Blog
Movement
Speed Sessions: Get Loose and Correct Form
In the first episode of Fast Forward, high school athletes from St. Xavier (Cincinnati, Ohio) build the foundation for speed training by loosening up their muscles.
Performance Wellness Research: March
Movement
“No pill or nutritional supplement has the power of near-daily moderate activity in lowering the number of sick days people take,” says David Nieman, director of Appalachian State University’s Human Performance Lab in Kannapolis, N.C. Dr. Nieman has conducted several randomized controlled studies showing that people who walked briskly for 45 minutes, five days a week over 12 to 15 weeks had fewer and less severe upper respiratory tract infections, such as colds and flu. These subjects reduced their number of sick days 25% to 50% compared with sedentary control subjects, he says.
Medical experts say inactivity poses as great a health risk as smoking, contributing to heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, depression, arthritis and osteoporosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 36% of U.S. adults didn’t engage in any leisure-time physical activity in 2008.
Dr. Nieman, of Appalachian State University, says that during exercise, two types of immune cells circulate more freely in the blood, neutralizing pathogens. Although the immune system returns to normal within three hours, the effect of the exercise is cumulative, adding up over time to reduce illness rates, he says. He compares the process to “a cleaner who comes in for an hour a day, so by the end of a month, your house looks much better.”
Source: Wall Street Journal, The Hidden Benefits of Exercise, January 5, 2010
Nutrition
Multigrain and whole grain are not interchangeable terms. Whole grain means that all parts of the grain kernel — the bran, germ… [ read more ]
Performance Wellness Research: February
Movement
REFERENCE: Supervised exercise versus non-supervised exercise for reducing weight in obese adults. Nicolai SP et al. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2009 Mar;49(1):85-90. This research study looked at the effects of training with supervision/instruction (i.e. a qualified trainer) versus “advice.”
Group one met a trainer twice a week for 4 months (as a group).
Group two received basic advice to increase physical activity and were given access to a fully equipped gym (any exercise they did was unsupervised).
The group with supervision lost on average 362% more fat over a 4-month period. (Total fat loss of 13.4lbs in the coached group – and only 3.7lbs in the advice-only group).
Interesting Side Note: They made these improvements without ANY dietary advice given.
This is not a new finding, nor is it that surprising as a good coach or training partner/team can really help with your results. The fact that the group exercised together only served to improve those results further (as social support is one of the key variables in fat loss success) so I’m not sure that the supervision and instruction alone was entirely responsible for the enhanced results – or the social support was part of it. However, it’s clear that together it’s an unbeatable combination. And perhaps that’s one of the reasons why small group training seems to get better results than one-on-one training.
Performance Wellness Research: January
Movement
Research shows that regular cardio doesn’t really help with fat loss. One study showed interval training was better than cardio at burning belly fat (and cutting workout time in half). A second study found that 300 hours of cardio per year helped men lose only 6 pounds (and women lost only 4 pounds). So that’s about 50 hours of cardio per pound of weight lost – at BEST!
(Source: Obesity 15:1496-1512 (2007). Exercise Effect on Weight and Body Fat in Men and Women. Anne McTiernan, et al.)
Mindset
You may not be aware of it – they might not be aware of it, but the people in your work environment might be slowing you down. New research by University of Calgary shows that regardless of their intentions, having an individual working on a different task – within your field of vision – could be enough to slow down your performance.
The reason for this is a built-in response-interpretation mechanism that is hard-wired into our central nervous systems. If we see someone performing a task we automatically imagine ourselves performing that task. This behavior is part of our mirror neuron system.
(Source: Science Daily, Feb. 21, 2008)
Rest and Recovery
If you’re getting less than eight hours of sleep each night, chances are you’re sleep deprived. What’s more, you probably have no idea just how much lack of sleep is affecting you.
You may be sleep deprived if you…
Need an alarm clock in order to wake up on time
Rely on… [ read more ]
Performance Wellness Research: December
Movement
The benefits of exercise appear to be significant even without reaching the recommended 150 minutes per week based on results of previous research. “Exercising at very light levels reduced deaths from any cause by 14 percent,” said study senior author Xifeng Wu, M.D., Ph.D. The study also found that a person’s risk of death from any cause decreased by 4 percent for every additional 15 minutes of exercise up to 100 minutes a day over the course of the study. Those exercising for 30 minutes daily added about four years to life expectancy.
(Source: Science Daily, August 16, 2011)
Nutrition
Increased protein intake is now linked to lower saturated fat and lower caloric intake, study suggests. In the study, 70% of the increased energy intake on the lower protein diet was attributed to snacking. When the protein content was further increased to 25%, however, the researchers observed no change in behavior relative to the 15% protein diet. The findings have considerable implications for bodyweight management in the current nutritional environment, where foods rich in fat and carbohydrate are cheap, palatable and available to an extent unprecedented in our history.
(Source: Science Daily, October 12, 2011)
Rest & Recovery
The investigation conducted by the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle involved 400 patients who had low back pain, the majority of which were middle aged, Caucasian and female. Researchers found those who were given a series of relaxation massage or structural massage were better able to work and be active… [ read more ]