My caffe latte I, er, occasionally grab after a tough run or a strength workout at the gym may actually be a better recovery drink than I joked about in a previous post. In a full milk latte you’re looking at around 10g protein, 225 calories and 5g of fat. Fat’s a good thing for endurance athletes these days, by the way (Joe Friel on weight loss, Dietary fat & endurance athletes – active.com). The caffeine’s pretty helpful too, if not for the improved muscle glycogen uptake effects then for helping you concentrate on work when tired.
There have also been some studies with milk itself as a recovery drink: Poweringmuscles.com – Got Milk in Your Squeeze Bottle? There’s some debate about dairy vs non-dairy foods, as animal-derived products tend to have all the bad fats, but remind yourselves of the general contents of various dairy products (weightlossresources.co.uk – calories in eggs and dairy) and milk, eggs and yoghurt look like important parts of a balanced diet for us athletes that are struggling to get all the protein we need.
So between a powdered recovery drink and a grande latte, I’d rather pay for the latte. Simpler usually means its more likely to happen too.
Girls 5 Up
Oh dear, I hear that the Girls are now 5-0 up on the Boys in the embryology lecture series quiz. The scores were very, very close again today at the end of the respiratory tract lecture. Thanks Jo, for keeping the series going.
Boys, what have you got to do to win the next 5 quizzes?
LG GD910 Watch Phone on Orange?
Gizmodo report on rumours that Orange will be selling the LG watch phone for £1,000. My contract is due for renewal next month too.
Gizmodo link.
Teaching & Research
Teaching and research in universities. We do both, but which is most respected? Which is most important? Are the answers to these questions different for someone who teaches medicine?
The Science of the Invisible blog notes the results of the latest Higher Education Academy reward and recognition survey, and includes some depressing comments and observations for people like me.
Read the full blog entry: Research=Promotion. Teaching= ?
Wired: These Toes Were Made for Running
Short toes are much better for running. I’m not talking about people with particularly short toes, but it may explain more about the evolution of our feet and why our toes are so much shorter than chimps’.
A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology studies the importance of this and Wired spoke to the authors. “Humans are well-adapted for endurance running. That’s much of what makes the human body what it is,” said Lieberman. “We’re actually terrible sprinters, but the world’s best long-distance runners.”
“According to study co-author and Harvard University anthropologist Daniel Lieberman, many modern anatomical features make sense in the context of savannah marathons. Achilles tendons act as springs to store energy. Our hind limbs have extra-large joints. Our buttocks muscles are perfect for stabilization, as are regions of the brain uniquely sensitive to the physical pitching generated by the motion of running.”
“Toes may belong to this class of adaptations.”
Read the full Wired article. I’m off on my toes.
Jack: future Marvel artist?
Kids & tech part 2
Given my previous post, the flipside of children being so involved in technology is that they have no idea how delicate or expensive it can be. Apart from getting an Apple TV that I can stow away somewhere and sticking speakers on walls I’ve been put off buying any decent technology for the house.
My Logitech universal remote (if I can find it) is chewed, bashed & one of the main buttons is broken, it’s hard to watch the home theatre PC because the baby likes to press the off button, speakers and furniture are accruing dents, the Wiimotes and accessories bounce very well but I feel they won’t bounce forever, the plasma tv is covered in sticky fingerprints, we were paying Sky for crappy on-TV games until I found out and password-protected extra features, DVDs are hidden away in boxes in cupboards, and furniture has been rearranged to stop babies getting to cables.
The future of family tech is KISS (keep it simple stupid), robust and discrete. I’m thinking small Apple things that I can hide and tough little speakers I can bolt to walls. And maybe some cleaning robots to chase around. The “don’t touch that” principle isn’t worth a damn, and kid-proof needs to be thought about with each purchase.
What I will do is slowly plan my perfect home theatre system to build in the future. In the bedroom of the first one to leave home.
Kids & tech
Jack has been drawing his own comics and reading some of the new Ironman stuff. The comics ask for kids to draw Marvel characters & send them in. So Jack drew a great collection of characters, from Ben Grimm to the Hulk. I’ll stick it up here or on Flickr.
Jack suggested that we scan the drawing and email it in. He’s 6 and his first instinct was to stick it in the scanner, attach it to an email and send it to the publisher. Forget writing a letter and sticking it in an envelope, that’s what they did in the Stone Age.
And did I mention that he regularly beats me on Mario Kart Wii? I’m losing pace and probably only just keeping up.
Recovery drink
Is a grande latte the ideal recovery drink post-gym? It has caffeine, sugar & protein. It also has a fair bit of fat, and probably not enough of the other bits, so maybe not. It helps me think during my first meetings of the day though!
Ironman rocket
Fun in the park!