Predictions (and story ideas) for sports science in 2011

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)

***

I did a little crystal-ball gazing (some might call it navel gazing) in my column in today’s Globe, picking 10 topics in sports science that I think we’ll be hearing about in 2011:

It’s January, which means the gyms are full of exercisers resolving that 2011 will be the year they meet their fitness goals. In labs around the world, meanwhile, exercise scientists are resolving to settle some of the fitness questions that still dog us. Here are 10 confusing, contradictory, or just plain complicated areas of exercise science that will see significant progress in 2011… [READ THE WHOLE COLUMN]

Most will be familiar to regular readers of Sweat Science, since I think the best predictor of what researchers will be studying is which topics we’ve been discussing and arguing over the past few years. Needless to say, I’d love to hear suggestions of what I missed — which also doubles as a request for ideas for future columns, blog entries and so on. What sports science topics would you like to hear more about in 2011?

(One “miss” that I’ll mention: I didn’t include the debate over running shoes and the ideal stride, even though I’m sure it will remain a hot topic, because I’ll be revisiting it in a couple of columns next month.)