Serendipity in Science: 50+ Years of Designed, and Sometimes Lucky, Science.

Normal science is about assessing what is already known about a topic, about what needs to be known, and careful methods to collect the data required to answer the scientific question. It is the mainstay of scientific progress. But sometimes, luck or chance (eg, serendipity) plays a significant role in scientific process.

Skeletal muscle mitochondrial fragmentation predicts age-associated decline in physical capacity.

Ageing substantially impairs skeletal muscle metabolic and physical function. Skeletal muscle mitochondrial health is also impaired with ageing, but the role of skeletal muscle mitochondrial fragmentation in age-related functional decline remains imprecisely characterized. Here, using a cross-sectional study design, we performed a detailed comparison of skeletal muscle mitochondrial characteristics in relation to in vivo markers of exercise capacity between young and middle-aged individuals.

Validity of Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing for Assessing Aerobic Capacity in Neuromuscular Diseases.

Objectives: To determine the content validity of cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) for assessing peak oxygen uptake (VO) in neuromuscular diseases (NMD).

Design: Baseline assessment of a randomized controlled trial.

Setting: Academic hospital.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Essential Papers in Sports and Exercise Physiology.

Purpose: The purpose of this survey was to create a list of essential historical and contemporary readings for undergraduate and graduate students in the field of exercise physiology.

Methods: Fifty-two exercise physiologists/sport scientists served as referees, and each nominated ∼25 papers for inclusion in the list. In total, 396 papers were nominated by the referees.

"Falling Behind," "Letting Go," and Being "Outsprinted" as Distinct Features of Pacing in Distance Running.

Introduction: In distance running, pacing is characterized by changes in speed, leading to runners dropping off the leader's pace until a few remain to contest victory with a final sprint. Pacing behavior has been well studied over the last 30 years, but much remains unknown. It might be related to finishing position, finishing time, and dependent on critical speed (CS), a surrogate of physiologic capacity.

Are professional road cycling countries selecting their talents based on anthropometric characteristics which suit the countries' terrain?

Background: This study investigates if countries are more focused on certain specializations (one day, climb, sprint, time trial [TT] and grand tour [GC]) in male professional road cycling and if this is possibly linked to the countries landscape (for example, does a mountainous country have more climbers?) and anthropometric characteristics (does the mountainous country also have lighter cyclists?) of their cyclists.

Methods: Body weight, height, procyclingstats (PCS) points per specialty were gathered from 1810 professional cyclists out of 15 countries, as well as the elevation span of those countries. To compare the anthropometric differences between different countries, height was normalized based on the average height of the countries' population, while BMI was used as a correction for body weight.

Durability and Underlying Physiological Factors: How Do They Change Throughout a Cycling Season in Semiprofessional Cyclists?

Purpose: To investigate how cycling time-trial (TT) performance changes over a cycling season, both in a "fresh" state and in a "fatigued" state (durability). Additionally, the aim was to explore whether these changes are related to changes in underlying physiological factors such as gross efficiency, energy expenditure (EE), and substrate oxidation (fat oxidation [FatOx] and carbohydrate oxidation [CarbOx]).

Methods: Sixteen male semiprofessional cyclists visited the laboratory on 3 occasions during a cycling season (PRE, START, and IN) and underwent a performance test in both fresh and fatigued states (after 38.

Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Individuals Post-stroke: Reference Values and Determinants.

Objective: To provide reference values of cardiorespiratory fitness for individuals post-stroke in clinical rehabilitation and to gain insight in characteristics related to cardiorespiratory fitness post stroke.

Design: A retrospective cohort study. Reference equations of cardiopulmonary fitness corrected for age and sex for the fifth, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 95th percentile were constructed with quantile regression analysis.

Relative Aerobic Load of Daily Activities After Stroke.

Objective: Individuals after stroke are less active, experience more fatigue, and perform activities at a slower pace than peers with no impairments. These problems might be caused by an increased aerobic energy expenditure during daily tasks and a decreased aerobic capacity after stroke. The aim of this study was to quantify relative aerobic load (ie, the ratio between aerobic energy expenditure and aerobic capacity) during daily-life activities after stroke.

Competition Between Desired Competitive Result, Tolerable Homeostatic Disturbance, and Psychophysiological Interpretation Determines Pacing Strategy.

Scientific interest in pacing goes back >100 years. Contemporary interest, both as a feature of athletic competition and as a window into understanding fatigue, goes back >30 years. Pacing represents the pattern of energy use designed to produce a competitive result while managing fatigue of different origins.

The role of the relative age effect on talent identification in professional road cycling.

This study aims to investigate the presence of the relative age effect (RAE) in (semi-)professional cycling, especially within selecting cyclists for Continental (CT) development teams. Data were collected from www.procyclingstats.

Evidence That Rating of Perceived Exertion Growth During Fatiguing Tasks is Scalar and Independent of Exercise Mode.

Introduction: The relationship between the percentage of a fatiguing ambulatory task completed and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) appears to be linear and scalar, with a relatively narrow "window." Recent evidence has suggested that a similar relationship may exist for muscularly demanding tasks.

Methods: To determine whether muscularly demanding tasks fit within this "ambulatory window," we tested resistance-trained athletes performing bench press and leg press with different loadings predicted to allow 5, 10, 20, and 30 repetitions and measured RPE (category ratio scale) at the end of the concentric action for each repetition.

Various Workload Models and the Preseason Are Associated With Injuries in Professional Female Cyclists.

Purpose: To determine if workload and seasonal periods (preseason vs in season) are associated with the incidence of injuries and illnesses in female professional cyclists.

Methods: Session rating of perceived exertion was used to quantify internal workload and was collected from 15 professional female cyclists, from 33 athlete seasons. One week (acute) workload, 4 weeks (chronic) workload, and 3 acute:chronic workload models were analyzed.

Estimation of Metabolic Energy Expenditure during Short Walking Bouts.

Assessment of metabolic energy expenditure from indirect calorimetry is currently limited to sustained (>4 min) cyclic activities, because of steady-state requirements. This is problematic for patient populations who are unable to perform such sustained activities. Therefore, this study explores validity and reliability of a method estimating metabolic energy expenditure based on oxygen consumption (V̇O) during short walking bouts.

The Physiological, Neuromuscular, and Perceptual Response to Even- and Variable-Paced 10-km Cycling Time Trials.

Background: During self-paced (SP) time trials (TTs), cyclists show unconscious nonrandom variations in power output of up to 10% above and below average. It is unknown what the effects of variations in power output of this magnitude are on physiological, neuromuscular, and perceptual variables.

Purpose: To describe physiological, neuromuscular, and perceptual responses of 10-km TTs with an imposed even-paced (EP) and variable-paced (VP) workload.

Summated Hazard Score as a Powerful Predictor of Fatigue in Relation to Pacing Strategy.

During competitive events, the pacing strategy depends upon how an athlete feels at a specific moment and the distance remaining. It may be expressed as the Hazard Score (HS) with momentary HS being shown to provide a measure of the likelihood of changing power output (PO) within an event and summated HS as a marker of how difficult an event is likely to be perceived to be. This study aimed to manipulate time trial (TT) starting strategies to establish whether the summated HS, as opposed to momentary HS, will improve understanding of performance during a simulated cycling competition.