The key to becoming a better running might just be your friend squad. A study published in Nature Communications found evidence to suggest that friends who push themselves to run father and faster influenced other friends to do the same — just by being running buddies. Essentially, positive exercise behavior is contagious. The researchers looked at the habits of 1.1 million runners around the world over a period of five years. Knowing that its possible runners could be pairing up because of their comparable running habits, researchers wanted to rule out coincidence. Since bad weather can deter runners, they compared friend pairs in different regions of the world to see if weather made a difference. The found that friends of runners who typically run an extra 10 minutes, influenced friends to run an extra 3 minutes — even when the weather was bad. Also, the study found, when one friend goes…
Guts bring glory: microbiomes of elite athletes may mean an edge
Elite athletes often work their entires lives to excel in their sport, but new research shows they may also get a slight edge from their digestive tracts. Scientists have tapped into the microbiome of elite runners and rowers to identify certain bacteria that may be responsible for a boost in their athletic performance. “When we first started thinking about this, I was asked whether we could use genomics to predict the next Michael Jordan,” says Jonathan Scheiman, Ph.D., fellow in the laboratory of George Church, Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School. “But my response was that a better question is: Can you extract Jordan’s biology and give it to others to help make the next Michael Jordan?” To identify which bacteria support athletic performance, researchers collected daily samples of 20 athletes training for world-reknown Boston marathon in 2015. The microbiomes were then examined for changes between performance and recovery. In studying the…