New Zealand-bound

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As of September 2017, new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Check out my bestselling new book on the science of endurance, ENDURE: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, published in February 2018 with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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Just a heads-up that I’m about to catch a flight to New Zealand, to do some hiking on the Routeburn Track, and then some kayaking on Doubtful Sound. Back in a week!

Group dynamics in cycling, and “half-wheeling”

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

As of September 2017, new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Check out my bestselling new book on the science of endurance, ENDURE: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, published in February 2018 with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

***

phil-alpe-d-huezA few months ago, I wrote about the physiology of spinning, and how it’s different from cycling alone. I also wondered whether spinning is different from cycling in a group outdoors. I recently had an interesting e-mail exchanged with Toronto cyclist Philip Koop [right] on the topic. Here’s some of what he had to say:

In my experience, a road ride has the same psychological benefits as described for spinning – provided I am riding with people who are better than me. In that case, my effort is dictated by factors outside my control: the wind, the gradient, and the whims of those making the pace. I often find myself working harder than I thought possible.

The effects of riding with people of my own ability are more variable; they depend on the group size, pace and length of turns on the front. This type of ride is characterized by brief intervals of hard work on the front followed by longer intervals at lower intensity. At a given level of average power, this is harder work than maintaining a steady power output. But generally, one can maintain higher average power on one’s own. Under different circumstances, one effect can win out over the other. The psychological aspect of the group is diluted because at the points of highest effort one is making the pace oneself instead of striving to match that of another. Continue reading “Group dynamics in cycling, and “half-wheeling””

NYT: hiking the Larapinta Trail in the Australian outback

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

As of September 2017, new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Check out my bestselling new book on the science of endurance, ENDURE: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, published in February 2018 with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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Another slightly off-topic post… An article describing my recent hike along the Larapinta Trail, a fantastic route through the empty desert west of Alice Springs in Australia’s “Red Centre,” will run in this Sunday’s New York Times travel section. Actually, it’s not that off-topic — for this hike, we had to pay very close attention to factors like hydration (a frequent Sweat Science topic), since there was literally not a drop of water available other than occasional rainwater tanks. Along some sections of the trail, the distance between tanks was a nine- or ten-hour hike at a pretty fast clip. We met some hikers who couldn’t make it that far in a single day, and were thus forced to carry enough water for two full days with them (and that includes cooking water).

Anyway, it was a great hike — a chance to see some unique and inaccessible landscape, and a real test of endurance. The story is online here.

Jockology:exercising while you’re sick, and boosting your immune system

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

As of September 2017, new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Check out my bestselling new book on the science of endurance, ENDURE: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, published in February 2018 with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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This week’s Jockology column takes a look at how exercise affects your chances of staying healthy during the cold and flu season, and what happens if you exercise when you’re already sick:

The question

Will working out help me beat the flu?

The answer

As cold and flu season kicks into high gear, so too does the search for an immunity edge.

Recent studies offer plenty of evidence that regular exercise really does strengthen immune function – a claim that can’t be made for most of the pills and potions whose sales spike at about this time of year. But like any powerful medicine, exercise also carries the risk of an overdose.

“It’s what experts call the ‘J-curve’ hypothesis,” says Brian Timmons, a researcher at McMaster University’s Children’s Exercise and Nutrition Centre. “Moderate intensity is good, but too much exercise is not so good.”

Exercise also turns out to be a mixed blessing if you do get sick: harmless and possibly even helpful for some symptoms, but not recommended for others.[read more…]

An important point made by a commenter on the Globe site: if you’re contagious, you definitely shouldn’t head to the gym and infect other people!

How exercise helps relieve stress

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

As of September 2017, new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Check out my bestselling new book on the science of endurance, ENDURE: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, published in February 2018 with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

***

It’s pretty commonly accepted folk wisdom that a good workout helps blow off steam and reduce anxiety. Now there are some interesting new studies suggesting that exercise may play a much deeper role in making our brains “stress-proof.” In an experiment with rats, Princeton University researchers found that the new neurons that grow in response to exercise are less likely to react to stress than regular neurons:

The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.

Gretchen Reynolds does a nice job describing this research in the New York Times. In another experiment, rats that exercised for three weeks didn’t show signs of a calmer brain, but those who exercised for six weeks did. It’s not clear how long humans need to exercise to see these changes, but the lesson is pretty clear:

Keep running or cycling or swimming. (Animal experiments have focused exclusively on aerobic, endurance-type activities.) You may not feel a magical reduction of stress after your first jog, if you haven’t been exercising. But the molecular biochemical changes will begin, Dr. Greenwood says. And eventually, he says, they become “profound.”