The Magic Pill

ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2008) — Trying to reap the health benefits of exercise? Forget treadmills and spin classes, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies may have found a way around the sweat and pain. They identified two signaling pathways that are activated in response to exercise and converge to dramatically increase endurance.

The team of scientists, led by Howard Hughes Medical Investigator Ronald M. Evans, Ph.D., a professor in the Salk Institute's Gene Expression Laboratory report in the July 31 advance online edition of the journal Cell that simultaneously triggering both pathways with oral drugs turned laboratory mice into long-distance runners and conferred many of exercise's other benefits.

In addition to their allure for endurance athletes, drugs that mimic the effects of exercise have therapeutic potential in treating certain muscle diseases, such as wasting and frailty, hospital patients unable to exercise, veterans and others with disabilities as well as obesity and a slew of associated metabolic disorders where exercise is known to be beneficial.(Full Story at sd)

If it can help people with rare diseases I'm all for it, but I'm just too skeptical (bitter?) to believe that the drug companies will leave it there. If this drug ever does make it to market, it will be perscriped like crazy. The real problem is that people will start thinking they can eat anything (junk) and look better by taking this pill, and everything will be OK. It just doesn't work that way, and you can't convince me otherwise.

Streaming NFL

Webcasting has officially made its way to the beer-and-football mainstream thanks to the National Football League, which has announced plans to stream live broadcasts of Sunday night football games this fall. These streams will be the first time the NFL's content is made widely available online, and the news means that the patented Madden "Boom!" will soon be coming to a laptop near you.

Both the NFL and its broadcast partner, NBC, will provide sites dedicated to the webcasts. In addition to the live TV feed that features commentary from Al Michaels and John Madden, both sites will feature a variety of extra content. These include highlight clips, views from multiple cameras, live statistics, and blog content. True fanatics may find the site worth visiting even if they have access to the TV broadcast.(Full Story at arstechnica)

I'm not really an NFL fan, but being an internet only content guy - this is a nice turn of events. I might just find myself watching Sunday night football. (Sorry babe).

More Exercise Needed

ScienceDaily (July 29, 2008) — In addition to limiting calories, overweight and obese women may need to exercise 55 minutes a day for five days per week to sustain a weight loss of 10 percent over two years, according to a report in the July 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

More than 65 percent of U.S. adults are overweight, a public health concern, according to background information in the article. "Among obese adults, long-term weight loss and prevention of weight regain have been less than desired," the authors write. "Therefore, there is a need for more effective interventions." Current recommendations prescribe 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on most days of the week, for a total of 150 minutes per week. However, a growing consensus suggests that more exercise may be needed to enhance long-term weight loss. (Full Story at sd)

I have to say that's a big difference. 30 mintues a few times a week wouldn't seem too daughnting to most people but an hour a day most days. . . I just wonder how they will try to sell the new recommendations.

Get Moving To Keep The Heart Young

ScienceDaily (July 24, 2008) — Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but endurance exercise seems to make it younger. According to a study conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, older people who did endurance exercise training for about a year ended up with metabolically much younger hearts. The researchers also showed that by one metabolic measure, women benefited more than men from the training.

"We know that the heart deteriorates as people get older, and that's largely because they don't stay as active as they used to," says first author Pablo F. Soto, M.D., instructor in medicine in the Cardiovascular Division. "Past research has suggested that exercise can reverse some effects of aging, and we wanted to see what effect it would have specifically on the heart." (Full Story at sd)

Can't say I'm surprised really.

Pit Stopping Your Bicycle

Trek is marketing a new concept. They want to look into putting vending machines with bike parts on the streets. In some ways this doesn't seem very plausible, but on the other hand if you've ever been caught miles away from home with a flat (and without and extra tube) you would probably wonder why someone hasn't done this before. (via treehugger)

World Champ Shin Kicker

The crowd that assembled on Dover’s Hill near Chipping Campden last Friday weren’t in the Cotswolds for views of the rolling countryside.

They came instead for scenic pleasures of sheer, shinbone-shattering violence that forms part of the Cotswold Olimpick Games.

To the casual observer, it may appear that the men in white coats knocking seven bells out of one another should be the ones carted away.

But these amateur gladiators are battling for the honour of being crowned Britain’s pre-eminent shin kicker. (Full Story at mirror)

I have to be honest. I would be a little afraid of a world class shin kicker.

Sleep More For Better Performance

ScienceDaily (Jun. 10, 2008) — Getting extra sleep over an extended period of time improves athletic performance, mood and alertness, according to a research abstract that will be presented on June 9 at the SLEEP 2008 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) in Baltimore, Md.

Participants in this ongoing study were five healthy students on the Stanford University men’s and women’s swimming teams. For the first two weeks of the study, the students maintained their usual sleep-wake pattern. The athletes then extended their sleep to 10 hours per day for six to seven weeks.

Athletic performance was assessed after each regularly scheduled swim practice. After obtaining extra sleep, athletes swam a 15-meter meter sprint 0.51 seconds faster, reacted 0.15 seconds quicker off the blocks, improved turn time by 0.10 seconds and increased kick strokes by 5.0 kicks. (Full Story at sd)

Those results are pretty impressive, but 10 hours is a long time to sleep. I wonder if taking a nap in the middle of the day would have similar results (assuming the total sleep per day equaled 10 hours).

Just Eat Real Food To Recover

The New York Times interviews experienced athletes and researchers and finds that the wealth of so-called "recovery" drinks and protein bars, are mostly over-hyped. During and after a long exercise period, like a marathon or lengthy bike ride, you don't need specialized products, or a four-to-one carbohydrate/protein mix, to boost your performance:

Dr. Rennie said that 10 to 15 grams of protein is probably adequate for any adult. And you don't need a special drink or energy bar to get it. One egg has 6 grams of protein. Two ounces of chicken has more than 12 grams.

Fruit, water, and fruit juice also work well after hard workouts, the article notes, and don't have to be taken within any certain window after the exercise. (From lifehacker | nytimes article here)



Should have guessed it. So stick to little league wisdom: have an orange slice or half a banana and a juice box.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

NEW YORK (AP) - Four men, one 29-foot rowboat _ and about 3,200 miles to go. A team of rowers from the United Kingdom set out from the Hudson River on Sunday to try to cross the Atlantic Ocean. They hope to end at the Isles of Scilly, a group of small islands off England's southwestern tip.

The boat has an electronic tracking system, and a Web site dedicated to the effort says the rowers had gone 37 miles as of Sunday night. They hope to break a record of 55 days and 13 hours, set by two Norwegian-Americans in 1896.

The rowers are expected to take turns, with two people rowing in two-hour shifts and then switching off. They range in age from 19 to 43 and have been training for more than a year.

They are carrying about 1,500 freeze-dried meals and a device that can make saltwater safe to drink. (From wtop)

Check out their sites here and here.

NYC Bike Racing

I especially like it when they grab cars to get a bit of a free ride.

High Speed Chase. . . On A Bike

I'm beginning to think I'm unaware of a certain subculture.

Going Pro

The story begins in April of 2007, when one of my roommates (Dan) suggested that we should declare for the NBA Draft the following year. He, of course, said it jokingly. I, however, thought he was serious. (Full Story... He does make the draft)



So there you go kids. If you want to enter the NBA draft (next year), it doesn't look too tough. Now getting someone to actually scout you, well, that's another issue.

Best Game Ever

This is just cool. I'm not sure who had more fun though, the NBC guys or the kids. Either way you dice it, it was a good day.



[Video via crunchgear]

The Guys In College Basketball That You Don't Know

Who are these guys? The Pump brothers. Dana and David Pump pretty much run the business side of college basketball. Though they don't work for the NCAA.

Interestingly, they've never played college sports, and they've never graduated from college. None of their family was involved with the game. They were just two ambitious kids who worked their way into the sport one step at a time.

Remember kids, college is an option - not a must.

(Full Story)