Conditioning Research

Inflammatory Response to a High-fat, Low-carbohydrate Weight Loss Diet: Effect of Antioxidants I know that there are people out there reading this blog that are a lot more intelligent than me and also more familiar with science. However, here is how I read this research: In a previous experiment these researchers found that a high fat low-carb diet was inflammatory; They came up with the hypothesis that this inflammation was due to oxidative stress; They decided to test this idea by putting some overweight people on a high fat / low carb and seeing what happened when some of them were given antioxidant supplements; The diet worked in that the overweight people lost weight; The antioxidant supplements did not make the diet more effective in terms of weight loss; The diet caused a reduction of some but not all markers of inflammation; A role for oxidative stress in causing inflammation was not confirmed. So, a high fat diet can make you lose weight and reduces some markers of inflamma...

The Ramsay Round is a classic Scottish hill run, a distance of 56 miles with 28,400 feet of ascent, over 24 Munros. There is a good account here of a recent run by two guys from Edinburgh's Carnethy Hillrunning Club.

A group of Toronto researchers with a new study that indicates that nuts help reduce insulin spikes (if you want to know why this is important in this context, check out this post ). UPDATE - as several commenters to this post point out, things are not quite that straight-forward. OK, we may like nuts but this study does not look well designed. Comparing the effect of almonds to the effect of muffins seems a bit confused! Effect of almonds on insulin secretion and insulin resistance in nondiabetic hyperlipidemic subjects: a randomized controlled crossover trial. Nuts appear to have a marked effect in cohort studies in reducing the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), but their demonstrated ability to lower cholesterol can only explain a proportion of the reduction in risk. Our aim was to assess whether improvement in carbohydrate metabolism provides a further explanation for the effect of nuts in reducing CHD. The effects of whole almonds, taken as snacks, were compared with the ...

On Monday I went along to Rannoch Donald's Combat Ready Class and really enjoyed it. It was great to train with other people and be pushed through a hard bodyweight workout. Hindu pushups, squats, lunges, bunny hops etc At the end of the class there was a few minutes of punching and kicking against pads held by other member of the class. Very hard work. We've probably all messed around trying to punch like a boxer before, but the idea of a proper kick was new to me. The particular kick used was the Switch Kick, quickly shuffling your stance to bring your lead leg back and allow a powerful strike. I had a search round youtube to try to find out a bit more about the technique:

I wonder what we make of this one? A few times on this blog I've mentioned the role of stress and psychological factors in health. Labour while exhausted may be unhealthy - Perception of work a key factor Working hard when fatigued may be admired by many Americans, but it is a virtue that could be harmful to one's health, according to new research by psychologists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The research supports a theory which suggests that exhausted individuals' cardiovascular systems are forced to work harder when they attempt to complete tasks, such as those encountered on the job or at school. The research, published in the July issue of the International Journal of Psychophysiology, found that fatigued individuals had larger blood pressure increases than rested individuals under conditions where they viewed success as both possible and worthwhile. Investigators believe the effects were determined by effort on the part of the study participant...

This study gives some guidance on putting together complex training sessions: Apparently....if you are doing sprints, plyometrics and resistance work you should do the sprints in a separate session because the plyos and resistance work will slow you down on the sprints. Then again maybe that is ok? If training is to mimic the game surely sprinting when already tired is the appropriate, functional way to train? Effect of order of exercise on performance during a complex training session in rugby players In this study, we examined the acute effects of manipulating exercise order when combining countermovement jumps and loaded parallel squats in a complex training session, and the acute effects of countermovement jumps and loaded parallel squats on sprinting performance. Eight rugby players participated in five trials, including two that involved performing loaded parallel squats followed by countermovement jumps or vice versa in a randomized cross-over design. Peak rate o...

An assessment of training volume in professional rugby union and its impact on the incidence, severity, and nature of match and training injuries. This study looked at the way in which training influenced injuries for professional rugby (union) players. Some interesting findings: Higher training volumes did not increase the incidence of match or training injuries. However, higher training volumes did increase the severity of match injuries, particularly during the second half, and consequently resulted in a significant increase in the number of days' absence due to match injuries. So training more didn't necessarily lead to more injuries .....but it meant that when there were injuries they were worse. The least number of days lost due to injuries occurred during weeks of intermediate training volumes. So there was a "sweet spot" / goldilocks position of just enough training where there was a reduction in injuries. Training volume was not correlated with final leag...