Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (original) (raw)
News & Views from the Editor-in-Chief: Andrew M. Jones
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If, upon picking up this month's issue of MSSE, you sense that your biceps are working harder than usual, you'd be right! This is the largest issue since December 2002, featuring 32 articles and more than 330 pages. Despite significantly greater competition (i.e., more journals publishing in the field of study), submissions to MSSE have been growing year on year, and we are presently receiving >100 articles each month. I believe this popularity is linked to the high esteem in which MSSE is held in the community along with confidence in the quality and integrity of its peer review process. Please enjoy this month's bumper issue; I'm certain you'll find plenty of articles of either general or specific interest to your area of research or practice. My personal highlights are summarized below.
Coronary atherosclerosis is more prevalent in middle-aged and older male athletes compared to their less active peers. The underlying mechanisms of these potentially deleterious cardiac effects of exposure to high-volume, high-intensity exercise training remain unclear. In “Exercise-Induced Changes in Hemodynamics, Hormones, Electrolytes and Inflammatory Markers in Veteran Athletes with and without Coronary Atherosclerosis," Janssen and colleagues compared physiological and biological responses to a standardized lab-based endurance cycling test in athletes with versus without coronary atherosclerosis. Blood pressure, hormone, electrolyte, and cytokine concentrations changed following the exercise test, but the magnitude and direction of these responses did not differ between athletes with and without coronary atherosclerosis. Accelerated coronary atherosclerosis in endurance athletes may not be attributable to abnormal responses to exercise itself, but to differences in the lifelong exercise exposure (i.e., intensity / volume) across athletes instead.
Females are more likely to sustain knee ligament injuries compared to males, yet we still do not understand why. Many factors influence the forces/strains experienced by knee ligaments, but their moment arms in the frontal plane are critical to describing their ability to stabilize the knee. It is surprising that knee ligament moment arms have not previously been investigated, as it is known that females have narrower knees compared to males of the same stature. Using image-based computational modelling, in “Knee Ligament Moment Arms Scale with Epicondylar Width and might Contribute to Ligament Injuries in Females," Rooks and colleagues confirm the relationship between knee width and the moment arms of ligaments in the frontal plane and highlight that females might be at greater risk of injury because of this anatomical difference.
“Durability" – also known as “physiological resilience" – has been defined as an acute change in the physiological determinants of performance during prolonged exercise. However, it is currently uncertain how durability can be enhanced via training interventions. In “Strength Training Improves Running Economy Durability and Fatigued High-Intensity Performance in Well-Trained Male Runners: A Randomized Control Trial," Zanini and colleagues examined the effect of a 10-week strength and plyometric training program on running economy durability during a 90-min run at marathon-like intensity in well-trained male runners. The study found an improvement in durability marked by significant improvements in running economy during the latter stages of prolonged run. Time to exhaustion in the severe exercise intensity domain following the prolonged run was also substantially improved (+35%) in the intervention group. These results suggest that supplementing strength and plyometric training to the program of well-trained male runners enhances durability with a subsequent positive effect on long distance running performance.
Andrew M. Jones