Sports « Weekly Gravy

You might be excited to begin an exercise program for better health, but for some people, getting a fitness assessment first is the right way to get started. As part of this exam you’ll learn about appropriate exercises and safety guidelines, such as workout duration and the intensity level best for you. During the assessment, key components of your fitness will be measured and your risk factors for heart disease and other health conditions will be evaluated. The findings will provide you your unique exercise road map and serve as a baseline from which to track your progress. A fitness assessment evaluates the following areas of conditioning: Cardiovascular fitness. Muscular strength. Muscular endurance. Flexibility. Balance. Who needs this type of assessment? The American College of Sports Medicine recommends a simple self-evaluation to help you decide. The more heart disease risk factors you have — like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, a family history of heart disease, a smoking habit, obesity, or pre-diabetes — the more important it is to check in with your doctor or another qualified health professional. If you already have heart, lung or kidney disease, asthma or arthritis, it’s essential to work hand-in-hand with your health-care provider to develop an exercise program for wellness. Talk to your doctor first if you answer yes to any of these seven questions: Do you… read on >

The more college football referees know about concussion symptoms, the more confident they are in calling a timeout for a suspected head injury, a new study shows. Researchers surveyed more than 1,300 college football officials during the 2015 season and found that they called an average of one injury timeout for a suspected concussion every four games. Those with greater awareness about concussion symptoms were more confident in making such calls, according to the study published online recently in The Journal of Athletic Training. “Concussion education for officials is important,” said lead author Emily Kroshus, an assistant professor in University of Washington’s department of pediatrics. “When officials are more aware of concussion symptoms, they are more confident in calling injury timeouts,” Kroshus said in a journal news release. “Understanding the determinants of whether officials call an injury timeout when they suspect a concussion has important implications for the design of interventions that better support officials in this role,” she added. Study co-author John Parsons is managing director of the NCAA Sports Science Institute. “One way that officials can help ensure sports safety is to recognize potentially concussed athletes and call injury timeouts appropriately so that athletic trainers or other medical personnel can conduct evaluations,” he said. Said Kroshus: “When officials believe that coaches, athletic trainers, parents, fans, athletes and athletic administrators are equally committed to… read on >

It’s common doctors’ advice to the elderly: Walk around the block each day to help stay fit. Trouble is, that advice might do more harm than good if you live in a neighborhood with smoggy air, a new study shows. British research suggests the unhealthy effects of breathing dirty air might outweigh whatever benefit the daily walk brings. “For many people, such as the elderly or those with chronic disease, the only exercise they very often can do is to walk,” noted lead researcher Dr. Kian Fan Chung, of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London. But “our study suggests that we might advise these people to walk in green spaces, away from built-up areas and pollution from traffic,” Chung said in a news release from Duke University. “But for those living in inner cities, this may be difficult to do, and there may be a cost associated with it as they have to travel further away from where they live or work.” The study was conducted in London, but one U.S. expert in respiratory health said the findings probably hold true everywhere. “It is no surprise that traffic-polluted streets may negate the cardio-respiratory effects of walking in older adults,” said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He advises that “peak traffic times should… read on >

Former professional football players are at increased risk for an enlarged aorta, which can lead to a life-threatening bulge in the artery, a new study reports. The aorta, the largest artery in the body, carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. The short part of the aorta is called the ascending aorta. It rises from the left ventricle — the bottom left chamber of the heart — and supplies the coronary arteries with blood. Enlargement of the ascending aorta, called dilation, can increase the chances of a bulge. The bulge is known as an aneurysm. An ascending aorta that is more than 4 centimeters (1.6 inches) in diameter is considered to be dilated. The study included 206 former National Football League players and a control group of 759 other men older than 40. Compared with the control group, the former pro football players had significantly larger ascending aortic diameters. Nearly 30 percent of the ex-NFL players had an aorta wider than 4 centimeters, compared with only 8.6 percent of men in the control group. Even after the researchers adjusted for age, body mass and heart risk factors, former NFL players were still twice as likely as the control group to have an aorta wider than 4 centimeters. The findings were to be presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Radiological… read on >

Strength training needs to be part of every exercise plan, but you don’t have to join a health club to reap its benefits. You can create a state-of-the-art home gym, but an inexpensive approach will work just as well. First, pick out a 10-by-10-foot space where you can exercise without tripping over or bumping into anything. It doesn’t have to be a dedicated area as long as you can move any furniture out of the way when you’re ready to work out. Next, choose your equipment. The American College of Sports Medicine suggests starting with a few dumbbells or resistance bands plus a stability ball. If it’s in your budget, an adjustable bench adds variety to upper body workouts. Dumbbells are hand-held weights, available from 1 to 45 pounds each. Handle choice is key. You want some friction for a good grip, but also a comfortable feel. If buying a set, be sure there are weights you can lift now and weights you can work up to. If you’re short on storage space, try stretchy resistance bands. Bands come with different tensions appropriate for different muscle groups. Some are just lengths of material you wrap around your hands. Others have handles. Test both to see what you like best. It’s a good idea to have a trainer outline a home plan with exercises that target… read on >

Weight loss from dieting can slow the progression of knee arthritis in overweight people, according to a new study. But losing pounds from exercise alone will not help preserve those aging knees, the researchers found. Obesity is a major risk factor for painful knee osteoarthritis — degeneration of cartilage caused by wear and tear. Weight loss can slow the disease, but it wasn’t clear until now if the method of weight loss made a difference. Apparently, it does. “These results add to the hypothesis that solely exercise as a regimen in order to lose weight in overweight and obese adults may not be as beneficial to the knee joint as weight loss regimens involving diet,” said lead author Dr. Alexandra Gersing. Gersing made her comments in a news release from the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). She’s with the University of California, San Francisco’s department of radiology and biomedical imaging. The study included 760 overweight or obese adults who had mild to moderate knee osteoarthritis or were at risk for it. The participants were divided into a “control group” of patients who lost no weight, and a group who lost weight through either a combination of diet and exercise, diet alone, or exercise alone. After eight years, cartilage degeneration was much lower in the weight-loss group than in the control group. However, that was… read on >

Men who compete in triathlons could be putting their hearts at risk, a new study contends. The finding results from an examination of 55 male triathletes who averaged 44 years old, and 30 female triathletes, with an average age of 43. All participated in triathlons, which involve sequential endurance competitions of swimming, cycling and running. The researchers found that 18 percent of the men had evidence of scarring of the heart, known as myocardial fibrosis. None of the women had signs of the condition. Myocardial fibrosis usually affects the pumping chambers and can progress to heart failure. “The clinical relevance of these scars is currently unclear [but] they might be a foundation for future heart failure and arrhythmia [irregular heartbeat],” the study’s lead author, Dr. Jitka Starekova, said in a news release from the Radiological Society of North America. The study was to be presented during the group’s annual meeting, Nov. 26 to Dec. 1, in Chicago. Though regular exercise has been proven good for the heart, previous studies have found myocardial fibrosis in elite athletes. “Although we cannot prove the exact mechanism for the development of myocardial fibrosis in triathletes, increased systolic blood pressure during exercise, the amount and extent of race distances and unnoticed myocarditis could be co-factors in the genesis of the condition,” Starekova said. She’s with the department for diagnostic and… read on >

Despite a long and illustrious pro baseball career, Tommy John is more famous as the source of the name for a surgical procedure than for the nearly 300 games the left-handed pitcher won. But Dr. Tommy John — who shares his dad’s name and played pro ball himself — is determined to change that. He’s a performance and healing specialist and a chiropractor in San Diego. Dr. John would prefer that his father — a four-time Major League All-Star — is remembered for his baseball achievements than for the elbow surgery that got him back on the mound for many years. And both son and father would really be happy if fewer young athletes had to undergo the procedure to keep playing the sport they love. The elder John’s career spanned from 1963 to 1989. After playing big league ball for more than 10 years and enduring about 40 cortisone shots to dampen the pain he felt from pitching, the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his elbow “exploded,” his son said. At the time, Dr. Frank Jobe had successfully performed surgery using a tendon on polio patients’ ankles, the younger John explained. But no one had ever reconstructed the elbow ligament of a major league baseball pitcher. “My dad wasn’t one to be told that he would have to stop,” Dr. John said, adding that… read on >

People with desk jobs want to move more, a new study suggests. “To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate how long desk-based workers actually want to sit, stand, walk and be physically active,” said study lead author Birgit Sperlich. She’s a postdoctoral researcher at German Sport University Cologne. Sperlich and her colleagues interviewed 614 people with desk jobs in Germany and found that they spent an average of 73 percent of their working day sitting down. Meanwhile, only 10 percent of the day was spent standing, 13 percent was spent walking and a mere 4 percent was spent doing physically demanding tasks. But the workers said they wanted to spend 54 percent of their work day sitting down, 15 percent standing, 23 percent walking, and almost 8 percent doing physically demanding tasks. The workers spent about 5.4 hours per eight-hour day sitting, but they wanted to spend an additional 46 minutes walking and an additional 26 minutes standing, on average, the researchers said. The findings were published Nov. 16 in the journal BMC Research Notes. “So far, plans to increase physical activity in the workplace primarily focus on health outcomes without asking the target group what they prefer,” Sperlich said in a journal news release. “Interventions to reduce sitting time may need to include more options for walking rather than only for… read on >

If you love to while away a weekend watching a season’s worth of episodes from a favorite TV series, you may inadvertently put yourself at risk for developing a dangerous blood clot. When researchers compared people who reported watching TV more often to those who seldom or never watched TV, the risk of a venous thromboembolism (VTE) jumped by 70 percent. A VTE is a type of blood clot that can block blood flow in a vein, according to the American Heart Association. “I don’t think TV watching itself is an evil thing, but everything in moderation,” said study co-author Dr. Mary Cushman. She’s a professor of medicine at the University of Vermont’s Larner Medical College. “Think about how you’re spending your time, and see if you can take advantage of your TV time to get some activity in,” advised Cushman. Her own solution? Walking on her treadmill when she watches TV. Cardiologist Dr. James Catanese concurred. He said when he watches TV, he rides a stationary bike. If you’re not going to exercise while watching TV, he recommended watching an episode and then doing something physical for 20 minutes. “Physical inactivity is a risk factor for every cardiovascular disease, including VTEs,” said Catanese, chief of cardiology at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. He wasn’t involved in the research. The study included more… read on >