Endurance Planet

Lexi Miller is a Colorado-based running coach and community manager at Lifelong Endurance. She previously worked in the mental health field, primarily with adults recovering from eating disorders (ED). On this show, we discuss the psychology of EDs, disordered eating and body dysmorphia, and particularly athletes suffering from one or more of these conditions. [...]

Welcome to episode 15 of Holistic Performance Nutrition (HPN) featuring Tawnee Gibson, MS, CSCS, CISSN, and Julie McCloskey, a certified holistic nutrition coach who you can find over at wildandwell.fit. On this episode: Anonymous asks: Is LCHF bad for bone health? Hi Tawnee and Julie. Long time listener and a few-times question writer— thanks for [...]

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Julian Abel, who spent his clinical life as a palliative care specialist doctor where he developed a special interest in compassionate communities, initially as part of supporting people undergoing experiences of death, dying, loss and caregiving. Over the last 4 years, he has worked with Frome Medical Practice [...]

A continuation of the clean living, non-toxic conversation. For previous shows leading up to today’s in-depth brand and product list, listen here: ATC 357: Non-Toxic Insanity, How to Keep Your Cool and Healthy Balance + Budget Around Clean Living OMM 11: Navigating ‘Non-toxic’ Part 1 Everything on our list can be found (ongoing, forever) at [...]

Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control year-round.

Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests!

So starting shopping with the best there is with Thorne—also over on our Shop page—and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast!

On this episode we have The Sock Doc, Dr. Steve Gangemi, joining us for one final episode as EP winds down. Steve is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness.

We are continuing our series, “When Things Don’t Go As Planned,” that dissects your health and injury issues that come up when you least want them and can negatively affect your training and race season–how to heal, prevent and overcome going forward of common (and not so common) issues that athletes face. Listen to No. 1 of the series here, and No. 2 here.

When Things Don’t Go As Planned

Part 1: Sciatica, Sciatic Pain—Or A Misdiagnosis?

• A lot of people think they have it but they really don’t.
• Pain in the glute or down hamstring doesn’t automatically mean sciatica.
• Sciatic nerve is really more from back of the knee down.
• Sensory innervations of the sciatic nerve is really only beyond the knee (distally–knee to foot), according to some research.
  • But this is debated and some disagree.
• Common to misdiagnose sciatic pain (when it’s in fact something else).
  • Sclerotogenous pain– this is a type of referred pain from lumbar spine/sacral area in the glute area or even hamstring that can get mixed up with sciatic pain.
  • Whereas sciatic pain is more like numbness, tingling, sharp-stinging-type pain all the way down into calf and foot
  • They both can come from lower back issues or piriformis, muscle imbalances, etc.
• If you do have sciatica—the #1 muscle involved is the piriformis muscle, in which the sciatic nerve can be in different places even going through this muscle in some people.
• Who is susceptible? What are contributing causes?
  • Whether it is sciatic or something else, a lot of the causes and treatments are similar; don’t get too wrapped up in terminology if the roots to healing are all similar.
  • Hormonal connection, i.e. sex hormones and stress hormones—muscles of pelvis can be affected when over-stressing the body in this way that leads to hormonal imbalances.
  • Those with better hormonal status have better core strength and thus likely to have better performance.
  • Or also an inflammatory condition or lack of offsetting inflammation in the body, including dietary stresses.
  • The role of biomechanics and form in all of this.
• Path to healing
  • Steps to healing will depend on the patient you may not need to dive into in-depth testing right away, and maybe you start with the mechanics and then see if influence with hormones.
  • Assess the person: some are more hormonal based and others more mechanic based.
  • Correlation between sciatica with menstrual cycle? Not so clear compared to hip pain for example.
• Trigger point therapy
  • No static stretching, usually just irritates things more (despite temporary pain relief).
  • Trigger point work in hip area: under the sacrum, piriformis muscle; ...