I have arthrosis in my knee and a little bit in the hips, can I still do spinning? I’ve been doing it for years.
– Din
Mark Chen, Physiotherapist
The advantage of spinning is that it is not a weight-bearing activity (except the standing parts, of course). That makes it a ‘safer’ option than, for example, running, where your knees and hips have to endure huge impact for miles. So if you look at it purely from a mechanical-stressn perspective, it should be no problem at all.
You indicate that you have been doing spinning for years. Could it be that the number of years and intensity have contributed to the current condition of the knee? Ultimately, it is, of course, a one-sided and repetitive form of sport. For example, do you clearly have more pain immediately after spinning, or the morning after? In that case, you should question how good spinning is for your body.
I am personally a fan of variety, not only because I like to do different things but also not to burden my body too much with one element. I also recommend this to the majority of my clients. Ask yourself the above questions and if spinning does indeed cause problems for you, then consider reducing or varying with a different sport.
https://markchenmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/spinning.jpeg15002254adminhttps://markchenmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Movement-Logo_FA_CenterAlign-1030x565.pngadmin2018-07-15 14:11:372018-08-20 08:07:08Fitness Question: “Spinning bad for my Knee?”
When you have an injury, there’s only one thing on your mind: Getting better.
An injury is not just a literal pain, it’s also keeping you back from reaching your fitness goals. And if you’re anything like me, the exercise-restricted version of you is not exactly a pleasure to be around.
Take a look at the expected recovery times here so that you have something to plan your recovery around.
All of these are depending on health and level of activity of the individual, alongside with illness beliefs, perception, nutrition, sleep and stress levels. Therefore these are to be used as a guideline and always is the help of a professional recommended for an efficient rehabilitation process.
https://markchenmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/medical-appointment-doctor-healthcare-40568.jpeg15002250adminhttps://markchenmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Movement-Logo_FA_CenterAlign-1030x565.pngadmin2018-06-28 11:28:582018-08-20 08:11:42Injury? Here are the estimated recovery times
If you’ve read the previous articles on running, you now know that your bodies’ own shock absorbers are of crucial importance.
Whenever I work with clients that want to either get into or- improve their running performance, I test them on multiple abilities.
One of those is their ability to jump. or actually, to land.
By practicing and optimizing your jumping mechanics, you create can learn how to use your ankles, knees, and hips to decelerate impact. It teaches the central nervous system how to make all the different muscles and joints to work together in an efficient way.
These are the conditions for a healthy jump and landing.
Knees track the first 2 toes during the jump and the landing
There is a smooth transition between ankle, knee and hip flexion during the land
There is a smooth transition between ankle, knee and hip extension during the jump
No noticeable impact may be heard during the landing “or Ninja-style landing”
Has to be performed barefoot
This is how to test it for yourself, though I strongly advise getting a set of trained eyes to accompany you for a good assessment.
Put your phone on camera mode and select the “Slow-Motion” option.
Make the jump at least three times while taking separate videos for it.
Rate the technique on the points above. Sound usually doesn’t transfer well to slow-mo videos so you’ll have to rate that yourself.
Here’s a video of my athletes doing box jumps in slow-mo, what do you think?
Also, if you want to read more, Click here to find some shocking facts about running
https://markchenmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/jump-mech.jpeg15002250adminhttps://markchenmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Movement-Logo_FA_CenterAlign-1030x565.pngadmin2018-06-27 02:26:502018-08-20 08:15:53Do this before you start running
If you’re looking for an option to get Fit and Healthy in Phnom Penh, I’ve listed a couple of options in different facilities with options for every budget.
Fully equipped gyms:
The Place
This is the most well-known Fitness center and has all the facilities you could need. Top of the line equipment, pool, steam, sauna and group classes. They have 2 locations (which does not mean you can go to both on the same membership for some strange reason).
Comparable to the Place with lots of space, good equipment, and pool/steam/sauna. They also have a nice outdoor space with lots of material to throw/climb/jump. So if you’re looking into a more CrossFit or HITT approach, you can do that here. In front of the gym, there is a massive parking space (which is rare) and there’s also a great atmosphere which was an important factor for myself.
Prices range from around 40-60$ per month depending on the duration of membership and if they’re running a promotion, which is quite often.
Rating: 7.5/10
Would recommend: Yes
Crossfit Gyms:
Amatak
This is the first Crossfit gym in Cambodia and they recently moved to a new location in Russian market. They have a strong focus on community-based fitness and offer group classes like crossfit and bootcamp. All the coaches are certified teachers and are driven to give you a great experience. Prices are 80-130$ depending on the type of membership. They also have a kitchen that focuses on healthy meals.
Page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/AmatakFitness/
Rating: 8/10
Would recommend: Yes
Yiqi Crossfit
In Chinese, YiQi, pronounced yee-chee, means togetherness. The CrossFit YiQi logo personifies the uniqueness of our fitness center with our mascot, the Yi qi–half-bird, half-dinosaur discovered in China. The mascot is rendered in Khmer art style to symbolize the arrival of the world-renowned CrossFit Fitness onto the Cambodian scene. The black color represents the high-intensity workouts of CrossFit, while in contrast, the lime green gives a fresh, healthy feel to the atmosphere of our CrossFit YiQi center. Our motto, “Leave No One Behind”, embodies our most important principle: the spirit of fellowship one will feel immediately upon joining the community.
I’ve been getting pulled into many discussions regarding health, exercise, and nutrition lately and the trend is clear: Everything needs to be SCIENCE BASED.
This is a good thing, or at the very least, the idea is good.
It’s good to want to support your thoughts and findings with some kind of testing to see if what you’ve seen or done is replicable or that it was just a combination of circumstances.
There are, however, some issues to the current use and limitations of science that I have problems with and I think they’re worth a share so that you are aware of it the next time you read the sentence “Scientific research shows”
1# Cherry Picking
Take an interesting topic on nutrition and it won’t take you long to find 100+ different scientific studies on it. It’s very common for people to pick a scientific study that fits their argument and use that as “proof”. If you don’t have the knowledge, or time, for that matter, to take a good look at what that article actually says, it’s an understandable result to accept that as truth.
You’ll also want to ask yourself the question: who is benefitting from this bit of research? It has happened more than once that scientific studies have been over/underplayed to favor the financer of the study.
#2 Science has been wrong more times than it’s been right
Take this example of cholesterol and the drastic dangers of it on your cardiovascular system. It’s a funny explaining video on how Science was wrong on it many times. It’s not that scientific studies are badly done necessarily, there are many other factors in play.
We could have been asking the wrong questions, doing the wrong tests, or didn’t quite have the right instruments to do proper testing -and who says we do now? –
#3 Human Errors
Science may sound bulletproof, but it’s still executed by humans. And we make mistakes. When we have problems that can’t be explained easily we tend to blame stress for pretty much everything but stress is never factored in when it comes to scientific research. Not for the scientists, and not for the participants. But we do make mistakes. Constantly. We make them when remembering facts, with what we are supposed to write down, and sometimes, well, it helps to get paid $50.000 to say something that goes against everything you know is true
#4 Research is not Research
Anecdotal evidence, expert opinions, cross sectional studies, they’re often presented as evidence but the actual value of them in terms of the hierarchy of scientific studies is not very high. There’s a pretty serious change that there are another couple of studies of the same level of reliability that prove the conclusions of yours, wrong. And otherwise, there will probably be one very soon.
#5 Research can be slow to catch on
Sometimes we practice certain principles that are based on scientific research for years, only to find out that it was the wrong approach all along. I touched on that with my 2nd point but here’s another great example on how we’ve overplayed the importance of calories in weight loss. It’s still the most practiced approach (and it does have value) but the point is that only now we are finding that it’s most likely hormones that play a crucial part in weight loss, and not just energy balance. This video is a long one but has very valuable information that might change the way you think about weight loss.
As always, I’d love your thoughts about these things. Because I need any insights I can get 🙂
In this video, you’ll learn why I put butter in my coffee every morning. You’ll learn if butter is really that bad for you (spoiler alert, it’s not) and why this treat is not only good for your body, but for your brain as well.
Here are some key notes:
Bulletproof coffee is a mix of MCT oil, Grassfed Butter and Coffee
Brings down appetite, clears brain fog
The idea of chewing on coffee beans and animal fat is actually very old
Saturated fat is not the enemy it’s made out to be
I fell three weeks ago. I thought it was okay, but the next day it turned out that I damaged my ribs. Thanks to paracetamol, I have no problems with exercise. In addition, an elastic bandage gives relief during walking, but that is not really comfortable. My question is whether I would be helped extra with taping while walking? If it is possible to tape the ribs at all?
-Miek
Mark Chen, Physiotherapist
Yes, Athletic tape can certainly support your ribs. Thanks to the tape, there will be fewer shocks on the ribs during walking. And that can help a lot! And if the Tape is placed right on the site of the bruise, this can have a good pain-decreasing effect. Some techniques can even speed up the recovery of the bruise.
There are different techniques and you will have to find the one that works best for you. Probably, a technique that imitates the function of your bandage will be a good option to start with. That is why I advise you to do this with a certified therapist. Taping ribs is quite tricky to do yourself. He/she can show you how to do it and apply the first one for you. It should be able to stay on for 4-7 days so sometimes you only need it once!
PS.
Here are the 5 most commonly asked questions about Athletic Tape
https://markchenmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/ribs.jpeg15002250adminhttps://markchenmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Movement-Logo_FA_CenterAlign-1030x565.pngadmin2018-05-31 00:33:372018-05-31 00:33:37Readers Question: Cracked rib, can I tape it?
Last Monday I did an hour of bootcamp. The same night I woke up with cramps and sore muscles. The Tuesday after I ran with a limp and I had really strong muscle pain. I expected even more muscle pain on Wednesday because it is usually the worst two days after exercise, but I did not have any problems anymore. How is it possible that I had such a strong pain burden, but it was quite short?
-Ilona
Mark Chen, physiotherapist
A muscle cramp is a relatively normal and common problem, but in most cases perfectly preventable. The cause of a cramp is simply because too many muscle fibers contract at the same time and then “hold on” to each other. That is painful, and produces enormous tension in the muscle, but in most cases it is not harmful. There are several factors that can influence the risk of cramps.
One of the contributing factors is the internal environment of the muscle, for example:
– low glucose (sugar) content in the muscle
– poor fluid balance (too little fluid intake before, during or after training)
– a mineral deficiency
The muscles have an excellent circulatory system, so if the problem is metabolic in its nature, you will often no longer suffer the next day. As seems to be the case with you.
Circumstances and sportswear also have a strong influence. Have you had very tight footwear or stockings that could impede blood circulation? Or did you, for example, train while it was very cold outside? These are also factors that can play a significant role.
Just go for a walk through cold water and then immediately go jogging again. Very uncomfortable!
Also, do not underestimate that some boot camp training can be very heavy. If your physical condition is not good enough to “keep up” with everything, muscle fatigue can simply be the cause.
The question is, was this an incidental problem? Then maybe you just had bad luck, or trained a little too hard. Do you often suffer from cramps? Then it will probably be worthwhile to look at your fluid intake, diet and other factors above.
