Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Day 110, Protein Surprise

As I wrote about on Day 93 I've been drinking this whey protein powder stuff after my workouts and before sleep. These days my workout isn't as intense as it was in the early and middle periods of the PCP, so some days I go light on the protein and others, when I do a heavy workout, I drink a good two or three scoops more at night. So that's the background here.

In addition, as you know I'm working hard to achieve box splits before this project ends. If you've forgotten what they look like here's the master of them, Jeanne Claude Van Damme. They can be seen at 1:50, 2:30, and 3:25. I've heard VanDamme is a tool in real life but his high kicks and splits are unrivaled.



So, I'm doing a lot of stretches to get to those splits and some days I am really sore the next day. Not the kind of sore you get from over-exertion, just feeling a little beat-up around my groin area.

But I noticed something as I began drinking the protein powder. On those days I downed a lot of powder due to a tough workout, I noticed the next day I wasn't nearly as sore feeling from the box splits.

I have been thinking of the protein powder only in terms of muscle growth, but it seems to have an equally salutary effect on strains and soreness.

This makes perfect sense of course, since what you do when you lift weights is to tear the muscle fibers so that they can be reknit overnight bigger and stronger (with the help of amino acid building blocks, also known as protein). Why wouldn't the protein do the same thing for a stretched out, tired, beat up feeling hip abductor?

This is a pretty cool discovery for me, even though I'm sure it's been well documented in medical literature. Upping your protein consumption will help you get over injuries faster! So I think I'll always keep some protein powder around, and on a tough day when I know I'm going to be feeling a lot of soreness the next day, be it from yoga, hiking, martial arts or whatever, I'm going to drink 3 scoops of it before bed. I want everyone else to try this to and see if my observation is true for you too!

If so, it would be a pretty big boon to yoga students who feel sore for days after their yoga class.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

When you talk about protein powder I think you're turning into "one of those people."

Patrick said...

heh heh, tell me about it. But it really isn't as scary and "other" as it sounds.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, they market that protein stuff to 'macho men' but despite the graphics on the containers, its just a simple protein supplement.

Patrick -- or anyone who knows -- Can you tell me the difference between "san", "chan", and "kun"? Are there other little things you tack onto the end of names in Japanese too?

Corry said...

Hey, I was thinking about how protein helps the healing last week when I saw that all the bruising from my fall down the stairs only 10 days ago had all healed and cleared up. And I had some HUGE ugly bruises which normally took my body weeks to heal before. I chalked the rapid healing up to the increase of protein I'm having on the PCP (never used to eat nearly so much) and that's just in egg and fish and chicken form, so I'm sure a few shots of protein powder would only help out.

Anonymous said...

Miranda,
Patrick can answer you, but I can, too, so here goes. You're asking about honorifics. In Japan, just as with "Mr." "Mrs." "Ms." there are different ways of addressing people.

-san as in Reynolds san just means "Mr. Reynolds."

-kun is used as a term of endearment. It's also used to address young boys as in "Sasuke-kun."

-chan is also a term of endearment/used to address young girls. I incorrectly refer to Patrick as "P chan" from time to time. "P kun" would be correct. But he's more girly to me than boyish, so there you have it.

Hope that helps! Trying to think of some other honorifics...P, you got any?

Patrick said...

There's also the most honorific "sama" as in Takahashisama. It translate to something like "your excellency Takahashi"

Everyone calls me either P-chan or Pa-kun.