Hi fitness folks! Do you know the answer to these questions?
Our research-review service is a must-have for strength coaches, personal trainers, and physical therapists. Each month we receive excellent feedback from subscribers and it’s a steal when you consider how much time and effort is put into it.
December’s PDF will be sent out on Saturday so make sure you’re subscribed if you want to receive it. HERE is the link to our research review service in case you’re not yet subscribed. We also have back issues available for purchase HERE. If you’re new to S&C Research, you can buy November’s edition HERE (there are nine back issues so it’s not too late to get all caught up on each of them). And if you feel uneasy about your foundation of Sports Science knowledge and you’d like to get up to speed, you can buy our Background product HERE.
Below is the list of questions we tackle in our review this month.
Strength & Conditioning, Power and Hypertrophy
- Do we need to lift bigger weights to get bigger muscles?
- Can we take time off training and quickly regain the lost ground?
- With postactivation potentiation, can we have too much of a good thing?
- Does endurance training make you small and weak even when you’re lifting weights?
- Can endurance training help old people build muscle?
- What is the optimal rest period for post-activation potentiation for jumping?
- Is leg neural drive larger in elite volleyball athletes compared to college volleyball athletes?
- For power improvements, is a periodized progression from low loads to high loads better than one from high loads to low loads?
- How do intra-set rest periods affect power clean technique?
- Do higher volumes of resistance training lead to greater improvements in both strength and power?
- What loads are best for producing the greatest postactivation potentiation effect?
- Which resistance training methods are effective for improving throwing velocity?
- How effective is resistance training in improving power and sports performance in adolescent athletes?
- When should young athletes specialize?
- How do sprint performance characteristics change over time in Afro-Caribbean adolescents?
Biomechanics & Motor Control
- What biomechanical factors affect the production of power in sport?
- Which provides more stability to the knee during the forward lunge – the hamstrings or the gluteus maximus?
- Which shoulder press variants (standing, seated, barbell, dumbbell) are best for building shoulder size?
- How similar are the hip and knee joint loads during vertical jumping and push jerking?
- How should we measure power in athletes?
- How important is power for running speed?
- Which factors affect how fast athletes can perform a lateral cutting maneuver?
- Can increasing the strength of the toe flexor muscles improve horizontal jumping performance?
- What are the basic mechanisms of muscular power?
- How similar are sprint and change of direction performance in college football players?
- What is the right definition of the term “intensity”? Does it relate to the load used or to the effort involved?
- How does hamstring flexibility affect spinal curvatures in kayakers?
- What is the optimal load for hip power during jump squats?
Anatomy, Physiology & Nutrition
- How can we define, predict and prevent overtraining?
- How does sleep deprivation affect autonomic and endocrine functions?
- How does protein supplementation increase muscular adaptations?
- How does the autonomic system recover following sprint interval exercise?
- Does the pattern of post-exercise protein intake affect whole-body protein turnover?
- Are the hormonal responses to resistance, aerobic and sprint training different?
- Do the characteristics of top-level marathon runners from Kenya differ from those of Caucasian athletes?
- Can fatiguing handgrip exercise affect force production at the ankle joint?
- How should we measure heart rate variability in elite triathletes?
- Can insulin increase mTOR phosphorylation, mitochondrial protein synthesis, and ATP production in human skeletal muscle without amino acid replacement?
- Does the right ventricle increase in size following endurance or resistance training?
- Do cyclists have different hormonal levels than other endurance athletes?
Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation
- What factors contribute to valgus collapse during the squat?
- What is the problem with the current system of spine pain classification?
- What factors affect ACL injury risk?
- How does leg muscle activity and speed of sit-to-stance-to-sit movement differ between people with and without lower back pain?
- Does centralization affect clinical outcomes of lower back pain?
- What are the key factors to be aware of in respect of concussion in sports?
- How should clinicians decide how to treat rotator cuff tears?
- How does hamstring strength change in the 6 months after return to sport from injury?
- Can a neurodynamic sliding technique improve hamstring flexibility?
Have a great week my fitness friends!
Hey brett…I hip thrusted 225 X 10-15 reps in the middle of october WITHOUT a bar pad and ever since then, my hips feel really sore or hurt after a lower body workout. I have no pain during the exercise, but the next day my anterior hips hurt (where the bar sits during a hip thrust). I took three weeks off of the heavy loads but when I came back, i still had pain. Could it be possible that I compressed a tendon/bursa? Let me know your experience with a pad-less hip thrust and what you think I should do. Thanks
Hi Mark, hmmmm.
I’m not sure what happened. I know that some folks are able to rest the bar completely on muscle (lower abs and hip flexors). But others aren’t able, due to their anatomy. You could have some sort of bone bruise situation, or something like you suggested. It’s strange that this pain returns when you do a lower body workout that doesn’t include hip thrusts. Do you have a hunch that it’s bone, or soft-tissue related?
If this were me (I hate going to doctors), I’d wait another couple months and see if it clears up. But if you can it’s always wise to see a doc. And in the future, don’t barbell hip thrust sans Hampton thick bar pad or Airex pad. You clearly don’t have the particular anatomy that’s well suited for these without padding.
Hope that helps, and best of luck! – BC
Wow, those are some intense questions. I thought I was pretty knowledgable about exercise but I have never even thought about most of those questions before. I guess I need to hit the books harder.
Hi Brett. I am not currently a member of your research news service but those December questions definitely intrigue me. I coach middle school basketball players and I am constantly in search of how to make them more explosive and of course improve vert. Would this issue be your best resource for that or is there somewhere else you could point me for that type of info? Thanks!