Search

Zhang Zhijie, a promising young athlete met a tragic end when he collapsed on the court during a tournament in Indonesia, succumbing to cardiac arrest. His untimely passing serves as a stark reminder for all of us. This event highlights the importance of recognizing when to pause and heed our bodies' signals. Time to unwind – listen to what your body needs In the competitive realm of sports and amidst the relentless pace of daily life, the drive to surpass our limits can often eclipse the crucial need for rest and recovery. It's therefore, crucial to simplify our routines and prioritize self-care by structuring our days to avoid rushing. Developing healthy habits demands our deliberate attention and effort. Downtime isn't merely a matter of physical rest, it encompasses mental and emotional rejuvenation as well. Finding the balance between challenge and caution. One should avoid pressuring themselves into overtraining as it can lead to detrimental effects on both physical and mental health. Overtraining occurs when individuals exceed their body's capacity to recover from exercise, leading to chronic fatigue, decreased performance, and increased risk of injury. Emphasizing a balanced approach to training, listening to one's body, and allowing adequate recovery time are essential for sustaining long-term fitness and enjoying the positive benefits of physical activity. Muscle fatigue, is often a result of intense physical exertion, as a result of strenuous activity. Commonly marked by muscle weakness, but may also manifest through various symptoms such as muscle twitching, soreness, shortness of breath, a weakened grip, muscle cramps, and localized pain. These signs indicate that muscles have been pushed to their limits and require rest plus recovery to prevent injury and promote well-being. In our introduction, we emphasized the importance of holistic health, and it's crucial to remember that every aspect of your wellness is interconnected. Let's make changes that benefit both our bodies and our hearts! Prolonged stress can lead to altered hormonal states, such as increased cortisol and disrupted testosterone levels. Poor sleep patterns and decreased immunity, affect recovery and increased susceptibility to illness. Recognizing these signs can help prevent burnout and support overall health. The Importance of Rest in Fitness Rest is crucial to any fitness routine because it allows the body to recover, repair, and grow stronger. Adequate rest between workouts helps prevent injuries by giving muscles, tendons, and ligaments time to heal. Here are some tips to ensure you stay healthy and strong: Avoid Cold Water Warm Down Stretch it Out Mind Your Nutrition Listen to Your Body

Gestures, postures and movements! These actions are all supported by our bones. It may not sound like a big deal, but bones give us mobility. Our bones are made up of living cells and like all other cells that we have, they need to be constantly repaired. Our body works hard to replace old and broken bones with new and healthy ones. This process is known as bone remodeling. It has been estimated that every 7 to 10 years, we get a new set of bones. Bone remodeling is a metabolic process that involves growth factors, hormones, and enzymes for bone development that replaces older bones with stronger bones in order to maintain the strength of the bone and mineral balance. Calcium - Building Blocks For Bone Calcium is an important nutrient necessary for cellular function, most often associated with healthy bones and teeth. It also plays an important role in blood clotting, helping muscles to contract, and regulating normal heart rhythms and nerve functions. About 99% of the body’s calcium is stored in bones, and the remaining 1% is found in blood, muscle, and other tissues. Women ages 18 to 50, and men ages 18 to 70, need 1,000 milligrams (mg) of calcium daily. The amount increases to 1,200 mg per day for women over the age of 50 and men over the age of 71. This equals two servings of calcium-rich foods, such as dairy or foods and beverages fortified with calcium. The amount of calcium consumed daily helps to form most of our bone mass to prevent bone loss, but it also needs support from Vitamin D3 for calcium absorption into the bloodstream, and Vitamin K2 to activate proteins that direct calcium into our skeleton. Vitamin K2 - Promotes Bone Health & Prevents Coronary Heart Diseases The two key proteins in Vitamin K2 function to build healthy bones and keep our arteries clean. Vitamin K2 is a fat-soluble vitamin found to complete calcium regulation in the body. It ensures calcium actually enters into the bones and teeth. This helps to prevent bone fractures and osteoporosis. It effectively promotes bone health and prevents coronary heart diseases. Osteocalcin deposits calcium into the bones while MGP prevents calcium from accumulating in arteries. It contains two building proteins known as Osteocalcin and Matrix-GLA Protein (MGP). Both proteins are Vitamin K-dependent that would require Vitamin K2 to activate both proteins to become biologically active. Actived Osterocalcin binds to calcium and deposits calcium into the bones and teeth. While Activated MGP ensures calcium doesn't accumulate and deposit in arteries and soft tissues. Without adequate Vitamin K2, said proteins are inactive and do not work, which will cause calcium to accumulate and deposits into blood vessels causing the hardening of blood vessels. This leads to blood flow impairment and various heart complications. It takes years to build strong bones and vice versa, it also takes years for the skeleton to be brittle and porous if there is insufficient bone-building material or an inefficient bone regulation process. However, when you have adequate Vitamin K2 intake, both Matrix Protein GLA (MPG) and Osteocalcin are being activated to perfectly synergise the actions of catch and insert free floating calcium out of your arteries, directly into your bones.

For as long as we can remember, calcium has been known as the key to maintaining bone health. Today, calcium is easily available in the form of dairy products followed by various leafy greens, seafood, legumes, certain fruits and last but not least – calcium supplements. Bone development occurs every day of our lives just like the way our skin sheds and grow new skin cells to replace them. Our bodies naturally remove (resorption) old bones and replace (absorption) them with new ones via a process called bone remodelling. Through this process, we get a new set of bones every 7 years. The pace of bone remodelling differs among individuals and gradually slows down with age. Resorption must balance absorption to prevent osteoporosis. This can be achieved with the help of calcium. Osteoporosis affects men and women of all races and is most commonly seen in women after menopause due to low levels of oestrogen. This leads to an increased risk of broken bones with various risk factors such as age, gender, family history, hormone levels and diet coming into play. The Calcium Paradox For the longest time, calcium was thought to be the answer to all bone health concerns until a recent study in 2011 shed light on contradicting results. It brought a whole new perspective on calcium’s regulation and function in the human body. The study found that women who took calcium to prevent osteoporosis are at higher risk of developing atherosclerosis, heart attack and stroke. Based on the study, for every bone fracture calcium supplementation prevents, it precipitates two potentially fatal cardiovascular disease events. What happens to our calcium needs now that the potential for heart diseases is revealed? What could be the missing link in protecting our heart and maintaining bone health at the same time? Vitamin K2: The Missing Link Vitamin K is often referred to as the “forgotten vitamin” because it is continually overshadowed by more well-known nutrients. This fat-soluble vitamin is essential in building strong bones and improving bone health as it serves as the biological “glue” that helps to plug calcium into your bone matrix. Since its discovery in the 1920s, Vitamin K has been classified into several types with K1 and K2 being the most prominent ones. Vitamin K1 plays a key role in helping the blood clot and is commonly found in green leafy vegetables. Vitamin K2 is a different cousin of the family that plays the crucial role of calcium regulation. Vitamin K2 is further divided into subtypes depending on the length of its molecular structure. Menaquinone (MK-7) is the natural form of vitamin K2’s subtype. It can only be found naturally in the Japanese delicacy natto. Short of consuming natto, our bodies lack this natural form of vitamin K2. This little vitamin, MK-7, has been creating sparks of interest as studies have shown that it helps improve bone density while preventing heart diseases by effectively depositing calcium where it belongs – in the bones and teeth. Without vitamin K2, calcium floats freely in the bloodstream and tends to deposit in the arteries, making them progressively stiffer and narrower (calcification). This impedes healthy blood flow to and from the heart. MK-7 activates bone-building proteins that are dormant in its absence. These proteins bind calcium to the bones and teeth as well as stop calcium from depositing in the arteries to prevent arterial calcification and heart disease. Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3 and Calcium: A Winning Combo If you take calcium and vitamin D for your bones, it’s also important that you get plenty of vitamin K2. These three nutrients have a synergistic effect that cannot be achieved when one piece of the puzzle is missing. Dietary calcium is linked to many benefits, especially bone health. That is why recommended daily intakes for calcium have been established. Vitamin D3, a natural form of Vitamin D, helps your body to absorb calcium, and vitamin K2 directs that calcium to your bones where it’s needed. You can think of vitamin D3 as the gatekeeper, controlling who gets in, and vitamin K2 as the traffic cop, directing the traffic to the right direction. In other words, without the help of vitamin K2, the calcium that vitamin D3 so effectively lets in might be working against you — by building up in your coronary arteries rather than your bones. Thus, calcium taken together with Vitamin D3 and Vitamin K2 may well be the solution necessary for bone health while circumventing the increased risk of heart disease.