Music and Workouts

Is Quality Sleep a Predictor for Sports Injury?

Hadley Seward – certified sleep consultant and certified health coach Getting enough sleep should be a priority for everyone–for physically active people, it’s especially important. Lack of sleep can slow reaction time and make you less alert–but does it also mean you’re more prone to injury? There have been several studies examining the link between

Rowing Stroke

Mastering the Rowing Stroke

Dayton Kelly Mastering the Rowing Stroke or Tackling Technique on the Rowing Ergometer If you are anything like me before I started rowing, you are probably thinking to yourself, what is there to know about rowing? It’s easy, you just sit down and pull. And you would be right. It is that simple to make

Get in the Zone: Heart Rate Monitoring

Dayton Kelley The Fast Twitch Grandma readers are well-informed individuals after having explored our website. Our readers know that exercise offers a bounty of physical and mental benefits including extended life expectancy (Lee, et al., 2012). They understand that reaching these advantages can be done in a variety of ways: long distance endurance training, strength

Power Training for Runners

Evan Stevens This session had several talks that just went over things we’ve already heard at the conference thus far; there were only two that had some novel information and are presented here. The first talk in the session was about how power training in ‘ultra-marathon’ runners significantly improved measures of performance. In this study,

Sweat

How Sweat Helps You Keep Your Cool

Gillian White   BSc, MSc, PhD Candidate Department of Exercise Sciences, University of Toronto How Sweat Helps You Keep Your Cool As summer winds down and we are faced with the grim reality of fall, stress levels can increase as we settle back into the grind. While everyone has an individual motivation for why they

crunches

High-Speed Resistance Training

Sara Thompson – M.Sc. in Exercise Science High-speed resistance training (HSRT) is a relatively new approach to combat ailments associated with aging such as decreased muscle strength, decreased functional performance, and decreased quality of life. HSRT, which consists of fast, explosive movements, might be more effective than the more conventional low-speed resistance training in improving

Fat-Burning Exercise

Fat-Burning Exercise May Be The Key To Make Us Smarter

Julia Basso – PhD I am intrigued by the body-brain connection. As a result, I  am constantly thinking about how all of the physiological things that happen in our body — from exercise like fat-burning and muscle building, to exercise-induced improvements in cognitive functioning.  Growth Factors Previously, one piece of the puzzle I wrote about

Can Interval Training Help Mitigate Obesity?

Evan Stevens This session really just was in addition to all of the information we’ve already seen at the conference so far. Interval training is very important to health and can increase the palatability of exercise. The first study conducted a perceived exertion and ranked enjoyment test on continuous versus interval exercise when matched for

Food vs Protein Supplements

Evan Stevens The final talk in this session was a breath of fresh air for a lot of us. It dealt with the comparison of regular foods versus the use of protein supplements. What researchers wanted to know was if regular food was as good, if not better, than supplementing with protein powders and drinks

Minimize Jet Lag’s Effect

Jet Lag – Traveling for Competition

Hadley Seward Minimize Jet Lag’s Effect on your Performance By Hadley Seward, certified sleep consultant and certified health coach More than ever, professional and amateur athletes are traveling further and further for competitions. Along with long-haul travel comes jet lag. For most travelers, it’s an inconvenience. For athletes, it can make or break a performance.

Strength As A Safety Net

Jon Carlock As time passes and we age, we naturally become more vulnerable to injury. Somewhat of a numbers game, the longer we spend on this planet, the odds increase that we will get hurt at some point. When we get older, we also become more prone to balance-related injuries that can result in significant

Tired Of The Same Exercise Routine? Try Tai Chi!

Sara Thompson – MSc in Exercise Sciences, University of Toronto As Evan Stevens discussed in a recent FTG article, osteoporosis occurs naturally with age as individuals tap into their bone reservoirs to absorb nutrients. This causes a decrease in bone mass and strength, which ultimately leads to increased risk of falls and fractures. In fact,