Sports Massage

Although most forms of torture are frowned upon these days, sports massage, though thankfully banished from the Dark Peak hut, is still in demand.  Accordoing to a study from Stirling  use of sports massage at major events has remained substantial and steady since 1987 (Galloway and Watt) ,despite the absence of evidence it is effective, and some that it isn’t (Jonhagen et al). You won’t be surprised that sports massage and other forms of painful therapy result in significant increases in blood pressure (Cambron et al) .

How long are your telomeres?   

 A telomere is a tag of DNA that is attached to your chromosomes.  It appears to be a marker of age, gets shorter as you get older and plays an important role in the mechanism of cell aging.  A  recent study   (Chirkas et al ) found that 3.5 hours of exercise a week results in the telomere length and possibly biological age of a non exercising person 10 years younger   (Telegraph).  

Running together

I’m sure we all feel that we run harder, faster and further on Wednesday evenings than we might running alone.  A study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (Grindrod et al) shows the difference exercising in groups makes.  8 healthy men and 8 healthy women performed a six minute walk in controlled non competitive conditions both alone and in a group of four.  The average distance covered rose from 616 to 702 metres for women (+14%) and 654 to 736 metres for men (+13%). So all you slackers get down to the hut on Wednesday nights!

Dr Bob assists a runner with shorter telomeres.