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BOSU balls, wobble boards, stability balls, Dyna Discs…

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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This week’s Jockology column (just posted) takes a look at balance training tools:bosu1lega

No gym is complete these days without an assortment of oddly shaped and surprisingly expensive balance-training gadgets. Unlike many fads, this one really does have its roots in solid medical research: Wobble boards earned their stripes decades ago in aiding the rehabilitation of ankle sprains.

The purported benefits of balance training now extend much further, promising injury prevention and the strengthening of countless small stabilizer muscles that would otherwise be left flaccid. For those who play court sports involving lots of running and rapid changes of direction, the benefits are increasingly clear; for the rest of us, the verdict is murkier. (read on…)

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Another data point on compression socks

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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The Mt. SAC Relays, a traditional season-opener for many North American track and field stars, has been taking place this weekend. Further to our discussion of compression socks last week, I note this photo by Image of Sport‘s Kirby Lee of U.S. 5,000-metre runner Chris Solinsky showing off the latest in knee-high Nikes.solinsky

While Solinsky ran a fine time of 13:18.41, he did wind up getting outkicked by the other two runners in the picture, offering further evidence that facial hair and tattoos still trump compression socks in the final straightaway.

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Fetal training regimens

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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Over the last few years, there have been a bunch of articles with titles like “Marathon moms raise the post-natal bar,” charting changing attitudes about exercise during pregnancy. In general, the information provided is anecdotal — after all, there are understandly strict limits on what regimens you can inflict on pregnant women in the name of science. So it’s interesting to see this study, presented by researchers from the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences at the annual meeting of the American Physiological Society.

The researchers were aiming to see whether maternal exercise improves the cardiovascular health of the fetus, with the “exercise” group performing moderate intensity aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes, three times per week. Sure enough, fetal heart rate was lower in the exercise group. Interestingly, the researchers also suggest that maternal exercise could help the development of the autonomic nervous system. This part is less clear to me — but perhaps it’s a topic that’s worth digging into a little more deeply. Certainly, it’s encouraging to see some hard data emerging in a very hard-to-study area.

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A successful Easter egg hunt won’t interfere with training

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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The reputation of the humble egg, so long considered a cholesterol time-bomb, has been gradually rehabilitated by a series of studies over the past several years. In honour of Easter, I thought I’d mention one of these studies, from the January issue of the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. Researchers from the University of Connecticut put 12 subjects through a 6-week endurance exercise program. Half of them ate 12 eggs a week, the other half ate none. The result: both groups improved good cholesterol by 10 percent and decreased bad cholesterol by 21 percent — and there was no discernable difference between the egg and no-egg group. Happy Easter!

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Jockology: compression garments

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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This week’s Jockology column on compression garments is now up on the Globe site. I’ll be interested to see what people think, because it covers a lot of ground. The science behind compression socks is very different from the science behind compression shorts — not to mention Allen Iverson’s compression arm sleeve, and the full-body compression suits that companies like Skins are hyping — so it’s hard to generalize about whether compression garments in general work.

I was pretty skeptical when I started researching this column, but I uncovered a lot more research than I expected — and I also heard some pretty ringing endorsements from, among others, William Kraemer, one of the very big names in sports research. On the other hand, given the impossible-to-blind nature of compression garments, I can’t quite shake my worries that it’s all a big placebo. Anyone have personal experience with this stuff?