Macrobolic’s BodyBlog

BEIJING (AP) - Two female Chinese gymnasts, including a gold-medal favorite, might be too young to participate in the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

Several online records and reports show He Kexin, the host nation’s top competitor on uneven bars, and Jiang Yuyuan might not yet be 16, the minimum age for Olympic eligibility. Both were chosen for China’s team last week.

On the Web site of the Chengdu Sports Bureau - Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province in southwest China - a file dated January 2006 shows He Kexin as being born Jan. 1, 1994.

Most recently, a May 23 story in the China Daily newspaper, the official English-language paper of the Chinese government, had He’s age as 14.

The newspaper story begins: "The 14-year old newcomer to the national team, who was recruited last year, has raised a lot of eyebrows recently after she broke two world records on the uneven bars in as many months."

The New York Times raised questions about the athletes’ ages in a story Saturday. And Chinese officials provided the newspaper with copies of passports indicating both gymnasts are 16.

But in a speech on Nov. 3, 2007, in the central city of Wuhan, Liu Peng, director of general administration of sport for China, said: "The 13-year-old uneven-bar gymnast He Kexin, who defeated national team athlete Yang Yilin - she just won the bronze medal in the world championships - has demonstrated her ability."

To be eligible for the Cities Games where Liu made his remarks, Chinese documents show athletes must be over 13, but under 15.

The New York Times reported International Gymnastics Federation officials acknowledged questions about He’s age had been raised and asked the Chinese for clarification in May.

"We heard these rumors, and we immediately wrote to the Chinese gymnastics federation," Andre Gueisbuhler, the secretary general of the international federation, told the newspaper. "They immediately sent a copy of the passport, showing the age, and everything is OK. That’s all we can check.

"As long as we have no official complaint, there is no reason to act, if we get a passport that obviously is in order."

The American and Chinese women are expected to battle for the team gold medal when the Beijing Games begin Aug. 8.

He is one of the few athletes in the world who has scored over a 17 under the new scoring system. Using He and Yang Yilin, who also has scored a 17 on bars, the Chinese hope to use the uneven bars to build up a big advantage in the team competition.

The Americans, who won the 2007 world championships team title, have only one gymnast, Nastia Liukin, who’s gotten a 17 on bars.

If gymnasts He, a gold-medal favorite, and Jiang are under age, it would be yet another black eye for China in the buildup to the games.

In June, Chinese swimmer Ouyang Kunpeng and coach Feng Shangbao were permanently banned from the sport after Ouyang tested positive for anabolic steroids. Wrestler Luo Meng and his coach also were barred for life for a doping violation by the athlete.

The Chinese government is working feverishly to present a positive image of an open, friendly, progressive nation. But visa restrictions, toxic air pollution, freedom of the press issues and a problem-filled torch relay have presented a far different image to the world.

Ok, so I didn’t find this anywhere else and thought that this should be made known.

I was well into my workout and got to bench press. I did my warmup sets and then my 1st workset. On the 2nd workset I did the full range reps and then a static hold near the bottom (I do these in my squat rack at home with the long pins at about chest height so I can drop the weight if needed and not kill myself LOL).

Anyways, I get done with the static hold and drop the weight. Almost immediately after doing so, I get an extremely intense pain that shot up from my lower neck up to the top of my head.

I slowly got up and and the pain eventually went away (about 10-20 seconds I would say). I checked to see if everything felt ok, I could move my arms, hands, legs, feet and didn’t feel dizzy or nauseous so I didn’t think anything of it.

Later on that night, I was looking up the symptoms on webmd.com and came across the end result, and there was only one, Brain Aneurysm!

I started to freak out as you may have imagined. So I called my parents and my dad said that I should have gone to the emergency room immediately after feeling that pain, but since nothing had happened up to then, I was probably ok.

So I go to the doctor’s office the next day and have my doc check me out and she said that it was more likely due to an intense, involutary contraction of the trapezius muscle as everything looked ok.

But I did find some symptoms to look for if you have the same type of issue. Go immediately to the hospital if you have the following symptoms as well as an intense headache (described on webmd as the worst headache ever):

Here it is directly from webmd:

and finally

Hope that can help someone out there. It was a scary experience.

Setting goals is a great way to improve athletic performance. Many athletes try to compete or endure blindly in their various sporting events with disappointing improvement. Setting goals allows athletes to make steps in becoming better. It is important not to group all goals together because by implementing different types of goals one can tailor an outcome by the goal process they use.

Recently, sport psychologists have researched the effectiveness of goal setting as a means to increase performance or meet personal goals within the sport and exercise arenas. Theories have assumed that goals will regulate human action which, in turn, will result in increased control over one’s performance (Kingston & Hardy, 1997). Goal setting has the potential to be an important factor in behavior modification (Shilts, Horowitz, & Townsend, 2004).

Sport psychologists have identified several types of goals: first, a goal may be proximal or distal (Shilts et al., 2004). Proximal goals are better known as short-term goals; while distal goals are long-term. Studies have attempted to determine if short-term or long-term goals are superior, but have been inconclusive (Getz & Rainey, 2001).

Second, goals can be described by who sets the goal. Three variations can be found: self-set, assigned/prescribed, or participatory/collaborative (Shilts et al., 2004). A self-set goal is one that is by the athlete/exerciser only. An assigned goal is one that is given by a coach or field professional. Participatory goal is one in which a professional gives the athlete/exerciser multiple goals to choose from and the exerciser then chooses their preferred goal.

Third, goals are described as how improvement is measured. Again, three variations can be found, namely outcome, performance, and process (Kingston & Hardy, 1997, Weinberg & Gould, 2003). Outcome goals focus on the end result of a competition while performance goals compare one’s performance against a previous performance. Conversely, process goals focus attention on what one must do during a competition (Weinberg & Gould, 2003). Weinberg and Gould (2003) explain that performance and process goals are easily measured and are within one one’s control, while outcome goals depend on not only one’s ability, but also on an opposing player’s ability. Kingston and Hardy (1997) hypothesize this is caused by social comparison. Getz and Rainey (2001) explain that if social comparison does happen, individuals may not strive to meet personal goals, but only to exceed the performance of others.

In a meta-analysis of 28 studies conducted on goals and goal setting, 4 studies compared the use of proximal (short-term) vs. distal (long-term) goal setting. One study found that distal goal setting lead to increased proficiency, but it also saw a higher rate of attrition (Shilts et al., 2004). The higher rate of attrition may be due to the distal goal not being immediately attainable; therefore, those types of goals lose their motivational power (Donovan & Williams, 2003). The other three studies found no difference in proximal vs. distal goal setting (Shilts et al., 2004).

Donovan and Williams (2003) argue that it is neither proximal nor distal goals that are superior, rather many situations require both proximal and distal used together. In their study of college level athletes, the researchers attempted to determine if athletes would set difficult goals, and if they would revise their next proximal and distal goals based on the achievement or failure to attain a previously set proximal goal.

They found that individuals whose performance did not meet their previously set goal revised subsequent goals downward to reduce discrepancy between actual performance and their goals. However, performers who met or exceeded their performance goals tended to revise goals upward making them more difficult to attain (Donovan & Williams, 2003).

Getz and Rainey (2001) also attempted to see what kind of proximal goals would be best used to attain a distal goal. Their study performed two experiments to determine if rigid or flexible, proximal goals would best achieve a long-term goal in free throw shooting. They hypothesized the group using flexible short-term goals would improve the most.

In the first experiment, they had research participants shoot regular free throws over five trials. This may have confounded the results in that participants had an average of 10 years experience in playing basketball in which free throw shooting is practiced often. In order to make the activity less familiar in the second experiment, the researchers moved the shooting area to the left.

In both experiments, the group using the flexible short-term goal had a higher rate of improvement than the rigid short-term goal group. Specifically, in the second experiment, the flexible goal group showed four times as much improvement than the rigid goal group. Another result from the second experiment was that the flexible goal group came close to reaching the previously set distal goal, while the rigid goal group had an insignificant improvement in reaching their distal goal. Researchers hypothesized that this was due to the fact that if the rigid short term group did not meet the first goal, they would need to make up the difference at the second trial, plus meet the new goal of the second trial. This may have caused the group using rigid short-term goals to give up and no longer strive to achieve the goals given to them (Getz & Rainey, 2001).

Shilts et al. (2004) analyzed six studies that compared the effects of self-set goals and goals set by a professional. The researchers determined that assigned goal setting was more effective than self-set goals, although they did not describe how they came to this conclusion or if the participants in those studies were familiar or unfamiliar with the activity. They suggested it may depend on the participant’s experience in that activity.

A participant’s experience level formed the basis of Elston and Martin Ginis’ (2004) study. They explained that while people new to an activity will do better if goals are assigned, experienced participants do better by setting goals for themselves. The study used an unfamiliar activity to most people, a grip-strength task. The 50 participants were evenly split into two groups, one with assigned goals that were moderately difficult and the other group self-set a goal. The participants who were assigned a goal were asked if they accepted the goal. The participants were asked this because researchers have found goals are only effective if the participants accept the goals. The study showed that participants who were assigned and accepted a goal, did better on subsequent trials than the self-set goal group. These findings suggest that if one is new to an activity, it is best to have a professional in the field assign them a goal rather than assigning themselves their own goals.

Kingston and Hardy (1997) tested the effect of performance-based versus process-based goals. Thirty-seven club golfers were put into three groups: performance-based goals, process-based goals, and a control group with no goal. The golfer’s were asked to fill out two questionnaires, the CSAI-2 and the SPSQ and their handicap was scored three times during an entire season of competitive golf. The study showed the process-goal group significantly improved performance from test 1, 2, and 3. The performance-goal group did not make significant improvements from test 1 to test 2. They did improve from test 1 to test 3. Both goal groups experienced lower cognitive anxiety than the control group. The process-goal group felt that the goal setting skills they learned had a beneficial impact on their performance. The performance based goal group did not feel that the goal setting technique had a significant effect though (Kingston & Hardy, 1997).

Goal setting is an important part in improving performance in sports and exercise. All types of goals have their place and some work better than others in various situations. Goals should be moderately difficult and specific. Flexible, short-term goals should be set with long-term, ultimate goals in mind. Process, performance and outcome goals can all be implemented in different ways to achieve peak performance. Goals should be recorded so that the athlete can receive feedback and further improve performance (Donovan & Williams, 2003, Getz & Rainey, 2001, Weinberg & Gould, 2003).

References:

Brobst, B., & Ward, P. (2002). Effects of public posting, goal setting, and oral feedback on the skills of female soccer players. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 35, 247-257. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Donovan, J. J., & Williams, K. J. (2003). Missing the mark: Effects of time and causal attributions on goal revision in response to goal-performance discrepancies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(3), 379-390. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Elston, T.L., & Martin Ginis, K. A. (2004). The effects of self-set versus assigned goals on exercisers’ self-efficacy for an unfamiliar task. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 26, 500-504. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Getz, G. E., & Rainey, D. W. (2001). Flexible short-term goals and basketball shooting performance. Journal of Sport Behavior, 24(1), 31-40. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Kingston, K. M., & Hardy, L. (1997). Effects of different types of goals on process that support performance. The Sport Psychologist, 11, 277-293. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Shilts, M.K., Horowitz, M., & Townsend, M.S. (2004). Goal setting as a strategy for dietary and physical activity behavior change: A review of the literature. American Journal of Health Promotion, 19(2), 81-93. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Weinberg, R.S., & Gould, D. (2003). Foundations of sport & exercise psychology (3rd ed.). Illinois: Human Kinetics.

Reuters Health

Monday, June 27, 2005

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For the last 20 years, professional guidelines have advised doctors that there’s no evidence to show that an annual physical examination is necessary for someone who doesn’t have any apparent health problems.

The message does not seem to have gotten through. A survey finds that most primary care providers believe in the value of annual check-ups, and are performing them anyway.

A postal survey was sent to 1679 primary care providers in Boston, Denver, and San Diego, and 783 (47 percent) responded.

Sixty-five percent of respondents thought that an annual physical examination is necessary, Dr. Allan V. Prochazka, from the VA Medical Center in Denver, and colleagues report in the Archives of Internal Medicine for June 27. Moreover, 88 percent said they performed such examinations.

As an indication of the low awareness of official guidelines, 55 percent of the doctors disagreed with the statement that “national organizations do not advocate an annual physical exam.”

On the other hand, 63 percent of primary care docs said that the annual physical is of proven value, and 74 percent thought such exams improve detection of subclinical illness.

Also, more than 90 percent of the respondents believed that an annual exam provides an opportunity to counsel patients about preventative health, and improves patient-doctor relationships.

Seventy-eight percent thought that most patients wanted such exams.

So why the gap between guidelines and practice? Two editorialists suggest that there’s more to an annual check-up than meets the eye.

“We think there may be something valuable to the annual physical that patients and physicians are telling us indirectly,” they say.

That message could lead to healthcare improvements “in ways we might not even imagine,” write Dr. Patrick G. O’Malley, from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and Dr. Philip Greenland, from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science in Bethesda, Maryland.

“First, let us study (the annual physical), before we abandon it,” they conclude.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, June 27, 2005.

Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD; Ronald J. Sigal, MD; Janet W. Rich-Edwards, ScD; Graham A. Colditz, MD, DrPH; Caren G. Solomon, MD, MPH; Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPH; Frank E. Speizer, MD; JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH

Context: Although many studies suggest that physical activity may reduce risk of type 2 diabetes, the role of moderate-intensity activity such as walking is not well understood.

objectives: To examine the relationship of total physical activity and incidence of type 2 diabetes in women and to compare the benefits of walking vs vigorous activity as predictors of subsequent risk of type 2 diabetes.

Design and Setting: The Nurses’ Health Study, a prospective cohort study that included detailed data for physical activity from women surveyed in 11 US states in 1986, with updates in 1988 and 1992.

Participants: A total of 70,102 female nurses aged 40 to 65 years who did not have diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or cancer at baseline (1986).

Main Outcome Measure: Risk of type 2 diabetes by quintile of metabolic equivalent task (MET) score, based on time spent per week on each of 8 common physical activities, including walking.

Results: During 8 years of follow-up (534,928 person-years), we documented 1419 incident cases of type 2 diabetes. After adjusting for age, smoking, alcohol use, history of hypertension, history of high cholesterol level, and other covariates, the relative risks (RRs) of developing type 2 diabetes across quintiles of physical activity (least to most) were 1.0, 0.77, 0.75, 0.62, and 0.54 (P for trend <.001); after adjusting for body mass index (BMI), RRs were 1.0, 0.84, 0.87, 0.77, and 0.74 (P for trend = .002). Among women who did not perform vigorous activity, multivariate RRs of type 2 diabetes across quintiles of MET score for walking were 1.0, 0.91, 0.73, 0.69, and 0.58 (P for trend <.001). After adjusting for BMI, the trend remained statistically significant (RRs were 1.0, 0.95, 0.80, 0.81, 0.74; P for trend = .01). Faster usual walking pace was independently associated with decreased risk. Equivalent energy expenditures from walking and vigorous activity resulted in comparable magnitudes of risk reduction.

Conclusions: Our data suggest that greater physical activity level is associated with substantial reduction in risk of type 2 diabetes, including physical activity of moderate intensity and duration.

<label class=”caption”>A protester is ejected from the Beijing Olympics torch-lighting ceremony in Greece
“We believe the Olympic Games are not the place for demonstrations and we hope that all people attending the games recognize the importance of this.” Thus spake Samsung Electronics, one of 12 major corporate sponsors of the Olympics, when asked last week whether recent events in Tibet were causing them any concern. Coca-Cola, another Olympics sponsor, has stated that while it would be inappropriate “to comment on the political situation of individual nations,” the company firmly believes “that the Olympics are a force for good.” The chairman of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, was also quick to declare that “a boycott doesn’t solve anything”—just as quick as he was to dismiss the demonstrators who waved a black banner showing five interlocked handcuffs, in mockery of the Olympic symbol, at Monday’s lighting of the Olympic torch in Greece. “It is always sad to see such a ceremony disrupted,” he declared, rather pompously.

And no one was surprised: Companies that have invested millions in sponsorship deals and Olympic bureaucrats who have invested years trying to justify their controversial decision to award the 2008 Olympics to Beijing are naturally inclined to use those sorts of arguments. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to believe them.

Look a bit closer, in fact, and none of those statements holds up.<em />

A boycott doesn’t solve anything. Well, doesn’t it? Some boycotts do help solve some things. The boycott of South African athletes from international competitions was probably the single most effective weapon the international community ever deployed against the apartheid state. (”They didn’t mind about the business sanctions,” a South African friend once told me, “but they minded—they really, really minded—about the cricket.”) The boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics helped undermine Soviet propaganda about the invasion of Afghanistan and unify the Western world against it. I don’t know for certain, but I’m guessing that from the Soviet perspective, the Soviet bloc boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics four years later was successful, too. Presumably, it was intended to solidify Soviet elite opposition to the United States in the Reagan years, and presumably, it helped.

The Olympics are a force for good. Not always! For those who don’t remember, let me remind you that the 1936 Olympics, held in Nazi Germany, were an astonishing propaganda coup for Hitler. It’s true that the star performance of Jesse Owens, the great black American track-and-field star, did shoot some holes in the Nazi theory of Aryan racial superiority. But Hitler still got what he wanted out of the games. With the help of American newspapers such as the New York Times, which opined that the games put Germany “back in the family of nations again,” he convinced many Germans, and many foreigners, to accept Nazism as “normal.” The Nuremburg laws were in force, German troops had marched into the Rhineland, Dachau was full of prisoners, but the world cheered athletes in Berlin. As a result, many people, both in and out of Germany, reckoned that everything was just fine, and Hitler could be tolerated a bit longer.

The Olympic Games are not the place for demonstrations. Aren’t they? Actually, the Olympics seem an ideal place for demonstrations. Not only is the world’s press there with cameras running, the modern Olympics were set up with a political purpose: to promote international peace by encouraging healthy competition between nations. Hence the emphasis on national teams instead of individual competitors; hence the opening and closing ceremonies—since copied by other sporting events—as well as the national flags and national anthems.

These elements make the Olympics special, different from other international competitions, but they also sometimes give the games a nasty edge. The old United States vs. Soviet Union basketball rivalry; the parade of East German women with husky voices; the lists of who has won how many medals—all of that is evidence of the decades-old politicization of the Olympics. There were black power demonstrations at the 1968 Mexico City Games. A Palestinian group attacked and killed Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Games. Australian aborigines protested at the 2000 Sydney Games. And everything associated with the 2008 Olympics, from the massive Beijing building program, to the Olympic torch that is due to be carried across Tibet, to the Chinese Olympic Committee’s Web site ( it describes China’s commitment to promote "mass sporting activities" on an "extensive scale, improving the people’s physique, and spurring the socialist modernization of China") is blatantly designed to promote the domestic and international image of the Chinese state.

No wonder, then, that everyone who hates or fears China, whether in Burma, Darfur, Tibet, or Beijing, is calling for a boycott. And the Chinese government and the IOC are terrified that they will succeed. No one involved in the preparations for this year’s Olympics really believes that this is "only about the athletes," or that the Beijing Games will be an innocent display of sporting prowess, or that they bear no relation to Chinese politics. I don’t see why the rest of us should believe it, either.

Tuesday, January 8,  2008

TUESDAY, Jan. 8 (HealthDay News) — Young people who start smoking may be influenced to do so by movies they saw in early childhood, new research suggests.

What’s more, the study found that almost 80 percent of the exposure to smoking scenes in movies came through films rated “G,” “PG” and “PG-13.”

“Movies seen at the youngest ages had as much influence over later smoking behavior as the movies that children had seen recently,” said study author Linda Titus-Ernstoff, a pediatrics professor at Dartmouth Medical School.

“And I’m increasingly convinced that this association between movie-smoking exposure and smoking initiation is real,” she added. “That’s to say, causal. It is quite improbable that the association we see is due to some other influence, some other characteristic inherent in children or parental behavior. The relationship is clearly between movie-smoking and smoking initiation.”

The findings are published in the January issue of Pediatrics.

To gauge the impact of movie smoking on young people, Titus-Ernstoff and her colleagues focused on more than 2,200 boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 12 who were enrolled in grades four through six in 26 elementary schools in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Starting in 2002 and 2003, the researchers conducted interviews with the children, and their parents, to track whether or not the kids had smoked in the past.

The researchers used a list of 50 movies compiled from a larger pool of 550 films drawn from the top 100 box-office hits released over the five-and-a-half years before the study started in 2002. About 40 percent of the films were rated “R,” 40 percent “PG-13,” 14 percent “PG,” and 5 percent “G.”

The initial survey of the kids was followed by two more interviews approximately one and two years later. At each follow-up point, a new movie list was drafted to include 50 films randomly pulled from the top 100 feature releases and the top 100 video rentals of the past year.

All the movies on the lists were coded for the number of “smoking occurrences” — instances in which major, minor or tangential characters used or handled tobacco for the first time in a new scene.

While 21 percent of the smoking occurrences were found in “R” movies, slightly more than 60 percent were found in “PG-13″ movies, and almost 19 percent were found in “G” or “PG” films, the researchers said.

Included among the “G-rated” movies that had smoking scenes were 102 Dalmations, Tarzan  and Muppets from Space. “PG” films on the list that had smoking scenes were George of the Jungle,  Atlantis: The Lost Empire and  The Rainmaker.

By the third survey, almost 10 percent of the kids had started to smoke, and on average had viewed almost 37 films. That translated into an average exposure to almost 150 smoking occurrences.

After accounting for other factors that might influence behavior, the researchers concluded that 35 percent of smoking initiation among the children was directly attributable to seeing smoking scenes on the screen.

Children who may have seen smoking scenes at a preschool age were as likely to pick up a cigarette as those who had seen such scenes at a later age, Titus-Ernstoff said.

“What this means for parents is that they need to pay more attention to what children are watching,” Titus-Ernstoff said. “I think they tend to worry more about sex, violence and bad language. But bad language never killed anybody. And maybe they need to pay more attention to movies that glamorize smoking or other drug abuse.”

“Our finding is that the vast majority of smoking in movies that children are exposed to comes from movies that are youth-rated,” she added. “So even if parents are doing a good job protecting their children from ‘R’-rated movies, they still need to pay attention to the ‘G,’ ‘PG,’ and ‘PG-13′ movies.”

Titus-Ernstoff said concerned parents could try to pre-screen new movies for smoking scenes by checking out such Web sites as www.kids-in-mind.com for detailed film descriptions.

Danny McGoldrick, vice president of research with the non-profit Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, described the new study as “very strong” in terms of both its approach and findings.

“This adds to the already existing evidence of the impact of smoking in the movies,” he said. “And the last thing we need is for Hollywood to be helping the tobacco companies create a positive image around a product that ultimately kills half the people who use it, and a product whose vast majority of users start as children.”
        HealthDay

Story obtained from ISSAOnline.com

Have you heard about this case? Great answer from the judge!

The judge said, ‘Well it comes every year on exactly the same date—April 1st!  Since our calendar sets April 1st as ‘April Fools Day,’ consider that Psalm 14:1 states, ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.’ Thus, in my opinion, if your client says there is no God, then by scripture , he is a fool, and April 1st is his holiday! Now have a good day and get out of my courtroom!!’

LOL

Merry Christmas, etc. to everyone. Have a safe, fun holiday and don’t eat too much candy