Under pressure, deadlifting with grandma and meatballm

A science newsletter I am loving right now highlighted a study examining how periods of high academic stress, think finals, impacted injury risk in college football players. The study period lasted 20 weeks and included over 100 male student athletes. Researchers found that injury rates significantly spiked during exam weeks to nearly double of the rates they found during low stress academic weeks. 

The study suggests stress compromises your attention. Under pressure, you have reduced reaction time (hello twisted ankle). Stress increases muscle tension and then sprinkle in some fatigue from poor sleep, and it is no surprise you are running funny and now your knee or hip or back is starting to bug you.

This study was on a bunch of college students, all of them younger than us. Who knows how much worse this is as we age. You can't always control your incoming stressors BUT you can control your training. Some things you can do to promote healthy training during periods of intense stress include more rest days, rest weeks that come more often and more easy days. 

STRONG GRANDMA
Put down your phone, put down your work and go watch this video from the New Yorker, Strong Grandma. If I live to 95, I really hope I am deadlifting BUT even more I really hope I have a friendship like the one highlighted in this short where we share gym time and giant cookies. 

Want to be strong like Grandma? Join me on Wednesday nights for Strength Training for Runners. It is free, so tell work you have to go help your grandmother with something and get your workout on. 

BOUNCE, BOUNCE
An unlikely injury tale from a runner losing vision on the trail and requiring emergency surgery. A story from Scott Dunlap. 

APRIL FOOLS
These are the best April Fools marketing pushes that have come across my eyeballs today. 

• Meatballm from Ikea.
• Marathong from Skratch. 
• I actually think this one is real, nice work Iceland. 

Happy trails, no fooling