🏋️‍♀️Science of Diet and Exercise Journal👩‍🎓

By the way, since you live in an area that could sustain them and you know a lot about photography: have you ever seen rainbow eucalyptus in the flesh? Do you know if they're really this brightly colored?
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Apparently they are, I have seen seedlings for sale but not seen an adult tree in person, they are not native to Australia.
 
Thank you!
 
not much happening this week, my hip is giving me bit of extra pain

just got a good chuckle on the phone talking to son R

he was just pulled off the bus by the police because somebody reported him as a terrorist. He was wearing a fitness vest and carrying a bag with his foam Larp weapons on his way to the park to practice and work more on his fitness. The police had a good chuckle after searching him and gave him a lift to the park he was heading to so it wouldn't cost an extra bus fare.

Seems people are very twitchy at the moment after the stabbing in Sydney
 
feeling miserable, one of little misses guinea pigs has just died, hubby spoke to the breeder (workmate) apparently they can just keel over with a heart attack without warning, his twitching legs are a sign that this has happened, not sure if I should get her brother to bury or let little miss do it, needs to be well away from house so the dog doesn't dig.
 
just got a good chuckle on the phone talking to son R

he was just pulled off the bus by the police because somebody reported him as a terrorist. He was wearing a fitness vest and carrying a bag with his foam Larp weapons on his way to the park to practice and work more on his fitness. The police had a good chuckle after searching him and gave him a lift to the park he was heading to so it wouldn't cost an extra bus fare.

Seems people are very twitchy at the moment after the stabbing in Sydney
That would have given the police a good laugh. That's funny Tru!
feeling miserable, one of little misses guinea pigs has just died, hubby spoke to the breeder (workmate) apparently they can just keel over with a heart attack without warning, his twitching legs are a sign that this has happened, not sure if I should get her brother to bury or let little miss do it, needs to be well away from house so the dog doesn't dig.
That's no good. I think it's not a bad thing for kids to participate in rituals regarding death. Will you get another guinea pig soon, Tru?
 
That would have given the police a good laugh. That's funny Tru!

That's no good. I think it's not a bad thing for kids to participate in rituals regarding death. Will you get another guinea pig soon, Tru?

D spoke to the breeder apparently they can have strokes and heart attacks and drop dead without warning. he was on his side twitching when I found him, breeder thinks it was one of these causes not something we could have prevented. The other option is an epileptic fit but that is not as common.

We will see how the remaining piggy copes, they mourn the loss like people do, if he does not cope well we will need to get him a new companion.

Son buried piggy and little miss can see tomorrow, she is quite upset.

Little miss has been having swimming lessons which she is loving, the swim school only has 3 kids per class, expensive but worth it. Little miss has decided she wants to be a swim teacher when she grows up.
 
I hope your hip feels better. That's so bizarre that your son got searched as a terrorist. I'm glad you both have a sense of humor about it. We always do a little burial ceremony if our pet dies, too. I hope seeing the grave helps Little Miss to have some closure. That's awesome that she wants to be a swim instructor!
 
I hope your hip feels better. That's so bizarre that your son got searched as a terrorist. I'm glad you both have a sense of humor about it. We always do a little burial ceremony if our pet dies, too. I hope seeing the grave helps Little Miss to have some closure. That's awesome that she wants to be a swim instructor!

A lot of people are on edge after the mass stabbing in Sydney followed by a terrorist stabbing in a church a day later. My son lives in the capital so the federal police take every report seriously, no matter how ridiculous it may be. At least we are in Australia where the police ask questions first instead of shooting first like you see on TV in other countries.

My hip flares up periodically but the underlying FAI (pincer type) I am stuck with unless I get surgery.


This morning I have spent reviewing lecture material for my second assessment quiz this week. Reviewing the endocrine system, the mechanisms and hormonal responses as it relates to exercise, fat loss and diabetes. part of the role of an exercise scientist is knowing how best to tackle tricky exercise solutions for what can be complex problems. The myriad of different hormone responses is mind boggling, I will know how good my understanding is after the exam on Thursday.

my mid semester exam was a pass, I messed up creating one of the graphs from the excel data which had an effect on my ability to answer some later questions. Finding the gas exchange threshold is important as part of calculating critical power. both measures are used in choosing the correct exercise intensity for a range of training goals.

The quiz yesterday was a sport medicine quiz, the subject requires 100% on quizzes to pass the subject.

Exercise: Rower
 
Wow, I'd be on edge, too. I agree about the police force being calm and reasonable. I can't imagine having to pass an exam about hormonal processes. Every time I look that stuff up, my head swims. Your studies sound really interesting though!
 
That's sweet that little miss loves swimming so much & says she would like to be a swim teacher. Cute! It won't hurt her to grieve a little. I hope the remaining piggy doesn't stress.
At least we are in Australia where the police ask questions first instead of shooting first like you see on TV in other countries.
& they have a sense of humour. The Tasmanian Police FB page is so entertaining.
Your course sounds so difficult to me. I wouldn't have a clue.
 
The advice we have is extra cuddle time for the remaining piggy, he is still eating which is a good sign, I need to find a new toy for his pen.If he is ok over the next 2 weeks then he will cope ok as a lone piggy, bonding a male to a new companion is difficult and we don't want a girl companion, we don't want to be over run with baby piggies.





One thing is becoming clear with what I am learning in the lab, I want a handheld lactate testing unit. I will not have access to a full lab of equipment outside of uni but a lot can be done simply by testing lactate levels with a machine similar to the one used for measuring blood glucose.

Blood lactate measures correlate with a number of other biological markers during exercise and can be used as a proxy. Especially when getting a client to exercise at the right aerobic pace to improve insulin sensitivity, plasma levels and blood vessel diameter. Along with improving the efficiency of oxygen perfusion into the working muscles ( a-VO2 max diff. )

without anything else to go on (no labs or other tests), cardio endurance training (30+ minutes) to improve sensitivity to insulin, strength training to increase the number of insulin receptors is the exercise aspect of fighting diabetes. Endurance training maintains insulin and glucagon close to resting levels, keeps catecholamines (stress hormones) at a reasonable level, less cortisol release.

the better trained somebody is the better the body controls the hormone release during exercise. If we can fight insulin resistance then loosing fat becomes a whole lot easier.

I am a big fan of HIIT but it is not the answer to every problem.

in short, bursts of hormones during exercise is good, long term high levels of hormones bad and need to be reduced so they can do their job effectively during higher intensity exercise.
 
I'd just been reading about how HIIT is so good for older people and have been really slowly getting back into it. Thanks for the explanation. That's great there are handheld devices you can purchase that will help with your assessments so you could be an independent consultant if you want. I hope your remaining guinea pig will be happy and loves the extra cuddles.
 
I'd just been reading about how HIIT is so good for older people and have been really slowly getting back into it. Thanks for the explanation. That's great there are handheld devices you can purchase that will help with your assessments so you could be an independent consultant if you want. I hope your remaining guinea pig will be happy and loves the extra cuddles.

I am hoping to get a placement with the Dolphins NRL team next year to finish of this degree, it will be the final 2 units I need to complete. While clinical is interesting it is not the focus of what I am studying, I have chosen to pursue high performance coaching as a registered sport and exercise scientist, those majoring in clinical will become registered as exercise physiologists however there is a lot of overlap. I have high performance coaching subjects to finish of next semester while the clinical students have more medical subjects.

The same tests that help determine the level and type of training a diabetic needs, at the top end of the scale the same tests tell me how much work and type of work is needed to max out the performance profile of an athlete. A 1-2% improvement can be the difference between winning and coming last in an event.

One of the primary jobs of sport scientists is to advise the sport specific coaches on how to improve performance.

The more I can improve an athletes critical power, the harder and longer they will be able to compete without hitting the wall.

Critical power defines the boundary between the heavy- and severe-intensity exercise domains and represents the highest power output for which a metabolic steady state may be attained
 
Wow, you're almost done with your degree program! That must feel really good. Your new career sounds amazing - working with top athletes in top condition seems really intense. We've been learning about athletes and other top performers being in a state of flow. It would be so interesting working with people like that!
 
You will be so well qualified, Tru. I love reading about your course, even if I don't understand a lot of it.
 
I hope that I am not a test subject at uni today, I was a test subject for a single Wingate in the prerequisite subject before advanced exercise phys but to the test subjects need to do up to 5 Wingates back to back this time. I don't want to puke in the lab and I don't want to aggravate my injuries. It could be worse I suppose, it could be a Tabata, not the bastardized version personal trainers call Tabata, the real Tabata protocol. If it was on the rower I would be ok, still possibly puke but on the lab bike there is no way I could complete it,
 
That does sound insanely intense, and amazing you can do a full-on workout in 4 minutes. If you do have to do this, please protect yourself from re-injury above all else.
 
Did not need to be the test subject today. Wingates are a good tool for seeing which areas of energy substrate may need work depending on athlete needs, I have done a Wingate before and had the classic energy usage of a power athlete as expected. The back to back results show how theory of 3-4 minutes rest is not actually enough, while ATP fully replenishes in that time peak power continues to drop despite full ATP recovery. That first 5-10 seconds is almost completely powered by ATP but the other substrates also need to recover after max power effort. As a powerlifter, this is not exactly new, this just demonstrates why powerlifters will rest for so long between sets at the gym. When I am in a peaking phase of training, rest between sets is around 10 minutes. The same requirement is found in sprint training, too short of a rest and you will not be generating the adaptations you want.

Week 11 is the lab work I am looking forward to, we get to dig into some cutting edge brand new research on metabolic flexibility and training to maximise fat loss, it is not all about just the calories burned. We want to be utilising fat stores to power our exercise, rather than spiking hormones and burning carbs. Training based on the science increases mitochondria and increases our ability to burn fat for energy, not just during exercise. (this scientific research is being used by tour de France winning athletes)

As a power athlete I am guilty of neglecting this side of my training, I don't utilise fat well for energy, even with a good diet. I need to look into some of the data my rower provide to see if I can adapt to using it as a makeshift field test to determine the important metabolic points training is based on. If I can turn my own training around, I can better help my non athlete clients with stubborn fat problems.
 
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