Sports « Weekly Gravy

Harried parents aren’t wrong to suspect something’s changed in what is expected of them when it comes to their children’s sports activities, a new study says. Modern-day parents are spending more time, money and resources on their kids’ sports activities than moms and dads from previous generations, researchers report. “We’ve heard these stories about how parents are spending so much time going to their kids’ athletic events, spending more money, going all in — but it wasn’t clear if these were just stories,” senior researcher Chris Bjork, a professor of education at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., said in a news release. “Now we have some empirical evidence that parents aren’t wrong about this,” he continued. “Things have changed.” For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 4,000 adults who participated in the National Sports and Society Survey, a poll sponsored by Ohio State University’s Sports and Society Initiative. Participants from all 50 states answered the survey online between fall 2018 and spring 2019. They were asked about how often their parents attended their athletic events and how much money their parents spent on their sports participation in a typical year, when they were growing up. Results show a pattern of increasing parental involvement in children’s sports, especially among parents with higher education. Most participants born in the 1950s said their parents attended their sporting… read on > read on >

Throbbing, swollen knees hobble many seniors, but there are many solid means of treating knee arthritis that don’t involve meds, a new evidence review says. Knee braces, water therapy and exercise all effectively ease the ache of wear-and-tear knee arthritis, researchers reported today in the journal PLOS One. “They reduce pain and improve mobility without the gastrointestinal or cardiovascular risks linked to common pain medications,” wrote the research team led by senior researcher Yuan Luo of the First People’s Hospital of Neijiang in China. “Patients and clinicians should prioritize these evidence-based options,” researchers concluded. More than 10% of people older than 60 have knee arthritis, researchers said in background notes. That makes simple, cheap treatments a must, especially if they come without the side effects associated with many drugs. For the study, researchers pooled data from 139 clinical trials involving nearly 10,000 people to compare 12 knee arthritis treatments that don’t involve drugs. These studies focused on knee osteoarthritis, which occurs when cartilage breaks down over time and bones start rubbing together. Knee braces came out on top, with results showing that wearing the devices can reduce pain, improve function and relieve stiffness. Exercises or treatments performed in warm water, also known as hydrotherapy, were particularly effective at easing pain, researchers found. And general exercise also was consistently effective, improving both pain and physical function… read on > read on >

Struggling with low back pain? Slip on your walking shoes and start hoofing, a new study suggests. People who walked more than 78 minutes a day were less likely to suffer from low back pain, researchers reported. Power walking also protected against low back pain, but to a lesser degree than ambling for longer periods of time, according to findings published June 13 in JAMA Network Open. And there’s a dose-response relationship — the longer or harder you walk, the more you reduce your risk of low back pain, the study says. “These findings suggest that policies and public health strategies promoting walking could help to reduce the occurrence of chronic low back pain,” concluded the Norwegian research team led by Rayane Haddadj, a doctoral student with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s Department of Public Health and Nursing. Back pain is the most common type of chronic pain in the United States, researchers said in background notes. For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 11,200 people recruited for an ongoing Norwegian health research project between 2017 and 2019. Those included in this study wore activity trackers for a week to gather data on walking and physical activity. Their average age was 55. At a follow-up an average four years later, about 15% of the participants said they had suffered from lower back… read on > read on >

Think you need to spend hours lifting weights to build muscle or get stronger? Researchers at Florida Atlantic University say just a few smart, focused sets may be all it takes this summer to see real gains. The study — available as a preprint on SportRxiv — reviewed results from dozens of earlier studies on training volume. Volume means how many sets you do during a workout, while frequency refers to how often you train each week. “Our findings show that you don’t need lengthy gym sessions to get stronger or build muscle,” senior author Michael Zourdos, a professor of exercise science at FAU, said in a news release. “There’s a tipping point where the benefit of doing more becomes very questionable – and in some cases, it may even work against you when considering fatigue, time and so on,” he added. “This challenges the common assumption that more volume always equals more gains.” His team looked at how training volume affects muscle growth and strength. It found that doing more sets can help — but only up to a point. The benefits for muscle growth increased until about 11 fractional sets per session. For strength, the sweet spot was even smaller — just two direct sets per session. “It’s important to understand the difference between direct and fractional sets,” Jacob Remmert, the study’s lead… read on > read on >

Sleep apnea could be more common in female college athletes than previously thought, a new study says. Mild sleep apnea was observed in a quarter of a group of 68 female athletes, according to findings presented Thursday at an American College of Cardiology meeting in Washington, D.C. “We found in this cohort that sleep health, not even considering sleep apnea, was poor among athletes, with 36% reporting poor sleep quality and 22% reporting that they had trouble staying awake at least once in the past month while eating or engaging in social activities,” lead researcher Dr. Austin Rim, a cardiology fellow at Emory University in Atlanta, said in a news release. “Ensuring good sleep hygiene among these athletes is low-hanging fruit for improving overall health in this population,” Rim added. Sleep apnea has been observed in male athletes, but the condition’s prevalence in female athletes has gone largely unstudied, researchers said in background notes. For the study, researchers recruited college athletes at two universities in the United States. Softball, volleyball and basketball were the main sports represented among the athletes. Sleep apnea occurs when the throat muscles relax and block the airway during sleep, causing patients to repeatedly stop and start breathing. These folks tend to snore loudly and wake repeatedly during the night, gasping and choking for air. “There is a lot of overlap… read on > read on >

Most folks tap away at their smartphone for fun, communication or information. But such tapping may also help them track the progress of a rare degenerative brain disease, researchers say. Five simple smartphone-measured tests of movement control can provide quick and regular insight into the motor function of someone with Huntington’s disease, researchers reported June 9 in the journal Brain. These app-based tests of balance, finger tapping and involuntary movements are used to produce a Huntington’s Disease Digital Motor Score (HDDMS), researchers said. “Incorporating the HDDMS in clinical trials will help to give clearer answers about whether a potential treatment is working, with fewer participants or shorter lead times than conventional measures,” said researcher Ed Wild, a professor of neurology at University College London’s Huntington’s Disease Center. “What’s more, the fact that the HDDMS is evaluated in a five-minute assessment in people’s homes makes it convenient and potentially more meaningful than in-clinic measures of motor impairment,” he added in a news release. Huntington’s disease is a genetic disorder that causes nerve cells in parts of the brain to break down and die, according to the National Institutes of Health. The disease specifically attacks areas of the brain related to movement. Patients develop uncontrollable dance-like movements and contort into abnormal body postures, and these movements can become more intense when the person is nervous or distracted.… read on > read on >