How overtraining REALLY works...

Have you ever lifted hard 10 days in a row? Or upped your mileage by 10 miles in one week? Then you've probably felt the beast of overtraining. Overtraining is when somebody feels intense fatigue and other symptoms caused by pushing their body to the brink. But... how does that happen?
It is said that overtraining effects the automatic nervous system, which is responsible for heart rate and blood pressure. There are two parts, the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system.

What the sympathetic nervous system does in response to overtraining.
-Increases resting heart rate
-Increases blood pressure
-Increases caloric needs
-Causes lack of apatite
the sympathetic nervous system seems to be preparing the body for a time with little food and lots of stress...

What the parasympathetic nervous system does in response to overtraining
-Early fatiguing
-Rapid heart rate after exercise
the parasympathetic nervous system is preparing our body to be lazy whenever it can, which is good for survival, but not for soccer

Hormones are also tweaked out in times of bodily stress
-Cortisol increases (and slows recovery)
-Testosterone decreases (slowing recovery even farther)
In fact, this flip-flop of cortisol and testosterone make it so that the body eats its own muscle for energy, which would be vital in a life-death situation.

Muscle cells are among the most effected by overtraining however
-Muscle tears increase (muscle tears are the leading cause of soreness)
-Lactic Acid builds up (the other cause of soreness)
-The muscles have less oxygen delivered to them
-Gylcogen and Creatine stores become depleted (the sources of energy in exercise)
This is caused by the body essentially giving up on the muscles, and focusing on the internal organs and brain.

The body is under so much stress during overtraining that it even decreases the body's antibodies, greatly supressing the immune system. Thats why so many athletes get colds all the time. So overtraining is actually a preprogramed bodily response, that is good for surviving, but not so good for trying to get that state championship.

WHAT THE **** IS GENE THERAPY/IMMUNOTHERAPY?

Gene therapy is an experimental mainly medical procedure where doctors can either
a. introduce a new gene into an organism (like one that resists salmonella)
b. replacing a mutated gene with a healthy one (like replacing a mutated earlobe gene with a healthy one)
c. selectively massacre genes that are dysfunctional (like extra fingers and toes)


Immunotherapy is basically like slowly closing a room in onto a clausterphobic person; because in immunotherapy, small amounts of an allergy (like peanuts) are administered to a poor soul (allergic to peanuts) that does not want his/her allergy anymore. As the shot amount starts to increase over time, the individual feels a lot less of the symptoms when he is given the allergen (or force-fed peanuts). It is pretty primative, but it reduces allergy symptoms.

Lactic Acid Scapegoat?

Nearly every athlete knows that the muscle soreness from their workouts is caused by lactic acid buildup. This is in fact true. However, the lactic acid disapears from the cells less than 3 hours later. Then why are we sore DAYS after strenous excersizes? The real culprit of the pain are tiny microscopic tears in the muscle. You can't help these, only your own cells can. So they swell like bruises and take days to heal causing the muscle pain we all know.

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Stem cells

Stem cells are cells that are taken from embryos and coaxed into a variety of different adult cells in a labrotory. Stem cells may also be derived from adult skin cells although this is not certian. It is thought that stem cells can cure diseases such as Parkinson's and cancer, but this is not proven yet. Lots of information on stem cells can be found at http://www.bedfordresearch.org/stemcell/stemcell.php?item=stemcell_faqs#11. Many people think that ideology shouldn't drive science, and I think that this is true to an extent. There are some things that science should not be allowed to do, just because it goes against morals that humans have held for centuries. Even the harshest gangs like The Aryan Brotherhood forbid their members from killing children. In my opinion, an embryo is the beginning of a child and should not be killed for scientific purposes, especially because there is a very real possibility that adult skin cells can be used instead. However, I find no harm in taking the umbilical cords from births, or the spinal cords from stillbirths in order to save lives. To me, it seems completely illogical to kill the beginnings of a human being when you could just develop adult skin cell possiblities instead. Many research industries however, use embryonic stem cells because the technology is developed and they are extremely flexible. Embryonic stem cells however, are often rejected as foriegn tissue, and have ethical issues. Adult skin cells have very few ethical altercations, but the technology still has to be developed for them to be used. Science can be a very dangerous weapon, or a miraculous blessing, so I think that our nation's policy should drive it, so science doesn't become corrupt. We may miss out on some discoveries, but I think that the misuse that will be avoided will make it all worth it.

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reasons for empathy

Reasons for empathy. Geographic location, family ties and how they got into the situation. That's why we feel more sorry for the homeless man on the corner, than the starving children in Africa. We are also way more likely to help out our brother in hard times than some dude in Canada. We feel way worse for the man who has been scammed by a charity organization and lost everything, than the man who bought high risk stocks and lost everything. Us humans need restrictions on our empathy so we don't sacrifice our own fortune over others. We evolutionaryly need some though, so we can help eachother survive