Here’s a tip if you want to sleep well tomorrow night: Run tomorrow morning.

That’s the take-away message from a small study that was conducted at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, in which 20 adults on separate days did a moderate, 30-minute workout at 7 a.m., 1 p.m., or 7 p.m. Researchers then monitored the participants’ sleep on each of the nights following those differently timed workouts.

Compared to when they’d done afternoon or evening workouts, the participants woke significantly fewer times during the night when they’d exercised at 7 a.m. They also spent less time in REM sleep after the morning workout. REM sleep is the phase during which the bulk of vividly recalled dreams occur, and is considered the lightest phase of sleep. Many people wake briefly after a bout of REM sleep.

This research will be presented later this month at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine. Another presentation at that meeting will highlight the flip side of the relationship between sleep and morning workouts.

For this study, researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah monitored the sleep of 375 women for a week, and tracked how amount and quality of sleep, as well as when the women got out of bed, affected their activity level the following day.

The researchers report finding “a significant drop in physical activity for every hour after 7:30 in the morning that the participants got out of bed.” The later the women slept in, the less active they were on that day.

“Arising earlier in the morning may significantly increase physical activity, which may be due to simply having more time to be active during the day,” the study concluded.

Plus, getting up early could give you the time for a morning run, which could then lead to a better night’s sleep, which could then lead to waking up earlier and refreshed, which could give you the time for a morning run, and so on.

In the video below, several elite marathoners discuss their pre-race sleep, or in some cases, lack thereof.

Source: www.runnersworld.com

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When: Thursday, 23 May.

Time: 13h30 – 14h30

Ever since Abebe Bikila set a marathon world record in the 1960 Olympics, and Bob Hayes a 100-metre world record in the 1964 Olympics, track fans and science researchers have closely followed the increasing dominance of East Africans in distance events and West African-heritage runners (including Jamaicans) in the sprints. By the early 1990s, sports geneticists believed they were just years away from identifying the “candidate genes” behind the remarkable African success stories.

Two decades later, these same geneticists have mostly failed. Studies in East Africa, Jamaica and elsewhere have failed to pinpoint significant gene differences between gold medalists and your average man on the street.

Other scientists, not from the genetics camps, sensed an opportunity here, and some have published papers claiming that the alleged differences must therefore be social/cultural or perhaps anatomical/biomechanical. (It’s not clear to many of us why anatomical/biomechanical differences wouldn’t also be genetically mediated, but that’s another question.) Concludes one: Any differences are “not based on a unique genetic or physiological characteristic.”

The newest paper on the topic, however, argues for a different view of the genetics question.

Sure, we haven’t found a single gene that can explain the East Africans, argues Ross Tucker, of the popular The Science of Sport blog, and colleagues in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. And maybe Kenyans don’t have better endurance-running genes than, say, the Finns. But that doesn’t eliminate genes from the discussion.

Tucker and colleagues hypothesize that the East Africans simply have more individuals with good-enough genes than other populations have. They start with this bigger pool, and then the cream rises to the top, whether by cultural forces or other.

Tucker and colleagues don’t believe in some simplistic 10,000-hours-of-preparation theory, but they absolutely emphasize that hard training is an essential part of the formula.

In their view, good genes alone will never get you a marathon world record. Nor will only training. You need to have good-enough genes (like in the 99th percentile), whatever those genes might be, and then you have to train your butt off.

Or, in their words: “The favourable performance genotype will occur more frequently in certain populations, predisposing a greater number of individuals from these populations to elite sports performance. Upon exposure to the optimal environment, which arguably exists more in East Africa than elsewhere, this population will achieve disproportionately more performance success.”

Source: www.runnersworld.com

Durban will host the World 100 km

After the cancellation of the World Championship 100 km in Jeju (South Korea) the city of Durban (South Africa) will host the Championship of 100 km in October / November 2013. The date has to be confirmed.
See more the website of the Ultra Runners (IAU) (02.04.2013).

(LETS HOPE THE COMRADES ORGANISERS WILL BE INVOLVED) !

Changes in estrogen metabolism could be one way physical activity lowers breast cancer risk, according to research published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

Observational studies have found that exercise is associated with a lower risk of breast cancer, but there is little clinical evidence on how exercise might lower breast cancer risk. For this study, 391 sedentary premenopausal women of similar age and body mass index were randomly assigned to one of two groups, a control group and an intervention group. Women in the intervention group did aerobic activity 30 minutes a day five times a week for 16 weeks.

Urine samples were collected at the start and end of the study to measure estrogens and estrogen metabolites. The focus was on changes in two metabolites, 2-hydroxyestrone (2-OHE1) and 16alpha-hydeoxyestrone (16alpha-OHE1). Estrogen metabolism favoring the production of 2-OHE1 is associated with a decreased breast cancer risk.

Researchers found that in the group that did aerobic exercise 2-OHE1 levels increased and 16alpha-OHE1 levels decreased, which led to a significant increase in the 2-OHE1/16alpha-OHE1 ratio. In the control group there was a small, nonsignificant decrease in this ratio.

The findings suggest that changes in estrogen metabolism may be one way that physical activity lowers the risk of breast cancer.

Related:

Runners May Have Lower Breast Cancer Risk

Source: www.runnersworld.com

IF YOU ARE OVER 30 PLUS, AND WOULD LIKE TO MEET UP WITH SPORTSMEN AND WOMEN FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, YOU CAN ENTER ON-LINE FOR THESE GAMES.

http://www.torino2013wmg.org/sport-e-siti/tutti-gli-sport?lang=en

At the last Games held in Sydney in 2009, South African athletes finished well in the medals and even set up world records, one of them being Lucas Nel, a Springbok Cross Country runner in his heyday.

World Masters Games – Sydney 2009

South Africa’s Lucas Nel, 86, was a crowd favorite and one of the sensations of the games. Lucus won gold in M85 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500m. In the 400m, he set a World Record of 1:20.47, besting the previous mark of 1:24.18.

Francios Maasdorp Men’s 30-34 Years 100m

South Africa’s international track and field athlete Francois Maasdorp (30 years) won gold in the 100m in a time of 10.92 seconds. Francois represented South Africa in 2001 at the IAAF Grand Prix in Pretoria in the 200m and 400m events where he ran times of 20.91sec and 46.12 sec, respectively.

I just thought that I would share with you the great performances of one of our best middle distance masters ladies, Salome Vermeulen (46) who this season  bettered two longstanding middle distance S.A. track records held by the legendary Anne McKenzie.   Salome is one of Masters’ Athletics most dedicated and hardworking athletes and during the past month she was rewarded when she bettered, not 1 but 2 S.A. records in the 800m and 1500m in the age group 45-49 years, within 2 weeks.    Her time of 2.17,93 in the 800 bettered the old record of 2.19,2 which stood behind the name of Anne McKenzie for 42 years.   She also bettered the S.A. 1500m age group record with a time of 4.47,8 which stood for 38 years, (4.49,2).   Salome hopes to participate in the World Masters Athletics Championships scheduled for 16 – 25 October 2013 in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Anyone interested in running a marathon at the World Champs in October 2013, can visit  www.wma2013.org for more information.

The legendary Anne McKenzie basically pioneered women’s middle distance running in South Africa in the Sixties.   She only started running cross country and track in her late thirties and then started setting up national records in her forties.  Many of her national age group records still stand today.  At one stage she was the world recordholder for W.40 in the 1500m.