By Alex Borisov, For high-level athletes engaging in intensive training regimens, quick recovery is of the utmost importance, and one important factor to recovery is nutrition. The most well studied recovery foods are drinks high in carbohydrates, due to their ability replenish lost glycogen stores quickly and assist in rehydration. For well over 20 years [...]
By Lily Yang, From celebrity-endorsed juice detoxes to the cabbage soup diet, fad diets have a long history of luring people into thinking that they hold the secret key to effortless and painless weight-loss. In recent years, another diet trend, called intermittent fasting, has quickly surged in popularity amongst those vying for fast and effective [...]
By Johanna Fee, Orthorexia nervosa is an eating behavior. It is an obsession of eating only foods deemed ‘biologically pure’ or ‘healthy’. It includes severe limitation of diet, coupled with obsessive thoughts about food consumption, and can lead to social isolation. [1] This issue may be augmented by current trends in health and diet such [...]
A Better Way to Screen Athletes? For years, sports-medicine specialists have debated the best way to screen athletes for participation in sports. In recent years, much of the debate has focused on the use of electrocardiograms (ECG). Researchers disagree on how much information they should add to a medical history and a physical exam, and [...]
By Susannah Reid, What do you picture when you imagine good health and fitness in old age? Is it the 90 year-old marathon runner shuffling across the finish line; is it the retired 70 year-old man who can still out-squat most 20 year olds; or do you picture a group of seniors doing seated exercises [...]
Athlete’s heart is a condition consisting of an assemblage of structural and functional changes and adaptations. Firstly, the sort of training that will bring about this condition is at least one hour of exercise every day, although Athlete’s heart is commonly seen in endurance or aerobic athletes like marathon runners, but it can also be [...]
If you ask the layperson what a well-rounded exercise regimen consists of many may respond with a combination of aerobic, anaerobic and flexibility training. Though many people understand they need to stretch, they may not know why they need to stretch. As previously mentioned, the three main types of exercise are aerobic exercise, anaerobic exercise, [...]
Despite the commonly known importance of water in our bodies, many athletes do not seriously consider the effects of hydration during and after athletic performance. Water maintains blood volume, regulates body temperature and is involved in muscle contractions (1). Perspiring is regulated by the autonomic nervous system and is controlled unconsciously by the hypothalamus; the [...]
The average person spends between 55-57 percent of their life engaging in sedentary behaviours (4). Sedentary behaviours are defined as any sitting or lying behaviours involving low levels of movement or energy expenditure (5). Therefore, everyday activities such as working at a desk, driving a car, watching television or using a computer are all contributors [...]
According to the Heart and Stroke foundation, every 7 minutes someone dies from heart disease in Canada, and 30% of deaths in Canada are caused by heart disease (1). Although, cardiovascular disease can be attributed to genetic factors, lifestyle and environmental risk factors such as smoking, over-eating and lack of exercise have been found to [...]