SportsGeezer

High Tech Running Shoes May Not Be Worth the Money. Or They May Be.

 In a well-intentioned research effort, scientists at Australia's University of Newcastle set out to solve the great mystery of expensive shoes: Are they worth it? In this case, the researchers looked at running shoes, and defined "worth it" as "do they do anything at all to reduce injury?" As reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the researchers searched all available databases for authoritative studies of running shoes, comparing for running injury rates, distance running performance, osteoarthritis risk, physical activity levels, or overall health and wellbeing. And they found...nothing---not no difference between shoes, but no authoritative studies of shoes. Discouraged, but still game, the Newcastle team concluded the only thing they could conclude: there was no conclusion.  Futile, yes. Academic, yes.
Read more in the Sydney Morning Herald.

On another injury-related note, author and faithful SportsGeezer reader Bill Katovsky is looking for stories of amateur athletes who have come back to health after serious illness or injury. Katovsky, who co-authored, with Roy M. Wallack, the well-read (now in its fifth printing) Bike For Life: How to ride to 100, asks comeback athletes to send their personal stories, in about 500 words, to BKatovsky@aol.com.

Running Builds Strong Bones Better Than Resistance Training

For years, trainers, and possibly even Geezer, have recommended resistance training for building stronger bones. But wait. Now comes a study from the University of Missouri suggesting that high-impact activities, such as running, might build strong bones even better than resistance training does. According to this release from the university news office, researchers at the school examined the effects of long-term running, cycling, and resistance training on whole-body and regional bone mineral density (BMD), taking into account the effects of body weight and composition, in men ages 19 to 45. After adjusting for differences in lean body mass, the researchers found that runners had greater spine BMD than cyclists. Because lean body mass was positively associated with BMD in both resistance-trained individuals and cyclists, but not in runners, researchers believe that high-impact activity may override the benefits of lean body mass on BMD.
Read more from the University of Missouri news office.

 

See Jane Run: Women's Running From Start to Finish

The New York Times' Gina Kolata writes an inspiring brief history of women and the sport of running. Here is Dale Greig in 1964, setting a marathon record of 3:27:45 (contrasted with the current women's record of 2:15:25). Here is Nina Kuscsik, the first woman to run in the New York Marathon and the first woman to win the Boston Marathon, in 1972. And here is the most inspiring anecdote in the piece, the story of Imme Dyson, who at age 47 was persuaded by her children to give running a try, and ended up changing her life..“Running is just magical" Dyson tells Kolata. "it does something to you.”
Yes, it does. Do you run? Click on the comment tab below and tell other readers what running does for you.
And read more about women and running  from Gina Kolata.

Running in Thin Air

Geezer generally regards intensity as a good thing, but sometimes, infrequently, intensity can seem just a tad too, well, intense. Such is the case with high altitude runner Matt Carpenter, who, the New York Times reports, runs at least three hours every other day and an hour and a half on "rest days."  Wait there's more. Carpenter isn't just unusually determined,----he's biologically unusual, with a resting heart rate of 33 beats a minute and a VO2 max, a gauge of the body’s ability to process oxygen, of 90.2, perhaps a record high for a runner. What's it good for? Lots of victories in high altitude running events. Carpenter has set records in a high-altitude flat-surface marathon, a 50-mile race and a 100-mile race. Last year, at age 43, Carpenter won six long-distance races, setting two course records.
Want to see how intense this guy is? Watch the video that accompanies this piece in the New York Times.
Read an interview with Carpenter here.

Too-Close Encounters Between Runners and Cars

The road to fitness is long, but it is not wide. That is Geezer's conclusion after watching this video debate about who is more wrong: cyclists, pedestrians, or drivers, and reading this New York Times piece on close on way-too-close encounters between runners and drivers. First, the numbers" There are, according to the Times,. 41 million runners in the United States, and 202 million licensed drivers. Both constituencies believe they have a right to the road, but the drivers, when one includes their vehicles, have a distinct weight advantage. Runners, on the other hand, have an adrenaline advantage, which can convert immediately to a disadvantage if the person who steps out of the offending vehicle is very large, in the company of several friends, or armed. What would non-adrenaline pumped person do? “If an obnoxious event happens and you’re already 60 percent aroused, you may end up throwing something at a driver,” says Dr. Stosny of Germantown, Md., who developed a course on road rage that is used to help rehabilitate criminal offenders. "You should really be thinking about is how healthy it is for you to be running.”
Read more in the New York Times.

No, Running Is Not Bad For Your Knees

How bad for your knees is running? Not bad at all, and it's good for just about everything else. Judy Foreman, the Boston Globe's health answer lady, reports on a recently published Stanford University study that gave annual questionnaires to 538 runners and 423 healthy men and women. All were at least 50 years old when the study began in 1984. After 21 years of follow up, only 15 percent of the runners had died, compared to 34 percent of the non-runners, a greater than two-fold difference. In another study reported by Foreman, the same researchers focused on 45 runners and 53 non-runners, all aged 50 or more in 1984, and gave them periodic knee X-rays to detect possible osteoarthritis. After 18 years of testing, there was no increase in risk among runners.
Read more from Judy Foreman.

Can Baking Soda Enhance Performance?

Where has Geezer been? He never knew that for years, as the Times of London reports, runners have sworn that taking a spoonful of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) helps them to keep going for longer. Now the Times reports on two new studies that suggest that the runners have it right. One study, conducted at Loughborough University and published in the June issue of the International Journal of Sports Medicine, showed that swimmers who took baking soda about one hour before a 200m event were able to shave a significant time off their usual performances. Another study conducted at the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), showed that competitive runners also benefited.
What's cooking with baking soda? The paper suggests that it works because during prolonged or intense exercise muscles produce large amounts of waste products, such as lactic acid, that lead to soreness, stiffness and fatigue. Because sodium bicarbonate naturally reduces acids, it acts as a buffer against these performance-limiting by-products.
Read more in the Times of London.

How (and Why) to Strengthen Your Feet, Video from Runner's World

Three words about feet: Don't forget them. Foot fitness does not take care of itself. You take care of it, starting with some of the exercises shown in this video from Runner's World.

Running Slows Aging According to Stanford Study

The more you move, the slower you age. That's the conclusion of a new study by researchers at Stanford University. The BBC reports that scientists studied 500 older runners, all of whom were in their 50s at the start of the project, and tracked them for more than 20 years, comparing them to a similar group of non-runners. Nineteen years into the study, 34 percent of the non-runners had died compared to only 15 percent of the runners. Both groups became more disabled with age, but for the runners the onset of disability started an average of 16 years later. The BBC reports that the health gap between the runners and non-runners continued to widen even as the subjects entered their ninth decade of life.
Read more from the BBC.

Why You Don't Want to Run in Smog

Tell us again,why don't we want to run in smog? Because, as the L.A. Times reports, exercise exacerbates the unhealthful effects of pollutant-rich air. During exercise, muscles need more oxygen to work, breathing rates increase by about seven times. When that happens, the lungs take in and expel double to triple the normal amount of air -- dramatically increasing their exposure to pollutants.
The paper reminds those fortunate enough to live in Southern California that the air quality board issues health warnings based on ozone and pollutant levels; an index of 101 to 150 is unhealthy for sensitive groups. An index of 151 to 200 is considered unhealthy, meaning everyone should discontinue prolonged, vigorous exercise outdoors that lasts more than an hour. And finally, very unhealthy air, with an index of 201 and above, comes with a warning that all  vigorous outdoor activity should be stopped.
Read more in the L.A. Times.