Younger Blood

            Whatever exercise regimen you choose, don’t stop moving.  Walking keeps your blood vessels young, according to a new study.  Researchers at the University of Colorado tested the blood of young men (average age 27) and old guys (average age 62), looking at levels of endothelin-1, a chemical that causes constriction of blood vessels.  The older men had higher levels, which decrease blood flow and increase risk of cardiovascular disease.  But the fix was simple.  The older men who went on hour-long walks 5 days a week for 3 months had endothelin-1 levels and blood flow similar to the young men’s.  Study author Gary Van Guilder, Ph.D., says it’s the first study to show that “moderate-intensity training can lower vasoconstriction in men” and bring blood vessels back to normal.

Fend Off Fatigue

            Basketball games can get sloppy in the final minutes.  In the NCAA or NBA, it’s probably from late-game pressure.  At your YMCA, it’s probably fatigue.  Anew study confirms the old coach’s claim:  Tired basketball players make bad passes.  Researchers at the Newman College of Higher Education, in England, had 20 players (10 recreational, 10 expert) throw chest passes at targets when rested, then when 70 percent fatigued, and finally when 90 percent fatigued. (They did squat thrusts to tire themselves out.) Sure enough, accuracy dropped as they tired, with the recreational players faltering earlier than the expert players.  The study, published in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, concluded that coaches should “incorporate high-intensity exercise into their skills sessions.”  For you? Do some wind sprints before practicing your jumper.

A Magical Drink-Just Add Water

            When does a bogus energy drink work?  When you think it will.  A few years ago, studies debunked the advertised benefits of “super-oxygenated water” (SOW) during exercise.  But a new study shows that merely thinking that an exercise drink will make you faster can make you faster.  Researchers at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse showed 32 runners a video about the purported wonders of SOW.  They all drank 16 ounces of regular water-but half were told it was super-oxygenated.  In a 5-K time trial, runners who thought they’d swallowed the special elixir ran an average of 83 seconds faster than the others.  The effect was even stronger on slower runners.  Further work is needed to see “how long we can continue to fool people, if there’s a chronic placebo effect,” says lead author John Porcari, Ph.D.