When you do them concurrently in preparation for a competition, the strength training enhances endurance performance, so the traditional “mixed” periodization of strength and endurance training is appropriate for endurance and most team sports. However, concurrent (mixed) endurance training reduces the gains in strength and explosive power that come from strength training, so for sports that require strength and endurance, “block” periodization of the two forms of training is more effective. A difference in significance between an experimental and control group does not necessarily mean a significant difference, so it’s unclear whether the significant 13% increase in strength after one week of vitamin D supplementation in 11 judo athletes was really different from the non-significant unstated change in the placebo group. The downhill group had lower heart rate, perceived exertion and pain during and in the weeks following a submaximal 30-km run that included some downhill running. The presenter made the point that distance running events even on the flat incur a huge number of eccentric contractions, so inclusion of occasional bouts of downhill running in preparation for such events is likely to enhance performance.
Such measures have the potential to add value to the usual performance indicators based on what players do when in possession of the ball, but if these speakers had any specific insights into improving a team’s chances of winning, they didn’t reveal them. One of the most interesting presentations of the conference was hidden in the e-posters: a potential treatment for muscle cramp. Does the treatment reduce the risk of cramp during long hard exercise, and if so, how long does the protection last? Why didn’t the treatment improve peak power? Test-retest reliability was also phenomenally high, making this measure of heart-rate variability a candidate for a useful physiological marker to monitor training status without the need for a maximal test. That’s the take-home message from this randomized controlled trial of 16 male subjects, who trained for 9 wk and included nine 40-min sessions of either running downhill (-10% grade) or level running on a treadmill. And as a historian, I cannot resist pointing out that Koreans have always read a huge amount of Japanese novels from the colonial period without break to the new century, despite the loud anti-Japanese protestations that come and go with political needs of the times.
With a sample size of only nine Division 1 baseball pitchers, only really strong relationships between pitching performance in games and pitching kinematics (measured for four fastballs, four curveballs and four sliders) would be significant. Core stability assessed with various measures of “lumbo-pelvic control” is associated with 2-3× lower risk of knee injury in collegiate athletes and less time lost due to injury in baseball pitchers. Trivial effects of nitrate-rich beetroot juice on repeated 30-s sprint performance were also observed in a crossover of an unknown number of moderately-trained athletes. The tallest players ever in the NBA were Manute Bol and Gheorghe Muresan, who were both 7 feet 7 inches (2.31 m) tall. It is also illegal under NBA and Men’s NCAA basketball to block a shot after it has touched the backboard, or when any part of the ball is directly above the rim. Here are the main points from Hein Daanen’s plenary on adaptation to heat and cold: there is no benefit of cold adaptation for exercise in the cold, but adaptation to training in the heat enhances performance at hot and normal temperatures, and re-acclimation is rapid (days rather than a week) even after three weeks of de-acclimation.
The UCS analysis found that in many U.S. cities, extreme heat conditions will rise from just a few days each year to weeks or months by 2050. By the end of the century, much of the summer could become dangerous for millions of Americans to work or be active outdoors. He commanded one of the opposing trenches, and from his narrative it appeared that his men had not received any food supplies for some days and were actually on the point of starvation. In fact, almost every third or fourth house, both private and public, as well as schools, were given to the use of the government and converted into Red Cross stations. Susan Herdman at the Emory University, Dizziness and Balance Clinic in Atlanta, Georgia. The method was superior to control training in a tethered performance test measuring swim power, but the effect on performance in a time trial was apparently not investigated.