Kiteheads as a kiter with an extensive background in windsurfing, which at the Olympic level is all about (holding on to the boom and pumping your ass off combined with top level aerobic fitness and pain management) i.e. managing your aerobic threshold by pumping just to the point that you do not lose your grip; I discovered that the training, physio therapy, massage, working out, chiropractic, yoga sessions (2 hours every morning) and on the water training all helped but the fastest way to reduce inflamation in the body is to control the fork!
You are what you eat. If you eat alkaline dominant food and stay away from food that leaves an acid residue, you get an instant drop in inflammation in the body which is noticeable pretty soon after eating.
We can all relate to what if feels like to get severely dehydrated ( your body starts to feel like it is on fire- which is it becoming severely acidic at a cellular level) or to eat something that makes you get acid indigestion but we do this more or less every time we choose what to eat for a meal.
OK so the question is what are alkaline foods. Well sorry to say but the only real alkaline foods are green leafy vegetables. Any kind of spouts are extremely alkaline, Lettuce, kale, chard, bok choy, parcley, dandelion, cilantro, etc. or anything having a green leaf. Fruits are kind of neutral and grains are acidic.
http://www.essense-of-life.com/info/foodchart.htm
this is the first thing that came up when i googled alkaline food.
www.sunfood.com sells a powerful superfood powder called "Natures First Food" that can be mixed into your morning orange juice. Its made with whole Leaf barley grass, whole leaf wheat grass, nettle leaf, horsetail, alfalfa leaf juice, dandelion leaf juice, kamut grass juice, barley grass juice, oat grass juice, broccoli juice, kale juice, spinach juice, parsley juice, burdock root, nopal cactus, ginger, amla berry.
* Algaes: spirulina*, broken-cell-wall chlorella**.
* Wildcrafted aquatic vegetables: Icelandic kelp, Nova Scotia dulse. (seaweeds)
And all the ingredients are organic. SO if you loaded yourself up with something like this every day besides trying to eat less processed and cooked foods you would see a pretty fast reduction in the inflamation in oyur elbows or any joint capsule for that matter. I can feel a difference from any meal I eat (I am 100% vegetarian, eat exclusively organic produce when I can, some dairy products preferably not pasturized, and 90% raw foodist) I gravitated to this type of lifestyle as I was doing a lot of research on diet, longevity, maximum performance and recovery in sports and this is where I ended up. My changes in my diet allowed me to compete at an olympic level well into my late 30's.
Also a great product that is coming from the tampa area is
www.livingfuel.com
I have all of the athletes that I coach on it and they all love it! It is the worlds strongest antioxidant superfood product you can eat. Antioxidants also help reduce free radical damage which is a major way to kkep the body more alkaline.
Living Fuel mixed with some fruit and blended up makes the perfect sports drink to take before, durrig and after kiting.
Now most americans eat what is called the standard American Diet (SAD) which is loaded with too much polluted and sick animal products and genetically modified grains in the form of corn, wheat, soy and canola oil. And we wonder why everyone is sick, fat and not out kiteboarding with us.
Just do a google on raw food, alkaline foods, eating to heal, eating to heal cancer,etc. and you will see that the trend is just what i found and wrote about up above.
A 12 year old does not have kiters elbow (well some are getting it now) as his body is still quite alkaline. As we age we become more polluted, i.e. acidic. (old age is brought on by dehydration and getting loaded up with pesticides, parasites, homogenized (cooked till dead) dairy from cows fed genetically engineered (read frankenstein foods) trans fats, sodas, alcohol, chemicals, colorants, artificial flavors, preservatives which are all toxic and acidic to any living being.
And the majority of this food is grown with artificial fertilizers and the soil is so weak in nutrients that the plants have no immune system and pesticides have to be sprayed all over the crops just to get it to grow.
SO if we cleanup our diet the body will heal faster, recover faster, heal deeper and the inflammation will reduce to a manageble level and at that point all of the modalities mentioned above will have more of a positive impact.
And drink "spring water" like volvic, figi water, evian and (not tap water ever) as spring water is wetter and more alkaline as well.
Warm winds and a discerning fork to you all.