Tag: sports technology

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Jockology: good (and bad) research into performance mouthpieces

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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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I have to admit, I was very, very skeptical when I read this report in the New York Times about “performance mouthpieces” that would instantly boost strength, power, endurance, flexibility, reaction time and so on. Alarm bells ring for me when a researcher offers evidence like this:

Previously she “had been happy with running 10-minute miles,” she said, but wearing the mouthpiece, she consistently ran a mile in as little as 8 minutes. “It was pretty astounding to me,” she said. “I didn’t feel as tired as when I ran the 10-minute-per-mile pace.”

So I figured I’d look into the research behind the claims for a Jockology column, which appears today.

What I found was a surprise — in both directions. There was some surprisingly good research that suggests there may be a real effect here. And there was some surprisingly bad research that any company should be embarrassed to promote. The main research cited by Under Armour to back up the claims for its mouthpiece come from a special issue of the far-from-prestigious Compendium of Continuing Education in Dentistry. And not just any special issue — every article in the issue is written by someone who is either an employee or paid consultant of Bite Tech, the company that developed Under Armour’s mouthpieces. This is not research, it’s advertorial.

Here’s an example of what this means, as I describe in the Jockology piece:

The results are interpreted rather generously. What’s described as “a definite trend for lower cortisol” turns out to mean that cortisol levels dropped in only 11 of the 21 cyclists in the study – barely more than half. A follow-up study of runners in 2009 also failed to find any statistically significant change in cortisol.

On the other hand, there is a placebo-controlled, double-blinded crossover study, funded by Makkar Athletics, that found an increase in vertical jump and power in a 30-second cycling test. So, despite my skepticism, there may be something there after all…

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Drive (or ATV) your way to fitness

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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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A few eyebrows were raised when NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson was named AP Athlete of the Year last month. Johnson defended his athleticism, saying:

So to anyone who wants to go head-to-head with me in athletic ability, let’s go. I talked a lot with Jason Sehorn about this, and I don’t know how exactly you measure athletic ability, but I know my five-mile run time [of 34 minutes, 55 seconds] will destroy most NFL players.

Anyway, that debate popped to mind when I noticed this paper among the list accepted for future publication in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise: “The Physiological Demands of Off-Road Vehicle Riding.” Researchers measured strength and oxygen consumption of 56 ATV drivers and 72 off-road motorcyclists during a 48-minute ride. They found that ATV drivers were breathing hard enough to indicate they were getting a workout about 14% of the time; the motorcyclists were puffing 38% of the time. Also, their muscles got tired, particularly in the upper body. The conclusion:

Based on the measured metabolic demands, evidence of muscular strength requirements, and the associated caloric expenditures with off-road vehicle riding, this alternative form of activity conforms to recommended physical activity guidelines and could be effective for achieving beneficial changes in health and fitness.

What to say about this? Well, given that one of the other papers accepted was yet another examination of whether active video games count as exercise, at least the ATVers are getting outside for their “exercise”!

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Running shoes are worse than high heels (unless you actually read the study)

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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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In the comments section of yesterday’s post, John Lofranco raised the topic of a subject that has been popping online and in newspapers over the past few days. You may have seen the headlines: “Running shoes are more dangerous than high heels” and so on. Here’s the press release, and here’s the full text of the study itself, “The Effect of Running Shoes on Lower Extremity Joint Torques,” by researchers at the University of Virginia. Here’s the key part of the press release:

In a study published in the December 2009 issue of PM&R: The journal of injury, function and rehabilitation, researchers compared the effects on knee, hip and ankle joint motions of running barefoot versus running in modern running shoes. They concluded that running shoes exerted more stress on these joints compared to running barefoot or walking in high-heeled shoes.

From what I can tell, this is solid research that suffered from the “broken telephone” effect, being successively distorted at each step. First, there’s the data they measured — useful stuff that sheds light on how our legs work. Then there’s the scientific paper, which in my opinion stretches the conclusions a little farther than the data currently warrant. Then there’s the press release, written by a PR person at the journal, which stretches things even further (the study, for instance, did not include any high-heeled shoes, and no direct comparisons between running shoes and high-heeled shoes were possible). Then there are the press articles, which rely on the press release… (There’s also this: “In July, [Kerrigan] left the University of Virginia to start her own company, JKM Technologies LLC, which will focus on developing her shoe in coming years.”)

Amby Burfoot of Runner’s World, in his Peak Performance blog, has written an excellent post in response to this study that is essential reading for anyone interested in running injuries and the role of shoes. As usual, it’s a nuanced point of view that neither praises nor buries the research. He points some of the leaps — the difference between measured torque in the knee and observing arthritis, the mismatched comparison between walking and running forces, the downplaying of the role of stride length. His main message is that this is a very complex field of research where little is known, so we should be open to new results but avoid gratuitous oversimplification. It’s definitely worth a read.

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Does Canada’s “Top Secret” research undermine the Olympic spirit?

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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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Of the $117 million spent by Canada’s “Own the Podium” initiative over the past five years, $7.5 million has been allocated to a research program called “Top Secret.” This program aims to produce exclusive technologies that will help Canadian athletes win medals at the 2010. For the most part, it’s the kind of thing you’d guess — advanced speed suits, better bobsleighs, fasters skate runners, and so on.

The question is: Is this fair? In the past, Canadian athletes have often been on the losing end because teams from the U.S. or Europe or Australia had more sophisticated equipment; now we’re trying to turn the tables. But sports technology has been in the spotlight recently, thanks to issues like the fancy new swimsuits that have seen 250 world records topple in the past two years — and which will be banned starting in 2010.

For an article in the Jan.-Feb. issue of The Walrus magazine, I visited some of Canada’s leading sports technology researchers at the University of Calgary, and headed to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, which is considered a model for advanced sports science. I also spoke the ethicists, and the inventor of the Therma-Blade heated hockey skate. And I ended up with some distinct opinions about whether we should continue funding programs like Top Secret… You can read the article, “Faster, Higher, Sneakier,” here.

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Slushies: the new weapon for exercising in heat

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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Reading up on Australian sports research for an upcoming magazine story, I came across this little nugget about dealing with competition in hot conditions. The Aussies have been leaders in research on “pre-cooling” to lower body temperature before starting extended exercise in the heat. They introduced ice vests at the 1996 Olympics (which have since become widely used commercial products), and in 2004 brought big bathtubs full of ice-water to the Athens Olympic venues, actually immersing their endurance athletes shortly before their competitions.

I can’t imagine the pre-race ice bath becoming a really widespread phenomenon, for many reasons including logistical ones. But for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the Aussies unveiled a new idea: slushies! As Louise Burke, head of sports nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport, explained at a conference in Switzerland last fall, ingesting crushed-ice drinks cools the athletes internally — not just with the coolness of the ice, but with the energy of the phase transition as it melts. In tests, the Aussies found their athletes lowered their body temperature by about one degree Celsius by drinking the slushies (which were filled with “a mix of carbohydrates, electrolytes, and ice with other secret ingredients“). So the Australian Olympic team brought seven slushie machines to Beijing.

Other interesting points from Burke’s talk in Switzerland: The ice baths actually lowered body temperature more than the slushies, but this turned out to be a negative. In cycling time-trial tests, the athletes felt so good after the ice baths that their internal pace regulation was messed up, so they started too fast and paid for it late in the race. The slushie-fed athletes, on the other hand, started a little slower but ultimately performed better.

And the other reason the Aussies introduced slushies in 2008? They wanted to have something new, Burke says, to elicit a placebo response in their athletes.