Brief Reflections on Attending 3rd International Physical Therapy Conference & 4th Physical Ther
Being a PhD student and attending seminars, conferences, workshops and any knowledge sharing and networking events are inseparable. Focusing in the area of Physical Therapy Education in Thailand is quite challenging for me to get network of experts as this area of research is not that trending here. But showing your interests and sharing your ideas with experts in different field of Physical Therapy research could give you the chances that you might need to expend your horizon and to increase the visibility in the field where you are researching.
By having that idea, I decided to attend this conference with the theme “Stiffening of Joints and Hardening of Arteries: What Can Exercise Do for Us?” Keynote speaker was a Professor Dr. Hirofumi Tanaka from the department of Kinesiology & Health Education, the University of Texas at Austin. Before I start portraying what I have learnt from the conference, first, I would like to thank to Faculty of Physical Therapy, Mahidol University for giving me the chance to attend this conference free of charge.
What literally inspired me was that the speakers kept beating my deep rooted wrong perceptions in exercise with the profound evidences and facts. Let me share you a bit what I have learnt here.
Fact 1: In the exercise prescription components, we are taught or encouraged to do warm up before exercise and cool down after exercise, right? We literally had no idea why we are doing so but we were told it could prevent injury, muscle soreness and it could improve your muscles flexibility. In reality check, stretching before and after exercising does not confer protection from muscle soreness and stretching before exercise does not seem to confer a practically useful reduction in the risk of injury (Herbert et al. Brit Med J.).
Fact 2: Warm-up reduced perceived muscle soreness 48 hours after exercise on the visual analogue scale but cool-down had no apparent effect. Warm-up performed immediately prior to unaccustomed eccentric exercise produces small reductions in delayed-onset muscle soreness but cool-down performed after exercise does not. (Law & Herbert. J Physiother.).
Fact 3: How much exercise should we do? 1975: 20 min/day 3 days/week (American College of Sports Medicine), 1995: 30 min on most if not all days of the week (Surgeon General), 2002/2005: 60 min of daily moderate physical activity (Institute of Medicine) and any guesses for now?
Fact 4: Blood Flow: Endurance Vs Resistance training. Vascular blood flow and vascular conductance in healthy person is reduced when you get older and it is explained by age-related changes in sympathetic a-adrenergic vasoconstrictor. With the endurance training, study showed blood flow differences between young and older are the same as sedentary persons while in young person, vascular conductance could be increased with endurance training but not in older one (Dinenno et al. J Physiol.2001). Compare with resistance training, both blood flow and vascular conductance in both young and older are increased significantly (Miyachi et al. J Appl Physiol. 2005).
Fact 5: What about vascular stiffness and resistance training? Resistance training could reduce the vascular compliance but it could goes up once the training stopped (Miyachi et al. Circulation.110:2858-,2005). So here’s the question we have to ask; ‘how to prevent arterial stiffening associated with resistance training?’ The answer could be “Cross-training” i.e. a combination of endurance and resistance training. And mild to moderate intensity resistance training (Cook et al. am J Physical. 290: H1596-,2006). Men who trained with weights for 30 minutes or more per week had a 23% risk reduction compared with men who did not train with weight. (Tanasescu M et al, JAMA.2002).
When we talk about arterial stiffening and de-stiffening, we need to know two factors that determine the arterial compliance/stiffness; Structural and Functional components. Structural components: elastin and collagen composition, thining/fraying of elastin fibers, modification of collagen cross-linking, arterial wall calcification, etc and Functional components: sympathetic vasoconstrictor tone, endothelial function, endotheliln-1, vaso vasorum, angiotensin II, etc. The causative factors of arterial stiffening are aging, hypertension, diabetes, lifestyle and genetics. The de-stiffening therapy would be lifestyle modifications, pharmacological therapy and habitual exercises.
Fact 6: So what about the effect of exercise training on arterial compliance? Exercise training could change the functional components of de-stiffening process but not significant in structural changes.
I must say that I really had a great time there and worth spending three days in the conference. I believe that I equipped with updated evidences and new knowledge that I can’t have anyway by learning myself in such a short period. And yeah I have got new friends as well.
