Effect of long-term physical activity and acute exercise on markers of systemic inflammation in persons with chronic spinal cord injury: a systematic review

Objective: To evaluate the effect of long-term physical activity (PA) and acute exercise on markers of systemic inflammation in persons with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI)

Effects of Hybrid Cycle and Handcycle Exercise on Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors in People with Spinal Cord Injury:A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective: To examine the effects of a 16-week exercise programme, using either a hybrid cycle or a handcycle, on cardiovascular disease risk factors in people with spinal cord injury.Participants: Nineteen individuals with spinal cord injury &gt;= 8 years.Design: Multicentre randomized controlled trial. Both the hybrid cycle group (n = 9) and the handcycle group (n = 10) trained twice a week for 16 weeks on the specific cycle. Outcome measures obtained pre and post the programme were: metabolic syndrome components (waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides and insulin resistance), inflammatory status (C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin (1)-6 and -10), and visceral adiposity (trunk and android fat).Results: For all outcome measures, there were no significant differences over time between the 2 training groups. Overall significant reductions were found for waist circumference (p = 0.001), diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.03), insulin resistance (p = 0.006), CRP (p = 0.05), IL-6 (p = 0.04), IL-6/IL-10 ratio (p = 0.03), and trunk (p = 0.04) and android (p = 0.02) fat percentage. No significant main effects for time were observed for systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, IL-10, and trunk and android fat mass.Conclusion: The 16-week exercise programme, using either a hybrid cycle or a handcycle, found similar beneficial effects on metabolic syndrome components, inflammatory status and visceral adiposity, indicating that there were no additional benefits of functional electrical stimulation-induced leg exercise over handcycle exercise alone.</p

Regulation of Pacing Strategy during Athletic Competition

Background: Athletic competition has been a source of interest to the scientific community for many years, as a surrogate of the limits of human ambulatory ability. One of the remarkable things about athletic competition is the observation that some athletes suddenly reduce their pace in the mid-portion of the race and drop back from their competitors. Alternatively, other athletes will perform great accelerations in mid-race (surges) or during the closing stages of the race (the endspurt). This observation fits well with recent evidence that muscular power output is regulated in an anticipatory way, designed to prevent unreasonably large homeostatic disturbances. Principal Findings: Here we demonstrate that a simple index, the product of the momentary Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and the fraction of race distance remaining, the Hazard Score, defines the likelihood that athletes will change their velocity during simulated competitions; and may effectively represent the language used to allow anticipatory regulation of muscle power output. Conclusions: These data support the concept that the muscular power output during high intensity exercise performance is actively regulated in an anticipatory manner that accounts for both the momentary sensations the athlete is experiencing as well as the relative amount of a competition to be completed

Effect of Long-Term Physical Activity and Acute Exercise on Markers of Systemic Inflammation in Persons With Chronic Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, vol, 96, issue, 1, 2015 DOI: 10.1016/j.apmr.2014.07.006Objective: To evaluate the effect of long-term physical activity (PA) and acute exercise on markers of systemic inflammation in persons with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI)

A reliable method for measuring proximal tibia and distal femur bone mineral density using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry

Purpose: To assess the intra- and inter-rater reliability of a standardized protocol for measuring proximal tibia and distal femur bone mineral density (BMD) using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Methods: Ten able-bodied individuals (7 males) participated in this study. During one measurement session, the knee of each participant was scanned twice by rater 1 using DXA. Both scans were analyzed twice by rater 1 as well as once by a second rater. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), standard error of measurements (SEMs) and smallest detectable differences (SDDs) were calculated for the outcome measures proximal tibia and distal femur BMD. A decision study was performed to determine the effect of study protocol adjustments (i.e. increasing the number of scan repetitions, or scan analyses by the same rater) on SEM and SDD values. Results: High intra- and inter-rater ICCs (0.97-0.98) were found for both proximal tibia and distal femur BMD. Low SEMs (0.017-0.028 g/cm(2)) and SDDs (0.047-0.077 g/cm(2)) were found, with a slightly better result for proximal tibia BMD. Increasing the number of scan analyses by the same rater did not markedly reduce SEM and SDD values, while increasing the number of scan repetitions did. Conclusions: Proximal tibia and distal femur BMD can be reliably assessed with this method. (C) 2013 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Example of a subject running two 10 km races on a treadmill.

<p>The pace during the first 4 km was set and could be varied after this point. The predictor of the slowdown at 4 km during a run at a ‘bad day’ (broken line) is the high Hazard Score in the 3–4 km interval, which reflects larger homeostatic disturbances.</p

Velolcity, RPE and the Hazard Score.

<p>Changes in velocity (A), Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) (B) and the Hazard Score (C) in 9 competitive simulations in running or cycling events that required from 4 to 60 minutes.</p

Velocity of the winner (bold) and the runners successively 5 places further back (e.g., 5^th, 10^th, 15^th) from the Beijing Olympic men's 10 km race.

<p>Velocity of the winner (bold) and the runners successively 5 places further back (e.g., 5^th, 10^th, 15^th) from the Beijing Olympic men's 10 km race.</p

Relation between the Hazard Score and the change in pace.

<p>Schematic pace (A), heart rate (HRmax%) (B), muscle glycogen store (C), core temperature (D), Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) (E) and Hazard Score (F) as a function of percent distance completed of a hypothetical athlete performing a race with a fast start strategy and with an even strategy and the resulting relation between the Hazard Score and the change in pace during the race (G).</p

The acceleration/deceleration of athletes as function of the Hazard score.

<p>The acceleration/deceleration of athletes as function of the Hazard score.</p