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Study: Fewer Intense Workouts, More Recovery for Maximum Performance
Posted January 22nd, 2008 at 2:39 PM by thefinalsprint.com
Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise
How much time should you spend working at your maximum level in your sport, compared to miles or days spent going at a relaxed pace?
Researchers at the University of Madrid in Spain divided competitive distance runners into two groups. One group did frequent intense workouts and fewer slow recovery miles, while the second group did fewer intense workouts and more slow miles (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, August 2007).
At the end of five months, the runners who did fewer intense workouts and more recovery miles improved far more than those who ran fewer miles and spent a lot of their time trying to run very fast.
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Exercise May Speed
Healing Time
Posted December 29th, 2007 at 4:21 PM by Hariz Siddiqui
Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise
Animal studies suggest that exercise may be even more important for older people than for younger ones. A report from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows that exercise significantly decreased wound size and increased healing rate in older mice. However, exercise had little effect on the rate of wound healing in young mice. (American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, November 14, 2007).
Mice ran on a treadmill at moderate intensity for 30 minutes a day for eight days. They then were given four full-thickness skin wounds and the rate of wound healing was checked daily for 10 days. Compared to age-matched non-exercising mice, the older exercisers healed faster.
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Q&A: Is it true that weight loss during exercise is normal?
Posted December 29th, 2007 at 2:16 PM by Martin Kennedy
Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise
If you weigh yourself before and after an hour or two of exercise, the difference is likely to be fluid loss. However, in events lasting several hours or even several days, measurable fat loss can occur. At a competitive 12-hour indoor stationary bicycle marathon, one athlete took fluids and food throughout the entire competition, and still lost 2.64 pounds (Schweizerische Rundschau für Medizin Praxis, July 2007).
Of this weight loss, 1.98 pounds was due to loss of fat. His calculated muscle weight increased by 1.46 pounds due to damage to the muscle cells, which results in fluid retention in the cells.
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Keeping Kids Injury-Free
This Fall Season
Posted November 14th, 2007 at 7:00 AM by Megan Hueter
Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab
With the fall season umong us, many children are enjoying after school sports. While sports are a great way to develop strong bones, there is a higher risk for injuries, especially since their bones and muscles are still growing. The American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons recommends that parents and coaches take precautions to minimize the risk of injuries.
The 2006 statistics from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission outlines the extent of sports injuries in children under 18.
Read the rest of this entry at our partner site: HesFit.com
Consistent Exercise Through the Years is Key to Stability
Posted November 12th, 2007 at 3:20 PM by Megan Hueter
Section: Health & Fitness, Exercise, Weight Loss
Slacking off can have devastating effects on your weight. Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine stated last week that maintaining a high level of activity from young adulthood to middle age can help people maintain a stable weight and accumulate less weight over time.
Northwestern conducted an analysis about weight gain and found that people who report doing 30 minutes of vigorous activity a day were twice as likely to have a healthy Body Mass Index (BMI) over a period of 20 years.
Read the rest of this entry at our partner site: HesFit.com
Q&A: Are hot tubs and saunas helpful or harmful?
Posted November 1st, 2007 at 8:15 PM by Hariz Siddiqui
Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise
For many years I have believed that heating muscles in a whirlpool or sauna after exercise interferes with muscle contractions and hampers muscular endurance.
However, a study from the University of Otago in New Zealand shows that taking a sauna after workouts for three weeks helped athletes to exercise longer to exhaustion (Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Sports Medicine Australia, August 2007).
Trained runners sat in a humid sauna for 30 minutes at 89.9 degrees centigrade immediately after exercising, 12 times in three weeks. They then ran as hard as they could on a treadmill for about 15 minutes, to exhaustion.
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Low Bone Density: A Serious Risk Factor for Athletes
Posted October 29th, 2007 at 5:20 PM by Megan Hueter
Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise
A University of Missouri study suggests that athletic men may be at risk for low bone density. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, “osteoporosis affects more than 2 million men in the United States and nearly 12 million more have osteopenia– clinically significant low bone density that is less severe than osteoporosis.” The study now suggests that men who engage in low-impact forms of exercise have a higher incidence of osteopenia.
Pamela Hinton, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Missouri’s College of Human Environmental Sciences claims that “Regular, non-weight-bearing activities, such as swimming and cycling are effective measures for preventing the leading risk factors for death and disability in our society, but the results of this study suggest that regular weight-bearing activities, such as running, jogging, or rope jumping, are important for the maintenance of healthy bones.”
Read the rest of this article by new, staff writer Denise Musumeci via our partner site: HesFit.com
Longer Lower Legs =
More Efficient Running
Posted October 29th, 2007 at 3:30 PM by Allyson Rosen
Section: News & Results, Running & Training, Health & Fitness, Exercise
People who have longer lower leg lengths (the distance from knee to ankle) will usually have greater endurance during running or walking than those with shorter lower leg lengths.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin showed that people with longer lower legs use less energy when they run (Journal of Human Evolution, August 2007).
In a previous paper in the same journal, these authors showed that people with longer lower legs are better able to prevent heat build-up, which slows you down and makes you tired. When you exercise, almost 80 percent of the energy that you use to power your muscles is lost as heat.
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How To Be An Economical
and Efficient Runner
Posted October 19th, 2007 at 3:26 PM by Lisa Cieplechowicz
Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Health & Fitness, Exercise
For many runners, scoring a faster running time can be a point of frustration. Though you train regularly and your technique may seem impeccable, sometimes your efforts seem to add up to nothing when it comes to improving your speed. In fact, how fast or slow you run often has a great deal to do with your economy of motion.
Economy of motion is a simple enough concept. It refers to the relationship between how much energy you expend when you run and how fast you go. Typically, the less energy it take you to run a given distance the faster - or more “economical” - you will run. Unfortunately, as the New York Times reports, improving your running economy is one task that’s particularly difficult to accomplish, if possible at all.
Read the rest of this entry at our partner site: HesFit.com
Gauging leg strength
Posted October 16th, 2007 at 2:45 PM by Shannon Clark
Section: Health & Fitness, Exercise
One of the best ways to determine how you are progressing on your fitness program and how good of leg strength you have in general is with a wall squat test. A wall squat test will primarily assess your quad strength however the hamstrings and glute muscles will also come into play as well.
The nice thing about a wall squat test is that it is going to mimic movements that you perform very often in every day life, whether it’s getting up and down from a sitting position or walking up a flight of stairs. Being strong in this type of body position will be of benefit to you because it will make these exercises easier as well as help to prevent you from suffering any injuries in the future.
Read the rest of this entry at our partner site: HesFit.com
What is your favorite running movie or documentary?
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Page 2 Articles
- Preserve muscle sugar for speed and endurance
How fast you can move and how long you can exercise intensely depends on the amount of sugar (glycogen) stored in your muscles. The same rule applies in all sports: when muscles run out of their stored sugar supply, they require more oxygen and you have to slow down.
Fluid is less important than muscle […] - Q&A: Francisco Rodriguez on his transformation from avid smoker to dedicated marathoner
Twenty years ago, Francisco Rodriguez smoked more than two packs of cigarettes per day - and the thought of running a marathon was almost laughable. Today, the recently-retired Bank of New York Vice President is running as many as 54 races a year and completed his 150th marathon in April at the Boston Marathon. […]
- Book Review: “Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes” by Monique Ryan
While the most elite competitive athletes have the luxury of a team of coaches, advisors, and dieticians to consult with on a regular basis, the average endurance athlete preparing for an event isn’t so lucky. That’s where Monique Ryan comes in. A nutrition expert who has worked with professionals for over 20 years, Ryan has […]
- Slow it down … take a hike!
Life goes by fast.
Sixty miles per hour to the office. Seven miles per hour on the treadmill. Forty-five in a thirty-five to make practice on time. And all after eight cups of coffee.
The jittery, anxiety-inducing schedule of espressos and non-stop “to dos” has, for many, become an accepted inevitability. In a fast-paced society, the […] - HAL’s Katie Drummond:
“My life as a runner began for all the wrong reasons”In this column for our partner site, HerActiveLife.com, senior writer Katie Drummond writes about the tragic beginning to her running “career”, battling an eating disorder, turning her life around, and how running gave her the strength and determination to regain her health.
My life as a runner began for all the wrong reasons. Five years ago, […] - Baking soda may help athletes to exercise longer
Sodium bicarbonate, commonly known as baking soda, is used as a medication to neutralize stomach acid in ulcer patients and as a home remedy for stomach distress.
Now researchers in Greece have shown that it may neutralize the acid in muscles during intense exercise and helps athletes to exercise longer (Medicine & Science in Sports […] - Studies: Exercise can make your brain larger
Regular exercise makes your brain larger, according to a study from the University of Illinois (Journal fo Gerontology, November 2006).
With aging, your brain becomes smaller. This study showed that 60 to 79-year-old men who exercised regularly actually had their brains grow larger. Study participants who did only a stretching and toning program had their […] - Will blood pressure drugs interfere with my running program?
The beta blocker drugs used to treat blood pressure and heart problems can markedly impair your ability to exercise, according to a study from Switzerland (European Journal of Applied Physiology, October 2005).
How hard you can exercise is limited by the ability of your heart to pump blood from your lungs to your exercising muscles. […] - Exercise makes cells more efficient; increases overall health & life expectancy
Why does risk for heart attacks, strokes or diabetes increase with age? A team from Yale University showed that as you age, you lose your ability to make AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) (Cell Metabolism, February 2007). This enzyme functions to increase mitochondria in muscles.
Anything that reduces the number or efficiency of […] - Can intense exercise, such as marathon running, affect a man’s sexual performance?
A study in the medical journal, Fertility and Sterility, shows that the only sexual change caused by hard exercise is a decrease in the volume of a man’s semen.
Twenty-four marathon runners had their blood and semen checked regularly as they increased their training for competition. All sex hormones remained the same except for an increase […]
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On July 19, 2008
Scott Jones said:
one more thing, in case you get a chance to respond, my email is scottjonesemail@yahoo.com.