• How'd he do that? Olympic sprinter breaks leg, keeps running

    Anja Niedringhaus / AP

    United States' Manteo Mitchell competes in a 4x400-meter relay heat during the athletics in the Olympic Stadium at the 2012 Summer Olympics, in London on Thursday. Manteo had half a lap to go in the first leg of the 4x400-meter relay preliminaries when he broke his leg, and was faced with a choice: keep running or stop and lose the race.

    By Lisa Flam

    He heard the break. He felt the pain. And he just wanted to lie down.

    But after he broke his leg during the semifinal round of the men’s Olympic 4 x 400 meter relay on Thursday, sprinter Manteo Mitchell kept on running, even though, he said, “It felt like somebody literally just snapped my leg in half.”

    “It’s impressive both because he’s dealing with pain as well as not having all of his parts in an optimal situation,” says Dr. Balu Natarajan, a sports medicine specialist in Chicago.

    He attributes Mitchell’s feat to a combination of the highly trained athlete’s fight-or-flight response to pain and the fact that the bone he broke in his lower left leg, the fibula, absorbs less shock and does less work than the other leg bones.

    “Part of it was that the fibula contributes less to weight bearing as opposed to the femur and tibia and part of it is that in that high-energy situation, he has enough adrenaline and endorphins kicking throughout his body that he’s feeling a lot less pain at that moment,” said Natarajan, who also serves on the medical team of the Chicago Marathon.

    Had the 25-year-old Mitchell broken his femur or tibia, it would have been nearly impossible for him to finish the race, he said. If a leg bone had to break, he was in a sense lucky it was the fibula.

    “If it’s a short enough distance and a high level enough athlete, even with a broken fibula, someone can finish the race,” Natarajan said.

    In a statement released through USA Track & Field, Mitchell said the roar of the crowd was so loud that nobody heard his “little war cry,” and he said he didn’t want to let his teammates down. Mitchell finished his heat in 46.1 seconds, only 1.5 seconds longer than the runner of the next leg; the U.S. qualified for the finals and finished in the fastest time ever run in the first round of the relay at the Olympics. On Friday, the U.S. team went on to win a silver medal, thanks in part to Mitchell's sacrifice.

    In a high-stakes event like the Olympics after years of training, athletes sometimes will stop at nothing, experts say.

    “There’s so much that’s tied into the psyche during a race like this, it really can override a lot of things we would feel outside of such a high energy situation,” Natarajan said. “If the same thing happened on training run and no one was around, he would very likely have stopped.”

    “Anybody who has trained for a particular event for four years, really they have one goal, and between that and the tremendous conditioning and excellent biomechanics, it’s really the perfect confluence of factors that might allow someone to overcome a break like this,” he said.

    Mitchell said he had slipped on the stairs a few days earlier, but had it checked out, felt fine and didn't think much of it. Mitchell’s strong finish in the race was a clear example of a top athlete’s ability to put mind over matter, says Frank Smoll, a professor of sport psychology at the University of Washington.

    “It’s a very good illustration of how highly motivated they are and their willingness to pursue and persist and play through pain, so that the importance of what they’re doing really outweighs the potential negative consequences, in this case, physical harm,” he said.

    “They’re highly dedicated athletes, they’re courageous, and they’re willing to, at their own self-sacrifice, give it their all,” Smoll said.

    The training Olympic athletes receive in "attention control," the ability to block out distractions like pain, helps them succeed, Smoll said, adding: “It’s not just the physical ability that makes the elite athletes but the mental preparation is what makes them excel.”

    The U.S. men's 4 x 400 relay team won a silver medal on Friday; Mitchell, who has been fitted with a boot and crutches, will receive a medal with the rest of the team.

    Related: 

    53 comments

    Show more
    Explore related topics: , ,

  • You've just won a gold medal! So why are you trying to eat it?

    Emmanuel Dunand / AFP - Getty Images

    Mmm, gold medal ... om nom nom. Team USA chomp on their medals after winning the women's team gymnastics final on July 31. From left to right, we have Mckayla Maroney, Kyla Ross, Alexandra Raisman, Gabrielle Douglas and Jordyn Wieber.

    By Meghan Holohan

    After medal-winning Olympians stand on the platform, receive their medals, and solemnly listen to the gold medal winner’s national anthem, they leave the stage and face an army of photographers. In front of the flashing lights, many winners grab their medals and take a bite.

    It takes years of grueling training and competition to nab gold at the Olympics. So why do the winners immediately chomp on their hard-earned prizes?

    The simple answer: Because the photographers ask them to, says David Wallechinsky, president of the International Society of Olympic Historians and author of “The Complete Book of the Olympics, via email.

    Related photos: Olympians biting their medals

    While Olympic historians aren’t sure which athlete started the trend, they believe the athletes nibble their prizes to test the metal. People once bit gold coins try to make an indent; a small tooth mark in a coin assured it consisted of real gold, which is more malleable than counterfeit gold-plated lead coins. 

    “We know that only in 1912 the gold medals were real gold and that in all later Olympics the gold medals were made from silver with a gilt layer to show it as being gold,” explains Tony Bijkerk, secretary-general of the International Society of Olympic Historians via email. The 2012 medals contain 1.34 percent of gold, making it one of the biggest medals.

    Um, how do we break this to you, Team USA? You didn't actually win gold

    “Unfortunately, the gold layer sometimes had a tendency to fade over the years. Fanny Blankers-Koen, the heroine of the 1948 Olympics in London, who was a good friend of mine, once told me that she had to have her four gold medals re-gilded two times over the years.” (Blankers-Koen was a 30-year-old mother of two who medaled in running events, helping to prove women could be as athletic as men.)

    Even though the medal isn’t solid gold, Bijkerk suspects that Olympians could make a mark in the medal, depending on how hard they bite. And some really sink their teeth into their prizes. At the 2010 Winter Olympics, German luger, David Moeller, who won a silver medal, broke his tooth while mugging for cameras and showing off his bite.

    Psychologist Frank Farley believes that medalists bite their medals because, at this point, it’s what winning Olympians do.

    “Sports all have their eccentricities,” says Farley, a professor from Temple University in Philadelphia and former president of the American Psychological Association. “If you want to be part of the winning zeitgeist, that winning culture, you participate in that winning practice.”

    But he believes that medal biting is more than Olympians simply acting like winners. “It makes your medals yours,” Farley says. “It’s an emotional connection with your accomplishment.”

    And even if the Olympians do indent their medals, it makes the prize individual; bite imprints are as unique as the swirls on our digits.

    “The concept of the icon, something representing something else, is pretty deep in all of us. In the Olympics, they have a twist on it; it’s like imprinting [yourself] there for all of time.”

    Anthony Quintano / NBC News

    Ah, the sweet taste of victory! U.S. swimmer Ricky Berens takes a bite of his gold and silver medals on the TODAY set in London.

    Related:

    Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

  • Usain Bolt could run even faster, new report argues

    By Emily Sohn
    Discovery Channel

    With his current world record of 9.58 seconds in the 100-meter dash and a top speed of more than 27 miles per hour, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt has already defied many expectations of how fast human legs can go.

    Yet, without much effort, Bolt could run even faster, according to new calculations. With a few slight but still-legal boosts from tailwinds, altitude and a better reaction time at the start, argues Cambridge University mathematician John Barrow, Bolt could easily clock in at 9.45.

    NEWS: Would Humans Beat Neanderthals?

    And while elite athletes will likely run even faster than that some day, no one can say for sure how fast people will eventually go -- or if we’ll ever see a sprinter finally reach the limits of the human body.

    “There will be an ultimate limit, but just because there’s a limit mathematically, that doesn’t mean you’ll ever reach it,” said Barrow, author of Mathletics: A Scientist Explains 100 Amazing Things About the World of Sports. “You can draw a curve that’s always increasing, but never goes higher than the particular level where it’s bounded.”

    VIDEO: How safe it is for runners to push their bodies to the limits?

    Bolt surprised the running world when he broke the 100m record in the spring of 2008, partly because the top times had been stagnant for years. At 6 feet, 5 inches tall, Bolt also seemed too big to be a sprinter. By 2009, he had lowered the record from 9.74 to 9.58 -- a dramatic drop for such a short distance.

    As speculation circulated about how fast Bolt might eventually go, Barrow started doing some basic calculations, focusing on three simple factors that are known to affect sprinting speed. He started with Bolt’s notoriously slow reaction time to the starting gun.

    Under official rules, runners are called on false starts if they leave the starting blocks less than 0.1 seconds after the signal sounds. The best starters are consistently off and running after about 0.12 seconds. If Bolt could get his sluggish start time of 0.165 -- the second slowest in the final heat at the Beijing Olympics -- down to 0.12 and still run at his top speed, Barrow said, that alone would lower his record to 9.55.

    With a maximum allowable tailwind of two meters (6.6 feet) per second on top of an improved start time, Barrow calculated with known relationships between wind, drag and running speed, the sprinter could lower his record to 9.5.

    Finally, Barrow considered what would happen if Bolt ran at an altitude of 1,000 m (3,280 feet), the highest allowable elevation for running records to count. At that height, the density of air is low enough to reduce drag and facilitate another drop in speed. If he also started well and had a tailwind, altitude would give Bolt the ability to run a 9.47.

    As for actual running technique, studies have shown that the most important factor driving sprinting performance is how hard runners can hit the ground in relation to their body weight, said Peter Weyand, a physiologist and biomechanist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

    NEWS: Are Tour de France Riders the Fittest?

    The amount of time people spend in the air between foot strikes doesn’t matter much, Weyend said. Neither does the speed with which they cycle their legs around. Instead, elite sprinters produce vertical forces that are as much as five times greater than their body weight. That propels them upwards like a spring, while momentum carries them foreword.

    Scientists still don’t know how the fastest runners generate ground forces as high as 1,000 pounds. And even though studies have connected certain body shapes and running styles with speed, it’s always possible that everything will be different once people start running faster than they ever have before.

    “We can figure out what the relationships are that allow people to run fast, what the important factors are and where the limits are from the standpoint of experience,” Weyand said. “Once you move outside the range of data, you have no way of knowing if those relationships are going to break down. Any relationship you have within a given range doesn’t necessarily hold at the extremes.”

    Compared to distance running, very little is known about the detailed physiology of elite sprinting, added Michael Joyner, an exercise researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. What’s almost certain, though, is that someone will eventually run faster than Usain Bolt.

    In fact, at least two runners may have already unofficially beat Bolt’s pace. In the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, for one, American sprinter Bob Hayes was clocked with a handheld stopwatch at 8.5 seconds in the final leg of the 4 x 100 relay. And last season, Bolt’s teammate Yohan Blake ran the second fastest ever 200m with a time of 19.26 and a dismally slow reaction time at the start of 0.269. Taking all that into account, Barrow figured, Blake’s 100m split would’ve been 9.495 -- faster than Bolt’s current record.

    Generally, times for the 100m tend to stagnate for five, 10 or 15 years before someone chips off another tenth or two-tenths of a second, Joyner said. He suspects that, a decade from now, the next top sprinter will lower the record to 9.4 or so. Beyond that, the future of sprinting is anyone's guess.

    “Every time we say there’s a limit, someone goes faster,” Joyner said. “Who knows what that is?” 

    Related: 

    No sex necessary: Women have orgasms at the gym

    Heart attack? Nope, just a spin class

    When marathon runners leave a toenail behind

    Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

  • No sex necessary: Women have orgasms at the gym, study shows

    By Jeanna Bryner
    LiveScience

    Women may not need a guy, a vibrator, or any other direct sexual stimulation to have an orgasm, finds a new study on exercise-induced orgasms and sexual pleasure.

    The findings add qualitative and quantitative data to a field that has been largely unstudied, according to researcher Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University. For instance, Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues first reported the phenomenon in 1953, saying that about 5 percent of women they had interviewed mentioned orgasm linked to physical exercise. However, they couldn't know the actual prevalence because most of these women volunteered the information without being directly asked.

    Since then, reports of so-called "coregasms," named because of their seeming link to exercises for core abdominal muscles, have circulated in the media for years, according to the researchers.

    "Despite attention in the popular media, little is known scientifically about exercise-induced orgasms," the researchers write in a special issue of the journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy released in print this month. [5 Myths About Women's Bodies] 

    Herbenick and her colleagues used online surveys to gather their data, which included answers from 124 women who had experienced exercise-induced orgasms and 246 women who reported exercise-induced sexual pleasure. Most of the women, ages 18 to 63 and an average age of 30, were in a relationship or married and 69 percent said they were heterosexual.

    The researchers found that about 40 percent of both groups of women had experienced exercise-induced pleasure or orgasm on more than 11 occasions in their lives. Most of the women in the "orgasm" group said they felt some level of embarrassment when exercising in public places.

    The "orgasm" group mostly said during the experiences they weren't having a sexual fantasy or thinking about someone they were attracted to.

    Of the women who had orgasms during exercise, about 45 percent said their first experience was linked to abdominal exercises; 19 percent linked to biking/spinning; 9.3 percent linked to climbing poles or ropes; 7 percent reported a connection with weight lifting; 7 percent running;  the rest of the first-time experiences included various exercises, such as yoga, swimming, elliptical machines, aerobics and others. Exercise-induced sexual pleasure was linked with more types of exercises than the orgasm phenomenon.

    Answers to open-ended questions in the survey revealed some interesting details, the researchers found. For instance, the abdominal exercises tied to orgasms seemed to be particularly associated with the exercise in which a person supports their weight on their forearms on a so-called captain's chair with padded arm rests and then lifts their knees toward their chest.

    The open-ended questions also revealed the orgasms tended to occur after multiple sets of crunches or some other abdominal exercise rather than after just a couple repetitions; they also seemed to happen after the woman had really exerted herself.

    "Many of these women talked about it happening even as children," Herbenick said during a telephone interview, adding that some indicated an experience at age 7 or 8.

    "We had at least one woman in the study who was a virgin, and she really loved that she could have these experiences at the gym," Herbenick said. [10 Surprising Sex Statistics]

    The researchers aren't sure why certain exercises lead to orgasm or sexual pleasure, though Herbenick hopes to tease out the trigger in ongoing research.

    "It may be that exercise, which is already known to have significant benefits to health and well-being, has the potential to enhance women's sexual lives as well," Herbenick said, adding that it isn't clear whether these exercises could actually enhance women's sexual experiences.

    The research has various implications regarding women's sexuality. For one, orgasm and sexual desire have topped women's list of sex concerns, with around one out of four women not reaching orgasm during sex. The researchers suggest "it may be that physical exercise has been overlooked in clinical approaches to women's orgasm."

    Second, scientists have long debated the evolutionary context of the female orgasm and its link to sexuality and reproduction. However, if many women are experiencing orgasm during exercises not related to sex, then exercise-induced orgasm may reveal what orgasm does and does not have to do with sex or reproduction, the researchers note. [G-Spot: Science Can't Find It]

    In addition, exercise-induced orgasms may be one way for scientists, and women themselves, to learn about the process of orgasm. "It may be one way for women to learn more about how their bodies work in that regard," Herbenick said.

    As for how other scientists may react to the finding: "I think from having talked with colleagues, while some people have heard of these [exercise-induced orgasms], many of our colleagues haven't either," Herbenick told LiveScience. "So I think that's going to be interesting," seeing the reaction. She added that some might question, "'Is this a tooth fairy type of thing or does it really happen?' I have no doubt that it happens."

    More from LiveScience:

    More from The Body Odd:

    Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

  • Heart attack? Nope, just a spin class

    By Andrew Winner

     For anyone who has felt like their heart might explode after a spin class, the truth might not be that far off -- biochemically speaking, that is. New research out of Sweden has shown an hour of spinning triggers the same biochemical reactions as a heart attack. 

    Research from the University of Gothenburg has shown that spin workouts and other forms of strenuous exercise can secrete the same enzymes into the bloodstream as a heart attack, increasing the possibility of a misdiagnosis. The results will be published in the Scandinavian Cardiovascular Journal.

    According to study author Smita DuttaRoy, any manner of taxing physical exertion can cause a similar increase in cardiac biomarkers, including marathon running, triathlons and long-distance bike rides. However, the effect is probably as natural as it is harmless, and enzyme levels generally move back down to baseline levels within 24 hours.

    Nevertheless, doctors and emergency personnel should be aware of the link between these cardiac biomarkers, as they are known, when making diagnoses and initiating treatments.

    “We haven't studied whether elevated cardiac enzyme levels post-exercise are dangerous, however we don't have any reasons to believe that these levels suggest any actual damage to the heart,” DuttaRoy wrote in an e-mail. “The pattern of cardiac enzyme level elevation post-exercise with a quick normalization (within 24 hours), is different from a heart attack, where the cardiac enzymes often stay elevated for days.” 

    “The increase in troponin we found after a spinning session most probably demonstrates a physiological response to exercise that we have now been able to show,” she added.

    DuttaRoy’s study put ten healthy people, average age of 30, through a one-hour spin workout. Simple blood tests were done before the session, one hour after the session, and again 24 hours later. The tests showed elevated levels of the cardiac biomarker troponin T, with two participants surpassing the threshold routinely used for heart attacks. A key different is that the levels went back to normal one day later, whereas heart attack victims can see their troponin T levels stay raised for several days after the event.

    In a healthy heart, troponins are involved in the contraction of the heart muscle.

    What’s the best course of action? DuttaRoy advises disclosing any recent physical activity to your care provider when being treated for chest pains. It’s possible that an elevated number of cardiac biomarkers could cause a misdiagnosis.

    “People should seek medical advice if they have chest pain, no matter if it is following exercise, rest or other activities,” DuttaRoy cautioned. “However, the attending physicians should be aware of that troponins can be elevated following strenuous exercise and should take that in account when assessing the patient.”

    Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

  • When marathon runners leave a toenail behind

    Carolyn Kaster / AP

    You wouldn't believe how many of these guys are missing toenails. Taken at the Marine Corps Marathon in Arlington, Va., Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010.

    By Niki Reading

    A few weeks before her first marathon, Kristel Crame bought a trendy purple polish to cover her toenails, one of which she'd bruised on a long training run.

    But as she started her at-home pedicure, "I noticed a toenail seemed a bit loose. It seemed like the bottom part was connected and the top part was all lifted up," she said. Even stranger: A new, normal toenail was growing underneath the unhinged one.

    This month, as runners across the country put the finishing touches on their marathon-training regime, thousands will share the experience of losing a toenail. Also known as "black toenail" and "runner's toe," it's a harmless occurrence, according to Dr. Marybeth Crane, a Texas podiatrist and board certified foot surgeon who has run dozens of marathons and triathlons over the past 32 years.

    For many runners, when the old-and-busted toenail falls off, they find what seems to be a "backup toenail" underneath. But we don't actually  have replacement toenails waiting in the wings: When a toenail is bruised, it stops growing but stays attached.

    "We actually have matrix cells in the nail bed, that's where the new toenail comes from, and it literally pushes off the old one" as it grows, Crane explains. The dead toenail stays on to protect the sensitive skin.

    Nail bruises can be caused by anything from ill-fitting shoes and socks to a plodding stride or hammer toes. Even perfectly fitted shoes can be a problem: Over the course of a marathon, feet can swell half a size or more.

    Crane calls black toenails "one of life's minor annoyances" that can be avoided by keeping toenails clipped, buying long-distance shoes a half-size large and ensuring the toe box accommodates your foot properly.

    Though losing a toenail poses no harm, Crane has two important cautions. First: No bathroom surgery. "All of the Internet is going to tell you to light a match on a needle and stick it under the toenail" to drain the bruise. Do that and you’ll likely get an infected, swollen toe that needs medical attention.

    Second: If your toenail develops a dark line that does not grow out or disappear, see a doctor right away. "There is a very rare form of melanoma that will happen underneath the toenail" that can be deadly if left untreated.

    With all her expertise and precautions, even Crane has lost a few toenails over her decades-long running career: Four, actually. As for Crame -- the runner -- she now coaches beginning marathoners in Seattle, making sure to school them on the art of losing a toenail.

    Are you a distance runner who's in mourning over a lost toenail? Do tell. 

    Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

  • Plastic surgeon wants to fix your 'runner's face'

    Getty Images Stock

    Clearly, she's embarrassed to turn around, lest we see her "runner's face."

    By Melissa Dahl, NBC News

    Runners, beware. A New Jersey cosmetic surgeon has pinpointed something  more nefarious than shin splints, stress fractures and even dead butt syndrome: "runner's face." 

    This is what Dr. Brian S. Glatt, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New Jersey, calls that skinny, Skeletor-esque look some dedicated runners may unwittingly develop, as they're likely distracted with all the miles they have to cover to prepare for their next race. Glatt describes the horrors thusly, in a press release issued today:

    Runner’s face generally occurs in both men and women ages 40+ who exercise to improve their body, and in doing so end up with a skeletal and bony face. When exercising, an athlete burns off fat beneath the layers of his/her skin. The marked loss of fatty tissue results in a loss of volume which leads to a prominent appearance of the bones, accelerated development of skin laxity and deepening of wrinkles. Though you may look like a 20-year-old from the neck down—your face will easily give away your age.

    Full disclosure: I ran my first marathon in June, and I definitely did get that hollow-cheek look described in the release. (Although I'm 26, not 40-plus.) So Glatt kind of has a point, allows Dr. Tony Youn, a Michigan-based cosmetic surgeon and frequent contributor to msnbc.com. 

    "The general idea is that the leaner we are, the less fat we have in our face," says Youn. "One of the signs of facial aging is loss of facial volume. So losing weight or becoming very lean (like many runners are) can cause the face to look older."

    "Runners face" is a cutesy, catchy term, but Youn points out this idea could apply to anyone who is thin for a variety of reasons -- playing a lot of sports, excessive dieting or anorexia, or genetics. And, Youn helpfully points out, rigorous exercise isn't the only thing contributing to aging -- sun damage does a fine job of that on its own. 

    Glatt suggests a Botox-Restylane (or other injectable filler) combo, which will smooth wrinkles and plump that gaunt face right back up. Youn says the treatments in Glatt's anti-runners face arsenal would certainly work.

    "That being said, I've never told someone to stop running so they could look younger," Youn says. "That's just silly."

    What say you, readers? Is the old adage true -- do you really have to choose between your bum and your face? And, if that's true -- which would you choose? A fit, fierce body, or a youthful face? 

     

    Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

  • Running a marathon can break your butt

    By Melissa Dahl, NBC News

    Earlier today, Geoffrey Mutai ran the fastest marathon ever recorded -- the Kenyan man finished the race in an incredible 2 hours, 3 minutes and 2 seconds. (Update: Mutai's record-breaker won't be recognized, because today's racers were helped by an unusually strong tailwind.) Including Mutai, about 27,000 runners took over the streets of Boston today, racing in the 115th edition of the oldest annual marathon on the planet -- and after months of hard training, many have surely sustained a running-related injury.

    STR / Reuters

    Elite men runners start the 115th running of the Boston Marathon in Hopkinton, Mass., today.

    In fact, injuries occur in 40 to 50 percent of runners every year, shows a 2010 study published in the journal Current Sports Medicine Reports. You've heard of shin splints, stress fractures and runners' knee -- but the weirdest injury we've heard of has to be "dead butt syndrome."

    The silly "dead butt" nickname was made popular this winter when a New York Times blogger dramatically declared, "My butt is dead." Not nearly as hilarious as it sounds, the medical term for "dead butt syndrome" is gluteus medius tendinosis -- basically, one of the muscles that make up your behind becomes inflamed, causing searing hip pain.

    The gluteus medius is located on the outer surface of the pelvis, and it powers the thighs forward. Without proper strength training, this muscle is unable to withstand the repetitive stress caused by the long runs that training for a half marathon or anything longer requires.

    To beginner marathon runners, all the miles you're expected to log is daunting enough -- and the pros want you to add another exercise on top of that? But it's important to strengthen the lower abdominal muscles and the gluteus muscles -- otherwise, smaller muscles like the gluteus medius muscle end up too weak to bear the brunt of the increasingly ridiculous distances you're running. It's a reminder to runners that when training for a half marathon or longer, just running won't cut it; some kind of cross-training -- whether it's strength-training, swimming, biking, rowing or something else -- is necessary. Keep that butt alive!

    You can find The Body Odd on Facebook, and follow Melissa Dahl @melissadahl.

    Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.