Category: Science
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Syed says world-class athletes are made, not born
Matthew Syed, author of “Bounce: How Champions Are Made” and a former Olympic table tennis player, believes that an individual’s ability is secondary to the level of coaching they receive and the facilities to which they have access. Via Public Health “When I became English No. 1, I thought I must be super talented. But…
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Underwater breath-holding improves your intelligence ?
According to Dr. Win Wenger, author of 48 books including How To Increase Your Intelligence and The Einstein Factor, we can all gain 10 or more IQ points if we accumulate 20 hours of held-breath underwater swimming in doses of 20-180 seconds at a time over a 3 week period. Including better span of attention, better…
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EPFL develops full-body sensor suits to improve swimmers’ training
Scientists from EPFL’s Laboratory of Movement Analysis and Measurement (LMAM) have developed waterproof inertial systems to be sewn into full-body swimming suits, equipped with accelerometers and gyroscope, which can analyze the strengths and weaknesses of elite-level swimmers during workout sessions. Parameters are for instance instantaneous swimming speed and coordination, and the swimmer’s gas exchange by…
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The mental challenge of chasing gold
CNN’s Ben Wyatt looks at the psychological challenge faced by top athletes. Via Gold Medal Mel on Facebook
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Altitude training not helping Australian elite swimmers
The Australian Institute of Sport, working with Australia’s national swim team, has just published a new study of altitude training in the Europe Journal of Applied Physiology, where they took 37 elite swimmers and divided them into three groups: Classic altitude training: three weeks in Sierra Nevada, Spain (2,320 meters) LHTL, spending at least 14…
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Wow, dolphins can snore (or sleep-talk) whale ?
Dolphins are known mimics, able to make whale sounds because they’ve heard them before. Now a recent study suggest that they can do this even while asleep, and even though they were born in captivity, and therefore never met actually a whale. Researchers from the University of Rennes in France placed underwater microphones in a…
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More than half of all swimmers might not benefit from their usual competition warm-up
Interesting post here on Sweat Science, on how researchers at University of Alabama put 16 NCAA swimmers through three 50-yards sprints on separate days, so that each tried one without any warm-up at all, one with a short, standardized 2×50 yard warm-up, and one with the swimmers’ usual individual warm-ups, averaging about 1300 meters. The…
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New study shows very clearly that exercise counters aging
Picture here from a new study freely available at The Physician and Sportsmedicine that took detailed measurements of 40 masters athletes between the ages of 40 and 81, and found a surprising lack of age-related muscle loss. “This study contradicts the common observation that muscle mass and strength decline as a function of aging alone.…
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Can indoor swimming in chlorinated pools cause hormone problems in boys ?
According to a recent study at the Catholic University of Louvain, indoor swimming in a chlorinated pool for as little as 30 minutes every two weeks may result in altered hormone levels in boys. The effects are most pronounced before the age of 7, and boys are particularly sensitive because the skin of the scrotum…