Running for Minerals – How to Optimize Joint and Systemic Health After Exercise
- Apr 20
- 13 min read
Updated: Apr 23
Written by Bradley Abbott, Personal Coach
Bradley Abbott is known for his wholistic approach to personal coaching merging fitness training with nutritional therapeutics. Author of the e-books A How-to Guide in Developing Functional Strength, Power and Adaptability, and The Cussing Coach, both published in 2024.
In this article, I will be masking the case for both exercise and wholistic nutrition in 'The Argument for Both' and deliberate some of the advantages and disadvantages if one should take exercise too far. I will be shining the spotlight on some of the history of how the medical profession shaped the view of millions on the current medical system and how it has affected our view on health and chronic disease under 'The Education System Fails Us'.
Under "The Answer", I will be sharing with you, or rather revealing to you, the solution to these issues. Under "Absorption in Brief", I will be providing insight on how absorption truly works and what you should avoid.
The argument for both
Health should include clean air entering your home, going outside and experiencing fresh air, and appreciating nature. Health should include peace of mind, hydration (filtered, preferably), the correct number of calories, the right amount of good quality sleep, healthy foods for your nervous system type, and the 90 essential nutrients per 100 lbs of your body weight. Health should also include healthy relationships with friends and family.
Fitness is a broad term, and there are many elements to fitness, such as aerobic endurance, power, strength, mobility, flexibility, agility, reaction time, hand eye coordination, and some of the lesser known elements such as aerobic power, strength endurance, aerobic oxidative, and galactic power. Fitness is relative to the person engaging in the activity. People participate in certain activities because of what it means to them personally. It is tied to their belief system. There are also social elements to fitness such as making friends, gaining confidence, overcoming social anxiety, and gaining self assertion. However, there are some people who take the social element of fitness too far to the point where they never achieve their goals. These are the people you see on the cross trainer and other cardio or resistance machines who spend too much time on their phones, and their rest periods become "relax periods". They never achieve the goals they set out to achieve in the first place.
If their goal is vanity, then it is achieved within the first two weeks. The exception to this is people who want to look good to regain the confidence they had lost, especially if they are overweight. Overweight and borderline obesity come with problems of anxiety, loss of self esteem, loss of self confidence, worry, and body consciousness. They need a guiding hand sometimes, and instead of mocking, we should encourage them to pursue their gym "career" further so they can get back that self esteem and confidence.
The wrong choices affect us all, and while some of us can get back on the bandwagon, others find it difficult and continue to make these wrong choices for years, and social media does not help.
You see, even though you see a lot of slim people in the gym, they will become body conscious and grow worried about their own image, affecting their confidence and how they view themselves, all because of what they continue to read and watch on Instagram, Facebook, and other social platforms. Again, it is not the device, it is how it is used. Parents raising kids on tablets and other devices create bad habits, which they then take into the gym. This is not just a habit, it is a mindset, and eventually becomes a way of being for them. Be careful what habits you teach your kids, parents, for these habits end up causing your kids so much anxiety, worry, and other mental health issues later down the road that this mindset can become difficult to overcome.
These habits affect the way we think, therefore the choices we make, translating into bad eating habits and other bad health habits. This is something that needs to be addressed. Those bad eating habits affect your breathing, your weight, your circulation, your movements, and your endurance when you exercise. Everything circles back and the cycle continues unless you break it.
Indeed, you have nothing without your health. Yes, fitness can contribute to health, but it is possible to take fitness too far without proper recovery protocols, to the point where it destroys your body, especially when you do not replace what you lost during your sessions, and this lack of care is repeated over a number of years.
When you raise your exercise intensity during your sessions, you need to make sure that you have built your body up to that level of tolerance gradually, because if you have not, you will put an unnecessary amount of strain on your endocrine, nervous, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal systems. You think DOMS is bad? Just wait. Up to 80 percent of your oxygenated blood leaves your vital organs and travels to your working muscles during exercise, 80 percent. This number varies and depends on the duration of your session, the intensity of your session, and how efficient your body is at coping with the stress of that session.
This is why recovery is absolutely vital, and why more in depth recovery protocols should be taught and emphasized. This goes doubly for holistic, science based, and personalized nutrition approached from the perspective of a naturopath, not just a "guru".
The education system fails us
We are not taught that when this stress is placed on our body, we lose a "soup" of nutrients, and we are not taught that there are, in fact, 90 essential nutrients that the human body needs to function optimally to maintain health and repair itself. You cannot even utilize oxygen without trace minerals and rare earths like germanium.
The education system was set in motion the day a merger of parties legislated themselves into a position of power. At the beginning of the 20th century, the American Medical Association sent Abraham Flexner around local and national medical institutes to "investigate" how and what the medical practitioners practiced. Abraham Flexner also travelled to London, UK, to perform the exact same analysis and tried to sway the medical profession to his perspective, and it was easy for him to do because the UK was looking to countries like Germany at the time, who seemed to have already progressed with their cleanliness standards and development of defense against germs.
Now, granted, at the time this was happening, the way medicine was practiced in the UK and many other countries was not exactly standardized, nor were some medical practitioners practicing safely and hygienically, so it was easy to see why many of the medical establishments in the UK and in Europe accepted the ideas from Flexner. However, his intentions were not pure, and even those who practiced acupuncture, Bach flower remedies, herbal medicine, and homeopathy safely and effectively were shut out and deemed as "quacks".
With that single report from Abraham Flexner, the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and the American Medical Association legislated themselves into a whole new system of standardized and Westernized medicine. Thus, this caused the end of the medical market and, ironically, the end of cures and preventive measures for chronic diseases. They continued to pursue the germ theory and the ever failing theory of genetics much later.
It has taken nearly 120 years for people, collectively, to start realizing the importance of disease prevention across Western, industrialized nations and taking action steps toward prevention.
Inadvertently, this influenced what was taught in primary schools, secondary schools, and colleges. The subjects of biology, chemistry, and physics should always be some of the staples of science taught. However, students should be made aware of naturopathic medicine, just like they are with allopathic medicine. There should be even distribution of educational materials for both, and students should be made aware of that choice. Both professions should be taught, and the naturopathic medical profession should be given the same rights as allopathic medicine. This is freedom and equality. Indeed, the robber barons, Carnegies, and the AMA made sure this was not possible for the century following their own supplantation.
It takes illness generated desperation for people to seek "alternatives". This is a sad case. Thankfully, people are becoming wiser as they stroll down the lane of this ever growing technology. With this power comes awareness at the click of a button. This is one of the pros of having this technology in this modernized era. Some of the cons have already been mentioned.
How do we do it then? How do we use this information for the betterment of people?
The answer
How do we give equal rights to these "alternative" professions, to naturopathic medicine? Well, people already seem to be taking matters into their own hands and doing it themselves. With the help of technology, people can use the information they read to make more informed decisions and better choices for their families and their loved ones.
There is something else we can do as well. We can educate people further. We have access to all of these books, provided in an appendix at the bottom of this article, which inform people and teach them how to look after themselves and their families. Communities and support groups in the form of friends, community gatherings, and supportive online communities are there to give a guiding hand when people fall off the bandwagon. This is an excellent start.
Health's place in fitness
If you are not healthy, how can you expect to achieve a high level of fitness without crumbling to pieces at the end? It is almost impossible.
When you replace the 90 essential nutrients you lost through exercise, you are taking in the raw materials necessary for the body to recover optimally and regenerate cells.
In previous articles, I have mentioned some deficiency diseases caused by a prolonged absence of these essential nutrients, but it is worth briefly repeating.
Osteoporosis, ankylosing spondylitis, kyphosis, lordosis, scoliosis, and osteoarthritis are all deficiency diseases of calcium and co factors. Rheumatoid arthritis, together with deficiencies in the latter mentioned nutrients, is also an infection of a mycoplasma species, which can be treated with tetracycline, in addition to supplementing with the 90 essential nutrients per 100 lbs of your body weight. For safety reasons, however, it is vital for women who are pregnant to avoid tetracycline and to consult with their physician on the matter. This precaution should not be taken lightly.
Cardiomyopathy heart attack is caused by a selenium deficiency. Carpal tunnel syndrome is caused by a deficiency in molybdenum, arsenic, and manganese. Asthma, bronchitis, and other breathing related issues are caused by deficiencies in essential fatty acids, magnesium, and manganese. Sarcopenia is primarily caused by a deficiency in the 12 essential amino acids and secondarily by a whole plethora of the other essential nutrients, with the exception of physical trauma.
Think of your body in terms of a car. If you are low on petrol, you would not keep traveling the distance without putting significant strain on your engine, would you? The same thing happens with your body's capacity to function optimally, maintain, and repair itself. Regardless of humans having an incredible adaptability factor, that strain on your body's engine will inevitably break it.
You need to eat every day, right? You need to drink water every day and you need to breathe air every day. These are all essential. Your body also needs the 90 essential nutrients every day to function optimally and to maintain and repair itself.
This statement is even more important for regular gym goers and athletes because their bodies are working overtime to maintain and repair themselves. This is due to their bodies heating and therefore sweating out a "soup" of these essential nutrients more frequently than a couch potato. This is why athletes and gym goers alike will die younger than the average couch potato. In one of my books, I talk about "The Deficient Athlete" and what is necessary to maintain a body that operates at that level. I also delve into the importance of absorption and why this aspect of recovery is vital to success as an athlete and gym goer.
Absorption in brief
Within your digestive system, you have many components that work in harmony together. You have chewing for mechanical breakdown of food into smaller pieces. You have saliva, which produces enzymes such as amylase, which is a carbohydrate busting enzyme. Thus, the chemical breakdown of food begins. From here, the pH of your digestive tract alters slightly to accommodate the next phase of digestion.
Your bolus of food travels down the esophagus to the stomach, where the pH is usually 1 to 1.5, which is acidic enough to melt the bone in your finger. This is necessary to break down food further into this soup like substance called chyme. This chyme then travels down through the duodenum, ileum, and the rest of the small intestine, which is usually at a pH of 6 to 7.5.
In addition to this, you also have the liver that produces bile, which acts like a detergent that breaks down fats into smaller fatty acids and triglycerides ready for absorption in the small intestine.
It is worth noting here that the pancreas also produces enzymes that break down proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. It is also vital to understand something here. Certain enzymes in certain parts of the digestive tract are very pH dependent, meaning that if your pH is higher or lower than what it should be in that part of your digestive tract, then the enzymes become a non factor. They simply will not work at all. Another thing to understand is that we do not require enzymes in our food to break down the food we eat. It is a myth.
If you are getting all the nutrition you need as mentioned above, then your body makes its own enzymes. The only exception here is cellulase, which breaks down cellulose, a compound found in raw plants and some fibers. This is also why fiber is not necessarily good for you. Indeed, the medical profession and government bodies alike have done a fine job at generalizing fiber. However, this notion is a dangerous one because a lot of fiber can be detrimental to your absorption of essential nutrition, and therefore your overall long term health. Some fibers, unbeknownst to you, could produce an allergic reaction or an intolerance, which can close off the microvilli in your intestine and potentially harm them. Your microvilli are important, if not vital, for absorption because they provide a surface area closest to the bloodstream so the chyme, a soup of nutrients, can be absorbed.
This is why it is so important for everyone, not just gym goers and athletes, to take great care in looking after their digestive tracts. It is not just your "second brain".
Verdict Dr. Watson?
In short, if you look after your absorption, the rest will follow suit. The gut is not just the "second brain", it is the place where nutrient absorption takes place to prevent hundreds of chronic diseases from occurring. Fitness is nothing without health.
Though there is an element of fitness within health, when performed in excess without the correct recovery methods, the human body will ultimately break down from the inside out, literally.
Remember, the human body needs 90 essential nutrients to function optimally and to maintain and repair itself. These nutrients are not in the soils due to many factors, one of which is modern agricultural methods. There is no way you can tell how much selenium or vitamin A is in a carrot just by looking at it. Why do you think sugar is added to some fruits? It is just something to ponder.
Fitness is fun and is necessary to one degree or another, especially when it involves going outside and getting fresh air and sunlight on your skin. Sunlight is necessary for the conversion of vitamin D2 into its active form, vitamin D3. To achieve this, your body needs another essential nutrient, one that has been unnecessarily demonized to fit a certain "scientist's" agenda, cholesterol. Our body can only make up to 20 percent of its daily cholesterol needs. The rest must come from the diet.
Sunlight and fresh air are also necessary for a form of therapy that you may not have heard of called negative ion therapy. Negative ion therapy occurs naturally when you are out for a walk, a run, or some other form of exercise outdoors. The negative ions in the air around us help reduce stress and increase our levels of calmness. Negative ions are found in the highest concentrations near the ocean and in forests.
Sunlight, fresh air, water, filtered of course, sleep, socializing, the 90 essential nutrients, and reaching fulfillment are all parts of health.
Exercise is a necessary part of health, but too much without proper recovery will destroy you from the inside out. You are worth the effort. You can make it happen. Be the example.
Read more from Bradley Abbott
Bradley Abbott, Personal Coach
Bradley Abbott is a personal coach and author. Known for his wholistic approach to training merging naturopathic principles with fitness training, he has managed to reverse the symptoms of his clients almost completely, and raise their energy to heights they never thought possible. He is the founder of Phoenix Phorm Online and uses these platforms to educate and inspire a larger audience.
References:
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Appendix - list of useful books:
Price WA. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. 8th Edition, Price & Pottenger; 1997. 30th Printing, 2024.
Teicholz N. The Big Fat Surprise. Why butter, meat and cheese belong in a healthy diet. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster; 2014.
Wallach JD, and Lan M. Rare Earths Forbidden Cures; 1994.
Wallach JD, and Lan M. Let's Play Doctor. Third Edition; 1997.
Wallach JD, Lan M, and Schrauzer GN. Epigenetics: The Death of the Theory of Genetic Disease Transmission; 2014.
