Deadlifts, elite athlete sleep quality, and stair climbing for better cardiometabolic health.
Finding the best running and rehab content on the internet each week so you don’t have to.
I missed last week’s newsletter.
With good reason!
My daughter, Sophie Juliette Carlin, was born on 4/11 at 10 am.
She’s happy, healthy, and has my heart.
I’ve been trying to soak up every minute with her and mama.
My new favorite time of day is tummy time 😃
What I’m Thinking
I.
Office worker with back pain: “I wish I didn’t have to sit at a desk all day.”
Manual labor worker with back pain: “I wish I didn’t have to stand all day.”
The grass ain’t always greener.
II.
What I’m Reading
📖 Elite athletes can struggle with sleeping too:
“A new study in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, from sports scientists at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee led by Travis Anderson, dives into the real-world sleep habits of more than 1,600 Olympic and Paralympic athletes. In the lead-up to the Tokyo Games in 2021, they filled out a questionnaire called the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The results offer insights into the typical sleep patterns for male versus female athletes, summer versus winter Olympians, and team versus individual sports. They also suggest that a surprising number of athletes aren’t sleeping as much or as well as they’d like…
…The biggest result is that roughly 40 percent of the athletes were rated as having poor sleep based on their scores. The scores take into account factors like how long you typically sleep, how long it takes you to drift off, how often your sleep is disturbed, whether you take sleep medications, and so on. The results are in line with a recent study of Dutch Olympic athletes, which found that 41 percent were poor sleepers. Similarly, an Australian study in 2021 pegged 52 percent of Olympians as poor sleepers.”
📖 Better blood sugar control from low-load resistance training:
“Low-load high repetition resistance exercise is a feasible exercise modality to improve post-exercise glycemic control in both males and females.”
📖 More physical activity for lower pain sensitivity:
“Regular engagement in a high level of physical activity is associated with higher vagal tone and a reduction in deep tissue pain sensitivity. Yet it does not provide an advantage on the exercise-induced hypoalgesia effect. However, in the low to moderately physically active group positive effects of the basic vagal tone are evident in both pain sensitivity and exercise-induced hypoalgesia effects. Understanding the modulatory role of physical activity on vagal–pain association may have important clinical implications. Interventions such as meditation, biofeedback and slow breathing that increase the basic vagal tone may be beneficial to reduce pain in less active individuals.”
What I’m Liking
I repeat:
“3-8 min/day of stair climbing eliminated the adverse associations of sitting.”
Incredible!