Food allergy in an athlete: how to distinguish allergy from intolerance, what to replace milk, eggs, nuts or fish with, how not to lose protein, calcium and energy, and what to do about exercise-induced anaphylaxis.
How sleep affects muscle growth: growth hormone in deep sleep, testosterone and cortisol, muscle protein synthesis after a sleepless night, protein before bed, and what studies say about sleep deprivation during a calorie deficit.
How many hours an athlete should sleep: recommendations from the AASM and the National Sleep Foundation, the sleep-extension study in basketball players, accumulated sleep debt, injury risk, and how to determine your own need.
Daytime sleep for athletes: what duration is optimal, what sleep inertia is, when it is better to nap before training, the ‘coffee nap’, and how daytime sleep affects night sleep. A review of studies from the editorial team.
The sauna after training: what happens to the heart and plasma volume, whether it helps muscle recovery, when the sauna is harmful, how long to sit, how to drink water and for whom it is contraindicated. An analysis by the editorial team.
Cryotherapy and ice baths for athletes: how cold affects muscle soreness, why it may hinder muscle growth, what Cochrane reviews show, temperature and immersion time, risks and for whom cold is contraindicated.
Massage for recovery after training: what meta-analyses prove, how massage affects muscle soreness, inflammation and blood flow, why it does not ‘flush out lactic acid’, types of sports massage and contraindications.
Mobility and myofascial release (MFR): how mobility differs from flexibility, how rolling works, whether it ‘breaks up’ fascial adhesions, what meta-analyses say, and how to build MFR and stretching into training.
Active recovery: what it is, how light movement speeds up lactate removal, whether a cool-down is needed, how to organise active rest days and rest between sets, and where the boundary lies between recovery and additional load.
Heart rate variability (HRV) for monitoring recovery: what RMSSD is, how to measure correctly in the morning, why the weekly trend matters, how to interpret a drop in HRV, and where the limits of this indicator lie.
Food allergy in an athlete: how to distinguish allergy from intolerance, what to replace milk, eggs, nuts or fish with, how not to lose protein, calcium and energy, and what to do about exercise-induced anaphylaxis.
How sleep affects muscle growth: growth hormone in deep sleep, testosterone and cortisol, muscle protein synthesis after a sleepless night, protein before bed, and what studies say about sleep deprivation during a calorie deficit.
