Conditioning Research

One sent to me by Jorgen.  Interesting given the shange in the length of hte days up at this lattitude.  Even here in Scotland at the moment it is light until well past 10 pm. people there report no difference in insomnia between winter, when there are only 3 hours of daylight, or in summer, when there are 21 hours of daylight. The researchers were surprised because earlier studies have indicated that darkness during winter might accentuate depression and the sleeplessness that derives from it. Seasonal Variations in Sleep Problems at Latitude 63°–65° in Norway The Nord-Trøndelag Health Study, 1995–1997 Most studies on seasonal variability in sleep have asked participants if they think their sleep quality varies with the seasons, which reveals the research hypothesis to the participants. To date, the hypothesis of seasonal variation in sleep has not been tested in a large population-based fully blinded study. The aim of the current study was to investigate monthly va...

Love him or hate him?

I'm off to bed Cutting back on sleep drastically reduces a healthy young man's testosterone levels, according to a study published in the June 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Eve Van Cauter, PhD, professor in medicine and director of the study, found that men who slept less than five hours a night for one week in a laboratory had significantly lower levels of testosterone than when they had a full night's sleep. Low testosterone has a host of negative consequences for young men, and not just in sexual behaviour and reproduction. It is critical in building strength and muscle mass, and bone density. More here, but I can't get the full thing .

Zen Habits had a post yesterday saying that there was no evidence that soy was harmful.   Melissa has taken him to task pretty well. Zen Habits - Stupid about Soy

Dan John has talked a lot about Goblet Squats and their value in patterning the squat.  I found this video of a strong set. Deep, straight back. (but crap shoes as Pieter points out in the comment below) EDIT - For what it is worth the video below is what Dan John himself in his new book (Dan has just posted a link to a free ebook  - The Coyote Point Kettlebell Club ) points to to explain the move.  You will see it is more of a mobility move / stretch.

Runners World have put up an interesting interview with Biomechanist Irene Davis, Ph.D., a leading researcher in the running field for more than 20 years. She is very much in favour of barefoot running: Davis is an unabashed promoter of barefoot running and barefoot-like running form. “I believe there is a compelling body of evidence that suggests we need to consider a paradigm change," she told me yesterday. "But paradigm changes are risky, and younger scientists may be more tentative." The whole thing is worth reading but I liked this bit: Why isn't anyone studying barefoot running and landing styles on different surfaces? We've got a lot of hard asphalt out there today. There have been numerous studies that have looked at how runners react to different surfaces. We now know that runners will change their form in just one or two strides when they hit a hard surface like concrete or a soft surface like sand. They'll adapt a softer landing on concre...

My pal Colin - from Edinburgh Deep Tissue Massage -  has posted a superb new piece in his series on posture: Improving your posture Pt2 Excellent ideas which I will steal when I come to write a future article on the dangers of sitting too much. One of the quickest ways of getting big improvements is to target the hip flexors and superficial fascia of the pelvis. Tight hip flexors inhibit the glutes, hip extensors, and through our largely sedentary life styles are one of the big contributors to disrupting our posture and this is also a big issue in athletic performance where the glutes are the powerhouse of so many activities. This inhibition of the glutes makes it difficult to recruit them to pull the pelvis posteriorly and back into balance. The anterior tilt also makes it difficult to recruit the musculature of the lower abdominals so you can see why when you are asked to bring your pelvis back to neutral by contracting both these groups it is possible to do but difficult ...