August 11, 2022

Science Shows You Can Go Farther and Faster with Music

A new study in the Journal of Human Kinetics showed that listening to music during a running time trial led to a 10% increase in total distance covered, as well as a 14% increase in speed. There was also evidence of 8% lower blood lactate concentration in those who listened to...

August 2, 2022

The Great Cooling Revolution in Endurance Sports

Studies show that reducing body temperature may improve performance even in relatively temperate conditions. We’ve known that physiology for a long time, but it wasn’t until recently that athletes started making cooling techniques a top priority. All around the world, in all different sports, there is something big happening. We...

July 26, 2022

Exercise more than the recommended amounts for the longest life, study says

Researchers analyzed more than 116,000 adults in a study published Monday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. Participants self-reported their leisure time activity in questionnaires several times over the course of 30 years, and researchers estimated the association between the time and intensity of exercise with rates of death....

July 20, 2022

Survey Finds Runners Value Sports Sponsors More than the General Public

A survey from Elevent finds runners are more sponsorship savvy than the general public, including having both a more positive perception of sponsors and a willingness to engage with them. Elevent, a provider of sponsorship lifecycle management software, consulting services, and research, in the first quarter of 2022 conducted a...

July 11, 2022

You can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet, study shows

A new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine examined the diets and exercise patterns of 360,600 British adults over the course of 11 years. They looked at the amount of exercise each participant did in an average week and how vigorous it was to see if people...

July 8, 2022

Trail runners prefer to race the marathon distance or longer, new study finds

If you first experienced trail running in your mid-30s, you’re in good company. A new study on the training habits of trail runners reports that almost a quarter of athletes began exploring trails between the ages of 31 and 35. The research was conducted by the International Trail Running Association...

June 29, 2022

Strava data on Le Tour pro riders’ training shows at least 15,000km covered since January

As an official ride partner for this year’s Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Strava has published exclusive data. This reveals that pro cyclists have individually covered at least 15,000km in distance while training for the race since January – the equivalent of cycling from the...

June 24, 2022

New study explains why you can’t eat after a hard run

There is evidence to suggest that appetite may be suppressed after a hard workout, due to alterations in hunger hormones and metabolism. In a recent study in Nature, researchers at Stanford University, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and elsewhere identified a metabolite molecule that’s released into the blood during...

June 15, 2022

The best exercise time is different for men and women, study finds

A new study finds there are optimal times of day for achieving specific goals with exercise. The research shows that for women, in particular, exercising in the morning or evening produces different results. The study also includes the effect of exercise times on an individual’s mood. Medical News Today

June 9, 2022

Here’s why your smart watch isn’t great at prediciting calories burned during a workout

If you are among the majority of Americans who are overweight or just looking to stay fit, you may be counting calories (kcals) in the foods you eat and tracking the number of kcals you burn during exercise. There are several options available for tracking kcals during exercise. High-tech devices...

June 7, 2022

How Do Men And Women Differ In Post-Ultra Physiological Responses?

After ultramarathons, the body undergoes numerous physiological changes. A wonderful new study examined how those changes vary across athletes. While there are many similarities, the variance between men and women points toward very cool ideas for future physiology studies and training theory. Trail Runner Mag

June 6, 2022

New clues are revealing why exercise can keep the brain healthy

Scientists are learning how muscles in motion can improve cognition and shield against diseases like Alzheimer's, paving the way for new treatments. National Geographic

June 2, 2022

Coffee Drinking Linked to Lower Mortality Risk, New Study Finds

The research found that those who drank moderate amounts of coffee, even with a little sugar, were up to 30 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who didn’t drink coffee. NY Times (paywall)

May 24, 2022

Can Exercise Help Make Therapy More Effective? A Pair of Studies Suggests It Might

For many people, exercise is a whole lot more than just a way to make physical progress. And if you’ve been running for awhile, you’ve probably read about (or experienced) the many ways exercise can benefit your mental health. It doesn’t take all day to reap the benefits of a...

May 18, 2022

Are water stations useless for 5Ks and 10Ks?

After participating in Toronto’s Sporting Life 10K a couple of weeks ago, I was curious to know how many of the top 50 runners grabbed water at 8 km. My friend who was working the water station told me zero–no takers. Obviously, races are required to have water stations, but...

May 18, 2022

Why Running at Night Feels Harder

The new study, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, had 15 volunteers do a series of ten-minute treadmill walks in four conditions: with and without a 56-pound pack, and with and without a blindfold on. The treadmill was set at a comfortable pace of around 30 minutes per...

May 13, 2022

The Trail Ultra Project: Have Your Say in the Story of North American and British Off-Road Endurance Running

The off-road running communities of Britain and North America might be separated by thousands of miles, many time zones, and the great Atlantic Ocean, but they share a lot of common ground. The recently launched Trail Ultra Project aims to provide a comprehensive account of the rapidly growing sports of...

May 6, 2022

Skin Spews Telltale Gases for Health Trackers to Tap Into

Scientists are doing experiments to see whether sensors might be added to wearables to tell us even more about our health based on gases released by our skin. WebMD

May 4, 2022

New study finds exercise improves heart health even more for those with anxiety and depression

A new study from the American College of Cardiology suggests that regular exercise can decrease the likelihood of heart complications by 22 per cent in individuals with anxiety and depression, compared to 10 per cent in those who don’t. Put simply, exercise seems to have stronger benefits for the heart...

May 2, 2022

Scientists say they have nailed down the ideal amount of sleep in middle and old age

New research has found that around seven hours of sleep is the ideal night's rest, with insufficient and excessive sleep associated with a reduced ability to pay attention, remember and learn new things, solve problems and make decisions. CNN

April 23, 2022

Why Cyclists Can Handle Heat Better Than Runners

A team of Spanish researchers coordinated by David Barranco-Gil of the Universidad Europea de Madrid pooled eight years of data from 74 world-class cyclists (48 men and 26 women) and asked a simple question: how does air temperature affect performance? The answers offer some useful insights about the differences between...

April 21, 2022

5 Science-Backed Mental Tricks For Getting Through The Toughest Races

As much as we can prepare physically for races, if we don’t bring our mental A-game, things can go south quickly. Luckily, there are some tried-and-true techniques we can incorporate into our daily training to build mental strength. In his latest book, Chatter, award-winning author, psychologist and neuroscientist Dr. Ethan Kross...

April 19, 2022

What Americans Keep Getting Wrong About Exercise

In 2009, New York Times writer Gretchen Reynolds discovered something big: Readers loved to click on stories about tiny increments of exercise. That June, Reynolds wrote her first story about single-digit high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. The piece, titled “Can You Get Fit in Six Minutes a Week?,” described a study...

April 18, 2022

There’s New Data on How Your Arm Swing Affects Running

You can’t run fast without using your arms—or can you? Scientists have had a hard time agreeing on exactly why we swing our arms, and whether there are specific ways we can use our arms to speed ourselves up. The latest addition to a century’s worth of often conflicting research...

April 14, 2022

It doesn’t take a lot of exercise to fight depression, study says

The meta-analysis, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, looked at 15 studies involving over 190,000 people to determine how much exercise was needed to reduce depression. Adults who did activities equivalent to 1.25 hours of brisk walking per week had an 18% lower risk of depression compared with those who...