Princeton Longevity News

Over the past few years, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) has become very popular with the apparently healthy population and for good reasons.  However, it was not being used as a training modality for groups typically considered to be special populations, until now.

In one study out of McMaster University in Canada, researchers looked at the benefits of interval training on people diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.  Patients exercised exclusively with interval training vs. moderate intensity continuous exercise that is typically prescribed for this group.  The results speak for themselves, with significant improvements in both the functioning of their heart and blood vessels.

Another study is beginning to show promise for helping individuals with Type 2 Diabetes improve insulin sensitivity and control their blood glucose levels.  The study is very promising, with participants having positively impacted their blood glucose levels for up to 24 hours post exercise.

So, just when we thought interval training is for the apparently healthy individual training for a sporting event, science is showing us that intensity is the key to many things.

Keith Burns, MS, CSCS, NASM-CES

Recently, Alex Rodriguez or better known as A-Rod, went through a screening process with the National Academy of Sports Medicine’s CEO, Dr. Michael Clark.  The process is designed to identify muscular imbalances and how these areas of weakness or tightness are affecting the kinetic chain and therefore movement.

So, what’s the common denominator between A-Rod and our patients?  The screening process.  Every patient at Princeton Longevity Center undergoes a thorough assessment of their fitness, including a movement screen.  The screen serves as the basis for our exercise prescription.  We look at the body and how it moves from the perspective of function.  The human movement system is made up from the skeletal system, the muscular system, and the nervous system.  Dysfunction can be attributed to any one of these or a combination of the three.  So, if one area is out of balance, it can throw off the other two and wreak havoc on the body.  For instance, the hip flexors are often shortened due to the amount of time spent in a seated position.  Over time, they want to stay in that shortened position, and can contribute to an anterior pelvic tilt.  This can lead to a hyperlordotic curve of the lumbar spine, poor function of the gluteals, and eventually to low back pain.  All due to a simple muscular imbalance that can corrected once properly identified.

What was identified during this process with A-Rod may surprise you, but in the world of kinesiology and biomechanics, it makes perfect sense.  To read more about what is ailing A-Rod click the following link.  http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/yankees/rod_radical_head_stars_toe_is_program_FUcdxCbjqKmBJWLXZvNmuJ

Keith Burns, MS, CSCS, NASM-CES

A quick and easy Friday dinner meal!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/8 teaspoon celery salt
• 2 pounds (8 filets) tilapia fillets

Directions

1. Preheat your oven’s broiler. Grease a broiling pan or line pan with aluminum foil.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the Parmesan cheese, butter, mayonnaise and lemon juice. Season with dried basil, pepper, onion powder and celery salt. Mix well and set aside.
3. Arrange fillets in a single layer on the prepared pan. Broil a few inches from the heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Flip the fillets over and broil for a couple more minutes. Remove the fillets from the oven and cover them with the Parmesan cheese mixture on the top side. Broil for 2 more minutes or until the topping is browned and fish flakes easily with a fork.

Ready in 15 minutes

Serving size: 1 fish filet

Nutrition Information:

Calories: 225

Calories from Fat: 115g

Saturated fat: 12.8g

Carbohydrate: 0.8g

Protein: 25.4g

There are many factors that contribute to heart disease risk. Diet, physical activity level and genetics each play a unique role in preventing or promoting the number 1 killer of Americans. As a dietitian, I love when new research comes out about specific heart healthy foods that I can encourage my patients to eat as part of their daily diet. Nuts are indeed one of those foods.

Nuts, such as almonds and peanuts, are a rich source of the heart healthy monounsaturated fat. This type of fat works to naturally raise the good HDL cholesterol in the blood. High monounsaturated fat intake in combination with a diet low in cholesterol and saturated fat is the key diet strategy to combat heart disease.

Click the link below to see some of the current research about nuts and disease prevention!

http://www.almondboard.com/9studies/

Gail Wikler, RD, CDN

Kimberly Baldyga

Everyone has a different fitness goal in mind ranging from losing weight, gaining muscle mass and increasing endurance and strength.  Believe it or not, you can reach any of those goals with a set of 10 pound dumbbells. 

Whatever the goal is, it usually involves giving yourself a total body workout focusing on individual muscle groups, or combining exercises for compound movements and more advanced workouts.

       Ten pound dumbbells can be found at the gym, but if you don’t have access to a facility, all of these exercises can be done with the use of your own body and the set of dumbbells. 

       Each of the following circuits can be done in multiple ways to work different muscle groups and systems in the body.

       To make your workout total body, complete each exercise for 15 repetitions and repeat each circuit 3 times before moving on to the next one.  Between each round, give yourself about 30 to 60 seconds rest. 

       If you are advanced and conditioned, take the shorter rest period to keep your heart rate up and anaerobic system working.  Being more of a beginner may require you to take the longer rest in order to maintain proper form and execution.

Dumbbell Circuits

Round 1: Upper Body

1. Renegade row

2. Chest press

3. Skull crusher

4. Shoulder press or upright row

Round 2: Lower Body

1. Overhead lunges

2. Single leg stiff legged deadlift

3. Front squat

4. Dumbbell swing

Round 3: Core

1. V-up with dumbbell

2. Overhead in and out

3. Seated dumbbell oblique twists

4. Figure 8’s with dumbbell

Compound movements and enhancements

       As with any exercise program or workout, there can be modifications made to make the body work harder.  Compound movements are exercises that generate multi-joint movements. 

       When working this way, various muscle groups are activated with an end result in greater ranges of motion and a total body workout.

Most of the exercises in the previous circuits can be combined to create compound movements, resulting in a total body workout in less time.  Whether you use compound movements or single joint exercises, these are all still done with just the use of body weight and 10 pound dumbbells.   

Using the compound movements versus single joint isolation exercises can provide a more effective way to building muscle mass as well as increasing coordination and skill of the body. 

The following circuits have been modified to create a total body workout comprised of compound exercises using the 10 pound dumbbells.

Circuit 1:

1. Squat to overhead press

2. Chest fly with a leg lower

3. Turkish get-up

4. Pullover crunch

Circuit 2:

1. Lunge to bicep curl

2. Row to tricep extension

3. Deadlift to upright row

4. Weighted bird dogs

       Using just two circuits, you can still incorporate each muscle group and achieve maximum results.

Mixing in cardio

       Whether you are completing this workout with compound exercises, or single joint movements, you can always supplement cardio in to provide a better workout for the heart and muscles.

       In between each circuit, adding in a body weight cardio segment will add more of a challenge and incorporate more of the aerobic system.

Keeping the heart rate up may be something you are interested in, but be sure that you or the client are more conditioned to do so otherwise you may compromise form and lose the benefits of the weight training.

       Even adding in a jump to a squat, mountain climbers or even burpees will still give you that strength aspect, but also keep the heart rate up and provide less of a rest time.  This type of training may be beneficial for a client more focused on losing weight or working on their endurance.

       Using a pair of 10 pound dumbbells can provide you or your client with an intense total body workout without even leaving the house. 

Trying to incorporate any of the modifications provided, you can turn single joint exercises into compound movements to provide the body with a different workout and keep yourself or your client from boredom!

By: Kimberly Baldyga

Monitoring how fast the heart returns to its resting state after exercise not only predicts physical fitness but can also be a predictor of mortality.  Heart rate recovery is based upon age and gender, so as a health professional, you can anticipate the rate of recovery that your client should be at.  All cause mortality is the death rate from a specific cause for a determined population. 

Science behind it

       The increase of heart rate from exercise can be a result of reduced vagal tone.  When you stop exercise, vagal tone is reactivated which helps the heart recover.  So what is vagal tone and why is it so important?

       The parasympathetic nervous system controls the resting heart rate by signals from the vagus nerve.  The vagal control over the heart decreases during exercise because sympathetic activity is increased.  This allows the heart rate to increase to meet the demands of the activity.

       Any type of alterations in neural activity and control of functions of the heart contribute to the risk of sudden death.  Sudden death in the United States is often the cause of a cardiovascular event or disease.

       Autonomic contribution to heart rate recover can vary from person to person.  Usually a bad recovery from exercise is related to termination of the stimulus from the brain.  Along with neurological responses, factors such as slow changes in blood pressure, clearance of metabolites and body heat elimination can all contribute to how he heart recovers after exercise.

       A relative increase or decrease in vagal activity or increases in sympathetic activity also has increased risks of death from cardiac functions and arrhythmias (Juven, December 2006). 

       An increase in vagal activity has been reported to be associated with a reduction in the risk of death (Cole et. al October, 1999).  It has also been shown that there is a strong association between a decreased exercise capacity and abnormal recovery of heart rate between men and women.

       When heart rate did not fall rapidly after exercise, it was associated with increased overall mortality.  Researchers have even taken factors such as cardiovascular risks, heart rate changes due to exercise, medications and exercise ability.

       Although heart rate recovery is based upon age and gender for most norms, researchers stated that an abnormal heart rate recovery, which consists of a number or decrease of 12 or less beats per minute, were at a greater risk for death from heart disease than those with normal heart rate recovery, which is a decrease of 15 to 25 beats per minute (Lauer, September 2000).

How exercise effects heart rate recovery

       When you exercising, the body is using energy therefore it also needs to replace that energy, the heart rate quickens to reply to those demands. 

       Regular physical activity can increase vagal tone and speed up heart rate recovery. The best type of physical activity has not been determined since most studies took out the factor of exercise intensity.      

       However, if you do look at intensity, different degrees have shown different results.  Light intensity usually leads to somewhat normal decline to resting level.    After moderate and high intensity exercise, there are usually two different phases.

       The first phase is an initial sudden drop which leads into the second phase of a gradual decrease back to steady state.  It has also been shown that higher aerobic capacity led to a faster heart rate recovery after exercise.

       Heart rate recovery has been shown to be faster in athletes who had a higher aerobic capacity than non-athletes (Darr et al. 1988).

Research findings

       Imai et. al looked at why impaired heart rate may lead to an increased risk of death.  What these researchers found was that vagal reactivation was the most important factor in decreasing heart rate in the first 30 seconds of recovery.  This was also independent of age and intensity of exercise (Cole et al. October 1999).

       Other researchers looked at individuals for six years not including individuals with cardiovascular issues.  They measured heart rate at the peak of exercise and again one minute later. 

Researchers considered a heart rate of 12 beats or less to be abnormal or low.  About 639 had abnormal responses and 213 of those died within the six years.

Most incidences of sudden death make coronary lesions evident as well as an arrhythmia that may mask the proper recovery time and changes due to exercise.  Along with the heart rate recovery values, an inability to increase heart rate, or chronotropic incompetence, may also lead to an increased death (Juven, December 2006).

Another explanation to an irregular heart rate recovery can be described as reduced baroreflexer sensitivity which deals with blood pressure.

Applying heart rate recovery for fitness professionals

       Low values for heart rate recovery after exercise is an easy way to predict risk of death.  This information can be used as clinical information when doing risk assessments or a health history. 

       Heart rate recovery is modifiable and can be done so by pharmaceutical means or exercise.  It has been shown by the American Heart Association that beta blockers have a major effect on sympathetic tone.  Individuals who have done research studies that have been on beta blockers have shown better recovery times.

       When testing clients, be sure to know whether they are on medication, have a history of cardiovascular disease or events and how conditioned they are.  This way, looking at abnormal values or rates can help determine where your client starts out, and how you can help them.

       Most times, individuals do not even know the state they are in due to not monitoring their heart rate or knowing the importance of how hard their hearts are working.  In order for them to improve upon this, stressing the importance of a cool down is imperative in tracking how they respond to exercise and how their body recovers.

Using this value to educate your clients on their risks and why exercising may benefit them can be a useful tool for predicting and preventing risk of death.  It has been shown with both clinical and experimental data that adding physical activity to a program, the shift in autonomic balance increases vagal activity, which improves the risk of death.