Food and supplements to speed up healing
By Delina Rahmate, Clinical Nutritionist
Are you injured and need to heal quickly? Aid the healing process with these powerful tips on nutrition for injury recovery. Put the right eating and supplement strategies to work for you.
Injuries happen. The question is – after they happen, how can you help the body heal?
For most athletes and the everyday person the idea that nutrition can play a powerful role in injury recovery makes perfect sense. Yet when injury strikes, very few of us know exactly how to use nutrition to improve healing.
Here are some best practices for using nutrition to dramatically speed up the injury recovery process for anyone whether we exercise or not.
Injury recovery: How the body works
When tissue is damaged in the body there are 3 steps to the recovery process;
- Stage 1: Inflammation- the area is swollen, red, painful and hot. Healing chemicals are attracted to the injured area.
- Stage 2: Proliferation- damaged tissues are removed; new blood supply and temporary tissue is built.
- Stage 3: Remodelling – Stronger more permanent tissue replaces temporary tissue.
Nutrition is important in all 3 stages.
Nutrition for Stage 1
In STAGE 1: Inflammation is critical as it triggers the repair process. Too much, however, can cause additional damage. These strategies help produce the right amount:
- Eat more anti-inflammatory fats such as cold pressed oils, avocado, fish oil, fish, nuts and seeds, flax oil or ground flax.
- Eat less pro-inflammatory foods such as: processed foods, take away foods, foods with trans fats, vegetable oils like canola, sunflower and soybean
- Include inflammation managing herbs and spices such as:
– Turmeric fresh/dried (up to 7 teaspoons a day: have with a little black pepper to help absorption) or curcumin/turmeric supplement- as directed by a professional.
– Garlic: 2-4 cloves per day
– Bromelain from pineapple: 2 cups per day or a supplement taken as directed by a professional
– Cacao, tea & berries: eat daily or supplement with blueberry or grape extracts, green tea extracts, citrus extracts and bioflavonoids
Nutrition for Stage 2 & 3
Energy intake is your first priority, even though you may not be able to train your metabolism can increase by 15-50% more than when you are sedentary.
- Eat adequate protein- legumes, eggs, plant-based protein, meat and fish (not processed meats). 1-1.2 gram/kg of body weight
- Balance dietary fats from different sources such as cold pressed oils, avocado, nuts and fish oils
- Eat the rainbow – include a variety of fruits and vegetables
- Eat enough carbohydrates – you will need fewer than when you are training but enough to support your recovery – choose minimally processed carbs such as whole oats, quinoa, wholegrain rice & sprouted breads.
- Supplements that may be considered for 2-4 weeks post injury (use under the direction of a professional) – Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Copper and Zinc.
1 in 3 women who have ever had a baby wet themselves. Lets talk Urinary Incontinence!
A lot of advice is shared about motherhood, but something few people talk about is bladder and bowel problems both during pregnancy and after birth.
A range of factors, including pregnancy or childbirth, can cause a weak pelvic floor.
If you experience any of the following you may have weak pelvic floor muscles that contribute to bladder or bowel problems:
- Leak urine when you cough, sneeze, lift, laugh or do exercise
- Not be able to control passing wind
- Feel an urgent need to empty your bladder or bowel
- Leak bowel motion after you have been to the toilet
- Have trouble cleaning yourself after a bowel motion
- Find it hard to pass a bowel motion unless you change position or use your finger to help, or
- Feel a lump in your vagina or a sensation of dragging (mostly at the end of the day), which could mean that one or more of your pelvic organs might be sagging down into your vagina (also known as prolapse)
The birth of your baby might have stretched your pelvic floor muscles and any ‘pushing down’ action in the first weeks after the baby’s birth might stretch the pelvic floor again.
Regular pelvic floor muscle training kept up over the long term, as well as the right advice will help. It can often be difficult to know what the pelvic floor is or how to use it correctly.
Having the right guidance and advice from a Physiotherapist can have huge benefits both in the short-term and long-term aspects of daily living.
Your Physiotherapist can assist in pelvic floor, bladder or bowel problems in various ways:
- Education on the anatomy & function of the pelvic floor
- How to turn on & use the pelvic floor
- Advice to reduce leakage & control urges
- How to incorporate the pelvic floor into daily activities & improve exercise
- Information on further investigations or specialists
No mum wants to put up with wetting themselves, you’ve got enough on your plate!
Call now to book a consultation with Kelly – 55787155
by Kelly Meddings, Women’s Health Physiotherapist
With summer here, a lot more of us will choose to jump in the pool for some exercise. Swimming is a great form of low impact exercise to help increase strength, endurance and overall cardiovascular fitness.
‘Swimmer’s shoulder’ is a general term given to a range of overuse shoulder injuries that develop from swimming. Shoulder pain may develop due to a range of issues including poor technique or weak and tight muscles.
A common culprit is a stiff thoracic spine or mid back. Our thoracic spine plays a vital role in shoulder mechanics (the way our shoulder moves and functions), especially during an activity with a repetitive shoulder action such as swimming. If your thoracic spine is stiff, you may be overloading or irritating certain muscles around your shoulder which could develop into pain and an injury. Those who spend long periods during the day in a seated position (ie office workers, students, long drives etc) are more prone to stiffness developing in the thoracic spine.
An easy way to improve the mobility in your thoracic spine is by using a foam roller.
- Place the foam roller horizontally across your back and lay with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
- Ensure your head and neck are supported by placing your hands behind your head.
- Aim to keep your butt on the floor while attempting to move your shoulders closer to the floor, arching over the foam roller in the process.
- Hold this position for 30 seconds, remembering to breathe.
- Repeat this same process at 3-4 points across your mid back and aim to use this stretch before jumping in the pool!
by Jessica Norton, Senior Physiotherapist.
by Delina Rahmate – Clinical Nutritionist.
Bonus recipe at bottom of blog.
Healthy food substitutes for common ingredients
As Christmas is approaching we can start to panic about parties, gift baskets, alcohol and snack foods being readily available. We may have worked hard to be healthy and then it all goes out the window once the drinks and snacks start to flow.
Socialising is important and most likely inevitable and there is a good chance that we will most likely over indulge. To stay on track in the silly season here are a few tips to help you substitute more processed foods and drinks for healthier options.
If you do overindulge don’t beat yourself up! Just get back on track the following day and move on, it is completely ok, we are allowed to have a bit of fun.
| Processed Food |
Healthy Food Substitute |
| Burger Bun |
Quinoa, oats, mozzarella cheese, eggs salt and pepper – stirred and fried use as a burger
Portobello mushrooms – grilled |
| Soft Drink and or Alcohol |
Soda stream or soda water with lemon or lime wedges
Kombucha
Coconut Water |
| Cheese, biscuits, dips and snack platters |
Limit cheese to a few small pieces
Choose olives and veggie sticks over crackers (see the platter comparison picture for ideas)
Make your own hummus or guacamole (see hummus recipe below) |
| Salted nuts, beer nuts and roasted nuts often have added bad oils and table salt |
Raw nuts are better. The very best are soaked nuts – soak in salted water overnight, rinse well and then you can dehydrate them (these are what are known as “activated nuts”). Dehydrate in a food dehydrator or oven at a low temperature until completely dried out so they don’t go mouldy. |
| Wrap bread |
Sprouted whole wheat or wholegrain, large green leaves or seaweed nori sheets to wrap |
| Canned fish |
Choose BPA lined packaging (look on the label) and wild caught |
| Beans |
BPA free can, or cook your own beans. Soak for 8-10 hours overnight and then cook. Place in a mason jar with filtered water (2/3rd full) with salt. Rinse well prior to use. |
| Canned Foods or Vegetables |
Try to use fresh seasonal is the best option.
Snap frozen if fresh is not available.
BPA free cans. Watch for other additives. Heat sealing to protect from contamination such as botulism also destroys a lot of the nutrients.
Fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kim-chi and you get the benefits of the good bacteria (probiotics) |
| Soy Sauce |
Tamari, coconut aminos or Miso paste (for Miso reconstitution- add a Tablespoon and in warm water, do not boil water as this will destroy the fermented goodness). |
| Stock |
Choose organic low sodium stock with no MSG.
Make your own stock- The cheaper options are to buy a whole chicken take apart to use meat and then use the carcass to make stock or bone broth.
Homemade or bought bone broth (can make in a large batch and simmer for 24 hours) full of immune boosting properties and very good for gut healing. |
| Table Salt |
Choose Himalayan and Celtic sea salt have higher mineral content then other salts. |
| Chips and Corn Chips |
Corn chips choose organic, no artificial colours flavours- these still can be cooked in bad oils (read the labels).
Homemade kale chips and nori or seaweed chips are the healthiest. Cut into shapes slight moisten add salt and bake until crisp. |
| Sugar, syrups and agave nectar have a high glycemic index |
Pure maple syrup is a better choice or pollinated raw honey. Try to limit added sugar where possible to 1 teaspoon per serve. |
Homemade hummus and vegetable sticks (serves 8)
Ingredients
• 2 cans of garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
• 1-2 Tbspns tahini
• 1-2 teas garlic- minced
• ½ teaspoon of sea salt
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ½ cup lemon juice
• 2 tablespoon chopped parsley
• Pinch of paprika
• Optional: Add cayenne pepper for a metabolic boost.
Instructions
1. Blend together until smooth and creamy
2. Serve a ½ cup sized portion with vegetables sticks of your choice.
3. Refrigerate the remainder.
Calculated per single serve (1 cup of celery and ½ cup of carrot sticks are added to the calculation)
| Calories
Kcal |
Carbs g |
Fat g |
Protein g |
Sugar g |
| 151.5 |
16.25 |
6 |
8.5 |
4.4 |
by Rachel Jones, Sport & Exercise Psychologist
Sport and performance psychology is all about maximising your mental game, whatever your area of performance might be.
I believe that everyone is a performer, whether it be in sport, business, performing arts, school, work, parenting or everyday life.
Performance is about how you perform any task, and as humans, we never reach perfection, which is a blessing because we can always improve! Your brain is your biggest asset when it comes to performance. You might be thinking that I’m overstating the obvious, however, how often do you actually dedicate time to maximising your biggest asset? It makes good business sense to invest where you can get the biggest return and therefore, a practical understanding of how your brain works can be a great way to get a performance advantage.
Psychology is known as the study of the soul, and, combined with the latest in neuroscience research, gives us great insight and practical strategies that can be incredibly useful in sport, performing arts, academics, business, etc, because of its implications for both mental health and performance. Sport and performance psychology focuses on the interaction between thoughts, feelings, behaviours and the environment and is an important part of physical and mental performance.
Here are 3 things you need to know about Sport and Performance Psychology and how it might apply to you:
1- Sport and performance psychology is about training your brain. The same principles apply to training your brain as apply to training your body. You need consistent, targeted training with high volume and repetition. The equivalent of muscle fibres in the brain are neural pathways and creating new ones are like creating pathways in the bush. The more traffic you send down a particular pathway, the more it clears and becomes established. Finding ways to daily practice good patterns of thinking and behaviour will help to create healthy mindsets and habits. Creating a routine, for example, something as simple as identifying 3 things you did well everyday, will help you to make it easy for your brain to reinforce new habits, similar to having a regular physical training time and focus. A sport and performance psychologist will help you to set brain training goals and implement strategies consistently
to create the change you are looking for.
2- Sport psychologists work with mental illness as well as performance and proactive mental health. Sport psychologists in Australia have the same base training as other psychologists, including general and clinical psychologists, which means that I am trained to work with managing mental illnesses including depression, anxiety, substance abuse and eating disorders. To become an endorsed sport psychologist I had to do additional training via postgraduate study as well as a registrar program specialising in working with teams and individuals and understanding high performance demands and populations. As a result, I work with a combination of teams and individuals on a variety of performance issues and challenges as well as putting proactive strategies in place to gain an extra edge in performance or to maintain positive mental health.
3- Children, young people and adults can all benefit from sport and performance psychology. Did you know I work with people as young as 10 years old? Sport and performance psychology is very practical with strategies that can be applied across all areas of life. The skills that are worked on and put in place at a young age can create healthy patterns that build resilience and can reduce the risk of mental illness later in life. Older, more experienced adults can also benefit from sport and performance psychology, again by learning new skills and strategies that challenge existing and inhibiting beliefs that may be limiting performance.
For more information on how sport and performance psychology can help you, contact Rachel via email rachel@lifthighperformance.com.au or call Physiologic to make a booking on (07) 5578 7155.
Once we would warm-up like these guys! We now know better.
Follow Physiologic’s top 6 tips for the perfect warm-up;
1. Don’t foam roll
This sounds like the exact opposite of what we have been told for the last millennium BUT foam rolling and trigger ball / self massage techniques generally place our muscles in a state of relaxation. For some pain based problems this may be of benefit BUT if we are about to participate in exercise one of the last things you want is a state of relaxation – more so we should be after a state of physical readiness both physically and mentally. Instead of foam rolling to warm up – try it for warming down or just before you ago to bed at night – like a massage you should feel the serotonin flow more readily and calm you rather than amp you up.
2. Avoid static stretching
Bending forward to stretch your back and hamstrings and holding it for 20 secs is not the way our body behaves during exercise. As such there is no real reason to do this when preparing for exercise.
3. Dynamic warm up is best
Movement, mobility work, light resistance and moving your joints / muscles in a way that would reflect what you are about to do is best. Eg. if you are a golfer – you should be working on rotation movements. For a weight lifter you could performing a set of reps at 30-40% of normal load prior to lifting OR if you are preparing for surfing – dynamics squats and single legged landing type movements. Even yoga type exercises that allow your body to mobilise through different positions is often relevant to many types of exercise.
4. Progressively build the intensity
Try to work up a light sweat. Start easy and build the range of movement for your limbs, the speed of movement and the load on each muscle. If you do it right you should feel the transition into your chosen exercise is simple and non stressful.
5. Routine your warm up
Personally I hate trying to think about a warm up routine when I go training. It makes training less enjoyable. It’s much easier to know the same routine off by heart and pump it out at will – then you can move through it without thinking and enjoy the rest of your training / exercise.
6. Keep it short
Currently there is no evidence to say that a longer warm up is more beneficial than a shorter one. It seems to be more related to the way you do it rather than the time it takes. My advice is to keep it short but build it up quickly. Short warm ups mean your overall exercise time doesn’t have to be too long – in this day and age time is critical and if you are anything like us at Physiologic its not always easy to fit the time in for fitness etc.
by Josh Meyer, Principal Physiotherapist B.Ex.Sc.M.Phty
