Solomon's Seal may reduce DOMS

Update 6/12/14: My normal hamstring function has returned.

Following the halting of administration the returning soreness in the hamstrings has resolved itself. Since the last update I have realized that this soreness can be described as having the sensation stretching a cramping muscle. Now that my muscle feels normal I am restarting with exercising and administration of Solomon's Seal at much reduced dosing. I will report back when I can confirm or deny the effective of this treatment in rehabilitating my long lasting tendon issues.

Update 5/27/14: I am reporting a further update that upon halting administration of Solomon's Seal the muscular soreness returns.

I stopped taking the tincture yesterday to see what would happen. Up until that point, my hamstrings were functional but had a lingering stiffness sensation. Today my hamstrings are sore again although the sensation feels blunt compared to normal. This leads me to suspect that in this case the tinctures action was anti-inflammatory and may not have been beneficial for muscular healing. On the other hand, my strength on the gripper and pullup exercises were significantly improved compared to normal over the past week. More experimentation with lower doses will be needed to confirm its effects.


Update 5/24/14: I am reporting that my delayed onset muscular soreness (DOMS) seems to have been cut short:

• Tuesday (5/20/14) afternoon, I went to the gym after my normal routine I decided to try a ladder set on the glute-ham machine without having touched the thing for at least six months (very foolish, I know).
• Wednesday, my hamstrings were slightly sore.
• Thursday, I was experiencing full-blown hamstring DOMS; If I were to do a straight-leg hamstring stretch,  my hip angle would have maxed out at ~160° on account of the pain. I had just received the tincture in the mail so I started taking it that night.
• Friday, my hamstrings were still very sore so I did some light walking (1mph for ~1hr) on the treadmill and continued taking the tincture throughout the day and by midnight I had recovered most of my range of motion (~130°).
• Saturday (today), the soreness is almost gone and I am can stretch my hamstrings to ~90° which is close to my normal range of motion.

When I normally experience severe DOMS, it normally peaks on day two (after the workout), lasting for 2-3 days and tapers off over the remainder of the week. On this occasion, it peaked on day two, but lasted for only 1.5 days and and tapered off by day four.

To be clear, I usually do not use light exercise to accelerate the recovery process and when I have it usually helps with the soreness. Additionally, I did eat lentil soup on Friday which contained various potentially beneficial spices including turmeric, ginger, and garlic. Still, the reduction in DOMS was very dramatic therefore I tentatively attribute this to the Solomon's Seal + Horsetail tincture.

The question that remains is whether this reduction in soreness is due to accelerated healing, anti-inflammatory action, or both (as observed in reference 1). Two indicators for the healing hypothesis are increased strength gains and resistance to injury; I will keep an eye out for these as my training continues.

Update 5/27/14: I am reporting a further update that upon halting administration of Solomon's Seal the muscular soreness returns.

I stopped taking the tincture yesterday to see what would happen. Up until that point, my hamstrings were functional but had a lingering stiffness sensation. Today my hamstrings are sore again although the sensation feels blunt compared to normal. This leads me to suspect that in this case the tinctures action was anti-inflammatory and may not have been beneficial for muscular healing. On the other hand, my strength on the gripper and pullup exercises were significantly improved compared to normal over the past week. More experimentation with lower doses will be needed to confirm its effects.

1. Thaloor, D., Miller, K. J., Gephart, J., Mitchell, P. O., & Pavlath, G. K. (1999). Systemic administration of the NF-κB inhibitor curcumin stimulates muscle regeneration after traumatic injury. American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology, 277(2), C320-C329.

Testing Solomon's Seal for Tendon/Ligament Issues

Over the past couple months I have experienced discomfort in several connective tissues including the left ankle, left knee, left shoulder, left elbow. Given the unusual pattern of occurrence, these issues are probably due to some systemic physiological dysfunction. The only treatment that noticibly improves the discomfort is resistance exercise which improves the local sensations for about 1-2 weeks. I have not found that drinking Heteropterys aphrodisiaca infusions has positive effects although this is inconclusive because it was not taken on a highly consistent basis.


The lack of efficacy with H. aphrodisiaca has motivated me to try an alternative herbal treatment known as Solomon's Seal because of its claimed restorative effects on tendons and ligaments. I have purchased a small amount of Solomon's Seal tincture, an alcoholic extract of the herb Polygonatum biflorum, and I plan on taking it for the next month or so. I will report after I observe the results.

A reminder of the importance of natural body movements

For the past couple months, I had been making good progress getting back to the one arm pullup using main workout that involved alternative negative chins (two arms up, one arm down slow) and a high rep burnout set after to promote blood flow and to increase the range of stimuli on the muscle. I was progressing fine with no injuries until I had to go and throw in some heavy shoulder external rotations for no good reason. Suffice it to say, I am recovering from some shoulder pains.

Similar situation occurred with my squatting. I was making good progress with my back squats in the gym so after about a month of doing them, I started doing maximal vertical box jumps. Suffice it to say, I am recovering from some foot pains.

I am determined to be intelligently conservative with what exercises I will do. In addition to starting any new exercises slowly (at least three months of habituation at light to moderate effort), I will choose only to perform functional movements which I can foresee evolutionary ancestors having performed. Because they are movements that our ancestors most likely performed regularly, they would have evolutionarily selected for anatomical robustness or resistance to injury. I usually picture these not exercises but activities, for instance:

• Rock climbing
• Running and jumping
• Quadrapedal movements
• Deadlift and carry variations

I think that even with these constraints some people may experience exercise related injuries due to individual physiological and anatomical variations, though I suspect most of these movements probably have lower risks of injury compared to repetitive unvarying exercises. To make these even more in line with natural functional activities I will reduce predesignated rep-set-day schemes to qualitative feels. Rather than counting the number of repetitions I will keep track of time and exertion and adjust the workload according to how my body is responding.

Comparison of Heteropterys aphrodisiaca extraction methods with HPLC

The Heteropterys aphrodisiaca (Ha) root was extracted water, water with heating at 95C for 20min, and 1:1 ethanol-water at 93.33mg/mL. All mixes were sonicated for 2min. The samples were centrifuged at 21130rcf for 8min and the supernatant was analyzed with HPLC-PDA.

HPLC conditions

Column: Phenomenex Luna 5u C18(2) 100A, 250x4.60mm 5micron

Guard column: Phenomenex KrudKatcher Disposable Pre-Column C₁₈, 5mm, 4.6x20 mm

Injection volume: 25uL

Detection: 254nm

Flow rate: 1mL/min

Gradient condition:

Time (min)	Flow (mL/min)	1% acetic acid in water (%)	Acetonitrile (%)
0	1.00	95	5
2	1.00	95	5
33	1.00	5	95
35	1.00	5	95
36	1.00	95	5
46	1.00	95	5
47	0.00	95	5

Heteropterys aphrodisiaca HPLC chromatograms detected at 254nm forextracts with water, water at 95C for 20min, and 1:1 ethanol-water. A 0-35min, B 8-18min.

 A

 

B

The areas of the major peaks between 8-18min of both water extracts were compared to understand the effect of each treatment on the extraction efficiency. All of the major peak areas increased except the peak at 14.61min increased indicating that the extraction was more effective; the decrease in the component at 14.61min was probably due to thermal degradation.

Heteropterys aphrodisiaca HPLC 254nm chromatogram

The above is an HPLC 254nm chromatogram of a water extract of the Heteropterys aphrodisiaca (Ha) root powder I obtained from Brazil. I will try to get some confirmed Ha and run that sample to ensure authenticity of the material I have.

As usual its been a while since the last post. News is that I have been dealing with tendonitis issues throughout the body. Whether or not the tendonitis is due to actual organ damage or superficial inflammation, I treat it carefully. I am removing bagels as my staple food as there is info floating around about how it can reduce nutrient uptake from in the intestines due to autoimmunity towards the vili tissue. Further, I am changing from regular milk to organic milk having found out that they are required to be grassfed for at least 120 out of the year (better than nothing) and I will start to take fish oil on the regular again. I am also supplementing with epsom salt which is MgSO4 as a magnesium source which is a common deficiency among tendonitis sufferers. Lastly, I am regularly drinking a tea made from the root of Heteropterys aphrodisiaca which is shown to improve tendon strength in endurance trained rats. As far as I can tell it helps but I cannot distinguish if the effects are placebo-derived as the treatments are confounded.

On a different note, learned about the concept of pE which is analogous to pH. If my speculations are correct then the can be electrons solvated in aqueous solution just as with protons. This notion is common in the geological sciences however the 'poise' or reduction potential of water is buffered by inorganic chemical species like Fe2+/Fe3+. The interest comes into play when considering the intracellular environment as a pE buffered solution and whether they are reactive when being solvated by water. If this is true then water can not only have chemical impurites and pH but also pE. One can imagine that drinking 'reduced' water might have an effect on ones health just as drinking acidic water does. Funny thing is that highly-marketed alkaline water has a higher tendency to solvate electrons although I have yet to hear that involved in the sales pitch. To be continued...

Plotting Prilepin's Chart

Plotted the reps per set and high total volume vs percentage of 1RM from Prelipin's chart in Excel.

The trendline equations have been simplified to the following:

optimal reps/set = 11 - (working weight % of 1RM)/10

(11.717 was rounded down to 11 because 2 reps with 100% of 1RM is impossible)

optimal reps/workout = 5 x optimal reps/set = 5 sets using the optimal number of reps/set

For example, if you are working with 80% of your 1RM the optimal reps/set = 11 - (80)/10 = 3 reps/set for 5 sets. The total volume will be 15 reps and the 3 reps with 80% should be pretty easy so you can focus on form and power throughout.  This system is only meant for 50-100% of 1RM and is derived from Olympic lifters so take this into account when designing your workout.