Research can provide valuable insights for health and fitness professionals, but trying to keep up with it all can be overwhelming! Not to worry—I’ve done the legwork for you. Here are some current and not-so-current findings that I think you’ll find particularly interesting.

Current Research

Do CrossFit, Get Injured

“In unadjusted models, participation in CrossFit competition was significantly associated with injury.”
— Journal of Sports Science & Medicine

I took a tongue-in-cheek look at CrossFit in one of my earlier blog posts (warning: disturbing exercise video), but the reality is that the random WOD (Workout of the Day) approach often leads to haphazard results—or worse, injury. Now we have research to back that up.

Vaccination Can Increase Mortality

“DTP [Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis] was associated with 5-fold higher mortality than being unvaccinated… Though a vaccine protects children against the target disease, it may simultaneously increase susceptibility to unrelated infections.”
— National Institutes of Health

Vaccines are considered the greatest health debate of the 21st century (read more here). If you haven’t done so yet, I urge you to watch The Truth About Vaccines documentary series.

Resistance Training Improves Cardiorespiratory Fitness

“These data indicate that RT [resistance training] led to significant improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness during the initial 3 months of training.”
— PubMed

Resistance training has a profound effect on the cardiovascular system. In fact, it may be a safer and more effective approach than aerobics—especially for cardiac rehab patients. Dr. Doug McGuff, emergency room physician and co-author of Body by Science, shares more on this topic. You can also explore this concept in my latest ebook, Lean and Mean.

Not-So-Current Research

Increase Flexibility With Eccentric Training

“The results support the hypothesis that eccentric training is an effective method of increasing lower limb flexibility.”
— PubMed

Weight training, when done properly, is one of the best tools for increasing flexibility (read how). And for women who fear weight training will make them inflexible, here’s another study worth checking out: click here.

Tomorrow…

We’ll explore research on:

• Injury rates in weight-training sports vs. common team sports
• How resistance training can relieve computer-related neck pain
• The effects of drop sets on muscle size and strength
• How heavy deep squats can lead to favorable adaptations

Stay tuned for Part 2!