The world’s most influential exercise science group recently picked five top articles that appeared in 2023. They all include important new information you can use in your running and fitness program.
The American College of Sports Medicine1(ACSM)ACSM. (2019). ACSM | The American College of Sports Medicine. Acsm.org. https://www.acsm.org/ has more than 17,000 members around the globe.
They include exercise physiologists, nutritionists, cardiologists, physical therapists, orthopedic specialists, epidemiologists, biomechanists, and experts from other exercise specialties. ACSM publishes a half-dozen highly ranked exercise and sports medicine journals.
At the end of 2023, each journal’s editorial board picked the single most important article of the year from its journal. Many of these deal directly or indirectly with running and related topics.
Below, we summarize the five articles and give their conclusions. Each article is also freely available online, and we provide a link for you to explore further.
Why The U.S. Air Force Loves Topo Running Shoes
This paper appeared in the Translational Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. Its title: “The Effect of Lightweight Shoes on Air Force Basic Training Injuries: A Randomized, Controlled Trial.”2Kasper, K. B., Nye, N. S., Casey, T. M., Cockerell, M. G., & Trigg, S. D. (2023). The Effect of Lightweight Shoes on Air Force Basic Training Injuries: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Translational Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, 8(4), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1249/tjx.0000000000000234
There’s quite an incredible saga behind this article. Hang on, we’ll give you a short backgrounder.
In 2017, the U.S. National Defense Act decreed that the Secretary of Defense should do more to limit injuries during the military’s basic training camps. The Secretary was instructed to test more shoes from U.S. manufacturers to determine which worked best for trainees.
Goal: fewer injuries and improved satisfaction with the shoes.
This was an excellent goal because many trainees were developing bone stress injuries and other issues that prevented them from continuing with their training. The lost training time—and sometimes lost trainees—cost the military significant time and money.
The new shoes were introduced in 2019. Trainees in the Air Force basic training program at San Antonio/Lackland, Texas (35,000 recruits per year) were offered a neutral cushioned, stability, or motion control shoe. They didn’t like any of the three.
As a result, military sports medicine experts opted to try a different kind of shoe, a lightweight, neutral shoe.
They wanted one manufactured in the U.S., but none were available. The best option was the modestly priced Topo Fli-Lyte 4. Although the company was based in the U.S., the shoes were constructed abroad.
Air Force researchers conducted a randomized, controlled, double-blinded trial of the Topos vs. a traditional neutral, cushioned shoe. All shoes were designed to look exactly alike, and male and female trainee subjects (roughly 370 in each of the two shoes) wore them during their 7.5-week stint in basic training.
Result: Bone stress injuries dropped by 43% among those who wore the Topo shoes vs the traditional lightweight, neutral shoe.
While both were considered “neutral shoes,” the Topos had “lighter weight, more flexibility, smaller heel-to-toe drop, a more pliable heel counter, and a wider toe box.”
Conclusion: “This information might be reasonably generalized for footwear recommendations to broader populations of 17- to 39-year-old novice runners engaging in similar training (including running, calisthenics, and bodyweight strength training).”
Take Regular “Exercise Snacks” In Addition To Your Workouts
This article appeared in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Its title: “Breaking Up Prolonged Sitting to Improve Cardiometabolic Risk: Dose–Response Analysis of a Randomized Crossover Trial.”3Duran, A. T., Friel, C. P., Serafini, M. A., Ensari, I., Cheung, Y. K., & Diaz, K. M. (n.d.). Breaking Up Prolonged Sitting to Improve Cardiometabolic Risk: Dose-Response Analysis of a Randomized Cross-Over Trial. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 10.1249/MSS.0000000000003109. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000003109
The article deals with “exercise snacks,” although it did not use that term. An “exercise snack” is a short activity interrupting a long stretch of mostly sitting, whether at work or home (watching TV, perhaps).
Prolonged sitting is bad because “sedentary time is ubiquitous in developed nations and is associated with deleterious health outcomes.”
While you probably can’t get up from your office chair once an hour to run 5K, you can sneak in short bursts of activity to stimulate your muscles and burn calories. The question is: How much activity do you need to stop the “deleterious” effect of sitting?
We’ve had helpful guidelines for longer exercise periods for decades. Aim for 150 minutes a week. For example, you could do five 30-minute walks per week. (Then add several strength training sessions.) This 150-minute figure is familiar to many.
But we haven’t previously had guidance for “exercise snacks” as opposed to “exercise sessions.” Now we do.
Researchers found the answer by designing a small randomized controlled trial in which subjects (middle-aged and older) sat in a chair for 8 hours, with breaks every 30 minutes or 60 minutes. The breaks lasted 1 minute or 5 minutes and consisted of “light-intensity walking.”
To gauge how these “snacks” affected subjects, researchers measured their glucose and blood pressure several times per hour.
Result: The best results were obtained when subjects took a 5-minute walk every 30 minutes. Both their glucose and their blood pressure dropped significantly. If you wait 60 minutes between “snacks,” the results aren’t as good.
Conclusion: “Higher frequency and longer duration breaks (every 30 min for 5 min) should be considered when targeting glycemic responses.”
Note: Since physiologists accept that every minute of high-intensity exercise is worth two of low-intensity, you could get by with just 2.5 minutes of high-intensity effort. This might include climbing stairs, doing pushups, and the like.
Don’t Resist Resistance Training And Its Many Benefits
This article was published in the ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal. Its title: “The Coming of Age of Resistance Exercise as a Primary Form of Exercise for Health.”4Phillips, S. M., Ma, J. K., & Rawson, E. S. (2023). The Coming of Age of Resistance Exercise as a Primary Form of Exercise for Health. ACSM’S Health & Fitness Journal, 27(6), 19–25. https://doi.org/10.1249/fit.0000000000000916
Since the pioneering work of Dr. Ken Cooper, aerobic exercise has been the most popular and heavily promoted activity for improved health. Resistance exercise (“strength training”) has long taken a back seat.
That perspective is changing rapidly now, and this paper by leaders in the field explains why. In short, resistance training can “benefit several health aspects: cardiorespiratory health, vascular health, muscle oxidative capacity, mental health, muscle hypertrophy, strength, and power.”
Furthermore, resistance exercise (RE) can be particularly important for those not well-suited to aerobics and may be “uniquely beneficial for some health outcomes with advancing age.”
Despite this, far fewer adults practice strength training than aerobic activity. This occurs because of “the somewhat underrecognized, underemphasized, and possibly underappreciated benefits of RE.”
Current U.S. and global resistance training guidelines suggest that adults should engage in 30 to 60 minutes a week of resistance training. Studies have shown this is sufficient to lower mortality risks from heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
Training programs can include as little as one strength-training workout per week and a range of low weights. For convenience and low cost, you can also perform body-weight strength training or use elastic resistance bands.
Strength training doesn’t require expensive equipment or a gym membership. You just have to get the work done regularly.
Bonus: As you add muscle through strength training, you can do more additional activities which then build additional muscle and fitness. Rock climbing, anyone?
Conclusion: It’s essential to remember that strength training becomes more important with each decade of life, as aging inevitably causes a loss in muscle. This leads to “a lower quality of life, increased risk for falls, and hospitalization.” Strength training is “the most effective method” to reduce these functional losses with age.
How Female Athletes Can Deal With Pelvic Floor Issues
This article appeared in Current Sports Medicine Reports. Its title: “Sports Medicine and the Pelvic Floor.” 5Donnelly, G. M., & Moore, I. S. (2023). Sports Medicine and the Pelvic Floor. Current Sports Medicine Reports, 22(3), 82. https://doi.org/10.1249/JSR.0000000000001045
It’s one of many newer papers pointing out the lack of sports science information for female athletes, due to the large number of studies that previously only included male subjects.
The paper notes that “symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction are prevalent among female athletes.” These issues present a “barrier to training and performance.” Thus, it is critical that women athletes and their physicians become better educated about “how to identify and manage pelvic floor dysfunction.”
Women suffering from PFD face reduced performance and possible retirement from activities that could otherwise enhance their health and overall well-being.
A few key points: Pelvic floor dysfunction (PFD) is most prevalent during transitional times like pregnancy and menopause. Though this is a widely held opinion, PFD is not always caused by weak pelvic musculature. It can also be caused by tight PF muscles that compromise function.
Vaginal dryness is also linked to PFD and can lead to more urinary tract infections, pain, and poor pelvic floor function. Vaginal dryness can be treated with localized, topical estrogen or organic vaginal moisturizers.
Conclusion: The paper’s authors, both women researchers, advocate for the 6 Rs: ready, review, restore, recondition, return, and refine. They argue that the pelvic floor muscles, like other muscle groups, can be strengthened by focused exercise routines. These “should be undertaken as part of all female athlete training programs.”
Climate Change Has Many Health & Performance Implications
This paper appeared in Exercise, Sport & Movement. Its title: “Critical Environmental Limits for Human Thermoregulation in the Context of a Changing Climate.” 6Vecellio, D. J., Cottle, R. M., Wolf, S. T., & Kenney, W. L. (2023). Critical Environmental Limits for Human Thermoregulation in the Context of a Changing Climate. Exercise, Sport, and Movement, 1(2), e00008. https://doi.org/10.1249/ESM.0000000000000008
The authors argue that “climate change has raised the average Earth temperature by more than 1 degree Centigrade (1.8 F).” And things are getting worse, not better, “with larger increases expected by 2100.”
Also, extreme heat events have increased in frequency and duration, such that some now believe “climate change is currently the largest threat to planetary health.” High heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States.
This paper, based on work done at the Pennsylvania State University Human Environmental Age Thresholds Project, does not specifically mention climate change and endurance sports. It aims to cast a far broader net.
High heat is especially dangerous to “vulnerable populations such as young children, the elderly, pregnant women, and outdoor laborers.” The latter group is similar to distance runners, of course.
The problem is double-edged. Not only are temperatures rising, but human capacity to deal with hot, humid conditions is diminishing, possibly due to increasing obesity and lower fitness.
Conclusion: These factors provide impetus to the “urgency for adaptive measures and climate change mitigation.”
For some tips and tricks to help get you through those hot workouts, check out this next guide:
