Medicine and science in sports and exercise
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Nov 2015
Pain Response after Maximal Aerobic Exercise in Adolescents across Weight Status.
Pain reports are greater with increasing weight status, and exercise can reduce pain perception. It is unknown, however, whether exercise can relieve pain in adolescents of varying weight status. The purpose of this study was to determine whether adolescents across weight status report pain relief after high-intensity aerobic exercise (exercise-induced hypoalgesia (EIH)). ⋯ This study is the first to establish that both overweight and normal-weight adolescents experience EIH. EIH after high-intensity aerobic exercise was robust in adolescents regardless of weight status and not influenced by physical fitness.
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Nov 2015
Concussion Frequency Associates with Musculoskeletal Injury in Retired NFL Players.
Concussion is commonly associated with immediate and persistent alterations in motor function affecting postural control and gait. Patients with lower extremity joint injury have demonstrated functional alterations in the cerebral cortex, suggesting that musculoskeletal injury may be linked to alterations in brain function. Therefore, we examined the associations between concussion frequency and lower extremity musculoskeletal injury sustained during professional careers of National Football League (NFL) players in a cross-sectional study. ⋯ A history of concussions was associated with a history of musculoskeletal injuries during NFL careers. These data suggest that a higher number of concussions is linked with higher odds of reporting a musculoskeletal injury.
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Aug 2015
Head Impact Exposure and Neurologic Function of Youth Football Players.
Football players are subjected to repetitive impacts that may lead to brain injury and neurologic dysfunction. Knowledge about head impact exposure (HIE) and consequent neurologic function among youth football players is limited. ⋯ This study provides a novel examination of HIE and associations with short-term neurologic function in youth football and notably contributes to the limited HIE data currently available for this population. Whereas youth football players can experience remarkably similar head impact forces as high school players, cumulative subconcussive HIE throughout one youth football season may not be detrimental to short-term clinical measures of neurologic function.
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Aug 2015
Trunk Dynamics Are Impaired in Ballet Dancers with Back Pain but Improve with Imagery.
Trunk control is essential in ballet and may be compromised in dancers with a history of low back pain (LBP) by associated changes in motor control. This study aimed to compare trunk mechanical properties between professional ballet dancers with and without a history of LBP. As a secondary aim, we assessed whether asking dancers to use motor imagery to respond in a "fluid" manner could change the mechanical properties of the trunk and whether this was possible for both groups. ⋯ Although dancers with a history of LBP have less trunk damping than those without LBP, they have the capacity to modulate the trunk's mechanical properties to match that of pain-free dancers by increasing damping with motor imagery. These observations have potential relevance for LBP recurrence and rehabilitation.
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Jun 2015
ReviewAdvances in exercise, fitness, and performance genomics in 2014.
This is the annual review of the exercise genomics literature in which we report on the highest quality papers published in 2014. We identified a number of noteworthy papers across a number of fields. In 70-89 yr olds, only 19% of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) II homozygotes exhibited significant improvement in gait speed in response to a yearlong physical activity program compared to 30% of ACE D-allele carriers. ⋯ The interaction observed with the diabetes GRS seemed to be dependent on a genetic susceptibility to insulin resistance and not insulin secretion. A significant interaction between PPARα sequence variants and physical activity levels on cardiometabolic risk was observed, with higher activity levels associated with lower risk only in carriers of specific genotypes and haplotypes. The review concludes with a discussion of the importance of replication studies when very large population or intervention discovery studies are not feasible or are cost prohibitive.