Virtual reality for sports training is becoming an option for many athletes. While it’s not for everyone, it does have potential to help support the development of technique and even help minimise some injury risks.

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: February 29th, 2024
7 min read

Virtual reality for sports training: Should you dive into ‘VR’?

November 22, 2003 was the date of one of England’s greatest sporting achievements of the modern era. In Sydney, Australia they dramatically won the Rugby World Cup in the last minute of extra time with a drop goal from Jonny Wilkinson.

The team that played that night quickly became legends across the country, with many receiving honours from the Queen. One of them was hooker Steve Thompson. You would expect that World Cup win was the greatest of Thompson’s life, yet in 2020, he said in an interview he didn’t even remember playing in the match. This wasn’t just a case of adrenaline blurring out the details as we hear from sports stars after victories either. This was very likely CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, coupled with early-onset dementia. CTE is a gradual shrinking of certain key areas of the brain and it is not uncommon in athletes.

There has been a lot in the news in recent years around concussion in sport. Maybe you’ve seen the 2015 Will Smith film Concussion that considered how repeated blows to the head while playing American football can add up to cause some very serious consequences. It is likely the multiple concussions and blows to the head Thompson received during his career had contributed to his condition.

Perhaps you’re already putting two and two together in your head? Contact sports like American football, rugby and Australian rules football are hugely physical – maybe this was inevitable?
However, perhaps even more frightening (given the nature of the sport), is the increasing frequency with which soccer players are reporting signs of dementia. This is thought to be linked not to impact with other players, but to heading the ball. Many high-profile players have spoken out about this, including former England captain Terry Butcher, who called for the gradual phasing out of heading to prevent “catastrophic” brain injuries.

As a result of the growing awareness around head injuries, there are many new protocols in place across sport. These range from the use of independent doctors in some sports to ensure player safety is prioritised ahead of team needs following a knock, to a reduction in the amount of heading allowed in youth soccer practice in the US.

More recently, advances in technology have helped, offering training alternatives to hopefully reduce the incidence of head injuries altogether. Additionally, such advances may help with diagnosis and monitoring of head injuries should they occur. One such technology that you may not have considered in this fight is virtual reality.

What is virtual reality supposed to do?

For a lot of us, we hear words like Alzheimer’s and dementia and place them in the same bracket as sorting out your pension – something we don’t need to think about as they’re the concern of old people.

In reality, though, when you consider the number of ex-athletes who are being diagnosed with such issues, it certainly is something we should pay a lot more attention to. This is especially the case when you consider many of these diagnoses are not linked to crunching tackles in rugby or body-rattling collisions in contact sports. In fact, as is the case in soccer, they’re a result of many accumulating small head impacts, such as simply heading a ball throughout a career.

Often, in fact, these repetitive head impacts (RHI), also known as subconcussive impacts, are so innocuous they do not even register to the player or staff that they’ve occurred. But they add up.

This is where virtual reality may come in. It has attracted much interest as a training solution because it not only allows safe, repeatable training tasks, but it affords complete control over the training environment. Before sport, these benefits made virtual reality a favourite for training surgeons. Obviously, this is an environment where you don’t get much wiggle room to make mistakes!
Although, it’s accepted this removes the vital stress elements of the task, which we might equate to playing in front of 80,000 people, but it does provide a useful learning platform. It is with these reward-without-risk benefits that there is potential of carryover to sport.

One key factor here though is realism. As humans, we have a great ability to disengage from the unrealistic, which is why as computer games graphics continue to improve, their popularity continues to grow. Virtual reality technology now is at a point where our brains are willing to accept what we see when we are immersed in that space. This can go as far as to even include the details of opposition players,  specific stadia and the ability to program in actual events that took place in yesterday’s match.

This enables a multitude of uses across a growing number of sports. Briefly, this could be replaying a set piece where an error was made in the match at the weekend or allowing a rehabilitating player to immerse themselves in recent action so they can still consider their decision-making during such plays.

But back to concussion. There is growing evidence that skill acquisition (the way we improve at the technical and tactical side of a sport) and virtual reality can co-exist. So, let’s have a look at the evidence to see how sportspeople in the near-future might be able to continue to hone their skills while reducing the risks associated with head injuries.

The science of virtual reality for sports training

Research into virtual reality and sport has typically focused on closed skills such as golf putting and goalkeepers catching crosses rather than more chaotic match play. The reason for this has been due to limitations in technology. But as stated above, this is quickly becoming less of an issue. In fact, a recent paper found virtual reality technology is now sufficiently good that it can differentiate between novice and professional players. This is really important, as it means if professionals want to use the technology, it will actually recognise their ability level and respond more critically.

This may be different to the experiences of those who can remember the good old Nintendo Wii where anyone could bowl a strike or serve an ace! In fact, such platforms may have potential for use especially with athletes who are injured and need to maintain a level of perceptual-cognitive skill while avoiding the physical load experienced in real environments. And this, of course, is key with head injuries.

If we are able to train soccer players how to head a ball without the impact, or train an AFL player how to ‘mark’ a high ball without the genuine threat of being smashed by the opposition, or train a running back how to pick a line through the defence without having their head taken off, then we could really be onto something. Couple this with an increasingly immersive experience, and use of technologies could soon become the norm.

Is ‘VR’ something that might work for you?

This technology is rapidly improving and for some of these more complex tasks it’s reasonable to think it isn’t far away at all. Some of the top sports teams in the world are already using some of the more advanced technologies. The advantages will go one step further than solely helping to prevent brain injuries as well.

Practically speaking, real-world training is always subject to constraints of time, geography, equipment, weather, or number of participants. These could all be remedied by the option of playing in a virtual world.

It’s also important to point out that of course virtual reality won’t be replacing training entirely! Of course, there is still the fitness side of any sport to consider that can’t be achieved without getting a sweat on while on the field.  It does, however, have huge potential to help support the development of proper technique which, as has been suggested across the research, could help promote safer options when it finally comes to game situations.

‘VR’ and sports: Take-homes

A growing body of evidence supports negative consequences for some players as a result of repetitive head impacts that occur in both training and matches. Sporting authorities continue to fund further research into the area as well as issuing new guidelines to make current practices safe.

However, by reducing the opportunities to practice certain important skills, concerns about a lack of technique when in game situations have been raised. Virtual reality offers a solution by allowing players to practice in a realistic and safe environment. This means if players are to compete normally, it can hopefully be done in a safer way with good technique, improved partly virtually, to help reduce head impact forces.
CTE can currently only be diagnosed after someone has died and the brain can be examined. Steve Thompson has now pledged his brain for research after his death. As tragic as his and others’ stories are, perhaps advances in technology now mean that in the future such incidents will be far less common.

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Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Virtual reality for sports training: Can VR help athletes? appeared first on Science for Sport.

If exercise and training is good for health and performance, then more of it must be even better right? That might not be the case, as overtraining is a genuine concern for some athletes.

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: March 1st, 2024
7 min read

Overtraining myth: Don’t believe the hype

Often, as a keen sportsperson or when aspiring towards kickstarting your routine, you might find yourself looking to the greats for guidance into sporting success – what they eat, how they sleep, how they train, and what new gadgets they’re using to help with any or all of these.

For better or worse, the internet, and especially social media platforms, have made access to these high-profile athletes easier than ever. Partly, this may be for them to fulfil endorsement deals – “hi guys, of course I’m wearing my new headphones by xyz – I’d never train without them!” or it may just be videos documenting their day.

Often, training videos allow us an insight into what separates them from us. It seems combat athletes especially love to share ferocious training videos. Likely this is in part an effort to intimidate the opposition camp but it’s impressive, nonetheless.

Another tactic often employed by the pros to show how they are getting one up on competitors is the sharing of the early morning or late night session. Sometimes it is their second or third session of the day. Often these posts are accompanied by my least favourite hashtag (everyone’s got one of those right?!) – #nodaysoff
Today we’ll consider why the sentiment of this hashtag is unwise and how it potentially conveys the wrong message to impressionable fans with the best intentions at heart. Potentially, though, this seems a particularly hard stance on what is a sensible idea. If exercise and training is good for health and performance, then more of it must be even better right? Let’s see.

The theory of dose-response

I’ve often mused that if exercise could be put into pill form, the inventor would be an overnight billionaire. This is because exercise is capable of keeping many chronic health issues at bay, helps maintaining quality of life as we age and improves our mental health. It is also obviously hugely important for athletes looking to optimise their performance. It is therefore reasonable to think that if exercising a little will offer some of these benefits, then exercising a lot will magnify that response. And that is true – to a point.

Here we are talking about dose-response relationships, which consider the link between a given dose (in this case, exercise) and the response (in this case, better health or performance) to that dose. If the dose-response relationship for exercise followed a nice linear path, then yep, the more we do, the greater our return.

In reality though, this is not the case. This is demonstrated by understanding how our immune system responds as the amount of exercise we do increases. Below, we see a graph taken from a study comparing activity level and illness. It shows that in terms of keeping illness at bay, being moderately active makes us healthier but if we do too much, this benefit not only declines but we become more at risk of getting ill than sedentary people. So, it seems more may not always be better when it comes to how much exercise we do.

Figure 1: Amount of exercise undertaken and resultant immune function response.

What is overtraining? 

The figure above is from research focusing on illnesses like common colds that we’re more likely to pick up as we become run down. More was also not better when it comes to more serious illnesses such as vascular disease. Here, moderate exercise was seen to reduce risk, though this was not further reduced when activity became more frequent.

Such consequences are a result of the interactions of special immune cells in our bodies. Extended challenging exercise over a period can lead to some of these cells being diverted to aid with exercise recovery rather than where they may be required to help combat more typical illnesses. But this isn’t all we’re at risk of. Here we’re talking about something you may have heard of – overtraining (not to be confused with overreaching).

Overreaching is really important in training. It’s pushing ourselves just beyond where we’ve been pushed before and it brings about adaptation in our body. It’s the whole point of exercising really, whether you’re looking for health or performance benefits.

One of the fundamental aspects of overreaching though is recovery. Without recovery time, we don’t allow our bodies the time to adapt. When we bunch up our training with #nodaysoff we put ourselves at risk of overtraining. Overtraining is when the illnesses seen in the figure above creep in. It’s also when we’re more likely to get injured and find things tougher psychologically – not a good combination!
So, now you start to see the problem. We think if some is good, then more has to be better. So, we go for it. But then we start to get overtrained, and we get ill or injured. The most important part of a successful training regime is consistency. It’s therefore hugely counterintuitive if we work so hard that we’re not able to work anymore. You might have three ‘good’ weeks but if it’s followed by an enforced two-week absence through illness or injury, then what’s the point? 
These negative consequences are in part a result of our stress hormones (normally produced during exercise) becoming too high, the small damage we do to our muscles (required for them to build back stronger) not being repaired and poorer nutrition (caused by a lower mood) also slowing our recovery process. This is a bad cocktail that obviously isn’t going to allow us to achieve what we want. It’s also a vicious cycle. Adding to this cycle is the fact overtraining can lead to poor sleep, which impacts our ability to recover even further.

How to recover from overtraining

Firstly, how might you know if you are doing too much? You don’t want to be backing off if you’re doing the right amount, as that will lead to you not getting the benefits. Some tell-tale signs that you might be overtraining can be that you’ve hit a plateau in your progression, you’re especially sore or tired following sessions or that your mood or sleep is suffering.

Working with an experienced coach or personal trainer can help with this, as they should be able to correctly plan your rest as well as your training – something we often overlook!
It may also be useful to consider the type of activity that is best for you. For example, if you want to embark on frequent running and have a lot of weight to lose, then the potential for knee, hip and back injuries is quite high due to the load on those joints. Here, it may be advantageous to substitute non-load bearing exercises such as cycling or swimming into some sessions while your weight is high.

Also, as a beginner, how much exercise we’re able to tolerate is also dependent on our experience, or what we might call our training age. Mo Farah didn’t start running 140 miles a week from day one! As well as factoring in days off in each week, you should also consider having a ‘down’ or ‘low’ week every six to eight weeks. We call this periodising our training and it’s important to keep overtraining at bay.

Some of us though find it hard to do nothing on rest days. If you’re one of those, then rest assured (literally) that it’s still fine to go for a walk or to do some low-intensity yoga or similar. Do keep in mind though that it’s definitely fine to embrace days off. This is when our body takes the time to rest and repair, giving you the greatest benefit from the hard work you’ve put in.

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Take homes on overtraining

When we consider the top of the pyramid in professional sport – the LeBrons and Cristianos – we need to remember that they are also likely top of the pyramid genetically. There is a chance they are simply able to tolerate high training frequencies and intensities!
Sadly, it’s likely this isn’t the case for almost all of us. We also need to remember they don’t have another job to go and do and they have full-time chefs, massage therapists and every other aid under the sun. This makes being a full-time athlete, and the accompanying increased training load, considerably easier to handle.

So, for us mere mortals, while it’s nice to draw inspiration from our idols, remember that for our progression, slow and steady wins the race. Consistency is indeed key but those days off are likely just as important as the days when we’re making it count in the gym.

Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Overtraining: Is too much exercise bad for you? appeared first on Science for Sport.

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: February 29th, 2024
8 min read

1. Free weights vs machine: What’s the difference?
2. Theory of free weights
3. What does the science say about free weights?
4. Should you use free weights?
5. Take home for using free weights

Free weights vs machines: What’s the difference?

When you were younger, it’s likely you learnt to ride a bike. Perhaps you saw older friends or siblings doing it and it looked like great fun – you wanted in! It also looked a bit scary and difficult. The chance of falling off that thing and leaving the skin from your knees down the road behind you was high.

So, some bright spark thought of a way to give you some confidence in the early days – training wheels! Those little wheels attached to the main back wheel would keep you upright regardless of your balance levels and technical ability. When we got into it, I’m sure many of us probably thought this stabilised level was quite enough and that we’d never need to take those comforting little wheels off. Would it really be much better just on the two big wheels? Upon joining a gym for the first time, you typically have an induction with a member of staff who shows you how all of the kit worked. “Press this button to start and stop the treadmill, this one to make it go faster” etc.

If you are a relative novice, you will have been walked around the weights machines, including the chest press, lat pulldown and leg press. You’ll have been told these machines tick off the main muscle groups and that lifting weights is important for strength, bone health and maintaining day-to-day function as we age. I hope that’s what you’re told anyway! And so you begin – a bit of cardio, a bit of machine weights, great stuff, you’re into a rhythm. However, you can’t help but notice the other area of the gym that wasn’t really explained. You recognise the exercises there use similar movements to the machines, but it all looks a bit trickier. You see dumbbells, barbells, weights plates. You see … the free weights section.

As with so much in exercise and training, there is much myth and legend that you may have heard about this place. “It’s much better than the machines” … “if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll hurt yourself” … “you need six months’ experience before even thinking about it!”.

Today we’ll consider if, how, when, and why we should consider removing our gym training wheels.

Theory of free weights

In days gone by, machine weights were the clean, safe, friendly way to pump some iron. Free weights however, were where the gym trolls grunted, sweat, and made outsiders or beginners feel unwelcome! Thankfully, I truly believe these days are behind us. It’s now not uncommon at all to see young and old, men and women, novice and strong in the free weights area without judgement.

Here, I feel it’s worth reminding you of a favourite gym quote of mine – “no one is looking at you, they’re all only looking at them”! So, it’s useful to start by saying not to be intimidated if you want to dabble in the free weights. But what are they supposed to do? Simply put, I think we can encompass the supposed benefits by describing how it feels to use them.

If you’ve ever used a chest press machine, it’s pretty straightforward. You sit, set the handle position, and push outwards until your arms are straight. You then reverse that movement back to the start position.

The famous bench press does pretty much the same thing, although you’re lying flat on your back. The big difference is the feel of the movement. On the machine, it’s almost like the path of the moving component is on rails. It can only move in one plane of motion – out, and back again. This is why many people feel machines are safer, and that they are more confident using them.

On the barbell free weights bench press, again you aim to move the bar out and back again but there’s also movement in every other direction, as it is ‘free’. Move to a dumbbell bench press and this intensifies further as you have two separate objects to control. And control here is the key word – the main claims around the benefits of free weights is they recruit more of the helper muscles. This can both be the smaller muscles around the joints that are moving, but also the core muscles.

It is subsequently argued that real life, or sport, seldom comes at you in a nice straight line, so it’s especially useful to have the additional stabilisation, gained from using free weights. The question, as always, is whether science backs up this idea and if so, is the case strong enough for us to consider adding it into our programs?

What does the science say about free weights?

This question has been around for a long time now. At least as far back as the 1960s, when machine weights in gyms started to become more common. Thankfully, this means there is a reasonable base of scientific research we can dig into in attempting to answer this question.

Firstly, we’ll consider the claim that using free weights might increase certain hormones considered useful for strength and muscle gains. With specific regard to testosterone, a set of participants in a free weight group had a greater increase in testosterone [1] following an acute training session than those in the machine weights group. Interestingly though, despite this increase in testosterone, both groups resulted in similar increases in muscle mass and strength. This suggests that although there are some hormonal advantages to using free weights, this does not necessarily mean you will achieve greater outcomes.

This may be due to other reasons, such as it being easier to isolate specific muscles on machines, which leads to adaptation through a different mechanism. Similar findings were shown when a comparison was made between machine and free weights groups where gains in muscularity, strength, and functional ability were seen regardless of the equipment being used [2]. This particular study was in novice lifters, so may be useful in letting newbies know they don’t need to rush into using free weights until they feel ready, as they’ll still get good results.

It isn’t always level pegging though. A comparison of the leg press and free weight squat suggested that following eight weeks of training, the squat might be a better [3] strength training exercise for the development of jump performance. Being a marker of power often used by scientists, this suggests that in this case, free weights might be more useful to individuals looking to increase their explosive power for certain sports.

On the other hand, sometimes the machines win out. When looking at female lifters, machine squat training was found to provide performance-enhancing benefits of equal or superior value [4] to those obtained with free-weight squat training during the start of a training phase. Here the researchers suggested these findings may be the result of machines enabling individuals to concentrate on force production rather than the technique involved in the free weight squat.

Should you use free weights?

Before we sum up the scientific findings to determine whether you should start to use free weights in your routine, I’d also like to throw in some practical considerations. Changing weight plates and taking collars (the grips that lock the weight onto the end of the bar) on and off can be quite time consuming. Sometimes, if you only have 30 minutes for a session, a quick machine circuit can deliver most of the benefits in a much more convenient fashion.

You may also need a spotter for some free weights exercises – the role of this individual is to help save the day when you’re about to be pinned under a barbell when absolute fatigue sets in. Depending on the session, it can be dangerous to lift without one. In that case, you can get pretty close to matching the desired intensity on a machine.

Additionally, sometimes the isolated nature in which machines work can be beneficial. If you are working on an injury, you may want to target specific muscles to cause adaptation or to rest it while still exercising.

More broadly, the evidence presented makes a pretty good case for both sides of the argument. If you’re not confident in your technique or are a little pushed for time, then it’s good to know there are plenty of benefits to be had from sticking on the machines. If you’re interested in being a bit more of a rounded individual, to benefit your sports and to slow the clock as we age, then the stability gained through free weight training could be of interest.

Take-home for using free weights

As with so many things in training, and indeed science, the answer here is ‘it depends’. The evidence is good for the use of free weights, but the good news is that if you don’t feel comfortable or ready, then you’ll still be getting many great benefits from using machine weights.

To sum up, I think a balanced approach is always a good one. Why not mix both into your program. Just make sure you’ve confident and competent with the technique by making sure you speak to a professional before you kick things off. You never know though – a few sessions with a personal trainer to help get your confidence up and much like moving to two wheels on your bike, you might never look back.

Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Free weights vs machines: Is there any real difference? appeared first on Science for Sport.

Some people swear that cold showers can deliver myriad health benefits, from keeping chronic disease at bay to clearer thinking, improved circulation and general wellness improvements. But what does the science have to say about them?

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: February 29th, 2024
9 min read

Cold showers: Are they worth the pain?

NOTE: This article refers to cold water exposure. If you are currently experiencing any medical issues, we recommend you speak to your physician before attempting.
Early in September last year, I found myself standing on a beach in County Mayo in the west of Ireland. The air temperature was about 18°C (64°F), which is a little too chilly for the pair of swimming shorts I was wearing. I was being told by my other half’s parents (also wearing swimming gear) that “you get used to the cold quite quickly!”. We were going for a swim. The water temperature was about 15°C (59°F) – so much for a summer’s worth of warming up!
As a physiologist, I know we lose body temperature much more quickly in water than air of the same temperature. Was I excited for what awaited me? No. Was I feeling peer-pressured and at risk of being shown up? You bet!
So, in we got. They do this every day, and marched in as if they were striding into a luxury spa. I tried my best to keep pace but it was tough, especially as certain body parts became submerged. What then followed was a satisfaction curve that followed somewhat of an arc, with a flat top. Ten minutes of hyperventilating and questioning my life choices, 10 minutes of enjoyment coupled with ‘oh, it’s actually quite nice!’ and 10 minutes coming back down the arc as I felt the life being sapped from me. When we got out and (finally) warmed up, there was general agreement that it was in fact enjoyable.

I subsequently went in each day I was there, and it did indeed get easier. But it was after the first dip when someone said: “I’m sure it’s supposed to be really good for you … isn’t it?!”. There was talk of all sorts of miracle cures following these cold plunges, from keeping chronic disease at bay to clearer thinking, improved circulation and general wellness improvements. Also, there was a talk of a mystery man named Wim Hof.

So, is there any basis for these claims and who is this fella they call the Ice Man? Let’s find out.

Are cold showers good for you?

This article will consider the purported claims of cold water exposure and also how these statements stack up against the scientific literature.

But before we get to that, let’s back up a bit. You may have heard of colleagues, friends or loved ones telling you how they’ve started to kick their day off with a freezing cold shower in the morning and they “feel great” for it. But how has this crept into the public consciousness? In part, it is likely through one of its top advocates Wim Hof, the Ice Man. Hof is described as a Dutch extreme athlete who is noted for his ability to withstand freezing temperatures. He holds, or has held, a number of world records including being embedded in ice for nearly two hours.

Hof states his ability to achieve such feats stems from a combination of breathing technique work (which he likens to controlled hyperventilation), the cold exposure itself (which he recommends you work up to gradually) and meditation (which he does while doing both the breathing exercises and the cold exposure).

We have Hof to thank for this upsurge in this kind of practice, with many Hollywood A-listers citing use of his techniques. This has further driven up interest and participation across all walks of life. You can find his particular method easily online, but we are going to focus mainly on the cold water immersion.

The supposed benefits of cold water immersion are numerous. Physiologically they include:

The psychological benefits are also numerous and include:

It is also worth mentioning that such practice is not without risk to some individuals. Cold water immersion has been found to sometimes make stiff muscles worse, reduce the impact of some training types and also (unsurprisingly perhaps!) increase the risk of hypothermia.

But if even half of the positive claims were true, then it’s safe to say we would all have something to gain from factoring cold water immersion into our lives. However, this is a long, and at times woolly, list (I actually removed a fair few from my original list as they were even woollier!).

But let’s be honest – this is not a particularly pleasurable experience, certainly at first anyway. So, let’s see what evidence is out there to back up what, for many, is likely a pretty uncomfortable lifestyle change.

The cold, hard facts on cold showers

Relatively, there is quite a lot of specific research out there on what is quite a niche topic. A lot of this centres around Hof himself, who has participated in a lot of the research that is referred to below.

MRI scans of Hof’s brain found that when he is carrying out his breathing technique, he is able in a sense to trick his brain into producing a chemical that puts him into a euphoric state at a time when the rest of us would be feeling intense discomfort. The pain we would typically feel is important, as from an evolutionary sense, it lets us know when a situation is undesirable. Subsequently, this lets us know that we should remove ourselves from it – this is certainly how I felt as the water became waist deep in Ireland!
Our bodies, though, can override this, again for evolutionary reasons.  For example, let’s imagine you’re being chased by a gorilla 10 seconds after standing on a nail that goes right through your foot. Normally, the nail would be extremely painful. In this circumstance though, your brain knows it can worry about your foot later – if you’re able to outrun the gorilla! It seems as though Hof’s breathing technique enables him also to override his pain response, without the need for the ape!
So, is it actually the breathing that is leading to the reduced pain and improved psychological state rather than the water itself? Well, it is argued this initial consequence will only help you for the first couple of minutes in the water. As a result of more prolonged exposure, opioids, serotonin, and dopamine (all of our happy chemicals) kick in, a kind of self-fulfilling positive cycle. These chemicals, it seems, are your reward for getting through that initial pain barrier. They then aid your ability to tolerate longer exposure and potentially bring about some of these further benefits.

But what about some of these other benefits that are claimed? Are they too good to be true?
The changes in the brain referred to above not only seem to allow for greater ability to tolerate the cold but also provide additional chemical responses. This is achieved via what has been described as a controlled stress response characterised by activating the sympathetic nervous system. This appears to reduce the innate immune response and, in turn, leads to reduced inflammation which has subsequently been found in more in-depth research also. Though links are yet to be specifically made, this could lead to many positives linked to some of the physical benefits listed above, from enhanced recovery to reduced likelihood of some disease occurrences.

This manipulation of the body’s immune response could also influence the way the body responds to pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. This was trialled with a group who were trained in Hof’s methods and were found to be able to voluntarily activate their immune response and subsequently showed fewer flu-like symptoms.

The chemical response mentioned above is likely the primary reason for the pleasure experienced by many following their cold showers, alongside serotonin and dopamine chemicals, including adrenaline which have also been found to be ramped up after undertaking Hof’s methods. This cocktail would combine to give effects similar to that felt when on a rollercoaster.

Beyond such acute euphoric benefits listed above are also a handful of specific chronic medical conditions. At this time, it seems evidence to substantiate such claims is often unspecific, and it is suggestions based on broader evidence that triggers them. That is not to say they are untrue, and often in science the research can take time to filter through.

Arthritis is one such condition where this is the case. Linking back to the potential to reduce inflammation in someone practicing these techniques, healthy individuals have been found to be able to reduce chronic inflammation using Hof’s methods. This has prompted researchers to suggest that this proof of concept investigation should now be rolled out further to include diseased populations. This is similar for many other chronic illnesses linked to the above proposed benefits.

Is it time to take the plunge?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems Hof’s success in tolerating extreme cold, and the subsequent benefits it might yield, are driven by training the brain rather than specifically the body. Further investigation into whether his tolerance was a result of the brain or body indeed found that control of the brain may be more possible than first realised and that this may lead to many possible positive outcomes.

This leaves some interesting and exciting proposals that we may genuinely be capable of far more than we think if we can safely train our brain over time to deal with such environments. It seems this may then allow us to reap some of the benefits that may in time be shown to be associated with such mind over matter challenges.

Cold showers: Take-home points

Wim Hof is likely the Usain Bolt of the extreme cold temperature world. Can you expect to build superpowers on the same level as his to be able to withstand such extreme extremes? It’s unlikely. Can you train yourself to be better able to tolerate a cold shower in the morning? That seems a little more likely. And will it live up to every claim? Well, probably not. The science certainly isn’t backing them all up just yet. But that’s not to say evidence won’t be gathered over time as further research is conducted.

It’s also useful to keep in mind that some people will absolutely hate to implement these kinds of techniques. To those, I say you shouldn’t be worried if that’s how you feel as you read this. A lot of the psychological and potentially physical benefits associated with the Wim Hof method can be achieved via other mindfulness techniques such as meditation.

It does seem though, that if you’re able to get through the initial period of discomfort, there likely are some benefits for both the body and mind for the breathing technique, cold water immersion and meditation of the Wim Hof method.

My next trip to Ireland is planned for some time just after Christmas, so I’ve plenty of time to prepare. I’ve just looked, and the water temperatures should be down to 10°C (50°F) by then though. Maybe just a shortie wetsuit?

[optin-monster slug=”nhpxak0baeqvjdeila6a”]

Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Cold showers: Is there any scientific rationale? appeared first on Science for Sport.

Long journeys and jet lag are a concern for many athletes, but what exactly is the impact of long flights on performance, and what strategies are available to counteract these effects?

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: March 1st, 2024
7 min read

Jet lag: How can athletes minimise its impact?

When I wrote this article, we were sitting in the time between the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo. Having previously written about the difficulties of the heat during the Games, I thought I’d consider another issue that was brought up frequently over the past few weeks. As with any Olympics — where people have travelled from far and wide — long journeys and jet lag are a concern for many athletes during the build-up to what could be the biggest few days of their life.

Today I’ll examine the impact of long flights and jet lag on performance. I will look at the underpinning science and strategies we might want to use to limit the effect on our next family holiday, business meeting or gold medal race.

Flying: Jet lag vs. travel fatigue

Firstly, we need to differentiate between two potential issues that may be at play when we consider long-haul travel. If we go on a long journey, let’s say a flight from London to Cape Town, this will mean a 12-hour flight crossing one time zone (during British summer time). The result of this would be travel fatigue. We would be tired from the event but would have different experiences from a 12-hour flight east, say from London to Tokyo, where we would pass through eight time zones. This second trip would be more likely to trigger the infamous jet lag that we heard so much about from British, American and many other athletes at the Tokyo Games.

We’ll start with a little explanation of the physiological difference between the two before diving deeper into the details of avoiding them.

What is actually happening to us up in the air?

Way back in 1997, the Godfather of sports chronobiology (the study of biological rhythms), Professor Tom Reilly, acknowledged the difference between travel fatigue and jet lag. He and colleagues summarised that travel fatigue, achieved via long trips (typically within three time zones of your origin), could be tackled with relative ease. They suggested this state was an acute accelerated tiredness and recommended simple amendments to training schedules and short periods of rest to allow individuals to return to normal following such trips.

They went on to acknowledge that once travelers exceeded three time zones,  experiences were much more noticeable, especially when travelling east. The exact reason for this east/west difference isn’t known, but it likely has something to do with the fact that advancing your body clock is trickier to deal with than delaying it. The general reason for our body struggling following time zone differences is that our internal body clocks become out of sync. Our brain gets confused when trying to determine the difference between where we are and where we think we are. This can also be exaggerated by novel issues such as a change in temperature, altitude, humidity, pollution etc., which has certainly been the case in Tokyo.

Beyond these factors, the key variable messing with our internal clocks is light. This is perhaps no surprise, and it is logical that if your body thinks it’s the middle of the day, but it’s pitch black outside, you may find it harder to go to sleep.

But beyond the annoyance experienced by anyone who’s ever had jet lag, from an athletic performance standpoint is it something we should be concerned with?

Jet lag and athletes: What’s the go?

It’s worth a quick glance at the science here to see what the impact of travel fatigue and jet lag might be on athletic performance. If, for example, our brains feel upside down, but we are still able to optimally perform, then maybe this would be less of an issue.

Starting with travel fatigue, it seems there is limited evidence that it might directly impact performance (assessed via counter-movement jump, yoyo test and technical/tactical performance). However, despite the potentially limited impact on physical markers, it was considered to negatively impact perceptual measures such as alertness, motivation, and mood, which would likely be a concern for athletes and coaches.

When we more specifically look at jet lag, it seems that crossing time zones increases resultant fatigue sufficiently such that performance markers including sprint and jump ability are negatively affected. It’s also suggested your chronotype (whether you’re a night owl who naturally likes a late bedtime, or a morning lark who prefers waking up early) may impact how affected you are, with larks appearing to adapt to eastbound travel more quickly.

Key strategies to reduce the impact of jet lag

Having established that, for long trips, especially when crossing multiple time zones, there are likely negative performance consequences, the big question is, what can we do about it? Below we will consider some pre-, during and post-travel strategies to help shake that funk as best we can.

Prior to travel
Firstly, it is important to try to embark on your journey in as fresh a state as possible. So, attempt to get a good night’s sleep leading up to your journey. It has also been recommended it may be useful to begin to adjust your sleep and waking time by one hour each day in the two or three days leading up to travel (especially when flying east). Greater adjustment than this is likely to be disadvantageous, with periods longer than two to three days likely to be too disruptive to an individual’s days before travel.

During travel
Once on the plane, it is recommended travellers attempt to make themselves as comfortable as possible. Many sports science departments are now taking this very seriously. During the Olympics, we saw special pillows on planes to aid rest, which you can even pick up yourself through the Team GB mattress sponsor. Incidentally, it was recently found that business class travel led to better sleep quality and quantity as well as reducing some jet lag effects – something to keep in mind if you’re looking to barter with the boss!
It has also been recommended athletes change their watches to the time at destination upon travel to aid the mindset shift. Sleep should then ideally take place during the ‘new’ night-time. Specifically, in the hour prior to attempting to sleep, it is advised to restrict computer, TV, and phone use. Loose fitting clothing, an emphasis on hydration and refraining from alcohol and caffeine have also been recommended. These interventions are based on evidence that exposure to light and noise can reduce sleep quality – aim to increase comfort and induce the physiological state required for sleep onset without pharmacological aids.

Upon arrival when having travelled west
Once you arrive at your accommodation, it has been suggested a short nap may be useful. This is aimed at suppressing the desire to go to sleep that can creep in when we extend our days by flying west. It is important, though, to keep this nap short (around 20 mins seems a good estimate) and seek some form of activity in the daytime once you’re up and about. This can lead to greater exposure to daylight, which can also aid the reduction of some jet lag symptoms.

You may also feel like going to bed 1 to 2 hours earlier than usual, subsequently waking earlier too. Don’t fret, though – this should pass after spending a few days in your new time zone.

Upon arrival when having travelled east
Things are a little trickier when we’ve flown east. This is because frustratingly, the time you feel most tired coincides with night-time in your origin time-zone, which is far from ideal if you’ve arrived into glorious sunshine at your destination. The key to cracking this and resynchronising your body clock is through manipulation of light after flying eastwards.

This comes through making the most of the positive effects of natural light at the right time. The problem with crossing many time-zones (e.g., six to nine hours) to the east is that a morning arrival worsens this issue. In such instances, the use of light shades on the plane and dark glasses en route to the immediate accommodation can minimise light exposure and allow the traveller to retire to bed until late morning if necessary after arriving. Subsequently, light exposure in the ‘new’ afternoon is beneficial.

It would also be beneficial to avoid training the first few mornings and train in the late afternoon instead.

Dreaming of gold: Take home points to maximise your performance

Generally, athletes, practitioners and us mere mortals are advised to firstly get the basics right when it comes to combatting jet lag.

[optin-monster slug=”nhpxak0baeqvjdeila6a”]

Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

References

The post Jet lag: The impact and management of flying on athletic performance appeared first on Science for Sport.

Anyone who has done any kind of resistance training would have heard about the importance of repetitions, or reps. But what are rep ranges, and why are they important?

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: March 1st, 2024
7 min read

Rep ranges: The science of repetition numbers

Anyone who has done any kind of resistance training would have heard about the importance of repetitions, or reps. But what are they, and why are they important?
‘Reps’ simply refer to how many times you perform a movement from a start to finish position within a set during your resistance training programme. When you first start doing some kind of resistance training, there is usually a golden number that is fabled to tick all the boxes. Ten reps for strength, 10 reps for size, 10 reps to keep you from getting injured, 10 reps to overturn seven years of bad luck if you’ve just smashed a mirror … there’s nothing this magic number can’t help you to achieve!
But there must be more to it than that right? The huge people in the gym with the weightlifting belts on often only do a handful of reps, and people obviously do much more than 10 reps in a circuit class, right? So, what difference does it make when we do a different number of reps and what should we be doing with different goals in mind?
Today we’ll look into the science behind altering our rep numbers and see whether there are other variables in this puzzle that we should consider as well.

A brief history of rep ranges

When I first started studying resistance training in high school nearly 20 years ago, the basic formula was this: a rep range of 1-3 was for power training, 4-8 was for increasing strength, 8+ helped promote hypertrophy (getting bigger muscles) and 12+ promoted muscular endurance. These numbers shifted slightly depending on which textbook you were looking in, but you get the idea.

Is that the answer then? Does this age-old wisdom still hold true? And do we need to also consider other variables such as how many of these sets we do and intensity at which they are performed?

The science of sets and reps

When looking into the research, let’s start with intensity. This refers to how difficult something is. We could do 10 reps that are super easy if the weight is really light, or we could do 10 very challenging reps if the weight is near our maximum. These are obviously two very different sets of 10.

It is proposed that if you’re a beginner, then a lower intensity is fine, with fatigue coming about as a result of a rep range that’s a little higher – perhaps 12 to 15. This allows us more opportunity to practice the movement rather than throwing in the additional complexity of a very heavy load. I feel some gym goers would do well to revisit this step, but we’ll come back to terrible form and gym ego another day perhaps  

When you finish your final reps, you may be able to do three more reps perhaps. This is fine as here, we’re looking to improve the neural links between your brain and muscles. This will see improvements in strength (mainly through those neural pathway improvements) and in time an increase in muscle size.

MORE: 3 MUST-DOS TO BUILD STRONG ATHLETES
If you’re more experienced and looking to increase strength, then we can go back to my high school textbook and drop down to the 4-8 rep range. Here we will obviously lift more per rep than if we were lifting for 12 to 15 but we will also look to increase the intensity. Here we may only be able to do one or no additional reps when we complete the final rep of the set. For both beginners and more experienced lifters, you will increase the load over the weeks as it becomes easier.

The other variable to consider is – how many of these sets should we be doing? When we multiply our number of sets by our number of reps by the load of those reps, we get our total volume. Understanding this total volume helps us to answer this question. Beginners seem to be better off performing 3-4 sets per muscle group (see, even in the science we’re guided towards three sets of 10!). As we become more advanced we can increase our set count but likely not beyond six sets per body part. The above ranges refer to a goal of increased strength. But what if we’re keen to increase our muscle size? Well, as we’ve said, there is a good level of crossover here as often strength leads to size and vice-versa. But there are some specifics we can consider.

When it comes to increasing muscle size, it seems my high school textbook was pretty close to the science again. It looks as though 8-10 reps (there’s that number again) will aid with increased muscle size due to the increased activity of chemical pathways associated with muscle growth. Now, just to throw a curveball into the mix, it has also been shown that doing a high rep (25 to 30 reps) set immediately after a 5-sets-of-5 reps strength-based exercise led to increased muscle size and increased strength compared to just doing the 5 sets of 5 reps. The group responsible for this research was unable to explain exactly why this might be the case but recommended adding a single high rep set at the end of each exercise if you wanted both strength and size increases.

In the years since that study, our understanding has grown a little and now there is actually a reasonable amount of evidence for resistance training using higher reps and lower loads. This is in part because it ensures we recruit all of our muscle fibres when we lift. Our muscles have a mixture of type I and type II fibres, and typically the slowest, smaller type I fibres will start first before the bigger type II fibres, with greater potential to produce force, jump in to help.

Beyond fatigue, working for a longer period also ensures that we adequately stress our metabolism. This stress will trigger the release of important anabolic (which means to make bigger) hormones such as insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and human growth hormone (HGH). In fact, HGH may actually increase as levels of lactic acid increase. It should therefore be evident here why higher reps may therefore produce more HGH than lower reps (if you’re not sure, see which produces more lactic acid in your legs – a set of four squats or a set of 20!).

The key here goes back to intensity and how many reps you could do at the end of a set. If in doubt, make sure that number in reserve is low. That way you know you’ll be getting good fibre recruitment and all the benefits that brings with it.  

How many reps should I do? Tips for your programme

If you’re a relative beginner then it’s comforting to know you probably don’t need to worry about this sort of thing too much anyway. You will see increases in strength quite quickly just by teaching your body how to move something heavy. As you become more experienced, those traditional rep ranges aren’t too far away from being great guidelines. Low reps for power, medium for strength and higher reps for hypertrophy and endurance. Remember though, it’s a continuum and you’ll get improvements across the board once you’re experienced enough to keep the intensity high.

Taking all of this information together really is only the tip of the iceberg. We haven’t spoken about how fast these reps should be – if in doubt, always maintain control throughout the concentric (up) and eccentric (down) phase. And we haven’t spoken about the length of rest periods; generally if training for strength and power you can rest for longer  – two to five mins for strength and power respectively and shorter (60 to 90 secs) when looking to increase muscle size. These are lessons for another day, but you can always play around with them if you’re looking to add a bit of variety to a stagnant routine.

How many reps to build muscle? Well, it depends…

As so often is the case, the answer to the correct rep range can be a bit of an ‘it depends’. This is, in part, because our response to exercise is so individual. That’s why you might see two elite athletes swearing by quite a different rep count in their training.

The good news though to help us cut through this confusion is the crossover in rep number and the benefits they yield. It’s likely that the most important thing is to be consistent and to lift with intensity.

Beyond that, you can play around with things armed with the information above to see what works well for you. Whatever you do though, make sure those reps are done through a full range of motion. But that’s also a pet peeve for another day…

[optin-monster slug=”nhpxak0baeqvjdeila6a”]

Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Rep ranges: Are there any magic numbers with resistance training? appeared first on Science for Sport.

Hamstring injuries can wreck an athlete’s training and performance. But when and how do they happen, how can they be prevented and how can you break the cycle if they’re already ruining your training and competing?

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: April 25th, 2024
7 min read

Hamstring injuries – they can happen to the best of us!

In August 2017, one of sport’s true greats, Usain Bolt, stepped into London’s Olympic Stadium for his final ever race at the World Championships. Having been pipped at the post by pantomime villain Justin Gatlin in the blue riband 100m a few days earlier, the 4x100m relay was his chance to go out on a high – anchoring the Jamaican quartet in a fairytale finish to a historic, mesmerising career. Bolt received the baton in third place, about 3m off the lead. The stage was set for one final Bolt blitz in front of 90,000 adoring fans. Much like the 100m though, it wasn’t to be. This time, 30m into the final leg, Bolt pulled up clutching the back of his left leg. He had fallen victim to one of the most common injuries in sport – a pulled hamstring.

Thankfully for Bolt, many people no longer even remember this happening. And with a career like his, it’s easy for it to fade into the background behind the many world records and Olympic golds.

Relatively, Bolt had a career that was free from big injuries, especially during key events. But not all are as lucky. And for many athletes it is that same injury, the hamstring pull, that can be the cause of such torment.

Today we’re going to look at when and how hamstring injuries happen, how they can be prevented and how you might break the cycle of recurrences if they’re already ruining your training and competing. So, let’s talk about what for many is the most frustrating soft-tissue injury in sport.

Types of hamstring injuries

If we want to understand how we can avoid or treat hamstring injuries, we need to work out why they’re happening in the first place. One of the tricky things with the hamstrings is they’re what’s known as biarticular, which means they are involved in moving two joints – they extend (or move backwards) the hip as well as flexing (or bending) the knee. It is often when the hamstring is stretching, not contracting, that it is most likely to become injured. For example, a very common mechanism of injury is when, during running, the hip moves forwards and the knee straightens at the same time as we move our foot from behind us to put it back down in front of us.

The reason behind this is we are stretching the hamstring both at the knee and hip simultaneously, with great force. This is a lot to ask if our hamstrings aren’t conditioned for this, or if there are other underlying issues. And when you consider how many sports involve explosive running, jumping, changes of direction or other high-powered movements, you can see why this type of injury is so common.

Hamstring injury risk factors

Now we understand how this muscle may sustain more injuries than others, let’s think about the underlying reasons.

One thing athletes need to be aware of is the difference between overtraining and overreaching. Overtraining is ultimately when we do too much. We ask more of our body than it is able to do for a sustained period, which can lead to injury or illness. Overreaching is what we want. It’s how we create change in a good way from exercise. This occurs by pushing our body slightly beyond where it is conditioned (like moving the pin on the weights machine down one plate after a few weeks, or upping the treadmill speed slightly). When this is done over a long period, supported by adequate rest and fueling, this brings about positive adaptation.

We can think about the conditioning level of the hamstrings in a similar way. If we go and do a session with a lot of sprinting in it, which asks a lot from our hamstrings, then we are more likely to sustain an injury if we are not conditioned for it. Conversely — and this is a constant balancing act for conditioning coaches — if we don’t do enough training then we are never able to build up our tolerance to cope with higher demands when they arise, which is typically during competition, when we need it most!
As well as risk factors based on our level of and approach to conditioning, which we might think of as external factors, there are also some internal risk factors to consider. Unsurprisingly, having weak hamstrings makes them more susceptible to injury but so does having one weaker than the other – what we know as an asymmetry.

Beyond strength levels, there is also an old adage that the biggest predictor of injury is previous injury. Sadly, we can’t magic an old injury away and similarly we can’t change our age, which is also a risk factor, with older individuals experiencing more hamstring injuries. Thankfully though, we now understand some of the techniques we can employ to help us to prevent such injuries even if we do tick some of the risk factor boxes listed above.

Preventing hamstring injuries

In soccer, where hamstring injuries account for 12-16 % of all injuries, making them the most common injury, they typically occur more frequently during the later stages of each half. This suggests that strengthening the hamstrings generally to resist an accumulation of fatigue is very important.

Specifically, improving eccentric strength is important – this is the strength that is used when the muscle is lengthening. If you imagine being on a leg curl machine, or Nordic bench, eccentric strength is used if you resist the weight as your leg straightens. If you think back to our mechanism of injury section, this type of strength helps us to combat those injuries occurring during such stretches under high force when we train or compete. It can be trained specifically by simply having a slower eccentric phase of typical exercises such as squats, leg presses or leg curls. The Nordic hamstring exercise is another great one to look up for improving eccentric hamstring strength.

Minimising the asymmetries we spoke of would also be advantageous. This can be done by incorporating some single leg, or unilateral, exercises such as lunges or step ups into your program. This removes the chance for our dominant leg to take more of the load when doing double leg exercises such as deadlifts or leg presses.

Recovering from hamstring injuries

As I’ve mentioned, hamstring injuries have been shown to be more common in those who have had them previously. This suggests that perhaps people often rush back from such injuries and shows how important correct and appropriate rehab can be.

Beyond simply improving the strength of your hamstrings, another aspect that should be factored into rehab programs from hamstring injuries is improving your hip stability. Broadly the idea here is around reducing an undesirable amount of movement at the pelvis. As the pelvis is responsible for transferring forces between the spine and the lower limbs, it is thought that too much motion at this joining point can put the hamstrings under greater strain and therefore increase injury risk. This suggests a program of core and hip stability should be factored in when looking to reduce hamstring injury risk.

You may also think that hamstring flexibility might keep injuries at bay. The evidence here is a little ambiguous but it does seem that practices such as yoga can help with increasing range of motion and improve recovery time following injury,
Finally, moving forwards, it is recommended that a focus on movement quality should be sought where possible. In professional clubs this will be achieved by a structured, detailed assessment of a series of movement patterns such as how well an athlete squats, lunges, jumps etc. We should think of these movements as the foundation of a building – unless they are solid, you don’t want to build on them.

Similarly, if your fundamental movements aren’t of high quality, if you’re wobbling around all over the place for example, then no amount of increased single leg strength might save you from future injury. The reason for this importance is that sport is chaotic – we rarely move in nice straight, ordered lines like we do in the gym. This is why we need to ensure the basics are right first so when the chaos arrives we are better able to cope with it.

Although you may not be working in a professional environment, a physio or accredited strength and conditioning professional would be able to assess your movement competency and prescribe appropriate exercises to address any potential deficiencies.

Stringing it all together

Hamstring injuries certainly are best avoided. They can lead to lengthy spells on the sidelines as well as being difficult to shake without the correct rehab.

The best way to avoid them in the first place is through a mixture of overreaching of hamstring strength and sprinting in your training to bring about progressive overload while incorporating appropriate recovery periods. Specifically, eccentric hamstring strength and unilateral work is of key importance and will certainly serve you well.

If you’re unlucky enough to already be in the pattern of recurrent hamstring injuries then patience is key. Rushing back may be what you want to do but it won’t have a happy ending in the long run. Take your time, build your strength, and reap the rewards when you’re competing like Usain in his heyday!

[optin-monster slug=”nhpxak0baeqvjdeila6a”]

Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Hamstring injuries: What can you do to avoid them? appeared first on Science for Sport.

Compression garments are everywhere nowadays, from elite athletes down to the average Joe. But what are they supposed to do, do they work, and should you be using them to improve your recovery?

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: February 29th, 2024
9 min read

Compression garments: Crucial recovery aid, or just a fashion trend?

I first started taking sport seriously more than 20 years ago now – that makes me feel very old. Back then, I was a track and field athlete – a triple jumper in fact. I was okay at it, but I definitely took it seriously. I trained three to five times a week, on the track and in the gym, and I wanted to be the best I could be. I was a member of my local team, which had a strong pedigree and provided a good environment for me to improve.

As young sportspeople do, I began to pick up some of the traits of my peers at the club – buying similar spikes to them and also copying some of the other clothing choices they made. This included lycra. I don’t remember really considering this to be unusual, but I think at the time it probably was. Back then, unless you did gymnastics, cycling, track and field or were a keen aerobics participant (a type of group exercise class – ask your mum or dad) lycra wasn’t really all that common. How times have changed…
I’m not going to stray into fashion here and start talking about activewear but now, lycra is a staple in most people’s wardrobes. Whether this is to go to the gym in, to wear under your shorts for rugby training, a full kit for the ‘MAMILs’ amongst us, or those weird sleeve-only things that NBA players wear, there’s a lycra option for your needs! 
Rather than listen to my sartorial musings, we’re going to focus today’s blog on a particular kind of lycra clothing – the compression garment. Added to the list of massage guns and GPS devices, one of the most commonly seen bits of sports technology across social media, where so much advertising is done these days, are compression garments. They are supposed to aid with recovery through squeezing the muscles in a way to rid them of their evils – or something like that. They mainly come in the form of socks, shorts and short- and long-sleeve tops and are worn under your normal gear, or sometimes standalone. They’re sold by pretty much all of the big hitters and are also pretty tight – obviously.

So, let’s consider what is going on here. What are they supposed to do, do they work, should you be using them to improve your recovery and was I ahead of my time as a 15-year-old in full-length lycra trousers all those years ago?!

Fresh as a daisy…

When we exercise, especially when we do something we haven’t done before or we ramp up the challenge, we get sore. This soreness is a sign that our body has done something difficult, and it has to repair in a way that makes it able to cope with it should it experience it again. This principle of overload, when sustained during an exercise program, is what enables us to get fitter, stronger, bigger etc. This soreness usually only lasts a day or two but during that period it’s advised that you don’t work those muscles again at a high intensity.

Depending on your goals, this can be frustrating and not aligned to what is required of you. For most of us, this isn’t a huge issue, as we can take a little extra time between sessions. If you’re a professional though, and you have a soccer match on a Sunday and another on a Tuesday, or a tennis Grand Slam match that occurs over two days, you may not appreciate that soreness much at all! As such, methods to relieve this soreness including massage, foam rolling, ice baths and compression garments have crept into use. Some professional soccer clubs now even have members of staff dedicated to heading up recovery strategies, such is the importance of having the best players firing on all cylinders during key periods of the year.

The science of the squeeze

The theory behind the use of compression garments is that they have two main periods of use – during and, more commonly, after exercise. During exercise, it is thought they aid improved blood flow, therefore providing working muscles with more oxygen. The theory here is that as the blood returning from the lower body is having to work against gravity, squeezing the veins increases that pressure, a bit like how squeezing a hosepipe increases the water pressure – it aids the system in becoming more efficient. This would reduce the perceived difficulty of exercise at a given intensity, which we would all appreciate. It is also thought that the factor of wearing tighter-fitting clothing aids our proprioception, or our ability to know where our body is in space. This might sound a little odd but it is thought this will improve our ability to maintain a correct posture, which can help to make us more efficient.

Following exercise, as we’ve alluded to, compression garments aim to minimise delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). This is the specific muscle ache we have the day after a hard session. It is thought this is achieved through some of the same mechanisms as having a massage. It is thought they also increase the temperature of the muscle they are around. This also promotes blood flow and can promote healing.

Lastly, there are some rumblings that compression garments are able to reduce injury risk. This is linked to the fact that by aiding the warming of our muscles, we may be less likely to strain or pull a muscle.

Wouldn’t it be great if all of that were backed by science? Well, let’s see what we can unearth.

Starting off with the claims for use during exercise, it doesn’t seem like we are off to a great start. From the limited evidence out there, typically looking at runners, it doesn’t seem there’s much linking compression garments and improved running performance directly. This is likely because our bodies are already pretty good at what they do. When we exercise, the muscles, as well as propelling us around, are squeezing the blood back to our hearts. As a consequence, the addition of a compression garment doesn’t really add much to this system.

It was also hoped that by stopping our muscles from shaking too much when we hit the ground during running, this too may limit the micro-trauma to the muscle, which is associated with soreness. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like there’s too much to this one either. Also, though some studies have found that wearing tighter garments during exercise does indeed improve our proprioception, this hasn’t translated to better performance. Maybe this could be an advantage for those who are trying to overcome serious technique issues but as is often the case with science, we can’t say that for sure just yet.

So, let’s shift our hopes to recovery, and perhaps more where we think these types of clothing can benefit us. Thankfully, here we’re on slightly more solid ground. It does seem there is a link between the wearing of compression garments and reduced muscle soreness and fatigue. This likely is based on more solid foundations as its history lies in the medical rather than sporting realm. Compression has been used for years to reduce swelling after an operation by pushing pooled fluids and blood away from the specific area. This isn’t enough to improve performance during running, as we’ve said, but can be useful during recovery. Often such research points to weight training though, where there is obviously a huge muscular load. The evidence for improved recovery — measured by an ability to reproduce a performance during a 24-hr recovery phase in cycling and running — is limited. There is also limited evidence to suggest that DOMS duration or intensity is reduced following use of compression garments.

Compression garments for sport: Adaptation vs. recovery

One interesting point to consider when thinking about if you need or want compression garments in your life relates to the very thing they are trying to achieve. Compression garments are attempting to rid the system of the chemicals that make us feel sore and stiff. As we said at the start of this blog though, those chemicals are involved in the process of helping us to adapt. This is obviously less of an issue if we’re between matches at Wimbledon or we’ve got the Olympic 100m final tomorrow, but what if we’re trying to train for a four-hour marathon? Surely then we want those chemicals to help us to get fitter, not to dull them down so that we have a few hours where we aren’t so sore.

And this isn’t just the case of elite athletes versus us normals. Consider warm weather training camps that endurance athletes might do, or soccer or rugby players’ pre-seasons – they are very much aiming to adapt. So, this is quite an important consideration for your use of compression garments in sport. But not only that – this logic also applies to ice baths, foam rolling and massage. Sometimes there may be a balancing act between recovery and allowing adaptation but be mindful of your broader goals before you slap on every bell and whistle in pursuit of being 100% for the next session. If your program is correctly periodised and planned, then you won’t always need, or indeed want that to be the case!
Another thing to consider is the specificity of the products themselves. In many of the studies I’ve referred to in this blog, the investigators do not mention the tightness of the products used. As such, it is hard to know how tight they are supposed to be. Potentially, some studies with no positive findings may simply have not used tight enough garments. Scientists do suggest we’re looking for a Goldilocks effect here – it must be tight enough to increase blood flow but not too tight as to stop it. Frustratingly, it doesn’t seem we’re too sure where that level of tightness sits at the moment though.

Despite all of this, I know that some will be confused by reading this. On the other side of this argument is the case for what is probably the strongest reason for compression garments working – the strength of the placebo effect. Maybe the evidence isn’t strong enough to talk you all into purchasing compression garments. And in fact, a lot of them are pretty expensive. But for others, the slightly limited evidence shown here will be irrelevant, as you know it just “works for me”. I would rephrase that as “feel” it works for you rather than “know”, but there’s no doubting the power of placebo.

Maybe I’ll rewrite this in a few years with some more robust studies and we can be more sure one way or the other. For now though it seems that psychological benefits are likely near the top of the list for mechanisms behind any successes linked to compression garments.

Take-home points

It is a shame there isn’t a tighter case to make for the use of compression garments. Having said that, it certainly isn’t the worst sports technology evidence I’ve ever considered. It seems that use during exercise is not as well backed up as it is during post-exercise. It seems that through impacting blood flow, there are positive outcomes in helping people to feel less sore following certain types of exercise. Now you just need to consider whether you actually want to blunt some of these markers of overreaching or whether you’d rather put up with them to benefit from the associated adaptation.

As with so much of sports science, I’m afraid this is a bit of an ‘it depends’ situation. But hopefully now you’re a little clearer on what compression garments are supposed to do, and how close they might be to achieving that.

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Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Compression garments: Do they actually work? appeared first on Science for Sport.

There is good evidence that meditation can play a role in helping athletes achieve a better state of mind when they’re competing, and this translates well across a variety of sports.

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: March 1st, 2024
8 min read

Sports meditation: Yes, no, maybe or sometimes?

Sports stars can be a strange bunch. I suppose it’s fair to say that anyone who is at the top of their industry can behave a little differently to the rest of us (Bezos, Elon and Zuck, I’m looking at you). Sports stars are certainly no different to this rule and whether it’s superstitions around what they eat before they compete, a persona they adopt when they cross the white line, or a desire to be super hyped (Conor McGregor) or calm (Kimi Räikkönen) before they compete, most will have practices they adopt to help them feel ready.

In recent years one of the best pole vaulters in the world has been Yelena Isinbayeva. Between rounds she would lay quietly with a towel over her head with commentators joking she was having a nap. If you’re a ‘get as hyped up as possible’ person you would probably see that and think that she couldn’t be successful, but she was. With two Olympic golds and seventeen World Records, I’m certainly not going to argue with her.

Isinbayeva isn’t the only individual to adopt such tactics either. In tennis we often see players with towels over their heads as they sit quietly between games. Often this includes top players, and their successes suggest that we don’t all need to be shouting and screaming to achieve at the sharp end. Who really knows what’s going on in their heads while the towel is on but with the rise of the use of sports psychologists, it’s not a big stretch to think that some kind of self-talk, focusing and meditation may be happening.

As I mention psychologists it’s time for a disclaimer: I am not one – at all! I am a physiologist. But I’m a physiologist who is interested in helping athletes to maximise their performances. And as such I’m interested in the potential physiological impact of psychological techniques such as meditation. So, let’s learn together and see what the supposed benefits of meditation are, how they affect us physiologically and whether there’s a place for them in our own practice.

First things first – what is meditation?

You probably have an idea for yourself but first of all, what are we actually talking about when we refer to meditation? Historically, I think when people hear the word they will think of mystics sitting cross legged searching for enlightenment. There is likely good reason for this, with evidence of meditation stretching as far back as around 3500 years! More recently we might think of lycra-clad Californian guys and girls searching for their own inner peace between chai lattes.

The actual definition of meditation is quite broad though, being described as a practice of focusing the mind on a particular thought or activity to achieve mental clarity and/or emotional calm. The actual techniques used to practise this are quite varied, but we’ll get to that later.

Benefits of meditation

So, we’ve said that meditation is supposed to help us achieve calm, clarity and a relaxed state. It has also more specifically been shown to lower stress and decrease anxiety, which obviously might be useful in sport. It has also actually been suggested to be able to alter the physical structure of the brain, which I find particularly amazing. This is supposed to be achieved via potentially being able to increase the mass of the corpus callosum and hippocampus, which are responsible for the communication of information between the left and right sides of the brain. They are also important in forming and recalling memories and controlling our emotions. If this is the case, then meditation might be able to help with solving problems, learning skills, and making decisions, which would be very useful for many sportspeople.

Meditation in an athletic setting

So, as always, let’s look into the research to see whether some of these big claims are true. Is meditating going to make us better at our sports? Perhaps it depends on our sport of choice. More stress-based sports such as golf might benefit more from a calmer mind, as those athletes consider and execute shots, compared to the more chaotic goings on of a rugby field. This might be where our meditation style should be considered. Focused attention meditation (FAM) requires the individual to focus on a specific action or object, such as their breathing. This can help to eliminate distractions and aid skills like sinking a crucial putt. The other type of meditation we’ll consider is open monitoring meditation (OMM). This is much more suited to more open sports as it allows focus on all internal and external input before decisions can be made. This type of meditation weakens the focus on the task, as there is so much else going on, but can be more appropriate in these more open type sports.

But does meditation actually work? Well, the evidence in closed sports (sports performed in a stable or largely predictable environmental setting, such as archery, golf, or field events like throwing the javelin) is pretty strong. Following an extended period of integrating meditation into normal training, golfers have been found to improve their performance across a season. It is thought this happens by identifying the right things to focus on.

This may not be surprising though given the kind of sport it is and the benefits of remaining calm, relaxed and focused on the task. The good news is that in a soccer task where meditation was used twice a week for six weeks, shooting performance improved here too. The exact mechanism of these performance benefits are uncertain though it likely shows how meditation can play a part in the toolkit of improved sports performance.

Another potential mechanism behind the successes of meditation is the ability to achieve a state of ‘flow’. Flow is that feeling where you’re ‘in the zone’ and not needing to think about the task at hand. You’ve likely heard sportspeople talk about it in interviews after exceptional performances, though often you and even them don’t know that it’s happened: “Yeah, to be honest I can’t really remember too much of the match!”; “That final set was all a bit of a blur!”; “Looking back on the race now I couldn’t even really tell you that much about it!”. This would be flow. It can manifest as a loss of concept of time, reduction in self-consciousness, a focus on the present and a sense of effortlessness in your endeavours. If only we could bottle it! But it seems meditation can help us find it easier to achieve. This is also backed up by the research and linked to decreases in pessimism.

This sadly isn’t something we can likely tap into in one session though. It seems that at least three weeks seems to be around the point where performance benefits begin to manifest. This isn’t to say there will be no performance benefits at all or no other kind of benefits. Here we come back to two themes that seem to be a running trend in sports science topics – ‘it’s individual’ and ‘the placebo effect’. We need to remember that scientific studies use what we call a sample. This means that maybe 10, 20 or 50 individuals are used in a study to allow the outcomes to be expressed as if they are likely for the whole population. That is why the average response across the whole sample is reported. Some people will respond better, some worse. The bigger the sample the better, as it’s more representative of the population as a whole. You might be one of the good responders and it might only take a week for you to benefit from meditation. On the other hand, you might be a bad responder and it might be longer before you feel a benefit.

The other ever present is the potential for the placebo effect to impact our performance – the placebo effect is real too, there is no doubt about it. If you feel you’re getting a benefit from a practice then you are! And you should keep doing it. If that’s the case for meditation for you then great. At least you can do it for free! Meditative techniques such as focusing on your breathing will also certainly have an effect on your state of calm. This might not directly help you to sink the championship-winning free throw, but it certainly won’t hurt.

Meditation techniques

So, if we think this might be something we’d like to trial, how do we actually go about doing it? If you want some help, there are plenty of apps out there that can help to lead you through it but really it doesn’t have to be too complicated. If you want to keep it simple then you can sit somewhere quiet (you don’t need to be cross-legged!) and concentrate on your breathing. The reason behind using your breathing as an anchor is that thinking of nothing (which is often what people think of as the aim of meditation) is very hard! In fact, even focusing on your breathing is hard. So perhaps start with just three minutes and gradually build it up towards the 20 minute mark.

It’s also recommended by many to do it first thing in the morning – pre-emails, pre-coffee, pre-teeth brushing. This allows you to hopefully focus before your brain starts being pulled all over the place! There are many meditation techniques, and I would advise you perhaps to trial a few to see what you feel most comfortable with.

Take-home points on sports meditation

It feels a lot of my blogs aren’t able to provide strong evidence to back up the use of the technology or practice we’re discussing. It seems today though that we are on sturdier ground – there is good evidence that meditation can play a role in helping athletes achieve a better state of mind when they’re competing. This translates well across a variety of sport types to lead to improved performance. Will it work for everyone? Of course not – not much does, but I would certainly recommend giving it a go. Just keep in mind you likely need a decent level of commitment to it as potentially you’ll feel little benefit initially.

But for a technique that can be practised very cheaply, with low time commitments and no physical effort, what are the downsides? Perhaps there’s a reason it’s been around for thousands of years!

[optin-monster slug=”nhpxak0baeqvjdeila6a”]

Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Sports meditation: Can it make a difference to your performance? appeared first on Science for Sport.

While sports technology continues to develop at a rapid rate, there are simpler ways to monitor your exercise intensity. One of these old-school methods is the Talk Test.

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: March 1st, 2024
7 min read

Talk Test: An old-school method in a modern world

To say it’s been a tricky time for the world over the past two years would be an understatement. But it seems many of us are now starting to emerge from our Covid hibernation. Around the world, things are beginning to return to normal as shops, cinemas, sporting arenas and gyms reopen. These reopenings have brought with them a sense of normality that many had longed for throughout the darker periods.

For some, though, when it comes to exercise, the idea of returning to their gyms may not be front and centre in their minds. Once we got over the initial idea that gyms and fitness centres would be closed for an extended period (and the rush to buy up ever-scarce gym equipment subsided), some began to find it quite enjoyable. We were being given the chance to train in our living rooms, gardens or in our local parks and trails. So, for some, the reopening of gyms may not see a total return to the old normal. This isn’t to say that people no longer have the desire to use a gym – there are obvious advantages, including more varied or specific equipment and potentially greater comfort during the winter months. But it seems likely that many will continue to train, at least occasionally, in the settings they became used to during respective lockdowns.

The idea of a shorter journey to our exercise space, enjoying the great outdoors, or saving some money by having a cheaper gym membership sounds great, but can we be sure that we’re getting equal benefits from our new training programs? Specifically, in this blog, we’re going to consider whether we are working at the right intensity for what we’re trying to achieve when we train. To be clear, this isn’t to say ‘are we working hard enough?’, as anyone can train until they throw up, but are we working in a way that fits our goals, be they a recovery, light, medium or hard day?
Now, as I write this, I can see you looking over at your tech pile and thinking you’ve got it all covered. You’ve got your phone with your subscription running app on it, you’ve got your heart rate belt, you’ve got your watch that tells you all you need to know, and that’s just the start of it. And I’m not saying that all of those things aren’t useful. But what if you forget something, you’re out of town, you didn’t remember to charge something, or you’re new to the game and haven’t amassed the whole Batman utility belt just yet? What can we use to measure our intensity of effort then? One such option is the Talk Test. You may have heard of this before, but today we’ll cover the what, when, why and should yous of this test to see whether it can help us get the most from our workouts in the simplest way possible.

So, what is the Talk Test?

The principles of the Talk Test were first proposed at least as far back as 1939 when a professor at Oxford University recommended mountaineers ‘climb no faster than they can talk’. The idea being that if they were working hard to the point where they couldn’t hold a conversation, then it might be too taxing for them to complete their climb. In the many decades since, exercise physiologists have continued to play around with the idea, mostly with regard to exercising for health. The thinking being that if you could just about hold a conversation, you were likely working hard enough to see some improvements to your health. More recently it has been shown that, in fact, the ability to talk is strongly linked with exercise intensity.

So, with a general idea of what the test is and knowing it might be linked to how hard we’re working when we’re training, let’s have a look at how we might consider implementing it.

Working in the right zones

As I mentioned above, training isn’t all about thrashing yourself every time you do some exercise. So, let’s have a quick look at what we mean by training zones and what this might mean for our training. We know that aerobic fitness is really important for both our health and athletic performance. But when we’re planning our training with some longer term thinking applied, it is important to manipulate the intensity (how hard), frequency (how often) and duration (how long) if we want to progress and consider appropriate recovery.

It’s likely that it might be our aerobic exercise that we continue to perform away from the gym now we’ve discovered the benefits of doing it outside. Typically, when programming such sessions, you have likely heard of us being interested in the percentages of our maximum heart rate and oxygen consumption (VO2) that we might be working at. This relates to our exercise intensity, and it is these heart rate or oxygen consumption bands that we’re interested in manipulating. Recommended guidelines are quite broad for training using heart rate when aiming for health benefits. For instance, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) traditionally recommended exercising between 55 – 90% of maximum heart rate or 40 – 85% of maximum oxygen uptake for most individuals. When aiming for fitness improvement, it’s good to mix up our intensities throughout the week to improve all aspects of fitness, from speed and power through to aerobic endurance.

This can be very individual and will relate to how experienced you are, but you will likely know how hard you want to work to achieve your objectives. A reasonable rule of thumb is to consider three exercise intensity bands:

• Low-intensity work (would score a 3 to 5 on the ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) scale seen on the right). It would be reasonable to aim for this level once a week, often as a recovery.
• Moderate intensity work (5 to 7 on the RPE scale). This might be factored in once to twice a week.
• High-intensity work (7 to 9 on the RPE scale). This too might be incorporated once or twice a week.

Beyond the physical benefits, this manipulation also keeps our training from getting too boring, which can often lead to us quitting. Due to having a good understanding of the importance of tracking exercise intensity, many fitness enthusiasts find it useful but often difficult and sometimes tedious. Thankfully, there is good evidence that using the Talk Test can help us to plan our training by taking into account the intensity of that exercise in a simple, cost-free way.

How to perform the Talk Test

Summarising the above, we know that monitoring training is beneficial, though we may not always want or be able to use technology to help. Thankfully, we also know there is a correlation between our ability to talk during exercise and that exercise intensity. So how can we put it all together? Based on the intensity ratings and RPE scores above, we can consider that:

• Being able to speak comfortably relates to that low-intensity, sub 5 RPE score.
• For medium intensity, you can try counting as high as you can at a steady pace in one breath. Repeat this during your exercise at the same pace. If the number has reduced by more than a quarter, then you are now in the medium-intensity zone.
• It’s been suggested that at higher intensities or in very trained individuals, the talk test may be less effective in determining your training zone. Despite this, some have offered that when talking becomes too difficult, or only a word or two can be achieved, then this can be considered high-intensity.

Are you talking to me?

It seems the Talk Test offers a nice opportunity to very easily alter your exercise intensity between or during sessions. It works in most environments and all-but the most conditioned athletes at higher intensities. The downside is, it is admittedly hard to be as specific as you can be when using heart rate zones. Overall, the test is a useful, free method, especially for beginners and non-competitive exercisers. For those who are a little more serious, it would be useful for them to finetune their intensity zones by cross-referencing their ability to talk while they exercise against their heart rate when they are wearing their extra equipment. This knowledge can then be used when you’re equipment-free to increase the accuracy of the Talk Test.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that depending on your goals, if you are looking to exercise to become a little more active or for health benefits, then any level of exercise is going to be hugely beneficial. If you’re able to consider factoring in low-, medium- and high-intensity efforts throughout the week, then all the better. Just be safe and take comfort in the knowledge that you don’t have to be giving James Bond a run for his money in the gadget stakes to make it worthwhile.

[optin-monster slug=”nhpxak0baeqvjdeila6a”]

Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Talk Test appeared first on Science for Sport.

Many gym-goers wear trainers or sneakers, but some wear special weightlifting shoes with a built-up heel. And some may have no shoes at all. What is this witchcraft?

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: March 1st, 2024
7 min read

What are weightlifting shoes?

There is generally somewhat of a timeline you work through when you first join a gym. You’ve likely found yourself there in the first place as you want to make some kind of a change – you want to be healthier, fitter, stronger … the list goes on. So, you enter.

For many, that timeline begins with the use of cardio equipment or some weight machines. They’re relatively simple to navigate and you may have even used them before. From there, you may catch a glimpse of the free weights section. You may have been told of the benefits or simply have a desire to go over there and give it a shot. And you should, it’s awesome – but that’s for a different blog. This blog will discuss one of the things you might see when you get there.

Often, you’ll see plenty of accessories on the inhabitants of the free weights section that you may not have seen before. Some lifters may have weightlifting belts, or even belts where you add weight to make pull-ups or dips more taxing. You may see chains hanging from the ends of the bars, or straps around the lifters’ wrists to strengthen their grip. But that really is just the start.

Today, we’re going to discuss what happens south of the ankle. What do these guys and girls have on their feet? Some will have the same as you, likely trainers or sneakers. But some may have special weightlifting shoes with a built-up heel. And some may have no shoes at all. What is this witchcraft? Is this the secret of the weights room that’s been shielded from the cross trainers and rowing machines for so long?
Well, we are going to have a look through the science to help us understand the pros and cons of these approaches and figure out which might be the best one for you to get the most out of your sessions.

A brief weightlifting intro

Allow me first to address something that I’m a bit of a stickler for. Weightlifting and weight lifting are different. Weightlifting is what you see in the Olympic Games. It’s the snatch and the clean and jerk. Weight lifting is anything where you pick something heavy up for some kind of athletic reason, often in the gym – confusingly, this can also include weightlifting! The reason for this pedantry is to clarify  what I’m talking about throughout the rest of  this blog.

What do weightlifting shoes do?

Firstly, it’s important to point out that no non-weightlifter needs weightlifting shoes. If they aren’t in your budget right now, then don’t worry – you can still master solid techniques without them. In fact, some coaches actually recommend not using them at first, so you don’t become overly reliant on their benefits. But what are those benefits and why do people wear weightlifting shoes?
We mentioned earlier that weightlifting shoes have a built-up heel – this is the secret to their benefit. If you’ve ever performed a squat, you may have struggled to get as low as you were aiming. This is often a result of having poor mobility at the ankle. It’s something that can be improved over time but certainly isn’t something that will change overnight. A raised heel helps with this by increasing the tibial (shin) angle, meaning that for the same bend at the ankle, you’re able to get down lower. In fact, when wearing weightlifting shoes, you actually bend your ankle less and compensate by bending more at the knee and hip than when wearing normal trainers.

This can also lead to helping more experienced lifters to maintain a more upright torso during some lifts – something that can be really advantageous as it keeps the centre of mass towards the middle of our base of support (basically, directly above and in the middle of our feet). This is especially important as the load increases because it prevents us from losing balance and dropping the weight in front or behind us. It also makes the lift a little easier too.

These changes in position are not to come at the expense of improved mobility and technique, though. In fact, this trunk position benefit has not been shown in less trained back squatters wearing weightlifting shoes. However, considering all we’ve discussed, it seems weightlifting shoes would be advantageous in either of the Olympic lifts as well as other similar movements, including squat and leg press variants.

Beyond the change in shin angle provided by the heel, the wedge itself is very firm. So, unlike a cushioned trainer, when you push down hard during a lift, none of that force is absorbed into the shoe. This is really effective when you get to your heavier loads as you can utilise all produced force in the lift and not lose any through the compression of your shoe heel. It’s the same principle that led to some very quick sprint times at the recent Olympics. In Tokyo, it was the track track that was firm, meaning all force the athletes produced was rebounded back by the springy soles of their shoes, keeping them moving quickly.

Having said that, it’s important to highlight that weightlifting shoes are not essential. Similarly, it’s also important to point out that you don’t need to be an advanced lifter to want to own a pair either. If you’re enjoying lifting and would like some of the benefits, then go for it.

What about lifting barefoot?

We mentioned at the start of this blog that you may have spotted some people lifting in the gym with no shoes on at all. That seems fairly counter-intuitive, keeping in mind what we’ve just said about the benefits of a weightlifting shoe. However, again, this is all about putting you into a better position during the exercise you’re doing. If you’re deadlifting for example, you don’t want to be too far from the floor (as you would be with an elevated heel) because it’d be much harder to get low enough to pick the weight up. In this case, you want to be as low as possible, so you have to move the weight over as small a distance as possible.

This is why many opt for barefoot lifting or wearing very thin-soled shoes, like Converse. Beyond these positional benefits of lifting barefoot, some also suggest it can lead to greater increases in strength. This may be a result of having to work harder when lifting like this, as it requires you to constantly stabilise yourself (a job typically made easier by your shoes), which may be beneficial depending on your goals.

As hopefully you know by now, these blogs are based around science, so let’s have a quick skim around the research to see how that influences our decisions around barefoot lifting. It does indeed appear there are benefits to deadlifting barefoot for the reasons previously stated. The need to lift weight over a greater distance when wearing shoes does lead to an increased force requirement, whereas lifting barefoot makes shifting the same load easier by decreasing that distance, hence, the force required. Having said that, these small differences are likely only of value when lifters are very close to their personal bests. Interestingly, some individuals also prefer squatting barefoot despite the evidence above for a heel raise helping such movements. This may be a preference of some, but it seems that there is no biomechanical advantage obtained in doing so.

While we’re on barefoot lifting, it’s worth a quick public safety announcement to say to be careful when doing so – accidents in the gym do happen!

Some other options

If you’re interested in weightlifting shoes and their benefits but aren’t totally sure about buying some just yet, you might be wondering whether there are any other other options. Well, one quick fix is to use an external wedge under your heel to bring about some of the same advantages. You may have seen this in the gym too, and not really know why people were doing it. The easiest way is to use a small (1.25 or 2.5kg) weight plate under each heel. This has been shown to provide a beneficial position, especially if you’re new to moves such as squatting. This gives the benefit of a more advantageous ankle position before you’ve acquired your new pair of shoes. 

How should weightlifting shoes fit?

If you are interested in purchasing a pair of weightlifting shoes, then ideally, you want to try some out to see how they fit and feel. Brands such as Nike, Inov-8, Risto, Reebok, and Adidas are good places to start. A good retailer will let you try them on and even go through a few unweighted moves to give you the best chance of bagging a pair that feels comfortable and works for you.

Take homes

Weightlifting shoes can offer a real benefit in some of the big lifts in the gym. They can also help if you have mobility issues, though shouldn’t be used at the expense of working on any mobility deficiencies. You shouldn’t feel limited without them or compelled to get a pair, though. Plenty of exercises are not aided by them, and there are even alternatives, such as using an external heel raise if you’d prefer. Barefoot lifting also has some benefits – just be careful not to drop anything on your feet! 
If you are interested in investing in a pair, it is best to try on a few different brands to see how well they fit you and how they feel when you go through the key movements. If you do end up wearing a pair in your local gym, just remember one thing: It doesn’t mean you no longer have to re-rack your weights, no matter what anyone tells you!

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Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Weightlifting shoes: Are they really needed (and what about going bare feet)? appeared first on Science for Sport.

DOMS is the soreness we get in our muscles caused by micro-traumas, and the chemical processes associated with going above and beyond. But is it dangerous, and how can you avoid or minimise it?

By Dr. Tom Brownlee
Last updated: March 1st, 2024
9 min read

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS): A brief introduction

We all know the feeling. For me, it’s when I attempt to reintroduce squatting into my program. For a lot of the soccer players I’ve worked with over the years, it was the first day back after their off-season when the grounds are hard and they have to start running again. For you, it might be your first five-a-side soccer session in a while and you have to mark someone who’s a little too quick for you, and you’re running around more than a kid on Christmas morning. I’m talking about muscle soreness. And to get all scientific on you I’m talking delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS.

You may have heard the term before, and if not, as I say you’ve almost certainly felt it. As its first initial suggests, typically you don’t feel it during the activity, or even straight after. No. This silent assassin typically strikes while we’re asleep and it’s when we wake up and hobble out of bed the next day that we feel the full effects!
Typically, it presents itself as pretty serious muscle ache localised around an area that you used the previous day, such as the glutes and hamstrings following a squat session. The duration of this soreness can be three or four days even in extreme cases. So, what’s going on here? Are we working too hard, and this is our body’s way of saying that it’s damaged? Or is this a necessary evil to make us stronger and if so, what can we do to reduce its severity and duration? Or shouldn’t we be looking to dampen it at all? That’s a lot of questions. So, let’s find out what’s going on.

For those of us who have ever taken 10 minutes to get down the stairs the day after a tough session, this is for you.

Defining DOMS

As the name suggests, this is a muscular soreness that occurs after a specific event. That event in our case is likely to be a bout of exercise. But physiologically, what’s going on in the muscle, why does it happen and why doesn’t it happen to us every time we train?
Let’s start off with some basic muscle physiology. If we were to look at skeletal muscle under a microscope (as opposed to cardiac or smooth muscle, which aren’t involved in moving our bodies), we would see a chequerboard of cells nicely, neatly arranged. When we move, those cells contract or squeeze together – think about when you flex your biceps muscle. You can see it getting shorter when it contracts – that is the result of those cells contracting. After a period of exercise, that neat, ordered microscope image would look quite different. Now we would see a much messier pattern as the cells have become disrupted and damaged. Here, damaged is the correct word but may sound more serious than we need it to – every time we exercise, ideally we are looking for progressive overload. That is to say that what we’re asking our body to do is ever so slightly beyond our current ability. If we don’t do that when we train, then our body has no reason to adapt and become stronger (in the case of weight training). That’s not to say that every session needs to get harder and harder – rest is still important, and we need to periodise our work on a session-by-session, week-by-week and month-by-month basis.

But back to the microscope. So, after our session we would see that damage, or micro-trauma, as it’s known. And it’s a good thing – it’s bringing da gainz! These micro-traumas aren’t solely responsible for DOMS though – in fact you can have DOMS with no trauma, but generally they do factor into the explanation.

As well as the trauma, another factor that can lead to DOMS is some of the chemical changes in our muscle caused by the exercise bout. We’re not talking about lactic acid here though, which is often accused of being a contributor to DOMS. We won’t go too much further into the science here but we’re talking about an increase in hydrogen ions that occur when we exercise. This metabolic stress plays an important role in our recovery as it leads to inflammation. Inflammation has quite a bad reputation but is also very important in aiding recovery and adaptation. These chemicals and inflammation are picked up by nerve endings that tell our brain that something hurts. Our brain is kind enough to then let us know this! Much like inflammation, DOMS is part of the important cycle of repair and growth and as we’ll discuss later we should consider carefully whether we want to eliminate it or not.

Will any training type lead to DOMS?

To some degree, any training type can elicit DOMS if we do enough of it. Some types of exercise will bring about greater DOMS than others though. Eccentric training is the big culprit here. Eccentric training is where our muscles are lengthening under tension. A good example of this might be if you are at the top of a pull-up position and you lower yourself to the start position as slowly as you can. Here it is still your latissimus dorsi (lats) and biceps taking the majority of the work, but this is being done in a lengthening fashion. Again, think of the shape of your biceps muscle during this effort – it’s becoming longer as you go down but it’s doing a lot of work. This is an eccentric contraction and it’s great at producing micro-trauma and subsequently, DOMS.

To this point, we’ve mainly focused on how resistance training causes DOMS, but that isn’t always the case. You may have also experienced DOMS when you’ve upped your mileage when running or another kind of aerobic activity. This is our clue that really it’s the novelness of an activity, coupled with a relatively high intensity, that causes DOMS rather than specifically its type. In fact, going back to eccentric contractions briefly, when aerobically exercising, you may have experienced bad DOMS from a period of running downhill. This is due to the braking forces going through our legs in each step to stop us gaining too much momentum and cartwheeling off to the bottom.

What to do once you’ve got DOMS

Something I’ve been asked a fair few times is “should I not train again while I have DOMS?”. Keeping in mind we now know this soreness is in part linked to micro-traumas and it is part of a recovery process, then there is certainly logic to this question. Well, DOMS will reduce your ability for the muscle to produce full force, which obviously can lead to reduced abilities when we train. It doesn’t seem to worsen the muscle damage though, so when making your decision to train or not you should consider how important it is that you do so. By this I mean, if you’re a recreational athlete who can take an extra day’s rest before coming back firing on all cylinders, then I would do so. For those who really feel they need to get back to it, or perhaps are into their second (or third!!) day of DOMS, you can do so knowing you won’t be causing further issues.

Is there anything we can do to avoid or reduce DOMS?

Now we have a bit of an understanding as to what is causing DOMS, what are the best ways to avoid it? Well, the easiest way, as you may have guessed, is to ramp up our exercise stimuli more slowly. This allows more time for the body to become familiar with the demands we’re trying to place on it. Sometimes we get a little carried away though, and perhaps remember what we could squat eight weeks ago when we last tried – we might take it down by a little, but likely not enough, and then we’re waddling like Donald and Daffy for a week! 
But let’s imagine that we’ve already got this soreness – what can we do? Foam rolling might help, if you can stand the pain of doing it. It’s something you can do yourself and is relatively cheap.

If you are fortunate enough to be able to utilise massage therapy, then there is some positive suggestion that it can help relieve the pain of DOMS. This may be due to increased blood flow to the area rather than by reducing offending metabolites, but the exact mechanism is unclear. The same cannot be said for cryotherapy though, sadly, which pours (ice) cold water on some of the reasoning around cold-water immersion helping reduce muscular inflammation.

On the whole it seems that although there are a few ways of quickening the process, in the case of speeding up the DOMS timeline, time really is a healer. We just have to let our body work through it in the time it requires.

Should we want to speed up recovery from DOMS?

But as I planted the seed earlier, even with these little tips, do we want to get rid of DOMS? For example, despite cold-water immersion being unlikely to reduce inflammation, many will testify that it makes them feel less sore. But if it’s part of recovery and adaptation, surely that soreness is a good thing, or at least a necessary evil? Well, really that depends why we are training and why we might want to get rid of it. If this is our first session of pre-season and we’re looking to adapt and get fitter for what’s to come, then it stands to reason that perhaps we just need to suck it up and get through it. If we have DOMS from our Olympic 100m quarter-final and we have a semi-final and hopefully final tomorrow, then we probably want to try our best to dampen it down!! Here though we must remember that we are far more likely to experience DOMS when we are unaccustomed to the training stimuli. If you’ve made it to an Olympic quarter-final then I’d hope you’ve got enough work in the tank not to cause DOMS in the first place, but you get the idea! 
It’s also important to keep in mind that having DOMS is not the marker of a successful session. In fact, as you get more in the swing of your training you’ll probably experience it less and less. And that’s a good thing. Although DOMS isn’t to be feared, it is relatively painful and it can impact your ability to train, which can lead to reduced motivation. So, get past it, plan your training accordingly and enjoy.

Take home points

So, there you have it. If you didn’t know the name, you had likely experienced the muscular pain following an increase in training load, especially if it was your first effort for a while. DOMS is the soreness we get in our muscles caused by micro-traumas, and the chemical processes associated with going above and beyond a little too over-zealously. It’ll pass, it isn’t dangerous and if you’re really desperate you can actually still do some training while you have it, though lowering the intensity in the form of a recovery-type session is probably your best bet.

Self-massage such as foam rolling or seeing a massage therapist is likely to make it feel a little bit better, but you can be safe in the knowledge that it’ll pass. It’s all about building things up, and in time you’ll be doing way more than you were able to before, and all without a duck waddle in sight!

[optin-monster slug=”nhpxak0baeqvjdeila6a”]

Dr. Tom Brownlee

Tom is an assistant professor in applied sports sciences and has worked with elite sports for over 10 years. Previous roles include working as a sports scientist at Liverpool F.C., where he completed his Ph.D., and working across a number of other sports. He is passionate about physiology, coach communication, and high-performance strategy and systems.

Tom graduated with a BSc in 2011 before undertaking an MSc at Loughborough University. He has published 25 academic papers on strength and conditioning, nutrition, and youth development in Sports Medicine, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, and others. Tom also now supervises a number of his own Ph.D. students around the world embedded within sporting organisations.

More content by Tom

The post Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS): What is it, and how can it be minimised? appeared first on Science for Sport.