, said in the news release. “We do need to take heat seriously as a public health risk, even if there isn’t a heat warning.”

The researchers found that the strongest link between higher temperatures and heat-related ER visits was among those between 18 and 64 years of age. Many of these patients could be workers who are outside on hot days.

“Everybody believes that heat is dangerous but not for them,” Wellenius said. “One of the messages is that this is really across the age spectrum. Heat remains one of the leading causes of weather-related deaths.”

The researchers also estimated that if climate change boosts summer temperatures 10 degrees hotter by the end of the century, Rhode Island’s summertime death rate would rise by about 80 each year, or about 1.5 percent. Heat-related ER visits would increase 25 percent, from about 6,000 to 7,500 each summer, the researchers said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers hot weather safety tips.

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Excessive Sports Training Hurts Kids, Expert Warns

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Sports provide children with many benefits, but kids can get injured if they push themselves too hard, an expert says.

“Children are not little adults,” said Dr. Alexis Colvin, chief medical officer of the United States Tennis Association.

“There are inherent limitations to a child’s endurance and strength capacity, which is why we as parents must protect our children from excessive training and injuries,” explained Colvin, who is also an orthopedic surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

Parents need to make sure that young athletes practice the right way. For example, training for 7- and 8-year-olds should be limited to two to three times a week, with days of rest in between. Youngsters should do 5 to 10 minutes of dynamic warm-up before each practice, working on muscles symmetrically, she said.

Recovery should be a priority because it “is the most important component of being able to train and compete on a regular basis,” Colvin said in a hospital news release.

Also, young athletes should take a break from competition or sport-specific training one to two days a week, she added.

“This allows your child to rest not only physically, but also psychologically,” Colvin explained.

Training time and amount should never increase by more than 10 percent a week, and young athletes should take two to three months off a year from their focused sport, she added. Parents also need to be alert for problems such as pain, fatigue and/or poor school performance.

Remember, too, that heat and humidity pose a risk to young athletes.

“Children absorb heat quicker, have delayed sweating mechanisms, and may be at risk for heat injuries in humid weather,” Colvin said.

Be sure that children drink fluids when playing sports or training, she said, and tell them to alert their parents and coaches if they need a break.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians explains how to keep children active.

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Watch This Woman Dance Away Her Labor Pains

When Yuki Nishitzawa wanted to alleviate her labor pain, she got creative—by throwing it back to the 90s.

The 36-year-old mom busted out her best “Tootsee Roll” while awaiting her son’s at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Even her water breaking didn’t put a stop to her dance moves.

Her husband, Connell Cloyd, was quick to capture the moment on video to share with their friends. Little did the couple know the Facebook clip of Nishitzawa’s delivery room moves would rack up more than 6 million views (and counting).

RELATED: 10 Ways to Boost Your Odds of Getting Pregnant

This isn’t Nishitzawa’s first time testing out this birthing ritual though: on the day her now-2-year-old daughter was born, she was dancing to the 69 Boyz hit at a friend’s birthday. And her dancing worked again: their son, Coji, was born around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday weighing 6 pounds, 15 ounces, according to the Boston Globe.

“This is a celebration because we had lost our son before this pregnancy when I was 23 weeks pregnant,” Nishitzawa said in a follow-up video posted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital Facebook page. “When we lost our son, we promised and I said to myself, I will do anything to deliver another child, a healthy child.”

Thanks to the video, the couple now has the perfect nickname for their healthy baby boy. Cloyd introduced their new family addition on Inside Edition as their “little Tootsie Roll.” Adorable.

RELATED: 15 Factors That Affect a Woman’s Fertility

 

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Weight Loss Fights Liver Condition, No Matter How It’s Done

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Weight loss can improve liver health of obese or overweight people, whether excess pounds are shed through lifestyle changes or weight-loss surgery, a pair of studies finds.

Both studies involved people with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), an aggressive disease characterized by fat in the liver. It affects 2 percent to 5 percent of Americans, and can lead to permanent liver damage, according to the study published in the August issue of the journal Gastroenterology.

“While the underlying cause of NASH is unclear, we most commonly see this condition in patients who are middle-aged and overweight or obese,” Dr. Giulio Marchesini, of the University of Bologna, Italy, and colleagues wrote in an editorial accompanying the studies.

“These two large prospective cohort studies strengthen the evidence that, no matter how you lose weight, weight loss improves liver health. Both bariatric surgery for morbidly obese patients or lifestyle modifications are viable options,” they added.

In one study, researchers in Cuba found that nonalcoholic steatohepatitis was resolved and liver scarring reversed in overweight and obese people who achieved a weight loss of 10 percent or more after one year of lifestyle changes involving a low-calorie diet and exercise.

Weight loss of 7 percent to 10 percent reduced disease severity in some patients, including men and those without diabetes. However, worsening of liver scarring occurred among 93 percent of those with a weight loss of less than 5 percent.

In the other study, researchers in France found that nonalcoholic steatohepatitis disappeared in 85 percent of obese patients one year after they had weight-loss surgery. The success rate was higher among those with mild nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (94 percent) than among those with severe disease (70 percent).

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseaeses has more about nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.

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Could a Laser Skin Test Someday Replace Biopsy to Spot Melanoma?

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Skin cancer remains the most common cancer for Americans, and invasive biopsies for lesions that could be dangerous melanomas have long been routine.

Now, researchers say they’ve developed a non-invasive test that can spot melanoma skin cancer without a biopsy, according to a new study.

Researchers led by Aneta Stefanovska, of Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, say they’ve used a laser to identify slight differences in blood flow beneath the lesion, which differentiate melanoma from non-cancerous moles.

The test, which takes about 30 minutes, was assessed in 55 people with irregular moles. Follow-up biopsies showed that the test was 100 percent accurate in identifying patients with melanoma.

“We used our knowledge of blood flow dynamics to pick up on markers which were consistently different in the blood vessels supplying malignant moles and those beneath normal skin,” Stefanovska said in a university news release.

The new test “has 100 percent sensitivity and 90.9 percent specificity, which means that melanoma is identified in all cases where it is present, and ruled out in 90.9 percent of cases where it is not,” she added.

Study co-author Marco Rossi of Pisa University in Italy pointed out that “skin malignant melanoma is a particularly aggressive cancer associated with quick blood vessel growth, which means early diagnosis is vital for a good prognosis. The current diagnostic tools of examination by doctors, followed by biopsy, inevitably leads to many unnecessary invasive excisions.”

The new test might “lead to a substantial reduction in the number of biopsies currently undertaken,” Rossi said.

Two melanoma experts in the United States were cautiously optimistic about the test, but said more research is needed.

“The study as presented has many limitations and thus further research is necessary before it could be used in clinical practice,” said Dr. Hooman Khorasani, assistant professor of dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

According to Khorasani, one of the test’s current limitations is the fact that the patient’s blood flow must be monitored for a half-hour. “In a busy dermatology practice in New York City, I believe that collecting data for 30 minutes in a patient exam room would be unrealistic,” he said.

Khorasani also believes that a larger study, with a much wider range of patient types, is needed before confirming the utility of the test.

Dr. Katy Burris is a dermatologist at North Shore-LIJ Health System in Manhasset, N.Y. She said that, “as with many cancers, earlier diagnosis often results in a better outcome, which is what every doctor wants for their patient. But one must remember that this is only one study, and further studies will be needed to determine how accurate this device will be in correctly identifying melanoma.”

The findings were published online earlier this month in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about melanoma.

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Breast-Feeding May Pass Common Chemical to Baby, Study Shows

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — New mothers may inadvertently pass industrial chemicals along to their babies through breast-feeding, which might lower the effectiveness of some childhood vaccinations, researchers report.

The class of chemicals, called perfluorinated alkylate substances (PFASs), are widely used in consumer products to make them resistant to water, grease and stains.

A Harvard-led research team found that a baby’s blood concentration of PFASs will increase by 20 percent to 30 percent every month they’re breast-fed.

This phenomenon worries study co-author Dr. Philippe Grandjean, because earlier research has shown that PFASs can cause vaccinations to either fail or to be much less potent.

“This is absurd. We’re trying to prevent diseases by vaccinations, and we also are encouraging mothers to breast-feed because human milk is the ideal nutrition for the child, and the child’s immune system is also stimulated by components of human milk,” said Grandjean, an adjunct professor of environmental health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “And now we’re finding that there are contaminants in the milk that have the opposite effect of breast milk that are decreasing the impact of childhood immunizations.”

PFASs can be found on waterproof or water-resistant clothing, and on furniture or carpeting treated for stain resistance, Grandjean said. The chemicals are also used in food packaging such as microwave popcorn bags and takeout pizza boxes.

“There’s no way that young women can actively prevent their own exposures to these substances,” he said.

An earlier study published by Grandjean showed that 7-year-olds with twice the blood concentration of PFASs had about half of the levels of tetanus and diphtheria antibodies as children with average PFAS levels.

“We found that for each doubling in exposure to PFAS, the child has an increased risk that the vaccination will not take,” he said. “The risk increases between two- and fourfold for each doubling of the child’s exposure.”

As a next step in their research, Grandjean and his colleagues decided to look at whether breast-feeding might be a source of PFAS exposure for babies.

The researchers followed 81 children who were born in the Faroe Islands, a small country in the North Atlantic, between 1997 and 2000. The investigators looked at levels of five types of PFASs in their blood at birth and 11 months, 18 months and 5 years. They also looked at PFAS levels in the mothers of the children at week 32 of pregnancy.

They found that children who were exclusively breast-fed experienced an increase in PFAS blood concentrations of as much as 30 percent each month, with lower increases among children who were partially breast-fed. PFAS levels decreased after breast-feeding stopped.

“All children are born with some PFAS,” Grandjean said. “It passes the placenta, and the concentration in umbilical cord serum is about one-third of what the mother has. But then if the child is breast-fed for six months, the child has four times that, so now the child exceeds the mother in the serum concentration of PFAS.

“A child, of course, at that age is much more vulnerable than the mother is because the child is developing its immune system and all sorts of other organ functions,” he added.

Based on these findings, Grandjean believes that leading health authorities like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization should revisit guidelines that recommend mothers breast-feed up to six months.

“My own conclusion is exclusive breast-feeding for three or four months. That will result in the main benefits to the child,” he said. “Continued breast-feeding beyond three or four months will not add a lot of additional benefits, and in the meantime these contaminants are building up.”

But one industry group noted that harmful PFASs are being phased out.

“Over a decade ago, members started working with U.S. EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and other regulators to globally phase out all long-chain PFAS chemistries by the end of 2015,” said Jessica Bowman, executive director of the FluoroCouncil.

Grandjean noted that even though some of these chemicals are being phased out, the known accumulation in adults likely will continue to result in PFAS transference to some babies via breast milk.

Dr. Kenneth Spaeth, director of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Center at North Shore University Hospital, in Manhasset, N.Y., said it’s too soon to tell whether changing breast-feeding recommendations will be necessary, as more studies are needed.

“Until such time we have additional data, there’s no basis for changing breast-feeding policy,” Spaeth said. “On the whole, the benefits of breast-feeding outweigh any risks that could be associated, and I don’t think this study will change that.”

The study was published online Aug. 20 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

More information

Visit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for more on PFASs.

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