Physical activity policies in Saudi Arabia and Oman: a qualitative study using stakeholder interviews.

Background: Countries in the Middle East have some of the lowest rates of physical activity and some of the highest rates of obesity in the world. Policies can influence population levels of physical activity. However, there is a dearth of research on physical activity policies in the Gulf region.

Assessing the Evidential Value of Mental Fatigue and Exercise Research.

It has often been reported that mental exertion, presumably leading to mental fatigue, can negatively affect exercise performance; however, recent findings have questioned the strength of the effect. To further complicate this issue, an overlooked problem might be the presence of publication bias in studies using underpowered designs, which is known to inflate false positive report probability and effect size estimates. Altogether, the presence of bias is likely to reduce the evidential value of the published literature on this topic, although it is unknown to what extent.

Individualized Mental Fatigue Does Not Impact Neuromuscular Function and Exercise Performance.

Introduction: Recent studies have questioned previous empirical evidence that mental fatigue negatively impacts physical performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the critical role of individual differences in mental fatigue susceptibility by analyzing the neurophysiological and physical responses to an individualized mental fatigue task.

Methods: In a preregistered ( https://osf.

An umbrella review of randomized control trials on the effects of physical exercise on cognition.

Extensive research links regular physical exercise to an overall enhancement of cognitive function across the lifespan. Here we assess the causal evidence supporting this relationship in the healthy population, using an umbrella review of meta-analyses limited to randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Despite most of the 24 reviewed meta-analyses reporting a positive overall effect, our assessment reveals evidence of low statistical power in the primary RCTs, selective inclusion of studies, publication bias and large variation in combinations of pre-processing and analytic decisions.

Depleting Ly6G Positive Myeloid Cells Reduces Pancreatic Cancer-Induced Skeletal Muscle Atrophy.

Immune cells can mount desirable anti-cancer immunity. However, some immune cells can support cancer disease progression. The presence of cancer can lead to production of immature myeloid cells from the bone marrow known as myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs).

Urolithin A improves muscle function by inducing mitophagy in muscular dystrophy.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common muscular dystrophy, and despite advances in genetic and pharmacological disease-modifying treatments, its management remains a major challenge. Mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to DMD, yet the mechanisms by which this occurs remain elusive. Our data in experimental models and patients with DMD show that reduced expression of genes involved in mitochondrial autophagy, or mitophagy, contributes to mitochondrial dysfunction.

Modulation of torque evoked by wide-pulse, high-frequency neuromuscular electrical stimulation and the potential implications for rehabilitation and training.

The effectiveness of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) for rehabilitation is proportional to the evoked torque. The progressive increase in torque (extra torque) that may develop in response to low intensity wide-pulse high-frequency (WPHF) NMES holds great promise for rehabilitation as it overcomes the main limitation of NMES, namely discomfort. WPHF NMES extra torque is thought to result from reflexively recruited motor units at the spinal level.

Dynamic MR imaging of the skeletal muscle in young and senior volunteers during synchronized minimal neuromuscular electrical stimulation.

Objective: Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES)-induced isometric contraction is feasible during MRI and can be combined with acquisition of volumetric dynamic MR data, in a synchronous and controlled way. Since NMES is a potent resource for rehabilitation, MRI synchronized with NMES presents a valuable validation tool. Our aim was to show how minimal NMES-induced muscle contraction characterization, as evaluated through phase-contrast MRI, differs between senior and young volunteers.

Three weeks of sprint interval training improved high-intensity cycling performance and limited ryanodine receptor modifications in recreationally active human subjects.

Purpose: Mechanisms underlying the efficacy of sprint interval training (SIT) remain to be understood. We previously reported that an acute bout of SIT disrupts the integrity of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca release channel, the ryanodine receptor 1 (RyR1), in recreationally active human subjects. We here hypothesize that in addition to improving the exercise performance of recreationally active humans, a period of repeated SIT sessions would make the RyR1 protein less vulnerable and accelerate recovery of contractile function after a SIT session.

Accuracy of a smartphone pedometer application according to different speeds and mobile phone locations in a laboratory context.

Background: The purpose of this study was to compare the accuracy of a smartphone application and a mechanical pedometer for step counting at different walking speeds and mobile phone locations in a laboratory context.

Methods: Seventeen adults wore an iPphone6© with Runtastic Pedometer© application (RUN), at 3 different locations (belt, arm, jacket) and a pedometer (YAM) at the waist. They were asked to walk on an instrumented treadmill (reference) at various speeds (2, 4 and 6 km/h).

University athletes and changes in cardiac geometry: insight from the 2015 Gwangju Summer Universiade.

Aims: There is a paucity of data regarding the changes of cardiac geometry in highly trained international and multiracial university athletes. We aimed to investigate the incidence of structural cardiac abnormalities and changes of cardiac geometry in highly trained university athletes.

Methods And Results: Comprehensive echocardiographic studies were performed in 1185 university athletes through the Check-up Your Heart Program during the 2015 Gwangju Summer Universiade.

Short vs. long pulses for testing knee extensor neuromuscular properties: does it matter?

Purpose: The present study aimed at comparing knee extensor neuromuscular properties determined with transcutaneous electrical stimulation using two pulse durations before and after a standardized fatigue protocol.

Methods: In the first sub-study, 19 healthy participants (ten women and nine men; 28 ± 5 years) took part to two separate testing sessions involving the characterization of voluntary activation (twitch interpolation technique), muscle contractility (evoked forces by single and paired stimuli), and neuromuscular propagation (M-wave amplitude from vastus lateralis and vastus medialis muscles) obtained at supramaximal intensity with a pulse duration of either 0.2 or 1 ms.