Barriers To Exercise For Older Adults
Whole Body Vibration Buyers Guide – Vibration Machine Reviews
Vibration as an exercise modality: how it may work, and what its potential might be
Efficacy of trunk rotation exercises on balance in elderly
Video: body in twisting motion
Video: person on vibration plate
https://videos.pexels.com/videos/cgi-animation-of-astronauts-in-space-818
Recommended for Further Reading:
Animation of Astronauts in Space – Video
Functional Anatomy of Basic Motor Function and its therapeutic and surgical implications
Astronauts’ spinal muscles shrink and weaken after long stays in space
Here we present the AstroJump! Your exercise equipment for your trip to space:
References:
In both his Ted Talk , Are athletes really getting faster, better, stronger?, David Epstein, the author of The Sports Gene, delves into the impacts that technology has made in many different sports. Tennis racquets and track surfaces were just a few he explained, but the one that caught my attention was the development of racing swimsuits. Unlike the other advancements, new swimsuit material was actually banned in 2010 for “distorting the sport”.
In this Daily Beast article, based on his book, Mathletics: A Scientist Explains 100 Amazing Things About the World of Sports, John D. Barrow explains why these suits were banned and the technology of how they worked. While logically people know water causes more drag than air (sprinting splits are faster than swimming splits of the same distance) it is astounding how much more. Water, according to Barrow, causes 780 times more drag. This obviously is not ideal for swimmers, so the whole-body polyurethane suits were able to trap small pockets of air that increased the swimmers buoyancy. Essentially, the more of their body that is above the water the less drag thats created. These suits became especially popular after Michael Phelps’ 8 gold medal run of the 2008 olympics. The next summer, 9 world records were broken by swimmers wearing these suits. People began to question whether they were fair with some swimmers threatening to stop competing. Michael Phelps claimed he would boycott all international events until they were banned. So with the threat of losing their top athlete the olympic committee took it to a vote and the suits were banned almost unanimously.
The reason this debate is interesting to me is that it raises the bigger question: Where do we draw the line in sports technology? I understand that the idea of sports is to compare one athletes ability to the next, but if they are both wearing the suits who cares? But on the other end, the sport was quickly headed to an arms race of technology rather than hard work and training. This has made me extremely interested in sports technology in other sports.
Rachael and My How it Works on Air Displacement Plethysmography… Enjoy!!
Recommended further reading:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/75/3/453.full#cited-by : BOD POD Evaluation
https://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/05p0207/05p-0207-ccp0001-04-manual.pdf : FDA BOD POD Manual
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/95/1/25.long : Dual Energy X-Ray
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/69/5/898.long : Comparison of ADP, Hydrostatic weighing and electrical impedance
Electric muscle stimulation (EMS), also known as neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NEMS) or percutaneous electrical stimulation (PES), is a method of eliciting muscle activity through applied electrical current. Your muscles naturally contract in response to electrical signals sent from your brain, and EMS replicates this with electrodes placed on the skin and a current run through them from a power source (Figure 1).
Figure 1. An example of an EMS unit with the electrodes (pads) placed on the quadriceps muscles
There are a couple of interesting physiological differences between a voluntary contraction through the central nervous system and an involuntary contraction through EMS. First, while a voluntary contraction will recruit smaller motor units and slow-twitch, Type-I fibers first and then activate the Type-II fibers as needed, an EMS contraction reverses this order. Because the involuntary contraction bypasses this neurological coordination, and because the applied current flows more easily through the larger neurons of the fast-twitch fiber, they are activated immediately, a response that is impossible to achieve through our own volition. Second, a voluntary contraction activates individual fibers in relays in order to conserve energy and not tire too quickly; EMS activates all of the motor units in the area at the same time, contracting all of the fibers with no holding back.
For much of the 20th century, EMS was used for orthopedic rehabilitation and physical therapy, specifically neuromuscular reintroduction and prevention of atrophy. However, it wasn’t until a Soviet scientist presented to the West in 1973 what Communist Bloc countries had been doing for 2o years: EMS as a method of strength training. Dr. Y. Kots of the Central Institute of Physical Culture in the USSR claimed to see up to 30-40% strength gains in already-trained individuals using specific methods of EMS, and while these results are quite extreme and have not been replicated in Western studies, the years of research since have shown that training with EMS leads to greater increases in isokinetic peak torque, maximal isometric strength, and maximal dynamic strength. However, a more useful way of looking at EMS is its effect on athletic performance – can it lead to improved performance, and is it a viable training option?
Figure 2. Table produced by Seyri & Maffiuletti in their review paper “Effect of Electromyostimulation on Muscle Strength and Sports Performance”
As seen in Figure 2, many studies have proven the efficacy of EMS in improving strength and jumping ability, and in some cases sprinting ability. The longest-running study from this paper was the 2007 study on elite rugby players, which lasted 12 weeks. A test group of 15 players went through two 6-week bouts (first 3 sessions/week, then 1 session/week) of EMS on the plantar flexors, knee extensors, and gluteus muscles, and a control group of 10 players received no training; both groups performed tests at 0, 6, and 12 weeks. The EMS group showed improvements compared to the controls not only in strength (squat, leg extension) but also in power (squat jump and drop jump height), an attribute more translatable to sport performance. The test group, however, saw no power increases after 6 weeks, only 12, and no improvement in sprint times over 12 weeks. The decision to change the training protocols halfway through the experiment does not discredit the results, but makes it more difficult to clearly see the relationship between protocol and result. The study on tennis players, at 4 weeks long, showed large improvements in maximum voluntary contractile force of the quadriceps and small, yet significant, improvements in sprint times and counter-movement jump heights. The study on soccer players, at 5 weeks long, showed the greatest improvements in strength and kicking power (measure by ball velocity) to come between weeks 3 and 5, with no improvements before week 3. It, however, demonstrated EMS to cause no changes to sprint ability.
Figure 3. A professional soccer player exerting force onto a soccer ball
While these studies and many others confirm the ability of EMS intervention to improve strength and in many cases other measures of power that relate to on-field performance, they do not compare EMS directly to a voluntary training program. The rugby study’s control group underwent no additional training, and the tennis and soccer studies had no control groups. They each could have had a group that underwent voluntary strength training in parallel to the other groups. The argument against this, though, is that a voluntary training program requires more time and effort that is in short supply for busy athletes; the tennis study mentioned the virtue of EMS for players with busy competitive schedules who don’t have the time for voluntary strength training. In this regard, it appears that EMS can be used as a tool to enhance athletic performance. However, the most valuable questions right now concern how to incorporate EMS with regular training programs, at different periods of athletes’ competitive schedules, to reap the greatest benefits of sport-applicable muscle function.
The Truth About EMS – Electronic Muscle Stimulation: Facts and Fallacies (good explanation of muscle physiology)
Electrical Stimulation as a Strength Improvement Technique: A Review (from 1982, with Dr. Kots & Russian Stim details)
Have you ever used EMS? Was it for muscle recovery, neuromuscular reeducation, strength training, or as part of a sports-specific training program?
Would you or would you ever have spent $200 to $1000 on an EMS device that could give you an in-season advantage in your particular sport?
Compression garments which include socks, pantyhose, sleeves, etc., are very popular for people doing exercise during last 2 decades. Athletes usually wearing these clothes to obtain a different level of compression. Many people say that this kind of clothing could improve performance, help recover after exercise and reduce swelling. However, does it works for every kind of exercise? How does it work?
Figure 1: Example of a Compression Clothing
Physiological Effect
On one hand, wearing compression clothes could benefit form its physiological effect. Scientists find that wearing compression clothing dose not improve cardiorespiratory performance during endurance training, but it could increase local blood flow and increase the clearance of metabolites and the supply of nutrients. Also, wearing compression clothing during long lasting exercise can improve performance which reduces fatigue level by attenuating maximal lactate concentration in the blood. However, during short lasting exercise such as 60m sprinting, wearing compression garments does not increase speed, but it helps recover by quickly reduce blood lactate level in following 10 minute after exercise.
Physical Effect
On the other hand, wearing compression clothes also have physical benefits. It could be considered as a spring that helps muscle contraction. During our movement, muscle uses contractive force to provide torque at joint in order to move our body. Wearing compression garments results in a considerable torque being generated about the joint at the flexion and extension ranges of motion. This could reduce injury and enhance muscle performance during exercise such as jumping. During swing phase, the risk of hamstring injury is increased the clothes can provide a torque that reduces the burden of the muscle, and during jumping phase, it provides a contractive force, so that the person can jumper higher.
Figure 2: Wearing Compression Garment During Jumping Exercise
Conclusion:
While looking at the papers that I found, the studies are made very specific to each exercise. Wear compression clothes leads to different performance improvement and blood lactate and lactate dehydrogenase lever during and after exercise. In general, wearing compression garment is beneficial which helps reduce muscle and blood lactate level and increase blood flow rate. It also helps improve performance by adding torque required for movement at joints. The clothes is also temperature resisting, it helps retain local body temperature as well. However, it does not improve performance for all exercise, so use it wisely.
References:
