Week 15 & 16 (2013)

Week 15 & 16: April 7 - 20

(Week 15)
Badminton: 4.5 / 5
School: 2.5 / 5
Misc: 4 / 5
Overall: 3.67 / 5

(Week 16)
Badminton: 2 / 5
School: 3 / 5
Misc: 2 / 5
Overall: 2.33 / 5

I apologize for lumping both weeks together, but I was away in Lima, competing at the Peru International in Week 15, and then coming back for 3 final exams in Week 16. To top it off, I also had the BC Provincials to play on Friday and Saturday. I am finally done, so hopefully I can keep updating a bit more regularly for the next little while! I will do my best to update chronologically, so I guess the most interesting part will be up first: Peru International!

As Air Canada was sold out on flights coming back, all of us Vancouver booked the flight with United/Continental to fly down to Lima, Peru. Typically, there are 2 major routes down via Star Alliance partners and it would be usually United or Air Canada. I would fly Air Canada if the flight is cheap, but it connects in Toronto and sometimes the flights don't sync up, meaning that if you flew to Toronto early in the morning, you still might miss the flight to Peru and have to go the next day. The other option, which I've done a few times now, is fly from Vancouver to Houston, then Houston to Lima. Unfortunately, the flight to Houston is really early in the morning (~06:30) but it gets us into Lima on the same day (arrive ~23:00). The reason we stick to these airlines is to gather Aeroplan status miles, as options are limited in Canada. Perhaps if Westjet joined One World, maybe that would be a cheaper alternative, as you could fly American Airlines, British Airways, and Cathay Pacific. Otherwise, you're stuck with Air Canada, Lufthansa, United, and a couple other ones, but apparently it's not easy getting into Asia. It was quite costly booking flights to Malaysia for the 2013 Sudirman Cup coming up at the end of May.

My unique luggage stickers

Anyway, I traveled down with the ClearOne group, including Adrian Liu, Joycelyn Ko, Derrick Ng, and Christin Tsai, so it was nice to travel with some other people. The flights went quite smoothly and I ended up doing a lot of studying. I remember going through my neuroanatomy textbook and the flight attendant asked me what I was studying. I showed her the cover, and she gave me this... look (the 'ugh' look), so that was kind of funny. Perhaps she was just empathizing, but regardless, I found it quite humorous. The flights were quite long, and I ended up watching a couple of movies, including 'Jack Reacher' (2012) and 'House At The End Of The Street' (2012). I actually watched 'HatEofS' first, as I enjoy watching horror movies, but I felt both movies weren't too bad and they entertained me thoroughly. Perhaps it's due to the limited options you have on an airplane, so I may be over-rating both these movies. I felt 'Jack Reacher' kind of ended a little abruptly, while 'HatEofS' was a simple movie, and giving away any more information might spoil the movie, so I will leave it at that. By far, the best thing I saw, was a TV series called 'Impractical Jokers', where 4 friends have competitions with each other in various scenarios and the biggest loser out of a set of challenges per episode have an extra punishment they have to do that humiliates them even further. It's definitely worth checking out, and it made about an hour and a half of the plane ride go faster, as I watched all 3 episodes that United provided.

Official Website

Finally, we arrive in Peru, where we begin our first set of 'challenges'. Christin arranged rooms with the Ontario people, so I suppose they contacted the tournament organizers directly. Unfortunately for the rest of us, due to communication errors, we didn't have an airport pick up, nor did we end up getting a room at the tournament hotel we booked at. So, we were at the Bayview hotel which had no rooms, and we were desperately searching for a nearby hotel. Joyce remembered a nearby hotel they stayed at last time, so with the help of Google Maps and some locals (remember, stuff isn't always labeled correctly on Google!), we walked with our luggage to the El Tambo hotel, maybe 5 blocks away. By the time we got our rooms, it was probably about 1:30am and we had practice at 9:30-11:00am the next day! Oh well, such is life.

(Source: Me) El Tambo - Lobby

(Source: Me) El Tambo - Room

(Source: Me) El Tambo - Restaurant

We made it to the practice without too much difficulty and had a decent practice. The venue was the same as the 2012 Pan Am Championships, so I didn't have much trouble adjusting. After practice, we had lunch with the other Canadians before heading back to the hotel to rest. I ended up studying the whole afternoon, went back out for dinner, then... the fun began. We decided to extend our rooms for the rest of the week, but unfortunately the hotel was fully booked! There was a fashion trade show in Lima that weekend, and everything was pretty much booked up. They told us to wait til the morning to check with their sister hotel nearby, but Adrian suggested we go find it ourselves and try to book first. It was a really good thing we did that, as it ended up being fully booked as well. We decided to check out the Lima Wasi, another tournament hotel, but they were fully booked. We started getting a bit nervous, when we walked to the Mariott (4.5 star, $360/night) to ask for a room, but they were fully booked as well! They told us that all the popular higher class hotels were fully booked, including the Hilton, so that saved us a trip. We continued walking further, checking out the Ibis, Colon, and Embajadores, then finally came to the Ferre, the other tournament hotel. Fortunately, they had one double room, but they weren't sure about the 2nd room, but at least guaranteed us 2 single rooms. At least we found a hotel...

Follow the (Purple) letters!

So the next morning, I was off to play Men's Singles, as the other Canadian player withdrew from the tournament due to an injury, and I won a 3 setter against a player from the Dominican Republic. He had a pretty good attacking game and I also made a lot of mistakes, but I was able to adapt a bit better at the end and came through with the win. Unfortunately, my next round would be the tournament's top seeded player, but that was the least of my worries at the moment. I took a taxi back to the new hotel we were staying at to confirm rooms, then walked back to the El Tambo to check out. Fortunately, the others didn't have to play until Friday, so they were okay. After moving hotels, the rest of the tournament went quite smoothly, minus the fact that the tournament kept changing the transportation schedule on us, so a few of us ended up taking taxis and getting reimbursed later on. That evening, I went 3 sets with Kevin Cordon of Guatemala, the top Pan American Men's Singles player. Even though it went 3 sets, I never felt in control of the game and was always chasing. It didn't really bother me as his skills were much better than mine in Singles, but it was nice to challenge him and it was overall a great learning experience. Definitely gave me a lot of things to think about after the match!

Lunch at Chili's

The rest of the tournament went quite smoothly for the Canadians up until the semifinals. I actually think that all Canadian players that went down made at least the semifinal or better in one event! I think that's pretty good for Canada! Some really close matches, especially the Women's Singles semifinal where Christin defeated Michelle Li for the first time! The match was well over an hour and it was a really good match between the both. I think it will be interesting how it turns out the next time, as Michelle will be eager to try to establish her dominance in the event, while Christin may have new found confidence... but that may have to wait a while as we will all be teaming up at the World Mixed Team Championships (Sudirman Cup) in Malaysia next month! In terms of the other matches, things typically went the same way they had in the past except for the Women's Doubles final, where Michelle and Grace Gao defeated Joycelyn and Christin in straight sets. After the tournament, I went to study for the rest of the day until we had to go to the airport and take a red eye flight to Houston. From Houston, we flew to Los Angeles and then back to Vancouver, as it was better than waiting for the direct flight from Vancouver to Houston, which would have gotten us home at about 10pm Vancouver time, making it almost a 24 hour travel period. Unfortunately for me, I had to keep studying...

XD Medalists

WD Medalists

MD Medalists

WS Medalists

Working hard, or hardly working? 

(via PhotoGrid - Android)

The NEXT MORNING (Tuesday), I had to be up and ready to write my deferred neuroanatomy exam. It wasn't so easy and I felt I could have studied a bit more, but perhaps my approach to the course wasn't so accurate. I spent a lot of time with the textbook and reading things that were a bit too detailed at times, when I probably should have focused on just the lecture notes. The textbook made some things confusing, which ended up wasting time because I had to look it up to try to understand it, and it ended up being too complicated and non-examinable anyway. Although at times, it was interesting to delve deeper, the information I remember wasn't of use in the context of the course and I probably didn't remember everything about it anyway. I suppose it will be a valuable lesson on being more specific in what I have to learn and that I shouldn't try to learn everything, because that's simply not possible. Anyway, I went home right away after my exam and began reviewing for my biochemistry final, which was the next morning, also at 8:30am. You can start to see how Peru International is kind of on the brink of "academic suicide". Regardless, I was able to focus and study and overall, I felt reasonably prepared for my biochem final. Again, there were many things that were too detailed, but my approach to the course was slightly better, as I spent the majority of my time on the lecture slides, and just skimmed the textbook. Actually, I skimmed 3 different textbooks, and I think that may have been what saved me from failing (well, we'll know for sure when my marks come back...).

(Source: serc.carleton.edu)

I took most of the day off after, as I felt a bit burnt out and did very light studying for my Friday exam on skeletal muscle physiology. I actually went to train, as I had to prepare for the BC Provincials on the weekend, and I'm quite glad I did at least a bit of conditioning. Unfortunately, later than night, I started feeling an itch in my throat and by the next morning, I was dealing with runny noses and sore throats. Studying was still fairly productive, but since my final was at noon on Friday, I still had the morning. On Friday, the sore throats were getting worse but not enough to become a cough yet, fortunately, so I was able to go through my exam without coughing up a storm, because no matter what you do, nothing seems to come out of a 'dry cough'. Regardless, I finished the final and had to get ready for the tournament. No rest for the wicked.

(Source: cheezburger.com)

Due to low entries in the tournament, we were playing everything round robin (play everybody in your pool), and then crossing over, then having the winners play the final. The shuttles were incredibly slow to begin with, but we found better ones at the correct speed fortunately. Unfortunately, it cost me the first game in my match and I really struggled to pull things together, as I was exhausted mentally from the studying and exams, and physically from my illness. Long story short (for the whole tournament), I didn't play very well overall and I was also dealing with a forearm injury which has probably gotten worse. As much as I want to get back into training, I understand that I need to rest and recuperate before I can get better. I suppose this could be an example where 'short term pain, long term pain' can be referenced, because if I keep training with my injury, it will only get worse and there will be no 'gains' at all. I would like to thank my partners, Hugh and Phyllis for playing, and I apologize if I got upset at times because, well, I was pretty much 'out of my body and mind' in terms of physical and mental exhaustion, sport-legal medication (pseudoephedrine-less cold medicine), and whatever else was going wrong those two days that were out of my control. Now I can finally rest a little more and do all the things I have neglected due to final exams!

All matches within about 24 hours (XD final was at 7pm)

Anyway, that's probably all I'm going to write (no more reading, yay!), so until next week! Hopefully I can do something productive so I won't be writing about how I played video games for a week next time. Thanks for checking out my blog!

Oh, lastly, before I forget, one more thing that happened this week was the launch of a new badminton footwork app for your iPads and tablets! I'm actually endorsing this app because I'm in the demo video :P I think it's a neat thing to have, especially if you really want to improve your badminton. I would probably rate footwork as one of the most, if not THE most important thing, and no matter what event you play, solid footwork will always help! Anyway, check it out when you can (not out on Android at the moment, but coming out soon) and support a local developer's app! Support badminton! Support me! Pretty please? :)

Official // Facebook // Twitter // YouTube

Thanks for visiting! See you next week! Some matches from Peru International can be found on my YouTube Channel: towbsss

For the rest of the matches, please visit my YouTube Channel!

Time to relax!

Week 14 (2013)

Week 14: March 31-April 6

Badminton: 2.5 / 5
School: 4 / 5
Misc: 4 / 5
Overall: 3.5 / 5

Song of the Week: Ryan Star - "Brand New Day". Wow, actual lyrics. I'm more of a hip hop fan, but I usually rather work with instrumentals as I can easily drift into my own thoughts and what I am doing (e.g. studying). However, I must pay tribute to 'Lie To Me', a TV series that only spanned 3 seasons long before it got canceled by Fox, for reasons I'm not sure why. The premise of the series is about a group of experts that specialize in lie detection, and some of the show is actually based on the works on Paul Ekman, a psychologist who researches emotions and facial expressions.. It's a pretty interesting mystery show with a pretty good cast of characters. Tim Roth really does shine in his role and it's definitely worth a watch, as you can probably find an entire season for only $15-20 if you're lucky. I liked Season 2 the best, as it has 22 episodes. Seasons 1 & 3 have only about 13, unfortunately. So, if you haven't guessed by now, this is the opening theme of the series. I also highly recommend checking out Paul Ekman's books. 

This week I think I'll review my courses for the term. UBC BIOC 302 is pretty much the 2nd half of a general biochemistry course. The first part involved more of an intro, with general protein structure and carbohydrate metabolism, while this second half focused on lipid metabolism, protein metabolism, and nucleic acid metabolism and structure. I found Biochemistry quite interesting, though my marks may show otherwise, but I can really relate to concepts in terms of nutrition. Also, some of the medical case studies we came across were quite engaging as well. Unfortunately, the driest part was the DNA to RNA to Protein part, including DNA replication, protein transcription, and protein translation. It's not THAT bad, but the other parts were better I guess. Overall, the professors were pretty good, although we had 3 different professors this time. Makes it a bit hard in adapting to each one, but generally, it wasn't too bad overall. Course objectives and everything are very clear cut, and exams are non-cumulative, but basically, they are just testing on both sections (i.e. fats/proteins, then nucleic acids). It would be pretty crazy to have a cumulative exam, though I think it would be cool to get the interactions. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the course, despite how my grades turn out to be: 4.5/5 (-0.5 for difficulty).

(Source: lifesci.rutgers.edu)

My skeletal muscle physiology course UBC KIN 462 was like a roller coaster ride. There were so many things I didn't understand at times, but I think it finally came together in the end. It's still a relatively new course (3rd time taught at UBC) so I'm sure it will work out it's kinks along the way. The instructor basically designed the course from scratch, so imagine having to make up a course from scratch? Not easy. The first part of the course was quite relevant to muscle physiology, as it was a giant overview of everything we've done with muscles, although I felt the Bioenergetics was rushed a little much. People without a Biochemistry background will definitely be swamped, and it's not an easy task to go learn it on your own. Instead of understanding things, it ends up with memorizing numbers (ATPs) and gets quite overwhelming, with 10 steps in glycolysis and another 8 in the TCA cycle. There's also the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex between the two, which gets overlooked usually, so you get contrasting numbers of ATP. Considering that older texts use a P/O value of 2 and 3 (per FADH2 and NADH), instead of the the 1.5 and 2.5 in Biochemistry, you'll end up with a whole mess of numbers if you don't know what's going on. Regardless, that's a problem that I didn't have, but what I had problems with was understanding transcription factors and intracellular signaling. The signalling cascades were foreign to me (and they still are), but I've finally just buckled down and accepted that they exist and just followed along. To me, it just feels a bit like memorizing, but I'm doing some extra reading about them. We dabbled a bit with it in the end of Biochemistry, touching very briefly on eIF's and eEF's (eukaryotic initiation/elongation factors) but I don't think we need to know which one is which, fortunately. However, to lump them all together seems kind of unfair, and shows a really superficial understanding. BUT, I guess our prof in Biochemistry did make the statement that we will have a "superficial but sufficient understanding" and that seems fair to me.

(Source: rockland-inc.com) So... which ones do I need to know again?

The other major part in this course included seminars and group projects. Seminars were where we discussed a bunch of questions in groups, and it was quite good because it was nice to see where you stood with other classmates (i.e. equally confused hahaha). The group projects were quite nice, as they gave perspective into many different aspects of muscle physiology. Some of the ones that spoke to me more were topics such as rhabomyolysis, Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), and recovery modalities including massage and contrast baths. There were other really good presentations as well, but I may save it for a blog next time. Overall, the course came together and I think I really learned a lot from it: 4/5 (-0.5 for difficulty, -0.5 for order).

(Source: http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v20/n8/fig_tab/ejhg201244f1.html)

Finally, my last course is Neuroanatomy, or UBC KIN 473. Overall, it's a pretty simple course, with 2 midterms (25% each) and a cumulative final, so it's a pretty straight forward course. The material was sufficient, although a bit shallow, but since its focus was a bit more on clinical examples, it was overall a pretty good course. We spent the first third of the course with motor/descending pathways and problems, the middle third with sensory/ascending pathways and the basal ganglia, and the final portion covering the cerebellum, vestibular systems, and blood supply to the brain. The only problem with the course is that there were no online materials, so we would have to write down everything in class. Attending class is absolutely crucial, and I found it difficult at times because you were busy scribbling stuff and sometimes you lose focus. It's like continually stalling between rallies and slowing the pace down in a badminton game. But aside from that, it was quite an interesting course and gave me much more respect (and a bit of fear) about how complex neuroscience can be: 4.5/5 (-0.5 for no online materials).

(Source: flashcarddb.com)

My forearm injury has been hampering training slightly, but the extra rest seems to coincide with tapering for the Peru International next week. We leave on Tuesday and the tournament starts Wednesday. Draws don't look too tough, so I hope things work out (and I get some good quality studying done)! On Wednesday, I went for a haircut in the Kerrisdale area and we decided to check out The Red Onion, which seemed to be like a fancy burger place that has been around for a very long time. I've been there as a kid probably more than a decade ago, so this place has survived the test of time. As I went with Carmen, it worked out better because we could split burgers in half and get to try both of them, as I ordered a Hawaiian chicken burger, while she got a gingered salmon burger. Both were incredibly delicious and I would definitely recommend people to try it out, but it's a bit pricey, being $11 and $12 respectively for the burgers. With a half order of onion rings, it came out to be about a $30 lunch after tax and tip, so it's not for those who prefer a more budget friendly meal. However, it you love great tasting food, I guess your money's worth!

(Source: Me)

Thursday night, Carmen and I went to an event in Gas Town called "Share Your Heart with Haiti", where it was a fundraiser for medical supplies for doctors and nurses volunteering their time in Haiti. My friend from class, Aja, who is a nurse and a promoter of the event sent me an invite, so I decided to go with Carmen. I very rarely do these things... actually, this may be the first time I've ever went to something like this, but it was a fundraiser and a potential networking opportunity. After reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers", I decided that opportunities should be taken, and I guess this was no exception. It was held at the Secret Location's tasting bar and it was a pretty interesting evening. We got a free drink, chatted with some people, had a bit of food (exceptional crab cakes!), and Carmen even bid of a few silent auction items. We didn't stay too long, but it was nice to see so many people out to support a great cause and I even got bear hugged by a male nurse named Hugo. Nice guy. But anyway, a big thanks to Aja for the invite and I hope the event was a success!

(Source: Carmen)

(Source: Me)

My Tokidoki stuff finally came, and I got an exclusive skate deck because I purchased a combination of their exclusive Tokidoki x New Era hats! By far my favourite clothing brand at the moment, even though I don't get the chance to wear it out as much as I want. Typically, I'm stuck wearing my badminton clothing supplied by Yonex and anything from previous multi-sport Games events from the Candian Olympic Committee (COC). As I'm training most of the time, badminton clothing is so comfortably, casual, and simple :P Regardless, I have a LOT of hats, and I've added 2 more to the bunch, along with a hat carrying case. That will prove useful on the airplane rides. Also, I got a couple of shirts, one for Carmen, featuring Psylocke, as it is a Tokidoki x Marvel crossover. Anyway, check out their website for more information! To finish off the week, we went out for dinner with our Korean friend Jiwoo, as he is going back to Korea for a while. He took us to this Korean BBQ place out in Coquitlam, called To-Dam (I think). He's a VIP there as he eats there a lot, so we had some pretty good service. The food was excellent, but not sure what the price was. Usually, Korean BBQ is on the more expensive side, especially as it wasn't AYCE (All You Can Eat). However, the quality of the food was very good!

(Source: Me) Carmen modeling a TKDK hat

(Source: Me) Korean BBQ!

So, that's all for this week! Next week I will be in Peru, so I will try to take more pictures and video, but no guarantees as I will be studying like crazy too! Thanks for visiting!

Week 13 (2013)

Week 13: March 14-30

Badminton: 4 / 5
School: 3 / 5
Misc: 4 / 5
Overall: 3.67 / 5

Productive week as all of our group's effort came together for the final copy of our Creatine Supplementation paper and presentation on Thursday. It was also nice to have Friday (and Monday) off so I can get caught up with some studies, but it was a real downer that I did badly on my Neuroanatomy exam. The UBC x ClearOne Tournament was this weekend, so it was nice to be in the tournament environment again as well :)

Song of the Week: Kingdom Hearts Piano Collections - 2nd Mov. Kairi - Andante Sostenuo. I tried playing this piece a long time ago but the end was kind of a turnoff because it was so hard to play. Now I'm trying to get back into it and I've forgotten some things, but still remember some parts, so basically it's just a huge mess :) The song is from the video game 'Kingdom Hearts' (somewhat of a cross between Final Fantasy and Disney characters, with original characters mixed into the franchise as well). This is the theme of Kairi, the female character in the game that the lead character kinda has a thing for. But stuff happens and I like to think of it as a song of enduring or patience. Beautifully crafted piece, though I don't know if I will ever play it as well as the recording. Maybe someday :)

Let's start with the rant about my Neuroanatomy midterm. Well... I really don't know what happened. It's not like I didn't study for it, but I think I just didn't know what to expect. I ended up studying too much extra stuff and spent too much time typing things out of the textbook to learn which weren't even tested. I suppose I'm either losing touch with what I need to know in school, or still trying to recover from being out of school for so long. I feel I'm a bit mixed up with what I need to know for the exam, and what may be interesting or of practical use to me. I love learning about things that I can relate to, but I guess I process things differently. I apologize if you expected this to be about Neuroanatomy, but I will be talking about exam writing. If the TA is marking my exam, it would really not matter so much what the prof is saying, to the extent that he provides what I need to know, but the answers I give should be catered toward the TA because he is marking. Therefore, it would be much more interesting to figure out what the TA is thinking, or asking the TA questions, if he is the sole marker of the midterms. This would be the second time I have been killed by TA's because they are the ones marking. They have a marking scheme, leaving less to the imagination, and it's also based on their own judgement. But that's just life... sometimes, things just don't work out. It's not that I didn't try, but I won't give up either. I'll see what I can do on this final, and at least I can try to fix a few things. My answers weren't detailed enough and I suppose I misinterpreted a major set of questions (got pretty much a page of zeroes). For the final, I'll make sure I work on giving more detail, and spend more time on knowing different types of neuro exam techniques for various scenarios.

In my Muscle Physiology class, we had our group presentation on creatine supplementation on Thursday. My part was pretty simple, despite an idea I came up with. I decided to present an analogy to my section on osmolarity, hypertrophy, and side effects and it actually turned out pretty well. I actually got a little nervous, though I'm not too sure why. Maybe I haven't been competing enough lately :P Regardless, there were two points in the presentation where I had to present, so after almost dying in the beginning, I regained my composure, put my flash cards away, and just winged it. Fortunately, it worked well enough! A big thanks to my group for putting everything together and doing a great job on their parts! We had about 50-60 references for our paper, so we really did cover a lot. After doing the paper, I think I might try supplementation, although I will wait until after my finals. There aren't really any side effects if you're healthy, except for some minor case studies here and there. So, if you are an athlete who could use a bit of extra power, then maybe try it out and see how it works. Remember though, there's about a 20% chance that someone could be a non-responder, so there is a little gamble. Also, it's probably not useful for endurance exercise, as the oxidative phosphorylation mechanism via the electron transport chain is much more effective than the phosphocreatine shuttle system. I won't get too detailed right now, but please ask away if you have any questions.

(Source: Me) Wearing the UBC x C1 Tournament shirt!

So, for my Easter long weekend, I participated in the UBC x ClearOne tournament. I entered singles and mixed (with Carmen), and there were quite a lot of matches to play. Overall, I think there's some good players out there, even though a lot of them play for fun. In the singles, I had a fairly easy time because we play so many matches in a short period of time that most of my opponents were really tired after the first set. Actually, I was starting to really feel the tiredness in the final, but it was worse for my opponents as I'm sure they're not used to playing so many matches. Regardless, I will definitely reconsider playing singles next time and let everyone else duke it out. As my level of singles isn't that great, I still hope people learned a few things here and there so they can improve their games. It's not that I want people to go out and train and compete more, I just think it's nice to learn something, practice it, and have a goal to look up to :) Mixed was a whole different story. I think I pretty much went all out and had to use my tactics to get the upper-hand on some teams. Mixed was a lot tougher than singles, even though it was my event. Carmen did well to hold her own, but it was probably helpful that I kept instructing her to do things. This lesson always comes back to haunt me in that "I told you so" kind of way, because it's just a sign that things may still work out if you don't give up and try your best. Trying your best isn't always about running faster, jumping higher, or smashing harder: sometimes it just means repeating instructions to your partner constantly to keep them in the game. Even though you may have said it a million times, to forgo a chance to speak up means that you didn't give it your best. Anyhow, some really good games and again, it's nice to see a good level of recreational players out there! I think it'd be nice to do some recreational player clinics, not so much about forcing them to do drills and stuff, but mainly just to answer some quick questions so that they can make tactical changes that will add to their games. A big thank you to UBC Badminton Club for organizing the tournament and ClearOne Badminton for hosting! It was a good weekend :)

(Source: Me)

(Source: Me)
Victory dinner w/ Carmen and Jiwoo at Gangnam (yes, really) Korean BBQ

(Source: Me) With Carmen!

(Source: Me) Okay...

(Source: Carmen) Victory Pinkberry!

Now that the tournament is over, my forearm is not in good shape. I suppose it's overusing my forearm muscles (especially the forearm flexors) to excessive levels, so it's actually quite sore and I really need to rest it and make sure it gets better for Peru. Some things I will try is to minimize using grip strength outside of badminton, so no more playing piano for a while (not that it's very useful anyway), and definitely no 1-3 RM deadlifts, which are probably responsible to that additional strain on the forearm. I may have to limit rows and TRX exercises as well, so I guess I'll be doing a lot of leg work this next week. Hopefully, the tapering period will aid in the recovery as well. My injury has not been officially diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure it's Golfer's Elbow, or medial epicondylitis. Obviously, the badminton is the key cause of the injury, but I think it may be due a bit to the shoulder, as I've had shoulder problems previously. The shoulders have been a bit better, but it's probably because I'm using more of my forearm to play. Basically, your body is really good at cheating for you, so technique is important, fixing imbalances is important, and recovering properly from injuries is very important. Oh well, hopefully heat, compression, and topical analgesics will tie me over this week. I might take an additional day off to rest my arm and maybe study for the upcoming finals coming up in a few weeks!

(Source: Me) UBC x ClearOne Tournament - MD

So that's it for this week! I know I'm late again, and it's getting pretty bad. I might need to make this biweekly because I don't have the time to write as carefully as I want to. I don't want to say anything bad, or wrong, and I would like to research and source my information properly, so either I write less per week, or more per two weeks. I don't know yet, I guess I'll see what happens in a week :P Sorry for rushing through this week!!

Thanks for visiting!

Week 12 (2013)

Week 12: March 17-23

Badminton: 2 / 5
School: 4 / 5
Misc: 4 / 5
Overall: 3.3 / 5 

Interesting week as I finally finished all my exams and I could relax a little bit. I also want to try a new thing this week, so I will now add a cliche "Song of the Week" so you can listen to it while you read the blog! Lame? Probably, but oh well. Here is "Purgatorial Road" (AKA Via Purifico) from the Final Fantasy X Piano Collections. I am actually learning how to play it and I'm pretty close to being able to play it decently :)

Although I have finished my exams for now, I still have a group presentation and paper to do for my Muscle Physiology (UBC KIN 462) class. Oddly, I'm the only guy in my group of 5, but hey, I'm definitely not complaining :P Our topic is on creatine supplementation, which has been extremely interesting and rewarding. After about 20 research papers later, I am starting to convince myself that I should be supplementing with creatine for my badminton! Ironically, I did the side effects section, and unless you have kidney problems, you're good to go if you want something extra for strength and power. It's not so useful for endurance athletes, although there have been mixed reports on creatine being an antioxidant. Apparently, it plays a secondary role and is very selective on what it can act as for an antioxidant, and the arginine (an amino acid) part of creatine is what plays the antioxidant role. However, a different study said that supplementation induces oxidative stress. Theoretically though, creatine supplementation is meant to increase your levels of creatine which will aid you the most in those very short bursts of energy (i.e. anaerobic alactic energy system) which neither requires oxygen or builds lactate. It gives you that extra ATP you need at the very start up of exercise. If you are using the aerobic system, which most people do in endurance type exercises, the aerobic energy system is much more effective than the PCr system. That's why, in theory, it probably isn't very useful to endurance athletes. However, if we were to use it for badminton, I think it's good for those quick bursts of energy, where you may go and jump smash and charge the net for a finish. Then, while you rest between rallies, you quickly try to replenish as much of the phosphocreatine stores as possible, so you can repeat it again if necessary. I don't know how practical it is, but I will get a chance to try it out. I think I will wait until after Peru to start my one week loading phase though. Keep in mind as well, maybe 20% of people are non-responders to creatine supplementation.

(Source: Mechanisms of muscular adaptations to creatine supplementation. Rawson & Persky, 2007)

I also learned about Complex Training in my muscle physiology class, as my professor works extensively with rugby athletes. The idea of complex training (CT) is that you do heavy strength exercises between 1 RM to 5 RM lifts, then go into a plyometric or power exercises. For example, doing deadlifts and then going into some power cleans. The idea is that the heavy strength lift will activate your central nervous system (CNS), so in a way it gets your nervous system ready to activate your muscles. To elaborate, I think the idea was that you may only be using Type I and IIa muscle fibers, but with the CNS activation, you can get in those IIb/x fibers to lift even more. It's still a relatively new concept, but it seems to make sense. However, there are drawbacks and if you don't train properly, fatigue is probably your number one problem, as you won't have enough energy to go on with your other workouts. I will clarify this with an example: if I want to train twice a day, with a weight training session as one of those sessions, it is better to do the weights BEFORE. I've always been an advocate of weight training first anyway, but I know some people prefer to do running/training first, then weight training. Regardless, if I did a heavy strength workout first, it might help activate my muscles better for the later session so I can work harder. I'm going to test it out pretty soon, as I need to get back into strength mode as I'm supposed to be in power mode at the moment. It might have to wait until my tournaments and exams are over first!


I didn't like some of the videos I saw, but here's a paper on Complex Training if you are interested:

(PDF) Complex Training: A Brief Review (Ebben 2002)

Badminton has been a bit stale this week because I skipped out on training on Wednesday to go to a resume workshop offered by Canada Sport Institute (CSI) Pacific, which I will talk about in a bit. Unfortunately, my training partners have been rolling ankles the past few weeks, so Friday was a relatively tame day, though I did get a little bit of a hit in, and I had a couple of lessons as well. As I figured that I should do something, I did some heavy squats and I have some DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) still lingering right now. However, I hope to amp up the training a bit more next week, as I will try out some of that complex training and I just got some more Yonex Arc Saber 11's! Thank you Yonex Canada! Also got some supplements from CSI Pacific so thanks to them and Pfizer for supporting Canadian athletes!

(Source: Me)

The resume workshop was run by Ken Graham and Kevin Morrison from Adecco. The Adecco group is apparently the world's largest provider of HR solutions so we got some pretty good information on how to do a resume and even how to make a LinkedIn account. I will briefly highlight some of the things we did, so bear with me if you already know how to write an awesome resume, or just skip the paragraph :P I found it quite informative as I've never had to use a resume. However, I figure it's probably something worth learning how to do. Some key things are that people may only spend 10-12 seconds per resume, so long engaging sentences or paragraphs (much like my blog) are not so good on a resume. Keep it less than 2.5-3 pages and have all the main stuff on the first page, and no grammar mistakes (pretty common knowledge here). A trick they said for proofreading though is to read your resume backwards. I guess that might catch spelling errors but I don't know to what extent it will play on grammar. Another thing is not to write anything that can be used to discriminate against you (i.e. political views, religion). The reason is that if they feel there might be conflicts or issues, then they will less likely hire you, based on your views. Some other tips are to explain what your previous company does, or what your role is in certain positions. Also, for sports, you should clarify your role as a National Team athletes, or what it takes to qualify for the Olympics. It's what they were calling the "So what?" editing. It doesn't mean that people won't care, but if you don't tell them the specifics, it's less likely for them to understand what you've gone through. A final point is to be able to identify interests, values, skills, traits, and give examples in a resume. From sport, you can identify how well you take to coaching, talk about the struggles you overcome, how you can stay consistent with training and diet, etc. To finalize, here is an interesting on Social Media video by Erik Qualman who wrote "Socialnomics".

I know this week is a little bit short, but I've been pretty swamped with my research paper for my Muscle Physiology class. Hopefully, I will start working a little earlier on next week's blog! I will be playing in the UBC Tournament at ClearOne (Browngate) over the Easter weekend and hopefully I can spend a bit of that time updating the blog! I will try to take more pictures too!

See you next week! Thanks for reading!

Week 11 (2013)

Week 11: March 10-16

Badminton: 3/5
School: 3/5
Misc: 3/5
Overall: 3/5

It was a pretty normal week, although I had a midterm in my Neuroanatomy course. Overall, everything went pretty smoothly, badminton included, but I think I'm not getting enough sleep for the amount of training I'm doing. I am starting to feel it significantly, so I will do my best to make adjustments starting this weekend. The next couple of weeks will be quite hefty, as I need to work on a paper and presentation for my Muscle Physiology course, all while training and getting ready for Peru International in April.

The week started off with Biochemisty (UBC BIOC 302) where we are covering DNA structure, including how it works with proteins, coiling, super-coiling, topoisomerases, etc. It's been quite confusing as I do recall learning a bit of stuff from my second year Cell Biology class (which I did terrible on), so I really need to spend some time to review the material this weekend. It sort of makes sense, but it's a bit like learning new material so maybe I just need a little more time to digest it. If you aren't clear about DNA, it is basically the blueprint of your genetic information. Kind of like your genetic fingerprint, you could say. In reference to what I was learning, DNA needs to condense to be packaged into a tiny cell, so you get these supercoils and such, so the function of a topoisomerase (an enzyme) is to help it out when it is underwound or overwound. I know you probably don't care what a topoisomerase is, but what if I said that some antibiotics work that way? For some bacterial infections (which should never be confused with viral infections e.g. cold or flu), you may get antibiotics know as quinolones which will affect the functioning of bacterial topoisomerase. Without the enzyme to make modifications to the bacteria's DNA, it dies. A common drug you may have had at some point is called Ciprofloxacin which is commonly prescribed for urinary tract infections and gastrointestinal problems. Again, this is not medical advice and if you are in search of medical advice, please consult a practicing medical professional, preferably not online. Below is a brief animation of topoisomerases which basically explains everything I said in less than 2 minutes :P

I had my second Neuroanatomy (UBC KIN 473) midterm on Tuesday morning. It was fairly straight forward, but I ended up studying too much, because the assigned readings actually encompassed more than what I needed to know. Basically, I knew things that weren't going to be tested. Useful in general? Yes. Useful for the exam? No! It's one thing to learn extra material, but for the sake of wasting valuable review time, I guess I should have clarified with my professor. In the meantime, we looked at some additional treatments for Parkinson's Disease which involved deep brain stimulation. Basically, an electrode is carefully inserted into the basal ganglia (Globus Pallidus or Subthalamic Nucleus) of the brain. Through magnetic stimulation, the indirect pathway is affected and as the stimulation is reversible and tunable, it can be controlled. The effects can be quite immediate and it is a very remarkable treatment!

My Muscle Physiology (UBC KIN 462) class went over the midterm on Tuesday for most of the class, and we got back into some molecular differences that happen in the cells between resistance training and aerobic exercise. I didn't do very well on the midterm, but it was better than my initial mark. I got a few marks because a couple of points were missed, and it was also nice for the professor to inflate the mark a bit by making the written section worth more. The idea was because the written portion was 4 essay questions, 5 marks apiece, but what probably took the most time to write, was only worth 20/55 marks. So she decided to double it to 10 marks apiece and make it out of 75, and after a couple of corrections, I got boosted almost 5%, making my mark a bit more tolerable so I don't want to walk in front of a bus anymore (metaphorically). Anyway, at the end of the lecture on Thursday, we were discussing concurrent training. A good overview of what it is in found on the Optimal Sports Performance blog as there is no Wikipedia stub. I suppose it is quite new, but as a badminton player, it is a very intriguing question, as badminton is a very mixed type sport in terms of using all the energy systems. I've had discussions with a few players, but what do you think is more important for badminton? Strength/power or endurance? Most importantly, why do you think that way? I will address my thoughts in the next paragraph, but I would like to add a bit more about concurrent training, for those who may be curious. A primary difference between strength training and endurance training at the cellular level is the effect of calcium. In those who are training aerobic endurance, there is more of a calcium dependence, while those who train for strength work more through a calcium independent pathway. Without getting too much into specifics, a key problem with strength training is that there will be hypertrophy (increase in size) of muscles. This increase in size makes it harder for oxygen to diffuse and other substrates to get to where they need to go. It's kind of like working in an office building that gets an expansion. You used to work on the 5th floor, but now you have to work on the 10th floor. So every time you go work, you have to go an extra 5 up and 5 down. In contrast, endurance training has a negative effect on protein synthesis, hence endurance training people don't get bigger; therefore, they don't get stronger (assuming hypertrophy = increase in strength). The picture below is a map of the molecular markers of both training regimes. The dashed line that doesn't have an arrow head means that it is inhibiting (stopping) the thing it points to (Source: www.8weeksout.com)

(Original Source: Hawley, 2009)

Well, to compete the discussion on concurrent training, it would be best to try to relate it to badminton. Honestly, I am not too familiar with endurance training except for my preconceptions of LSD (Long Slow Distance, not Lysergic Acid Diethylamide). As primarily a doubles player, I never found it useful (or pleasant for another matter) to do running for long distances for extended periods of time. Even since training for the 2012 Olympics, I never ran more than 20 minutes continuously. However, the question is not so black and white, but at least it's not 50 shades of grey (intent in the pun, not in reading the book). I find that long slow distance is probably never used in badminton, and HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) would probably be the best answer for building that aerobic base. I will probably do a bit more research when I have the time, but the way I like to approach badminton is sport-specificity and technique. That should always come as number one. If you cannot hit proper shots, then you will be terribly inefficient and then have to waste a lot of energy trying to retrieve the shuttle because of poor shot quality. After technique, I would go for power training. I think power is essential in being able to generate enough strength and speed into movements or shots that can help you win the rally. However, shot selection is important as well, and there is no reason to do full jump smashes on the backline as it is not to your advantage; ie. it is the wrong shot to hit. That would be a fault on both systems, as you would be wasting valuable energy and hitting a poorly selected shot. After that, I would go into anaerobic training and improving lactate tolerance. Basically, you will probably be working pretty hard running around, but if you move efficiently and take the right chances, you can reduce the amount of 'wasted' energy. Hence you can reduce the lactic build up with every break between rallies, hopefully which you've won. Having a good lactate tolerance will help you maintain a good level of performance at a given level. Finally, the aerobic base, which you probably would be training slightly when you do any anaerobic training, should be the final component. The reason is if you work backwards, you will lose before you get tired, and that's a terrible feeling. It's like, not finishing a test because you ran out of time. I will come back to these points when I have more time to research, as I am spending the whole weekend researching Creatine supplementation, which will probably be a topic that will show up next week!

(Source: Google Image search)

So for my final overview of the Arc Saber 11, I think I will probably switch to it. My shoulder has been acting up a bit and when I switched back to the Arc 10 because I broke my strings on my Arc 11, it felt a bit rough on the shoulder. I am trying to take measures to improve my shoulder health with TRX exercises, resistance band work, and really trying to strengthen my back, but if I'm training often and having to hit smashes, it's probably best to work with a racquet that's compatible with my problem. The racquet is slightly lighter than the Arc 10 (to me), and I think I'm adjusting pretty well to it. Most likely I will try to get a few more and I will be using it for the 2013 Peru International coming up in a few weeks! The flight has been book, I've entered the tournament, but I still need to arrange accommodations, though that should be alright. Not quite sure where we are playing this year as well. Regardless, I'll be armed with some new Yonex gear! Thank you Yonex!

(Source: Me; from Yonex Canada)

So some other stuff that happened this week included a certification fair at UBC for the Kinesiology faculty. It's kind of cool to see what else I can do to supplement my degree and I'm quite interested in getting a CSCS certification from the NSCA. I will do some more research but I think it would be good to supplement my degree, in addition to any coaching certifications for Badminton. Currently I hold a full NCCP Level 2 with a NCCP Level 3 Technical, but I hope to complete the Level 3 NCCP as well. The CSCS certification would make me a much more well-rounded coach for badminton, and perhaps I will looking into being a certified Exercise Physiologist as well. However, I'll need to get the hours for that, but I'm thinking either CSEP or ACSM. Or, if I make it into medical school, then all my money will go there. However, I'm having some second thoughts, as an MPT (Masters of Physiotherapy) can keep me involved in sport. Then... maybe Rio 2016 could be a possibility?

(Source: Me)

Here are some extra things that happened this week. On Monday night, Carmen made me some spaghetti sauce and left me some for lunch for a couple days (see picture). Unfortunately, on Wednesday, she forgot her lunch when she came over so she ended up eating the other half of the spaghetti! Regardless, it was some good homemade sauce and I hope she will make some more next time ;) On Thursday night, I decided to work on an idea I got from a Street Fighter wallpaper I had, as the characters were kind of darkened, with certain parts of their costumes glowing. I decided I would try to duplicate it for badminton and I chose the 2013 Canadian National Team. So I pretty much used Photoshop Touch on my Samsung Note 10.1 and did my best to try to duplicate the idea. Although it wasn't really what I wanted, I finished the rest of the pictures and put them together on PhotoGrid. So, the final result is displayed below (see picture). Lastly, I am trying to sell some used Playstation 3 games! Preferably locally, so if you know anyone is interested in any of the games, please contact me! Nothing is more than $10 :)

(Source: Me)

(Source: Me)

(Source: Me)

Hope you enjoyed this week's blog! See you next time :)

Thanks for visiting!

- Toby