Rosser Chiropractic

This article originally appeared in the Capital Bicycle Club Newsletter December 2013

Since last month’s edition, the VO2 Max/Fitness Age Calculator that I directed you to as the basis for my article has undergone some changes. This is partly due to the fact that over 1.5 million people have used it in the span of a month! The original interface that I described to you has changed somewhat, but the data you’ll input is the same when you go to http://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/vo2max. The key difference now is that you’ll be given the choice to provide additional health data if you choose. Now, then, let’s go onward! The question I left lingering in my last edition was how we might CHANGE that VO2 Max and maybe get a little “younger” in the process!

As a reminder, VO2 Max is the measurement of the greatest amount of oxygen a person can transport to working muscles, no matter how hard the muscles are working. Clinically, this measurement is one of the best predictors of cardiovascular health, however, it’s generally quite expensive to obtain because of equipment/expertise requirements, and cost. Usually they are done in a lab. This VO2 Max Calculator takes a few simple measurements and compares them to the test results of people actually did the lab testing. This provides you with a comparison of your VO2max to 5000 of your Norwegian peers! Gosj!

Of the measurements input into the calculator, frequency and intensity of exercise is where most of us will have the greatest opportunity to impact our fitness levels. Indeed, when I used the calculator to input different levels of intensity of workout, I found that I could change my fitness age from 21 years old to 46 years or more just by lowering the intensity of my exercise! The Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG,) who developed the calculator, recommends starting with 3-4 weekly sessions of exercise that contain high-intensity intervals. For their workout plans, they include 4 minute high intensity efforts (85-95% of your maximum heartrate.) This is a very hard, all out, interval, and harder than most of us would maintain during our usual workouts. Between the 4 minute hard effort is a 3 minute OFF interval where the goal is to recover and let the heart rate drop back down. The overall workouts would progress from doing 1-2 of those in the beginning to 4-5 of the efforts as your body adapts to them. Their main suggested modes of exercise are running & walking, but that the format would work just as well for cycling, skiing, or swimming.

In the realm of specificity to cycling, I have used Chris Carmichael’s interval workouts for a long time in my training. They follow a format that is similar to the above program, though his high-end intervals, aims to have a 3 minute “all-out” effort followed by 2 minutes of light riding for recovery. A full workout would have 6-8 of these intervals sandwiched between a warm-up and cool-down for a short (but sweet) workout. In my experience, these fit well into a workout on the trainer because you are able to fit it all into just over an hour or so on the bike. On the road, it’s often hard to find a spot to go “all-out” without worrying about traffic, stop signs, and sneaky hills that often show up during a rest interval!

Whatever style of interval you choose, using a heart rate monitor or power meter to measure the intensity of your efforts is a hallmark of these programs. After about 8 weeks of your program, you should be able to re-test and find some changes to your estimated VO2 Max and Fitness Age. Even a small change represents a big accomplishment!

For more specifics on the recommendations of the Cardiac Exercise Research Group, you can look at the following webpage: http://ntnu.edu/cerg/regimen

**Please consult with your doctor if you have any questions about starting an exercise program like the ones described above.

What better time to start than January? How old do you want to be by the end of 2014?

Photo Credit: Cardiac Exercise Research Group

See you on the road…

I know that the bicycles I’ve had throughout my lifetime have been tools of change for me. More than just moving me from place to place, they’ve provided me with freedom, joy, speed, pain, and healing (okay, maybe an injury here and there…) Like magic, a bike ride can easily turn a bad day into a good one. I can’t imagine what I’d do or who I’d be if I didn’t have a bike.

I recently had a chance to visit with fellow RAD Racing NW dad, Alex Young. He’s become a steady presence at regional cyclocross races with a tent for BikeVets.org. The organization collects used parts and bikes and builds them up into high-quality rides that are then given to combat wounded and injured veterans. It’s a way to keep these vets active, rehabilitate injuries, and keep moving forward on a pathway of healing. Recently, they posted on their Facebook page that they had several high-quality bikes heading out to new homes for Christmas. Almost all of them were for combat wounded/PTSD soldiers.

If you have some parts or even a bike that you would like to donate to them this year, here’s more info on how you can help the most: vetbikes.org/donations/

Rad Racing NW is once again firing up their Holiday Wreath sale. All proceeds will benefit Rad Racing NW and go toward youth cycling development. Orders must be made by November 17th and will be delivered on December 1, 2013. My daughter has been a Rad Racer for two years and has had some awesome experiences through their program. Please email me if you are interested! Each wreath sells for $25 >>details<<

This article originally appeared in the Capital Bicycle Club Newsletter September 2013

The deadlift is weight-bearing exercise that can be a great addition to a cyclist’s year-round strength training program. Honestly, if only one exercise existed in the world, I’d hope it was the deadlift because in addition to targeting some beneficial muscles for cycling, it also trains a fundamental movement pattern of lifting. It can help build your tolerance to longer rides and also improve your core strength. The deadlift can also make you a little more bomb-proof from “off-the-bike” injuries that may limit your training time, especially people with recurring episodes of lower back pain. You can do this exercise at the gym or at home. In this article, I’ll demonstrate using a 25 lb kettlebell. In the gym, you’ll have flexibility to work up to higher weights with a bar and plates, but ALWAYS train the movement with lighter weights until you are confident that you have the form absolutely correct. If you aren’t sure, ask a fitness professional to observe your form. Here’s how to do it safely:

The Setup: Straddle the kettlebell with the weight positioned between the ankles on the floor. Push your hips back and lower them to the floor while keeping your back flat and holding your chest and head up slightly.
The Lift: Rock your hips slightly back until you feel your body weight shift your heels. Point your elbows back and stand up by driving your heels into the ground as you pull your hips up and forward. Stand tall at the top without leaning backwards. Lower the weight to the same spot you lifted it from, and stand up tall without the weight. This completes one repetition.
Recommended Weight/Repetitions: After perfecting your form with little or no weight, try a 15-25 lb kettlebell. From there progress to a weight where you are challenged, but able to maintain form for 8-10 repetitions.

This article originally appeared in the Capital Bicycle Club Newsletter August 2013

Huzzah! Huzzah!  The clouds have parted and allowed for some really great summer cycling.  For most of us, that means longer rides and the challenge of staying hydrated while getting the right amount of fuel to keep us enjoying our efforts.  One of the problems that cyclists may encounter on their longer rides is that they take on a higher calorie load than their body can actually digest in an effort to stay hydrated simply because they are drinking more volume of their chosen sports drink.  The result may be very uncomfortable symptoms such as bloating, nausea, diarrhea, or vomiting.

For a large part of the year, our cycling trips are shrouded in mist, rain, clouds, and cooler temperatures.  During those rides, our sweat rates are lower than they are in hotter weather (in case you haven’t noticed!)  Once the weather changes, and demands for staying cool increase, our bodies start producing abundant sweat to keep us from overheating.  The body operates best in a fairly narrow temperature range, and sweating is one of the ways that it tries to regulate the stress of exercising in the heat.

Although everyone adapts differently to heat stress, here is an example that may help when you think about putting this information into action:  On a 100 mile ride in 50-70° F you may sweat at a rate of 0.8 Liters per hour.  If you complete the ride in about 6.5 hours, you’d need roughly 4.6 bottles of water (20 oz.) to keep yourself hydrated.  If you ride that same 100 mile ride in the same amount of time, but now the temperature is 70-90° F, your sweat rate may jump up to 1.5 Liters per hour or more.  To stay hydrated under these warmer conditions you’d need to drink about 10.5 bottles (20 oz.) to stay hydrated.  It may sound like a lot, but consider that Alan Lim, sports physiologist, has seen professional riders complete a 5 hour stage in the Tour de France, while drinking up to 25 bottles of water.  Regardless of this high quantity, they still showed significant dehydration at the conclusion of the stage!

One of the solutions to stomach upset that Lim has come up with is that he keeps the concentration of his sports drinks to approximately 4% or 100 calories per 20 oz. water bottle.  That’s about the top end of what we can reasonably absorb in liquid form without upsetting the balance of concentration of water in the body (i.e. diarrhea!)  If you are staring down the task of drinking 10 or more bottles during a day, paying attention to a detail like this might make or break your day of cycling.

Related to this conversation about balancing hydration with fueling is to consider how much of your food is coming from bars, gels, and powders.  For most of us, we’d feel awful if we sat around the house and ate these kinds of foods all day long.  I will admit that even my sweet tooth gets tired after a while and wants to eat something else.  One benefit of eating real food while you ride is that it stays in your stomach longer while it digests and therefore provides your body with fuel at a slower, steady rate to give you sustained energy.  It also takes the pressure off of having to drink all your calories from your water bottle.

Hopefully these tips serve you well and keep you on your bike instead of along the roadside with an ill stomach.  See you on the road!

This article originally appeared in the Capital Bicycle Club Newsletter June 2013

Sometimes I get kinda carried away. I’ll admit that sometimes, I find myself asking how I got where I am. After all this time, you may even ask, “Who is this chiropractor writing these articles every month?” (And why doesn’t he write about chiropractic?) Well, tonight, after teaching a stretching class for the Bicycle Commuter Contest, someone finally asked, “So, how is all this tied to chiropractic?” To be honest, I was surprised how hard it was for me to answer! If I could rewind and give the answer again, it would sound like the rest of this article. Please pardon the indulgence.

Some of the saddest times of my life have been when I didn’t own a bicycle. Thankfully, those times have been rare, but the most profound one was just after chiropractic school. On the eve of a cross country move to Olympia, I abandoned a bicycle. By that, I mean I literally leaned it up against a dumpster and walked away from it!

In the first few years of getting my practice started here in Olympia, I didn’t even miss bicycles. But, then, I got jealous. There I was, sitting peacefully on my front porch, watching my neighbor leaving for a group ride, AGAIN. (You know who you are!) I thought how pitiful it was that I wasn’t doing the same. Well, those feelings didn’t sit well, and before long I got a bicycle and carried on.

At about that same time, I had the opportunity to meet and study with Dr. Jeff Spencer. He was a sports-focused chiropractor who was working with professional cyclists and teams including, you guessed it… Lance Armstrong. Spencer was the team chiropractor for all of his Tour de France wins, and it was from that perspective that he spoke and inspired me. From his lectures, I was challenged to think about how our bodies move, how they get injured, and how they heal. I was inspired enough to seek out more training and then commit the following year to study, travel, and post-doctoral certification as a Certified Sports Chiropractic Physician (CCSP.)

Soon after that, I also became obsessed with becoming a USA Cycling coach, thinking that it would help me tie some of what I’d been learning into my clinical practice. As it turns out, though, I obtained that licensing in secrecy and then hid the certificate in a drawer for a very long time. I was scared to death that someone would actually find out I had it! (If you’ve ever seen me race, you’d know why I would have been scared!) The truth was that I still couldn’t connect the sports certification and the coaching license into what I was doing in the office with my patients on a daily basis. I had some struggles with it but I continued to try and understand how I was going to make it all work together.

Ultimately, the platform that I discovered works for me is in reflecting on the fact that ALL bodies heal based on similar principles and mechanisms whether they are the bodies of athletes or not. I finally found the solid ground that I needed! I view my job as helping people discover their body’s most efficient way to recover from an injury or by helping to prevent injuries in the first place. My sports training informs that work greatly. It may come in the form of teaching a stretching routine, providing core exercises, applying manual therapies/chiropractic treatment, or referring a patient for other treatments. One very concrete place that this shows up in my office is in the medical bike fit program that I have been developing over the past few years.

On a day-to-day basis, my path has led to a very interesting and challenging practice where I have the opportunity to take care of people from all walks of life. To those of you in the cycling community who have inspired me along the journey with your trust and GREAT questions, I am forever indebted to you for the opportunities to grow. I only hope to keep learning and be of greater service to you through these pursuits.

And that, my friend, is what I would have said. 🙂 See y’all on the road!