FEATURES
What Exercise is Best For Your Brain?
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Tuesday, 21 March 2017 23:10
By Gretchen Reynolds (well.blog.nytimes.com)
Some forms of exercise may be much more effective than others at bulking up the brain, according to a remarkable new study in rats. For the first time, scientists compared head-to-head the neurological impacts of different types of exercise: running, weight training and high-intensity interval training. The surprising results suggest that going hard may not be the best option for long-term brain health.
As I have often written, exercise changes the structure and function of the brain. Studies in animals and people have shown that physical activity generally increases brain volume and can reduce the number and size of age-related holes in the brain’s white and gray matter....
Multilingual Bee Lover....
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Monday, 20 March 2017 23:10
Do you know NANCY BAUER?
If you do, you know that she is very nice and wears blue compression socks at races.
If you don't, here is some stuff about her: she is an avid and successful triathlete and nordic skier. She loves bees and flowers and speaks fluent French.
French and Spanish are "romance" languages, which means that, when spoken, they sound better than other languages. French is known as "The Language of Love," which relegates Spanish to being "The Language of 'I Like You A Lot.'"
We digress.
Almost everything that French people, and French-as-a-second-language folks like Nancy, say sounds poetic and romantic. For example, "Le chein defeque sur le tapis" sounds like "Shane loves your tapestry." But Nancy knows that what was really said was, "The dog pooped on the rug."
Once again, we digress....
There's More to Life Than Triathlon...
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Saturday, 18 March 2017 23:10
Meredith Atwood on using this sport as a tool to bring out the good in yourself and others, not the opposite.
By Meredith Atwood (triathlete.com)
Time and time again I hear that someone is fighting with their spouse about triathlon training and “time away” from the house. I’ll hear about the ultimate discord that triathlon training is causing some relationships—not just significant others, but also parent-child, friendships and co-workers. Sometimes a relationship that is deteriorating, whether it’s a romantic relationship or a toxic work environment, was on the way out anyway. Other times, I think that we need to work a little bit harder to refocus on what is important.
When we are bit by the triathlon bug, it’s easy to go “all in” and make triathlon a very real obsession; after all, it is the greatest sport in the world, right? Where we used to sit on the couch watching Netflix and drinking beer with our best person all night long, and we are suddenly turning in for a 9 p.m. bedtime (on a weekend!), and waking up at 5 a.m. to be on the bike. Naturally, the other people in our lives may wonder what alien has jumped inside of our body and taken over....
Increasing Your Pain Tolerance...
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Thursday, 16 March 2017 23:10
Take your performance to the next level by learning to embrace discomfort.
By MacKenzie Lobby (triathlete.com)
Compared to the general populace, multisport buffs are as tough as they come. There’s even research to back up that contention. To gain an understanding of what accounts for that tenacity, a new study sought to examine the important link between pain and performance. Indeed, those who are able to push harder and longer are usually the ones who end up atop the podium on race day.
Published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers had a group of cyclists perform sprint interval tests on bikes, giving them either 1.5 grams of...
Gwen is Into Virtual Reality Technology...
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Wednesday, 15 March 2017 23:10
Virtual reality is shaping up to be the ultimate performance enhancer, no movement necessary.
By Brad Stulberg (triathlete.com)
En route to her gold medal during last year’s Rio Olympic Games, triathlete Gwen Jorgensen maneuvered around tight corners in a highly technical bike course as if she’d ridden them many times before. And in a way, she had. That’s because in addition to traditional mental training, like visualization and meditation, Jorgensen also used a custom-made virtual reality (VR) program, allowing her to repeatedly experience the Rio bike course from the comfort of her couch at her home.
“VR as a training tool has transformed the way athletes are preparing for competition,” says Danny Belch, a VR expert who works at STRIVR Labs, a VR performance science company founded by Stanford University researchers and based in Palo Alto, Calif. So much of the psychological stress—which zaps precious physical energy—associated with racing is related to the...
