Wearable Technology Named Top Fitness Trend for 2023

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) released survey results today in the article “Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends for 2023,” published in the January/February issue of ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal®. Now in its 17th year, this annual, international survey found that technology continues to impact the fitness industry, so it’s not surprising that the more than 4,500 health and fitness pros surveyed identified wearables as the #1 trend for 2023. There are, however, several emerging trends that will influence the industry in the coming year.

Mechanistic Effects of Resistance Exercise on Cancer-induced Muscle Atrophy

Muscle atrophy is a hallmark of cancer cachexia, a complex multifactorial wasting disease highly associated with mortality. In recent years, we have learned a lot about the protective effects of exercise during cancer. Resistance exercise is now recognized as a…

What Factors Put Runners at Risk for Exertional Heat Stroke During a Marathon?

Exertional heat stroke (EHS) can develop in participants at running events. A runner with EHS overheats beyond their capacity to cool and can suffer organ damage, and even death, if not rapidly cooled. Understanding the factors that may lead to…

Active Workstations Encourage Seated Workers to Sit Less, Move More

Prolonged workplace sitting has emerged as a major risk factor for chronic diseases. Standing and treadmill desks have become popular solutions among office workers to decrease workplace sitting. However, little is known about the long-term success of these desks in…

Exercise Reduces Medication for Metabolic Syndrome Management

Chances are that as we age, we will need to correct our blood pressure, blood sugar or blood fat with the help of medication. Thanks to such medication, an individual’s health span is extended by reducing cardiovascular and metabolic diseases…

Arlington, Va., Named ‘Fittest City’ in 2021 American Fitness Index Ranking of Top 100

CSM and the Anthem Foundation release the 2021 American Fitness Index, ranking America’s 100 largest cities on health behaviors, chronic disease and community infrastructure indicators. Arlington, Va. earned the title of “America’s Fittest City.” Minneapolis, Minnesota; Seattle, Washington; Denver, Colorado; Madison, Wisconsin; Washington, D.C.; St. Paul, Minnesota; Irvine, California; Portland, Oregon; and Atlanta, Georgia; round out the top 10 fittest cities.

June 5 Research Highlights for ACSM Annual Meeting

ACSM’s comprehensive sports medicine and exercise science conference takes place virtually from June 1 to 5 with programming covering the science, practice, public health and policy aspects of sports medicine, exercise science and physical activity. View program highlights.

June 4 Research Highlights from ACSM Annual Meeting

ACSM’s comprehensive sports medicine and exercise science conference takes place virtually from June 1 to 5 with programming covering the science, practice, public health and policy aspects of sports medicine, exercise science and physical activity. View program highlights.

ACSM Announces 2020 Paper of the Year Selections

The ACSM Publications Committee established an annual Paper of the Year Award in 2020 to recognize one scientific article from each of ACSM’s five journals. Award-winning articles are selected based on impact, research significance, conceptual design and/or technical innovation.

ACSM Annual Meeting Research Highlights for June 3

ACSM’s comprehensive sports medicine and exercise science conference takes place virtually from June 1 to 5 with programming covering the science, practice, public health and policy aspects of sports medicine, exercise science and physical activity.

ACSM Annual Meeting Research Highlights for June 1

ACSM’s comprehensive sports medicine and exercise science conference kicks off June 1 with programming covering the science, practice, public health and policy aspects of sports medicine, exercise science and physical activity. View program highlights.

Prenatal Exercise and Cardiovascular Health

Prenatal exercise is associated with a 40% reduction of developing high blood pressure during pregnancy, yet the underlying reasons for this are not known. Investigators performed a randomized controlled trial to determine the effects of an aerobic exercise training program…

Exercise to Improve Health: Fast, Furious and Infrequent or Slow, Steady and Sustainable?

Exercise is well-known to reduce the risk of chronic diseases like hypertension, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. While moderate-intensity continuous exercise (END) has traditionally been recommended to achieve these meaningful benefits, the time-effective alternative of sprint interval training (SIT)…

Research Highlights from Upcoming 2021 Virtual ACSM Annual Meeting: Athlete Care and Clinical Medicine

If you’re looking for new story ideas, here is a selection of talks on athlete care and clinical medicine-based topics that will be presented during ACSM’s Virtual Annual Meeting, June 1-5.

Journalists: Be our guest at the 2021 Virtual ACSM Research Conference

Gain story ideas and learn about cutting-edge science at ACSM’s comprehensive sports medicine and exercise science conference that covers the science, practice, public health and policy aspects of sports medicine, exercise science and physical activity.

Can the Gut Cope with Night Exercise?

Gut issues are common with endurance exercise, ranging from mild discomfort to severe debilitating symptoms warranting reduced exercise workload or even cessation from activity. Considering the recent exponential growth of nighttime endurance and ultra-endurance events, athletes anecdotally report having more…

Train the Brain: How Stroboscopic Training Speeds Up the Brain’s Visual System

The brain’s visual system is a crucial performance determinant in elite sports. To reach a high level, athletes must rapidly transfer visual information into movement (i.e., fast reaction time). Consequently, this raises the question – how can we train the…

Insights about the Genetic Basis for Concussion

Despite significant advances in treatment, sports-related concussion continues to plague athletes. Part of the reason for this is that the biological basis of concussion is poorly understood. Genetics play a key role in the biology underlying concussion. In this study,…

Does a Ketogenic Diet Impair Athletic Performance?

A low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) or “ketogenic” diet has grown in popularity due to its ability to increase the rate of fat burning during exercise. For elite athletes this comes at the expense of athletic performance. The LCHF diet also increases…

Does More Physical Activity and Less TV Viewing Reduce the Risk of Death?

Insufficient physical activity and sedentary behavior are both associated with higher risk of chronic disease and death. However, the long-term benefits of interventions to increase physical activity and reduce sitting time are unknown as randomized controlled trials are often infeasible…

Blood-flow Restriction Training Delay the Progression of Chronic Kidney Disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is recognized as a public health problem, affecting more than 15% of the population. Although CKD can drastically impair health, it is rarely diagnosed early due to its silent revelation. Identifying and proposing treatments to attenuate…

Reduced Sitting Time Improves Blood Flow in Brain and Legs

During a regular day, the average person sits for eight to 10 hours. These high levels of sitting time seem linked to an increased risk for both cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. First, researchers found that three hours of sitting results…

Attenuated Rapid-Onset Vasodilation to Forearm Muscle Contraction in Black Men

Kaur and colleagues reported that rapid onset vasodilation induced by a single contraction of the forearm muscles was significantly attenuated in non-Hispanic Black men, compared to white men, and this attenuation was evident even at low intensity muscle contractions. The…

Time-restricted Eating Reduces Body Weight in Runners without Impacting Performance

Intermittent fasting is becoming increasingly popular due to its simple advice: Don’t change what you eat; simply change when you eat. One popular method of intermittent fasting, 16:8 time-restricted eating (TRE), involves 16 hours fasting and eight hours eating each…

Online Training is New Top Fitness Trend for 2021 according to ACSM Annual Forecast

ACSM’s annual fitness trend forecast, now in its 15th year, predicts what you’ll see in fitness in the next year and helps the health and fitness industry make critical programming and business decisions that ultimately affect consumers.

Detection of Blood Transfusion

Autologous blood transfusion is performance enhancing, and detection of abuse remains a major challenge in sports. To address this issue, investigators transfused a group of men with either blood or saline, and evaluated whether metabolites collected in urine before and…

BFFs: How Physical Exercise Impacts Brain Blood Flow, Memory after Paralysis

Thanks to advances in health care in the past several decades, more than 90% of people who have had a spinal cord injury survive beyond the first year. The focus now is managing the long-term impact of spinal cord injury…

Break Up Your Work Day with Healthy Stair Climbing Exercise Snacks

Sitting for long periods is known to have negative effects on metabolic and cardiovascular health. Building on recent work showing that brief bouts of vigorous exercise (exercise “snacks”) can improve fitness, investigators from the University of British Columbia in Canada…

New Year, New Weight Loss Program? Exercise More Important than Protein for Muscle Function in Older Women

In the U.S., most older women are overweight or obese, which can harm functional health like rising from a chair. Weight loss diets that are higher in protein are popular as they often cause greater body fat loss while keeping…

Circadian Clock Regulates Body’s Collagen Production

Researchers featured in the “Homeostasis and adaptation of tendons to exercise” symposium—presented this week virtually at the American Physiological Society (APS) Integrative Physiology of Exercise conference—will discuss how exercise, inactivity and the body’s internal clock drive structural changes to tendons and their supportive tissues.

Exercise May Improve Effects of Radiation Therapy in Prostate Cancer

Cancer is the second leading cause of death around the world after heart disease. This week, researchers exploring the effects of exercise as a natural preventive tool and noninvasive treatment for cancer will present their work at the American Physiological Society (APS) Integrative Physiology of Exercise conference.

Researchers Explore How Exercise Influences Tendon Inflammation

Stephanie Dakin, PhD, BVetMed, from the University of Oxford in the U.K., studied the microscopic characteristics of tendons in people with exercise-related tendinopathy. Tendinopathy is a tendon disorder that causes pain, inflammation and limited function of the affected joint. Her research team found an increased number of blood vessels and cells—suggestive of inflammatory response—in the injured tendon samples when compared with healthy tissue.

Intense Training Disturbs Tendon Homeostasis, Leads to Injury

Michael Kjaer, MD, PhD, of Copenhagen University and Bispebjerg Hospital in Denmark, will discuss the effects of exercise and sedentary behavior on tendon loading and collagen turnover. “The collagen turnover in tendon can be up- and down-regulated with exercise or inactivity, respectively, and specific parts of the tendon are responsible for this loading-induced collagen dynamics. Long-term overuse of tendon (e.g., intense training) results in disturbed homeostasis and swelling of the tendon, excess angiogenesis and upregulated formation of collagen,” Kjaer wrote.

Compounds in Active Muscles May Help Slow Lung Cancer Growth

Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers in the U.S. and accounts for roughly 25% of all cancer deaths. Patrick Ryan, MS, from Texas A&M University, and his research team found that treating cultured lung cancer cells with blood collected from contracting muscles—muscles that were exercised—did not grow as much as untreated cells.

Moderate-pace Walking Shrunk Pancreatic Cancer Tumors and Increased Cancer-killing Cells, Small Study Shows

Emily LaVoy, PhD, of the University of Houston, and colleagues explored the effects of moderate-intensity exercise on a mouse model of pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer can be a particularly dangerous form of cancer because it is often diagnosed in later stages and spreads quickly. Though the trial sample was small—thus warranting further study—the results were optimistic.

Regular Exercise May Protect Cardiovascular Cells during Chemotherapy

Marie Mclaughlin, MSc, from Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland, will present research on human endothelial cells treated with FEC-T, a chemotherapy regimen that combines four drugs (5 fluorouracil, epirubicin, cyclophosphamide and docetaxel). The researchers found that preconditioning the endothelial cells with serum (blood) from people who habitually exercise caused less cell death than samples that were treated with untrained serum (people who exercised less than 75 minutes per week). “Exercise preconditioning can provide protection against these detrimental effects in vitro,” Mclaughlin explained.

ACSM Updates Education Requirement to Maintain Gold Standard Certifications

The American College of Sports Medicine Committee on Certification and Registry Boards announces substantial changes to the educational requirements for its two highest level certifications, the ACSM Certified Exercise Physiologist and the ACSM Certified Clinical Exercise Physiologist.

Increasing Muscle Size and Strength, Exergames and Older Adults and Treadmills and Cancer Care from Medicine & Science in Sports & Science

If you’re looking for health and fitness story ideas, view these research highlights from ACSM’s flagship research journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise®.

Exercise during Chemo, Activity Breaks Enhance Mood, Reducing Diabetes Risk in African American Men & More from Medicine & Science in Sports & Science

If you’re looking for health and fitness story ideas, view these research highlights from Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews and Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise®, ACSM’s flagship research journal.

Sleep & Endurance Performance, Female Racers, Reducing Falls, Youth Fitness & More from the Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports & Science®

If you’re looking for health and fitness story ideas, view these research highlights from Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews and Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise®, ACSM’s flagship journal.