Roundups

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Kinesio tape

I’ve written before about how Kinesio tape likely helps athletes.

I think it’s also important to understand how it likely does not help athletes. On that front, we have a study looking at how Kinesio tape affects strength in fatigued muscles. Rugby players but, presumably, fatigued muscles are fatigued muscles. Whether you’re running a race or playing a rugby match, fatigue acts in similar ways.

The results in this case aren’t all that promising:

No statistical differences were found between the taped and un-taped conditions in non-fatigued and fatigued situation as well as in the interaction with fatigue. Therefore, taping the gluteal muscle does not influence the leg explosive strength after fatiguing in healthy rugby players.

I believe the importance here is that we now know a little about how Kinesio tape likely does help and a little about how it likely doesn’t help. It’s important to know where we can expect to see benefit and where we can’t with any tool so we can make sure we are using the tool in the best ways. In this case, use Kinesio tape to reduce pain and aid in recovery. Do not use it to try to beat fatigue.

Social distress and physical pain

Have you ever run a race or a hard workout after getting in an argument with a significant other or good friend? It probably didn’t go well, did it?

Well, we shouldn’t be too surprised:

The current study results indicate that participants’ pre-Cyberball unpleasantness threshold is related to their responsiveness to social distress and that physical pain may be modulated by social events. Further studies are needed to clarify the clinical relevance of these results.

We know that social stress does some of the same things within our brains as physical stress. It shouldn’t be shocking that social stress would lower our threshold of physical pain. That’s what this study seems to confirm.

So next time you have a bad race or workout while dealing with a heavy social situation, cut yourself some slack. It’s possible you are just feeling the effects of that situation. Take care of your personal life and your running will bounce back.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Quite a few interesting things popped up in my reading list this week. So many that I’m considering another post of this style for Thursday so I don’t have to throw out so many interesting things. We’ll see how it goes.

As for now, here are a couple of my favorite from the past week:

Race time matters

More specifically, given that we don’t usually get to choose the time of the day that we race, being a morning person or a night person matters depending on the time of the race you’re running.

Early morning risers (defined here as those who woke around 7:00 on weekdays and 7:30 on weekends) performed best around midday.

Mid-morning risers (8:00 wake up time on weekdays and 9:10 on weekends) performed best in the afternoon.

Late morning risers (9:30 wake up time on weekdays, 11:00 on weekends) performed best in the evening.

Let me pause as you sit in shock and absorb that. Ok, maybe not. We all knew that, right?

What I’d like to use this to point out, though, is what we can do to take advantage of this common knowledge. If you’re going to be running a morning race in the near future, it might be wise to become an early morning riser. If you’re going to be doing an evening race and it’s possible to do so, you might want to consider becoming a late morning riser.

We’re all individuals

Next, a study on individual responses to training. As we know, response to exercise is usually talked about in very general terms. We seem to expect everyone to respond in the same way, even though we should know everyone is an individual and will respond differently.

Basically, this says what we all know. A lot of factors could play into how we respond to training, including but not limited to the stress of the training session (certain types of training sessions can stress one runner harder than another), stress outside of running, sleep, diet and so on.

In conclusion, there are several factors that could contribute to individual variation in response to standardized training. However, more studies are required to help clarify and quantify the role of these factors. Future studies addressing such topics may aid in the early prediction of high or low training responses and provide further insight into the mechanisms of training adaptation.

Honestly, I don’t know if these can be quantified in a general sense. Their effects could be different for different individuals. It’s nice to see the topic addressed, though.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Sleep matters

We all know sleep matters, right? While there is no absolutely right amount of sleep that I can tell you everyone should get, generally, more is better. We can all accept that, right?

Well, charts of injury rates based on sleep have been floating around. The latest is posted on the Runner’s World Sweat Science blog:

Compression gear: not so helpful?

There are two reasons we see quoted for wearing compression gear: performance improvement and increased recovery. The New York Times Well blog looks at a recent study that suggests neither of these benefits may be real.

“Based upon the results of this study, lower-leg compression sleeves are unlikely to improve endurance running performance,” Dr. Stickford said.

A possible explanation is the placebo effect or maybe this was an anomaly. If it’s the placebo effect, though, I’d argue as I have before why not embrace it? Whether you benefit from something because it has an actual physiological benefit or because you simply believe it will help you, what does that matter? If you benefit, you benefit.

That said, this does add to our body of knowledge on the topic of compression garments. It will be interesting to see what future studies may hold in this realm.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I took some time off during the holidays but I’m back with a couple links that I thought were real interesting. I hope you enjoyed the holidays and that you will find these topics interesting.

Pacing

Pacing is an interesting topic on many fronts. Here’s an interesting study on what happens when you throw pacing out the window during interval workouts and just go all out.

This study was done with cyclists so power output was measured. Not surprisingly, power output decreased not just within repeats but also across repeats. Power output wasn’t only lower at the end of the first repeat than at the beginning but overall power output was lower in the second repeat than the first and in the third than in the second.

In the control portion of the study, paced workouts were done at the average power output of the all out workouts. So the total work done was equal. However, here’s where things get interesting. Perceived exertion was significantly higher during the all out intervals than during the paced intervals. Even more interesting, oxygen consumption and time spent near VO2max were both lower in the paced workouts than in the all out workouts. Especially when a computer was controlling pacing, ensuring that the cyclists held the most even power output possible.

So what does this mean? To me, the first thing that came to mind as I was reading through this is that’s why I always stress not getting out too hard early in a race. When you start fast then fade, I definitely think there is a psychological aspect that drags on you and makes the later stages harder but there is clearly also a physiological aspect. You actually are working harder when you start too fast and fade than if you go out on pace and maintain or even start a little slow and accelerate.

I also think there’s a lesson for workout days. While we may sometimes want to tap into this effect, maybe with ladder-type workouts where you intentionally start faster, in most workouts I think we’re better off going out on or slightly slower than target pace and maintaining or even speeding up.

Hyponatremia risk

This is a topic that is fading somewhat but I still think it’s good to know more about the topic as it can potentially be a pretty serious risk.

So what do we know about hyponatremia? Well, we know it’s a fluid/electrolyte imbalance. Given that, some people think taking salt tablets to increase your electrolytes helps prevent hyponatremia.

Here’s a study that tested that theory.

We conclude that a low sodium intake in supplements has minimal responsibility for development of hyponatremia during continuous exercise up to 30 hours, whereas overhydration is the primary characteristic of those developing hyponatremia.

That seems like a pretty clear conclusion. Focus on proper hydration, not maximal hydration.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Just one topic this week but I think it’s an important one.

Have you ever had a rough day, maybe a tough day at work, then gone out for a run? Sometimes, just the release of the stress helps us run better. Sometimes, though, we feel physically drained from the day. Even if we didn’t do anything physical.

Do we actually feel this way or are we just imagining things? Well, we’re not just imagining things. Maybe it’s all in our heads but that doesn’t make it real.

Mental fatigue impairs intermittent running performance. This negative effect of mental fatigue appears to be mediated by higher perception of effort.

So what should we do about this? Well, we can’t completely avoid mental fatigue if it’s a part of our lives, as I’m sure it is for most of us. But maybe we can plan around it. Try to do less stressful, less mentally challenging things on the day before and the day of a race. As much as reasonable, also try to do less challenging things before your workouts or other hard days unless you’re intentionally trying to train to push through mental fatigue.

For what it’s worth, I also believe that the same can happen with emotional fatigue. All of these different kinds of stress and fatigue, to the body, are the same thing. So also try to stay away from emotionally stressful situations before a race or, when possible, hard workout.

Finally, remember that these things are happening. If you’re feeling physically worn down after a mentally or emotionally draining experience, don’t beat yourself up over it. Accept that you’re just worn out and give yourself a break.