Another month, another deluge of health and fitness research. Our level three trainer, Tobi, has looked at five things we’ve learned in April so you can incorporate them into your training programme straight away! From stretching for endurance athletes, to protein supplements for recovery, he’s got it covered.

1. Stretching may not be important for endurance runners
You’re probably reading this and thinking “surely it is?”. Well a study by Baxter et al (2016), looked into the short and long term effects of stretching on running. Acute stretching of more than 45 seconds is known to cause a reduction of force production, which impacts running economy (tool tip: the body’s ability to convert energy via metabolism into kinetic energy). They also concluded that stretching has no impact on reducing delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS) which is the soreness that you may get up to 72 hours after exercising.

This study was limited as it was a narrative of the authors’ opinions, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it helps or not. At Hall Personal Training we always recommend dynamic stretching and movement before exercising.

2. Stretching before a strength training programme decreases the total volume that can be performed
A second stretching study looked at the effects of stretching vs. not stretching before a session using the legs. During a 10-week training programme, in weeks one to five it was noticed that the leg which didn’t perform the strength was able to handle more repetitions (17.8%) and a higher total training volume (20.9%), than the one that did. Similar results were seen during weeks six to ten. In the same study, strength gains weren’t massively different between the groups (12.7-12.9%).

The take home from this is that if you’re looking to improve strength and volume, stretching may not be the way to go. Instead, try performing warm up sets of an exercise.

3. Inhaling ammonia does not increase your deadlift 1RM
As the title suggests, this is just not the case (sorry for those you who do this!). Virgil et al (2017) used 10 males and 10 females with over two years of strength training experience, and assigned them to either an ammonia smelling group or a control group (smelling water). 1RM deadlift for both sexes did not increase when smelling either the ammonia or the water. Knowing this, it may be time to put away the smelling salts.

4. The structure of the forefoot bone may determine your sprinting performance
Tanaka et al (2017) measured the forefeet of 38 sprinters, who were separated into trained and untrained groups. The study concluded that structure of the forefoot bones is a determinant of sprinting performance; the first and second toes of sprinters are longer than non-sprinters, and the length of the forefoot bone of the 2^nd toe is linked with faster 100m times. Other factors may play a role in sprint performance but this is useful information to determine if you’re going to be a fast runner.

5. Protein supplementation may not enhance recovery for concurrent training
Protein supplementation during concurrent training (resistance and endurance training) showed no signs of reducing exercise induced muscle damage (EIMD). One study looked into this by giving subjects two supplements per day as soon as EIMD occurred. Subjects were given either 20g whey protein hydrolysate, an isocaloric carbohydrate, or a low-calorie placebo supplement in 500ml of liquid. The results did not affect any of the markers. However, the subjects were well trained cyclists. The study may yield different results for other populations.

But recovery isn’t the only reason we take protein – it’s the fundamental element of a healthy diet, and is crucial for body composition. For more information I advise you to download our handy protein booklet.

References:
1. Baxter, C., Mc Naughton, L. R., Sparks, A., Norton, L., & Bentley, D. (2016). Impact of stretching on the performance and injury risk of long-distance runners. Research in Sports Medicine, 1-13.

2. Junior, R. M., Berton, R., de Souza, T. M. F., Chacon-Mikahil, M. P. T., & Cavaglieri, C. R. (2017). Effect of the flexibility training performed immediately before resistance training on muscle hypertrophy, maximum strength and flexibility. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 1-8

3. Vigil, J. N., Sabatini, P. L., Hill, L. C., Swain, D. P., & Branch, J. D. (2017). Ammonia inhalation does not increase dead lift one-repetition maximum in college-aged male and female weightlifters. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research

4. Tanaka, T., Suga, T., Ohtsuka, M., Misaki, J., Miyake, Y., Kudo, S., & Isaka, T. (2017). Relationship between the length of the forefoot bones and performance in male sprinters. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sport

5. Eddens, L., Browne, S., Stevenson, E. J., Sanderson, B., van Someren, K., & Howatson, G. (2017). The efficacy of protein supplementation during recovery from muscledamaging concurrent exercise. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, (ja).