Healthy Inspiration

If a shooter uses a semiautomatic rifle instead of another type of gun, it appears to roughly double the chances of victims being wounded and killed.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) came to this conclusion about “active shooters”—people who attempt to kill or hurt others with a gun in a populated area—in a paper published Tuesday. The work analyzed more than 200 such incidents in the U.S.

A 1994 federal assault weapons ban prohibited manufacturing, transferring or possessing certain semiautomatic firearms for civilian use. But that legislation expired in 2004, and gun control advocates have since been lobbying hard to reintroduce such limitations alongside other more expansive gun reform.

Semiautomatic rifles, which include assault weapons like the AR-15 and its variants, are relatively easy to operate and capable of firing very quickly. They can be used with large magazines and high-velocity ammunition, and are infamous for causing egregious damage to soft tissue and bone. In recent years mass shooters wielded them in Aurora, Colo., Orlando, Fla., and Newtown, Conn., among other places. Yet there had been no comprehensive assessment of injuries from the different types of firearms used in such situations, notes Adil Haider, a trauma and critical care surgeon who directs the Center for Surgery and Public Health at BWH. He and his colleagues aimed to address that gap in their study, published in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association. “The biggest take-home message is that in an active shooter incident, an assailant with a semiautomatic rifle may be able to hurt and kill about twice the number of people compared to if they had a non-semiautomatic rifle or a handgun,” he says.

The new study from Haider and colleagues compares the number of people hurt or killed in 248 active shooter incidents from 2000 through 2017, using FBI data. The scientists cross-referenced those incidents with court records and media reports to determine whether the weapon was a semiautomatic rifle. They found about a quarter of all those shootings involved such weapons whereas the rest involved handguns, shotguns and non-semiautomatic rifles. In total, these shootings wounded almost 900 people and killed more than 700.

The researchers’ records do not include every shooting with mass casualties during that 17-year period, and the definition of “active shooter” may have missed instances of gang violence, Haider says. The JAMA analysis also did not include situations with multiple shooters or extremely large death tolls because these would skew their results, Haider says. “We wanted to make sure we were comparing like with like incidents to truly get at the question about injuries and deaths from semiautomatic rifles versus other guns with a single active shooter,” he says.

The analysis found a shooting involving a semiautomatic rifle was associated on average with five injuries versus three if a different kind of gun was used. Similarly, the presence of the semiautomatic rifle was associated with four deaths instead of two.

Credit: Amanda Montañez; Source: “Lethality of Civilian Active Shooter Incidents with and without Semiautomatic Rifles in the United States,” by Elzerie de Jager et al., in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 320, No. 10; September 11, 2018

When people were injured with semiautomatic firearms as compared with other types of guns, however, it appeared the proportion of people who eventually died was roughly equal—leading to fatalities around 44 percent of the time regardless of weapon used. Haider attributes the similar rate to the fact that in each of these incidents an active shooter would likely be shooting at close range in a confined space. Although death rates were similar when people were shot, he says, semiautomatic rifles would increase the chance of getting hit at all.

Using the FBI database of active shooters underrepresents mass shootings and other public shootings, says Philip Cook, a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University who was not involved with the JAMA paper. He also believes the new BWH work has limited policy applications, because it looks at all semiautomatic rifles—instead of limiting the study to “assault weapons” as defined in the 1994 legislation. From a policy perspective, he says, “The possibility of banning all semiautomatic rifles is nil, since they are such a common type of rifle.”

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the agency has previously defined “mass shootings” as incidents with several fatalities—thus not all active shooting incidents would qualify as mass shooting events. The FBI has also said it excludes shootings that resulted primarily from gang or drug violence from its active shooter reports.

You've probably had to deal with breakouts on your face, but did you know those very same pimples can sometimes appear on your balls? If you've ever found a little red bump on the skin of your scrotum, you might have found yourself wondering if it was harmful or not, given the location.

So is a pimple on your balls something to worry about? To learn more about why they appear—and what you should do about them—we checked in with Dr. Jamin V Brahmbhatt, MD.

First things first: Pimples on your balls are totally normal.

They show up on your scrotum for the same reasons they show up anywhere else, such as diet, hormones or stress. A little red bump on the skin of your balls is probably nothing to worry about—as long as you're certain it is, in fact, on the skin.

"The guy needs to make 100% sure the spot is on the scrotum itself, and not in the testicle," says Dr. Jamin V Brahmbhatt, MD. "If it truly is in the skin, most pimples [or] bumps on the scrotal skin are benign." (If you realize the lump is actually in your testicle, you should make an appointment with your doctor.)

If you're sure the pimple is on your scrotum, what should you do about it?

It can be hard to resist the urge to pop a pimple, but Brahmbhatt says you should take it easy when it comes to getting rid of them.

Don't poke or stab at them—that could make them "a bigger problem later," he says. If it's a regular pimple on your balls, it should disappear on its own in about a week.

Is there a point where you should go see a doctor about a pimple on your balls?

You should pay a visit to your physician anytime you start to get worried, if the pimples keep coming back, or if you have pimples or spots that are in clusters, Brahmbhatt says. This could be a sign of a virus or a sexually transmitted infection. (If it turns out you have an STI, you and your partner should start treatment for it immediately.) You should be extra vigilant if you are diabetic: "Your immune system is not as strong as non-diabetics, and therefore infections can progress rapidly," he says.

He also says that you should take extra precaution if you notice that the pimples down there are getting bigger and redder, as this could be associated with fevers and pain.

What's the best way to prevent pimples on your balls?

"Keep your balls as clean as your face," Brahmbhatt says. "Wear clean underwear, shower regularly, and keep the area dry."

In other words, treat your sack just like you would any other part of your skin, and you won't have to worry.

Workout equipment:

Workout type: 12 Minute

Timer setting: 18 x :10 x :30

1. Kettlebell swings
2. Double unders
3. Kettlebell high pull
4. High knees w/ jump rope
5. Side lunges
6. Plank hip dips

Bonus: 5 Turkish get ups / side

——————————————————

Leave your reps in the comments below.

My reps for today’s workout:

Kettlebell swings 18, 17, 17
Double unders 55, 53, 52
Kettlebell high pulls 17, 15, 15
High knees w/ jump rope 98, 97, 97
Side lunges 27, 28, 27
Plank hip dips 31, 30, 31

Did you do this workout?Tweet It!

Source: https://www.12minuteathlete.com/intense-kettlebell-hiit-workout/

When it comes to the long list of supplements out there, magnesium and vitamin D are both all-stars for their own specific uses. Not getting enough magnesium can lead to feeling sluggish and stressed out. And vitamin D does more than just keep bones strong—it’s also good for your gut. It turns out that they work better together, too: A new study found that magnesium helps to regulate vitamin D levels, not only improving absorption for those with deficiencies, but also tempering too-high levels.

“We’ve known for a while that vitamin D deficiency is a problem. And recently, it’s also come to light that many people aren’t getting enough magnesium. So the fact that these two nutrients are connected—and that getting enough magnesium can help regulate vitamin D levels—serves as a reminder that many nutrients are interconnected and that overall nutrition, not just the intake of certain vitamins and minerals, is of high importance for maintaining optimal health,” Amy Gorin, MS, RDN, and owner of Amy Gorin Nutrition, tells me. “The enzymes that metabolize vitamin D within the body require magnesium. Additionally, magnesium helps activate vitamin D within the body.”

“This serves as a reminder that many nutrients are interconnected and that overall nutrition, not just the intake of certain vitamins and minerals, is of high importance for maintaining optimal health.” —Amy Gorin, RDN, MS

Being adept at improving the body’s absorption of vitamin D isn’t magnesium’s only trick, though. Last February, a different study found it’s actual crucial to the process—not just in making sure your body gets enough, but also in preventing health issues down the road. “People are taking vitamin D supplements but don’t realize how it gets metabolized,” study co-author Mohammed Razzaque, PhD, says. “Without magnesium, it’s not really useful or safe.”

Dr. Razzaque, who estimates that half of Americans aren’t getting enough magnesium, explains that taking vitamin D on its own does increase the calcium levels in the body, but without the magnesium, the calcium can actually build up in the body, which can lead to kidney disease or other problems. The reason why this can happen is because it’s not being absorbed properly. So that’s where the magnesium comes in. “By consuming an optimal amount of magnesium, one may be able to lower the risks of vitamin D deficiency and reduce the dependency on vitamin D supplements,” Dr. Razzaque says.

Fortunately both nutrients are found in many delicious, everyday foods. Dark leafy greens, nuts, tofu, and brown rice are all powerhouse sources for magnesium, while eggs, fish, dairy, fortified nut milks, and mushrooms all have vitamin D. And it just so happens that a lot of those foods taste pretty darn good together.

Originally published February 26, 2018. Updated December 17, 2018, with additional reporting by Tehrene Firman.

Speaking of getting all your needed nutrients, check out this food versus supplements guide to see exactly how much you would have to eat to get everything you need from food alone. And when you’re buying supplements, here’s what to keep in mind so you know you are getting your money’s worth.

In the fitness and wellness space, you're so often told to accept yourself as you are, and that it's important to embrace the skin you're in. Easier said than done right? Author Jen Pastiloff is here to tell you otherwise. (Related: How Self-Care Is Carving a Place In the Fitness Industry)

Can you accept yourself exactly as you are? Just for one breath span?I always thought I had deafening silence when my hearing aids aren't in my ears. But then I realized: I've never experienced silence. I have tinnitus- a ringing, a whirling, a whooshing & hush sound in my head all the time. It's never quiet. I never do NOT hear it. It's maddening. Yes, sometimes it makes me want to cry. When it's been at it's worst, during my dark depression, I wanted to die. So- to me- that's silence. I forget that's not other people's silence. What is silence? What does it sound like? Feel like? My epiphany is not that I lied when I said it's deafening silence without my hearing aids, it's that I've always thought that's what silence was. That hum I always have in my head. So if silence is different for me than it is for you- what else is different? What else am I so sure of? What else am I positive is THE WAY IT IS? How did I not realize this before? All this time I took for granted was silence meant when I've never truly experienced it. Or maybe that IS my silence? Who is to say? Isn't it astounding how we never know what someone else's experience is? Not fully, anyway. Makes me think about how when you are in love & then years later, when you're no longer in the relationship, you say, " I wasn't REALLY in love," but at the time it sure as heck felt like it. How do we ever know what's for certain? We don't, I guess. My quiet isn't. But it's the only one I know. It's fascinating what we get used to, what we call ours, what we name in the name of things. Thanks @alexandrawrote for drawing up my words. Tell me an epiphany you’ve had below and get @eliseballard book #epiphany as it changed my life! Can’t wait to read yours. Also tell me where in the World you are?! Tag anyone I need to meet!! And let me know if today you can accept YOU as you are. Write “i accept.” I dare you. #epiphany #deaf #onbeinghuman #hearingaids #tinnitus

A post shared by Jen Pastiloff (@jenpastiloff) on Nov 6, 2018 at 12:27pm PST

Pastiloff, who is also a yoga teacher, suffers from extreme hearing loss. And in a recent Instagram post, she talked about how she defines silence. "I always thought I had deafening silence when my hearing aids aren't in my ears," she wrote. "But then I realized: I've never experienced silence."

Pastiloff suffers from tinnitus, or as she says, "a ringing, whirling, whooshing, and hush sound" that's in her ears all the time. It affects one in five people and is usually a result of an underlying problem such as an ear injury, age-related hearing loss, or a series of circulatory disorders. It's unclear what caused the symptom for Pastiloff. 

"It's never quiet," she explains. "I never do NOT hear it. It's maddening. Yes, sometimes it makes me want to cry. When it's been at its worst, during my dark depression, I wanted to die. So—to me—that's silence." (Related: Blogger Shares One Easy Way to Stop Body-Shaming Yourself)

But as we know, that's not how most people would define silence. "I forget that's not other people's silence," wrote Pastiloff. "My epiphany is not that I lied when I said it's deafening silence without my hearing aids, it's that I've always thought that's what silence was. That hum I always have in my head. So if silence is different for me than it is for you, what else is different? What else am I so sure of? What else am I positive is THE WAY IT IS?"

What a compelling argument. The current state of the world is one with societal beliefs on how you should look, what you should feel, and how you should react. It's easy to think that this is the irrefutable, unbiased, singular truth, when in fact every person's beliefs and truths are unique to themselves. No one person's reality is the same as someone else's. (P.S. You Can Love Your Body and Still Want to Change It)

As Pastiloff explains: "All this time I took for granted what silence meant when I've never truly experienced it. Or maybe that IS my silence? Who is to say? Isn't it astounding how we never know what someone else's experience is? Not fully, anyway."

Let Pastiloff's lightbulb moment remind you to think twice before judging others, and more importantly yourself. At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong—only different—all of which is worth accepting.

“Can you meet with my dad? He can’t seem to resolve what’s wrong with his lower back.”

My client, Sara, brought up her dad’s struggles as I logged her numbers at the end of our training session.

“He’s been complaining of back pain for years,” she continued. “He’s been to this trainer and that trainer, not to mention physical therapists and chiropractors, and he can’t seem to pinpoint the root cause. Nothing has stuck.”

“Well, I’m not Gandalf,” I said, with my customary evidence-based modesty, “but I’d be happy to take a look and see if I can help.”

In addition to not being a wizard, I’m not a physical therapist, a chiropractor, a massage therapist, or anyone else who can diagnose and/or treat musculoskeletal conditions.

But as a strength and conditioning coach, I can assess and audit movement. I can take into account a client’s health history, ability level, and goals, and then create a safe, effective, and time-efficient training program based on that information.

I’m also pretty good at calling out BS.

For example, in the last season of Game of Thrones, you remember when Jon Snow led that expedition north of the Wall to capture a wight? (For those unsullied by GoT fandom, a wight is a corpse that’s been reanimated by the White Walkers, who were themselves created by the Children of the Forest … On second thought, let’s just go with zombie. It’s a zombie.) Logistically, that trip would’ve taken months to pull off. But they did it in one episode. Like it happened in a week or two.

Pfffffft, whatever.

More to the point of this prehab article, have you ever noticed that some personal trainers haphazardly toss “simple” exercises like dead bugs, bird dogs, and glute bridges into their clients’ programs? And that they’ll do it without explaining to their clients why those exercises are important? And, because they didn’t explain the purpose of the movements, they leave their clients with no idea how to do them correctly?

If you’re like me, you see this a lot. And each time you see it, you want to throw your face into a brick wall.

READ ALSO: “Three Ways to Write Better Training Programs”

We met a week later, and the conversation was … interesting.

As we went through his health history, I listened to him describe just how long he’d been dealing with his lower back pain, and how many health and fitness professionals he’d worked with over the past two decades.

When it was my turn to talk, and we got around to specific exercises, I didn’t mention anything he hadn’t heard before.

“Yeah, yeah, they all had me do glute bridges and dead bugs,” he said. “I know how to do them.”

“Show me.”

And he did.

You know how a jaw drops in a cartoon? Yeah, that was me.

When I asked him to demonstrate his glute bridge and tell me where he felt it, he said his quadriceps, hamstrings, low back, and eyeballs. Everywhere except where he was supposed to feel it.

In all that time, and with all the money he’d spent, he’d never learned how to do a glute bridge in a way that allowed him to feel his glutes doing the work.

We all know that the glutes help protect the lower back. Conversely, when the glutes don’t function properly—that is, when they don’t act as the body’s primary hip extensor—what picks up the slack?

The lower back.

And don’t even get me started on his bird dogs and dead bugs. If the imaginations of Stephen King and Mary Shelley had twins they wouldn’t have looked more nightmarish.

I was equal parts flabbergasted and pissed off—flabbergasted that he’d been told the correct exercises to perform, and pissed off that no one had taken the time to teach him how to do the exercises correctly.

This isn’t an isolated event, either. I see it all the time. You probably do as well. There’s a pandemic of incorrect form on corrective exercises. I think it happens for three reasons:

1. Many fitness professionals have no idea why these exercises are so commonly prescribed. A trainer who can’t explain the purpose can’t coach or cue them properly.
2. Trainers teach them incorrectly because they learn the exercises from YouTube or Instagram videos posted by people doing them incorrectly.
3. The general public is the final link in this chain of bad training advice. When good intentions meet bad instructions, the result is a lot of people flailing around on the floor with no idea what they’re trying to accomplish.

So let’s look at each exercise in more detail.

READ ALSO: “How to Make Sure You Aren’t One of the Bad Trainers”

The dead bug is one of my favorite core-training exercises, and a splendid choice to improve motor control and spinal stability. They’re superb at enhancing lumbo-pelvic control while training individuals to “offset,” or resist, external forces, like the movement of their extremities.

They’re also a potent corrective exercise for an overextended posture or excessive anterior pelvic tilt, something that’s fairly common among athletes, and that we’re seeing more and more in general population clients.

The key word there is “excessive.” Anterior pelvic tilt isn’t bad or dysfunctional. The lumbar spine is designed to be in this position. But someone who’s in excessive anterior pelvic tilt will almost always have extension-based back pain. It puts an ungodly amount of stress on structures like the facet joints and posterior discs, which, down the road, can manifest into spondylosis (spinal arthritis) or even a more profound issue like spondylolysis (end plate fracture).

Mike Robertson has a cool term for this: flawed active stability. In an effort to gain stability, you’re effectively crushing the spine by cueing the body to engage the paraspinals and spinal erectors.

It’s not uncommon for people with excessive anterior pelvic tilt to experience chronic pulled hamstrings, anterior knee pain, hip pain, and a myriad of other issues.

Dead bugs are a fantastic way to encourage more posterior pelvic tilt, while simultaneously enhancing motor control and engaging the lumbo-pelvic-hip stabilizers to do their job.

Popularized by Dr. Stuart McGill, the bird dog is a staple for spine hygiene, targeting both the lower back and hip extensors. It also, and more importantly, teaches the discipline of using proper hip and shoulder motion while maintaining a stable spine.

The bird dog is also one of the most butchered exercises on Earth.

Here are two examples, about a year apart, of women I worked with at CORE who came to me with lower-back issues:

EXAMPLE ONE

EXAMPLE TWO

Each had worked with a different trainer before coming to me. To be clear, I’m not calling those trainers out. My point is to show how easy it is to mess it up.

On the one hand, the seeming simplicity of the bird dog leads to lackadaisical execution. If clients think the only goal is to extend the contralateral arm and leg, that’s what they’ll do, with no focus on maintaining a stable spine. It’s just out and back for however many times the trainer tells them to do it.

On the other hand, a client who’s trying too hard to do it right will look like my clients in these two videos. She’ll go into excessive spinal extension in order to get a full range of motion. For someone with extension intolerance, doing the bird dog the way she thinks she’s supposed to will feed the very same lower back symptoms she’s trying to alleviate.

There’s no need to overcomplicate things here. Most of what you need to know about the glute bridge is right there in its name.

You lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor and knees bent roughly 90 degrees. Lift your hips until your body forms a straight line from chest to knees. Yelling “this … is … Sparta!” every rep is optional.

As explained earlier, and as you knew long before I explained it, the goal is to target the glutes with a movement they’re designed to do: hip extension. If your client can only complete the movement with excessive lumbar extension, or feels it in the hamstrings and quads instead of the glutes, then something is clearly wrong.

But figuring out exactly how and why the client is getting it wrong isn’t always straightforward. This is a case where everyone is, indeed, a special snowflake. Once you take into account all the possible combinations of bone length, pelvis shape, hip-socket orientation, muscle lengths, and adaptive characteristics caused by activity (or lack thereof), the variety is infinite.

A few specific considerations:

Do they feel it in their lower back or hamstrings?

Slow them down, and reiterate that this is a glute exercise, not a “see how fast you can finish your reps” exercise.

Do they feel it in their quadriceps?

The problem may be that they’re pushing through their toes. Teach them to push their heels into the floor.

Do they make those changes and still feel it in nontargeted muscles?

As with squats and deadlifts, each client will need to experiment with stance width and foot position—moving them closer to the butt or farther away.

Also consider range of motion. As with the bird dog, many will try to complete the movement by hyperextending the lower back. Find the point of maximal glute activation, and stop there. You’ll know you have it right when the client feels it in the glutes, and nowhere else.

READ ALSO: “The Real Reason Why People Everyone Must Squat Differently”

What I’ve just explained only works for your clients if you, the fitness professional, can explain the goal of each exercise in a way that makes sense to them. But you can’t explain what you don’t understand.

And if you don’t understand “simple” exercises like the dead bug, bird dog, and glute bridge, how in the world are you going to coach someone with a barbell on his back? It’s like trying to teach high school algebra when you’re still struggling with the nuances of long division.

If, on the other hand, you do understand them, don’t assume your clients share your understanding. It doesn’t take a wizard to coach these three exercises. But it does require a fitness pro who’s paying attention.

Source: https://www.theptdc.com/2018/10/dont-let-clients-butcher-three-exercises/

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They say “Mama knows best” — and when you’re Kate Moss, and your 15-year-old daughter is considering a modeling career, it seems especially fitting.

The 44-year-old supermodel — who rose to fame as a teenager and was constantly ripped for being too skinny, too naked, and too much of a partier — granted a rare interview to Megyn Kelly for Today that aired on Wednesday. While the juiciest questions weren’t asked (seriously — nothing about Johnny Depp or #MeToo?), Moss, who now runs her own agency, and is also still modeling herself, talked about the “pressure” she faced to pose topless when she was starting out. She also made it clear that if her only child, Lila Grace Moss Hack, does follow in her footsteps — as it has long been speculated that she will — she would do so minus the nudity.

“Yeah, there was pressure,” Moss said of taking her clothes off as a young teen. “I did not like it at all when I first started. Then I suppose, [photographer] Mario [Sorrenti] was my boyfriend,” referring to the photographer who shot her iconic Obsession campaign, “so I was kind of used to it. But … I was still always like: ‘Can I just put some clothes on?'” That said, it “was the job, and so I kind of just did it.”

But models today don’t have to. While Moss says the industry today has its minuses — she says it was “more fun” and “freer” when social media didn’t exist — one big plus is that models “don’t have to” pose nude “if they don’t want to do it.” And here’s where Lila factors into it. “I wouldn’t let my daughter do it,” she noted. “I look at her and she’s 15, and to think that I was going topless at her age is crazy.”

So will Lila join the biz? “It’s up to her. I’m leaving it up to her. I will support her, obviously. I’ll be her manager,” Kate said with a laugh. “If she wants to, I’ll support her in anything she wants to do.”

Moss, who also said she doesn’t think the modeling industry is too focused on weight, talked about parenting, saying the birth of her daughter made her “never lonely again. I always had my baby.” The two are really close, and now that Lila’s a teen, “we’re hanging out as friends because she’s getting older. We can go shopping together, and it’s really fun.”

Because Moss has been through it all — horrible relationships, drug abuse — she says that if her daughter is ever having a bad time, something she’ll tell her and she wishes she had known when she was growing up is that, “Tomorrow’s another day. Everything passes,” she said. “You can think it’s terrible and it’s the end of the world, but everything passes. That’s important to remember.”

Moss adds she still lives by the motto “Never complain, never explain” in work and in life. (Funny enough, it was Depp who first said it to her.) She said it means, “Just get on with it. You can’t do anything about what people think of you or if they lie or if it’s not true. It doesn’t matter, because if you know who you are, you can get through.”

And for more than three decades, she’s been getting through.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment: