Performance enhancing probiotics? Study homes in on beneficial bacteria in elite athletes

A compelling new study has found increased volumes of a certain species of gut bacteria in marathon runners following the completion of an event. This species was found to metabolize exercise-induced lactate into propionate, a compound that m… Continue reading Performance enhancing probiotics? Study homes in on beneficial bacteria in elite athletes

Reflex Trainer Puts Athletes To The Test

Being a top athlete in this modern age is a full-time job. No longer do athletes simply practice at their nominated sport of choice. They undergo strength training, full nutritional programs, cardio, and even reflex training.

Reflex training involves a series of nodes that an athlete must identify when lit up, and touch them to switch them off. By triggering them in a fast sequence, the athlete must work hard to both identify the lit node and then move to switch it off. TrainerLights is just such a system, built around the NodeMCU platform.

The system consists of a minimum …read more

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Opt-Out Fitness Data Sharing Leads to Massive Military Locations Leak

People who exercise with fitness trackers have a digital record of their workouts. They do it for a wide range of reasons, from gathering serious medical data to simply satisfying curiosity. When fitness data includes GPS coordinates, it raises personal privacy concerns. But even with individual data removed, such data was still informative enough to spill the beans on secretive facilities around the world.

Strava is a fitness tracking service that gathers data from several different brands of fitness tracker — think Fitbit. It gives athletes a social media experience built around their fitness data: track progress against personal goals …read more

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Gamify Your Workout with the Wearable Console Controller

‘Tis soon to be the season when resolutions falter and exercise equipment purchased with the best of intentions is cast aside in frustration. But with a little motivation, like making your exercise machine a game console controller, you can maximize your exercise gear investment and get in some guilt-free gaming to boot.

Honestly, there is no better motivation for keeping up with exercise than taking classes, but not many people have the discipline — or the pocketbook — to keep going to the gym for the long haul. With this in mind, [Jason] looked for a way to control PS4  …read more

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Keep Pedaling to Keep Playing

It’s been said that the best way to tackle the issue of childhood obesity would be to hook those children’s video game consoles up to a pedal-powered generator. Of course, this was said by [Alex], the creator of Cykill. Cykill interfaces an Xbox to an exercise bike, so to keep the video game going you’ll have to keep pedaling the bike.

While there is no generator involved in this project, it does mimic the effect of powering electronics from a one. The exercise bike has a set of communications wires, which are connected to a relay on the Xbox’s power …read more

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