Weekly Running Dose For Life Extension

The heart is mainly a muscle, but unlike a nice and round Gluteus Maximus, you cannot display a well-trained Heart on social media for personal gains. Well, maybe Hanuman was the only guy who managed to display his heart in order to impress his Boss and Boss’ Wife (Ram and Sita). He had eyes on the ‘Best Employee of the Ever Award’.

As with any muscle, the heart also adapts to training stress from exercise and eventually becomes more efficient at supporting the enhanced cardiovascular requirements of exercise. But all is not good in the domain of cardio because most of the protective cardiovascular benefits from cardiovascular exercises such as running and cycling, wane away after a certain point as per The Copenhagen City Heart Study (referred to as “the CCH Study” below).

In the year 2015 when the CCH Study was published, suddenly excessive and hard running was labelled dangerous for cardiac health, based on the exercise related findings in the CCH Study. Not wanting to lose out commercially, immediately Runner’s World published a very poorly written rebuttal, and then after 1 year they came out with a more nuanced article which admitted the relevance of the findings in the CCH Study. Competitor Running, in contrast, wrote a balanced article without any attempt to debunk the study and protect its customer base.

The CCH Study was launched in the year 1975 by Dr. Peter Schnohr, to understand physical activity and athleticism as tools for cardiovascular disease prevention, and it involved a starting sample population of 20,000 men and women. The Study grew over the years to include the effects of alcohol, education, smoking, diabetes, sleep etc. on coronary heart diseases and strokes in humans. Do note that Dr. Schnohr was amongst the top 10 runners in Denmark at that time and he initiated the entire study based on the unpleasant symptoms he experienced during his strenuous training and to understand whether excessive running could be unhealthy.

For the past several decades, it is common knowledge and obvious through medical evidence that our bodies need the effects of regular and vigorous exercise, and that physically active people have a significantly lower risk of death compared with inactive people. However, no upper threshold for physical activity has ever been recommended.[1]    

The CCH Study reported that both duration and intensity of walking, running and cycling were important factors in relation to coronary heart disease related mortality, with intensity of exercise playing a stronger role in increasing the chances of cardiovascular issues.

There appears to be a U-shaped association between all-cause mortality and dose of jogging as calibrated by pace, quantity, and frequency of jogging. As per Dr. Schnohr, light and moderate joggers have lower mortality than sedentary non-joggers, whereas strenuous joggers have a mortality rate which is not statistically different from that of the sedentary group.[2]

Long-term strenuous endurance exercise might induce pathological structural remodelling of the heart and large arteries. Current data suggests that long-term training and competing in extreme endurance events such as marathons, ultra-marathons, ironman distance triathlons, and very long distance bicycle races can cause physical abnormalities and malfunctions in the heart and elevate cardiac biomarker levels. Additionally, long-term excessive exercise may be associated with coronary artery calcification, diastolic dysfunction, and large artery wall stiffening.[3]

A similar finding[4] on cardiac dysfunction and injury from marathon training was reported in this study labelled “Myocardial Injury and Ventricular Dysfunction Related to Trailing Levels Among Nonelite Participants in the Boston Marathon”. The findings of this study are more relevant to the sensationalised stories we keep hearing about in the media about runners suffering heart attacks during or after a marathon, but which instances as per this study are mostly attributable to the lack of proper training in such runners i.e. low mileage in training for a long distance race.

Best Employee of the Ever

As per the jogging/running part of the CCH Study, the findings for the relationship between running and mortality when adjusted for various factors is as follows:

Note:

Hazard Ratio (HR) below represents the chance of an event occurring. A HR of 1 means that there is no difference in survival between the two groups. A hazard ratio of greater than one or less than one means that survival was better in one of the groups. So in the CCH Study a HR of 1 represents that the chance of death is certain. Therefore, the HR for understanding the numbers below is to be compared with a ‘sedentary nonjogger’ whose HR is 1 i.e. a ‘sedentary nonjogger’ will die (HR = 1), and anything less than 1 represents that the chance of mortality has decreased in the exercise group as compared to a ‘sedentary nonjogger’ group.

Quantity of Jogging (adjusted for age and sex):

Hours of jogging per week	HR (Hazard Ratio)	Remarks
Sedentary nonjogger	1	Certainty of mortality at a given point time.
Less than 1 hour per week	0.32	68% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
1 – 2.4 hours per week	0.18	82% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
2.5 – 4 hours per week	0.38	62% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
More than 4 hours per week	0.35	65% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)

Quantity of Jogging (adjusted for age, sex, smoking, alcohol intake, education, and diabetes):

Hours of jogging per week	HR (Hazard Ratio)	Remarks
Sedentary nonjogger	1	Certainty of mortality at a given point time.
Less than 1 hour per week	0.47	53% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
1 – 2.4 hours per week	0.29	71% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
2.5 – 4 hours per week	0.65	35% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
More than 4 hours per week	0.60	40% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)

Frequency of Jogging (adjusted for age and sex):

Frequency of jogging per week	HR (Hazard Ratio)	Remarks
Sedentary nonjogger	1	Certainty of mortality at a given point time.
Less than or equal to once per week	0.19	81% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
2 to 3 times per week	0.20	80% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
More than 3 times per week	0.48	52% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)

 Frequency of Jogging (adjusted for age, sex, smoking, alcohol intake, education and diabetes):

Frequency of jogging per week	HR (Hazard Ratio)	Remarks
Sedentary nonjogger	1	Certainty of mortality at a given point time.
Less than or equal to once per week	0.29	71% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
2 to 3 times per week	0.32	68% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
More than 3 times per week	0.71	29% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)

Jogging pace (adjusted for age and sex):

Jogging Pace	HR (Hazard Ratio)	Remarks
Sedentary nonjogger	1	Certainty of mortality
Slow (9.66 km/h to 11.27 km/hour)	0.34	66% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
Average (above 11.27 km/hour)	0.25	75% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
Fast (threshold workouts)	0.54	46% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)

Jogging pace (adjusted for age, sex, smoking, alcohol intake, education and diabetes):

Jogging pace	HR (Hazard Ratio)	Remarks
Sedentary nonjogger	1	Certainty of mortality
Slow (9.66 km/h to 11.27 km/hour)	0.51	49% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
Average (above 11.27 km/h)	0.38	62% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)
Fast (threshold workouts)	0.94	6% lowered risk of mortality (as compared to a sedentary nonjogger)

When the findings of the CCH Study appeared for the first time on various news outlets and health magazines, there was a general uproar in the running community since most of the avid runners did not want to acknowledge or believe that something which felt so good could also be bad for them. The U shaped graph (namely, the diminishing returns from running distance and intensity) was unbelievable to most since till the CCH Study, none of the previous studies had categorically stated that hard running may be detrimental to the human body to the extent that all the benefits may wane away after a certain peak. Moreover many of the news articles based on the CCH Study provided a very general analysis of jogging related findings of the CCH Study, which needless to say sounded quite ridiculous to runners who were training for races, and who, as human nature goes, obviously did not want to hear that training for races would be counterintuitive.

The CCH Study was not anti-running. It was a comprehensive long term study on the pros and cons of hard training on the human body. Dr. Schnohr and others have stated that “….to our knowledge, there has been no study of the longevity of marathon, half-marathon or triathlon participants, but such studies would clearly be informative…”

The simplistic interpretation of the jogging related findings in the CCH Study by news media and individuals was incorrect since if you carefully see the above tables from the CCH Study, the following points emerge which demonstrate that the CCH Study was pro-running:

• There are benefits from any duration, frequency and intensity of running since the HR (hazard ratio) declines for each category of runner as compared to a sedentary non-jogger.
• Notwithstanding the above, the benefits from running are maximized by slow jogging (9.66 km/h to 11.27 km/hour) when done for 1 to 2.4 hours per week and in less than 2 to 3 sessions per week, and if the runner does not smoke, consume alcohol or have diabetes.
• As compared to a sedentary nonjogger, a person who runs can reduce his mortality risk to almost 50% even if he/she trains hard i.e. for more than 4 hours per week at a fast pace and in several sessions. Hence, even hard running is beneficial, but it’s less beneficial than slow running.
• The risk of mortality is only 6% lesser in a runner as compared to a sedentary nonjogger when a runner, (i) runs for more than 4 hours per week; (ii) runs more than 3 times per week; (iii) runs at a fast pace; (iv) smokes and drinks; and (v) has diabetes.

Therefore, unless you have picked up a few vices (alcohol and tobacco) and maybe have diabetes too, as per the CCH Study, even if you keep training hard, your mortality risk will always be lower than a sedentary nonjogger’s.

Also note that the CCH Study is only limited to determining cardiovascular health, and it has not considered the mental benefits of excessive/hard/intense/prolonged exercise (howsoever you may want to describe it).

As science has shown and as you may have felt yourself, the mental benefits from “excessive running” especially in treating the general malaise/depression in contemporary society may most certainly cancel the higher cardiovascular risks associated with hard running (marathons, ultramarathons, triathlons etc.) if seen in terms of personal choice in improving lives. Quality of Life, over Quantity of Life?

What you can do with the aforesaid data and analysis is decide what you want from running and your running schedule. If you want to run only for longevity then run less per week and run slow (less than 2.4 hours per week and slower than 11.27 km/h) and spend a few hours every week on strength training since strength training can reduce mortality risks significantly and also reduce cancer cell growth. However, if you run long distances out of sheer passion and mental health then keep training hard but reduce alcohol and smoking to decrease your mortality risk which otherwise comes in close proximity to a sedentary nonjogger due to these vices.

Finally, the findings of the CCH Study fit like a glove with Professor Alexander Y. Bigazzi’s (Department of Civil Engineering, the University of British Columbia) recent findings[5] of the minimum dose speeds (MDS) for Walking, Running and Cycling at which the amount of inhalation of pollutants is the lowest. Move faster than these recommended speeds and you will expend dramatically more energy which in turn will increase your heart rate and respiration and therefore you will inhale exponentially higher amounts of air + pollution. I had written a blog on this last year since in highly polluted placed like Delhi, during the months ranging from November-March, the air quality is extremely poor and a slower exercise speed is necessary to reduce air pollution. So a combination of the findings of the CCH Study and MDS (minimum dose speed i.e. workout speeds) is a win-win formula for areas with polluted air.

- Aman Yadav

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[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625209/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25660917

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625209/

[4] http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/114/22/2325

[5] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308535014_Determination_of_active_travel_speed_for_minimum_air_pollution_inhalation

Effect of Humidity on Athletic Performance

It's pre-monsoon and soon it'll be monsoon season in India, and in places such as Delhi in Northern India, the high temperatures (soaring above 40 degrees C) coupled with high humidity makes for a bizarre situation for runners and cyclists since the air quality is far better than winters and therefore you'd want to be outdoors more, but the climatic conditions for prolonged or HIIT exercise are totally non-supportive.

During the season, as the humidity arrives and progressively increases, there is a general phenomenon amongst runners and cyclists to reduce the intensity and/or duration of exercise since the weather (high humidity in particular) feels awful and, quite visibly, exercise attire gets drenched in sweat in a matter of minutes, due to lack of evaporation. 

When such feelings arrive, there is a common psychological tendency to reduce the duration and/or intensity of exercise since athletes become hyper-focused on the palpable humidity and their sweat drenched clothes, and blame the high humidity for their lack of performance, like blaming god for getting fired from a job.

On an average day, I reach home from work at a little before 10 p.m., so I usually end up running in the mornings at about 7-8:30 a.m. when both heat and humidity are high and I also regularly get the feelings to take it easy during workouts, but I usually (unless I'm hungover) do not take it easy.

Enjoy the customary random photo since I'm not narcissistic enough to put mine

So the moot question is, 'how much does humidity affect athletic performance?' I'll ignore heat since there is ample and cogent evidence on the interwebz which demonstrates that increases in environmental heat (other than during warm-ups) after a certain point is directly related to decreases in exercise performance. Hence, allow me to ignore heat as a factor in relation to exercise performance since I don't want to bore you or misuse my blog like a conman for spewing information which is common knowledge or which is already available with a single Google search click.

Effects of heat and different humidity levels on aerobic and anaerobic exercise performance in athletes (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1728869X13000087) is one of the first studies which was conducted in the year 2013 to systematically investigate the effects of a hot environment and different humidity levels on VO2max and Wingate anaerobic test performance in the laboratory.

As per the aforesaid study, the VO2max performance was impaired in the hot–dry (i.e. hot and low humidity) and the hot–wet (i.e. hot and high humidity) conditions in comparison to the optimal temperature-optimal humidity (control conditions/thermoneutral conditions), but there was no difference between the hot–dry condition and the hot–wet condition. The researchers found that humidity changes did not further affect VO2max. This means that you should not decrease the intensity and/or duration of your non-HIIT (i.e. long runs/tempo runs/steady runs/recovery runs workouts) if you feel that the humidity is high and your clothes (and maybe shoes too like it happens to me in this season) are drenched in sweat. It's not the humidity, it's just your brain playing tricks. You reverse-trick that fucker and complete your workout, drenched or not.

In addition, it was found in the aforesaid study that anaerobic performance using the Wingate test (i.e. peak power and anaerobic capacity) was not affected by the hot–dry conditions or the hot–wet condition, compared to the control environment (thermoneutral conditions).

Lastly, the study was conducted during the spring season to avoid any natural heat acclimatization from the summer in the test subjects. Therefore, if you reside and run in a hot and humid environment, then to a certain extent your body has already acclimatized to the then existing environmental conditions.

This means that you can keep doing your shorter intervals (like really short intervals since Wingate HIIT tests are such) without being affected by heat or humidity, especially considering that your body may have acclimatized to a certain extent. Again ignore the monkey brain which is making your take extra notice of the humidity and drenched clothes.

In conclusion:

1. Humidity will not decrease your VO2max, but heat will. So don't blame the humidity and hammer through your workouts in the high humidity season; and
2. Short interval training/short HIIT will not be affected by heat or humidity, so hammer through those too!

In the next blog, I'll tell you about boosting metabolism through heat training. 

Make gains in this weather and be outside more, because Delhi's polluted winters are coming soon. Cough cough! Ouch.

- Aman Yadav

Biomarker analysis for athletes

Biomarker analysis for athletes is becoming increasingly popular. True Ventures, an initial venture capital investor in Fitbit saw merit in the concept and has recently invested in a biomarker analysis company.

In simple terms, Biomarker analysis for athletes means getting your blood tested for various parameters which can/may/will affect your athletic performance, both physically and mentally.

For the past 1.5 years, while practising law, I’ve been working on a side project and using myself and my co-founder, Yashraj Rao, as guinea pigs to test different biomarkers in our blood in response to the effects of, (i) different types of exercise; (ii) different intensities of exercise; and (iii) different nutrition.

Our findings from our blood tests are pretty interesting and helpful for curating an exercise regime, but nonetheless we could have behaved better before giving our blood samples to the lab. But, hey! both of us are semi-hedonists and (almost) failures in the start-up world, and therefore as god’s imperfect creatures we are prone to ingesting unhealthy liquids and solids, and inhaling plants which are not permitted by law unless you reach a certain age.

I won’t take you through all the parameters we got our blood tested for but I will highlight one biomarker which has immense potential in not just making a better athlete but also a better man. That biomarker is Testosterone.

In the year 2016, I had written an article on Testosterone when, 33 year old, two time Olympian and American half marathon record holder (59:43), Ryan Hall had announced his retirement from professional running. He did this just a few weeks before the U.S. Olympic Trials and the reason was his critically low Testosterone from excessive running mileage and low calorie diet, which had made him suffer both physically and mentally.

The article linked above contains, (i) guidelines for running mileage; (ii) list of food which can help; and (iii) importance of strength training, to help maintain healthy Testosterone levels, so I won’t delve again into those aspects here.

In the article linked above, I had not focussed on the mental benefits from maintaining a healthy Testosterone level. Before we proceed further, allow me to give a caveat --- barring a few studies (which I think may have been funded by nutrition companies selling bull semen or bull testicle candy to men), most of the scientific studies have been unable to conclusively establish a positive link between mood and testosterone levels in the male body. Having said that, let us not forget that Testosterone is essential for numerous critical functions in the male body, and therefore maintaining a healthy level of Testosterone is akin to maintaining a healthy bank balance -- you may not need the money all the time, but when the need arises, you must have it circulating in your system.

Testosterone plays an important role throughout the body in men (and women too). It affects the brain, bone and muscle mass, fat distribution, the vascular system, energy levels, genital tissues, and sexual functioning.

A drop in testosterone levels can contribute to, diminished erectile quality, changes in mood, reduced intellectual and cognitive function, fatigue, depression and anger, decrease in muscle mass and strength, decreased body hair, skin alterations, decreased bone mass/mineral density and increase in abdominal fat mass.

Endurance exercise like distance running, cycling and swimming have been shown to reduce testosterone levels in a male body significantly.

So a lower base level of testosterone which is common in men nowadays, coupled with testosterone losses from endurance exercise sounds like a recipe for disaster for amateur athletes. Moreover, training will suffer due to low testosterone levels since energy levels will be low, mood swings will be present and fatigue will be holding you back. There will be higher chances of a burnout and bad race timings.

Coming back to my blood work. Towards year 2017 ending, I had reduced my running and strength training to negligible levels due to the Delhi’s air pollution but I had increased my cycling --- predominantly low intensity cycling but high weekly mileage on the indoor trainer to prepare for a mountain bike race in Himachal Pradesh in February 2018.

During this span of 3-4 months of low intensity cycling, my weight did not increase but I lost a lot of muscle mass and gained noticeable abdominal fat, and mood-wise I felt about 5/10. Maybe it was the lack of sunlight, but I’m not sure!

So during my scheduled blood work in the beginning of January 2018, my test results showed that my Testosterone level was 535.54 ng/dl (Normal Range 241 – 827 ng/dl). Needless to say that I was not pleased with this and I decided that after finishing the cycle race in February 2018 --- from March 2018, I will get back on a balanced exercise program with focus on physical and mental improvements, and not just be cardio obsessed.

January 2018 blood work

For the past 2 years, I have become significantly less obsessed with race timings, high weekly mileage and posting workouts on social media. My goal from exercise has shifted towards balance and using exercise to not being in general a typical asshole. So, I work out hard-ish and keep my biomarkers in check (while being a semi-hedonist), and simultaneously ensure that I feel positive enough to not snap or get annoyed with friends, my family, my lady, the boss-man and my colleagues without due reason, but still have enough fire in my system to not be ‘meek’. Actually, not snapping at my parents takes the top spot in my main goals from exercise. You can’t be a prick at home but pretend to be a saint on social media. Jordan Peterson and the old Stoics would be proud of me. I’m cleaning my room Dr. Jordan.

Ok, so from the beginning of March 2018, I commenced more running (since it is better at changing biomarkers than cycling), lifting weights and eating more fat and meat. The plan was to also introduce one day of running HIIT per week to boost Testosterone levels, but I messed that up by doing too much too soon and getting injured, and by the time May 2018 had arrived for my scheduled blood test, I had done only one HIIT session. Notwithstanding the lack of a proper overhaul of my exercise routine, my biomarker testing in mid-May 2018 showed that my Testosterone level was at 634.22 ng/dl (Normal Range 241 – 827 ng/dl).

May 2018 blood work

So in 2 months, there was an increase of 100 ng/dl in Testosterone, lower abdominal fat and mood-wise (unless I’m hungover) I feel about 7/10 on most days. Win-win!

I’ve commenced the next phase of training and nutrition for my upcoming blood test, and this time the major change is that I’ve introduced some read meat, and Zinc Picolinate and Magnesium Glycinate tablets to my diet. I except to gain some lean muscle mass and also see a positive spike in the next blood test. Well, I could reduce my weekly cardio and increase weight lifting for faster results, but unfortunately I love pavement pounding too much.

- Aman Yadav

Nootropics and Vitamins for the Depressed Athlete

Are you sad? Do you feel less sad after a workout or a drink or junk food? Does your sadness keep ebbing and flowing?

Do the following words by Chuck Palahniuk in Fight Club resonate with you:

“I see all this potential and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars, advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of the history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, we've been all raised by television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't and we're slowly learning that fact.”

If the answer is yes, and if you’ve not deluded yourself into believing that 100k followers on your Instagram account is success, then congratulations ?!, you’re depressed; like most of the people around you.

Many people take up exercising for extracting its mental health benefits, or they may start exercising for other reasons but end up experiencing the positive mental changes it can induce after a few weeks.

Mostly, people exercise voluntarily, but sometimes if you’re fortunate to meet a good doctor who is not fat and sedentary, and his default mode for alleviating sadness is not anti-depressants, then he may prescribe exercise as step one to enable you to climb out of the misery hole. If you have such a doctor, send him a thank you note, because he saved you from a paralyzing life-long addiction which would have altered your original easily excitable brain into a lobotomized remnant.

An addition to your exercise regimen, and an alternative to some anti-depressants are ‘nootropics’. Both, antidepressants and nootropics, work on the brain and alter your mental state, or alter it for whatever your immediate requirement may be.

Nootropics can be synthetic and natural. An example of a synthetic nootropic, which I’ve taken sometimes for being more productive is Modafinil. Think of Modafinil as a smart-drug which works like turbocharged coffee. Pop one; it’ll wake you up and dismiss the lazy inside you.

A natural, abundant (in Asia), and cheap nootropic to alleviate symptoms of sadness/depression is Bacopa Monnieri. I know that’s a fancy scientific name, but it belongs to a very common herb in India called Brahmi. Brahmi can improve memory, and even significantly reverse the amnesia which is caused from the usage of benzodiazepines (Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2008 Sep;200(1):27-37. Epub 2008 Jan 13). Win-Win!

"Bacopa Monnieri, is an indigenous plant, found throughout India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Florida, Hawaii, and some other southern states of USA. Its description in Indian scriptures dates back to 5000 BC. It has been used in Ayurveda since 500 AD as “Medhya Rasayana” for treatment of anxiety, poor memory, epilepsy, improvement of cognitive processes, comprehension, memory, and recall. Animal studies have shown that it has anxiolytic, cognition enhancing, relaxing, bronchodilatory, antioxidant, anticancer, antidepressant, immunomodulatory, and anti-inflammatory effects" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5075615/).

But do take note that Bacopa Monnieri does not work immediately like a regular anti-depressant pill, and that is why you should ideally take it for at least 8-12 weeks before reaching any conclusions about its efficacy.

As far as dosage in milligrams (mg) is concerned; 500-750 mg of Bacopa Monnieri extract could be the minimum daily dosage, ideally divided into 2/3 smaller doses per day which are taken with food. Bacopa Monnieri does not have a standard dosage since its effects on the brain differs between individuals. The 500-750 mg dosage mentioned above is not exact/standard since manufacturers may have used different parts of the herb during the manufacturing process and therefore the actual compound (bacoside) in the product may differ between brands.

Coming to vitamins now! Magnesium is known to help with mental health. I don’t want to copy paste links here, since if you Google, you can find a lot of information on how Magnesium is extremely beneficial for maintaining our bodily functions (especially the brain) and how modern diet is extremely deficient in Magnesium. But Magnesium Oxide which is commonly sold online at cheap rates is not easily absorbed by the body since its bio-availability is quite low. Therefore, Magnesium Malate/Magnesium Citrate/Magnesium Glycinate are better options since their bio-availability is higher. 

You can receive Magnesium even through food items which are rich in it. A simple food to this end would be oats (especially as breakfast). You can Google to find a whole list of Magnesium rich foods.

There are more vitamins (such as B-Complex and Zinc), herbs (such as Mucuna Pruriens and Withania Somnifera) and natural notropics (such as Rhodiola Rosea) which can be a part of your 'mental health diet', but I don't want to overload this post since Magnesium and Brahmi should alleviate your symptoms and are easily (and cheaply) available in India.

To create an anti-sadness stack (even for non-athletes), combine Brahmi extract tablets/capsules with a Magnesium supplement. Both Magnesium and Brahmi capusles/tablets are abundantly available online. I’m not linking any brands here since, for now, I just want to help and I don’t intend to commercialize/monetize this blog for whatever it’s worth/not worth, and practicing law is quite my gig....for now.

- Aman Yadav

Ashwagandha and Arjuna for increasing speed, power, VO2 max and lowering blood pressure

Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) and Arjuna (Terminalia Arjuna) in their independent capacities have a very important place in Ayurveda. Ashwagandha is an adaptogenic herb and allows humans to adapt to physical and mental stresses. Arjuna on the other hand in commonly seen in use by heart patients.

This (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996571/) year 2010 Indian study administered 500mg/per day of Ashwagandha root extract powder and 500mg/per day Arjuna tree bark extract powder, separately and together, to a control group of 40 healthy college going young adults with moderately active life style for a period of 8 weeks.

The participants were then made to perform the following physical activities, and their performances were assessed:

1.  Sprinting to find their respective maximum velocities.

2.  Vertical jumps to measure their average absolute and average relative power of the lower limbs.

3.  Balancing on a wobble board to measure changes in balancing.

4. Indoor cycling on a turbo trainer to measure their peak maximum oxygen consumption (ml/kg/min)

After 8 weeks, the researchers found that Ashwagandha increased velocity, power and VO2 max, whereas Arjuna increased VO2 max and lowered resting systolic blood pressure.

When given in combination, the improvement was seen in all parameters except balance and diastolic blood pressure.

The increases in the measured parameters (in percentage) are as follows:

S.No.	Parameter measured	Change (in %)
1	Maximum Velocity	1.3%
2	Average Absolute Power	10.17%
3	Average Relative Power	9.16%
4	Balance	NIL
5	VO2 max	6.3%
6	Systolic blood pressure	4.3%
7	Diastolic blood pressure	Almost NIL

(You may want to cross-check my maths. The figures above may not be exact, but more or less bearable)

So what do these numbers mean for a runner? The numbers suggest that even though the increase in power (absolute and relative) is astonishing at approximately 10%, for a runner it translates into only a 1.3% increase in velocity while sprinting. However, if you consider the increase in VO2 max at 6.3% and Power at about 10% and reduction in systolic blood pressure at 4.3%, an endurance athlete would see a significant increase in performance.

The icing on the cake is that both Ashwagandha and Arjuna are quite cheap to purchase (online/offline) and extremely beneficial for residents of areas with a high level of pollution, which for an Indian will be almost everywhere in India.

I’m using the Ashwagandha and Arjuna combination (500 mg powder each) for the last two months and on some fast workouts, I do feel better, but that may be attributable to a placebo effect. Maybe if I could give up my occasional but voluntary smoke inhalation, periodic junk food binges, and frequent but useless calorie laden alcohol intake, I could be faster and stronger. Till then, I’ll just use the (extremely flawed and pathetic) self-love excuse and march forward with blinders. As Socrates said, "Excuses are like assholes. Everybody has one, and they all stink".

Carpe (Excuses-Excuses) Diem.

- Aman Yadav