Smart Strength to Go

In this edition, resistance bands with sensors, exercise fights cancer, one-minute activity and your weekly recommendations.

Fit Cult is taking a short break and will be back in the new year. Happy Holidays!

The Rundown

Smart Strength to Go. The smart resistance band from German startup, Straffr, allows you to strength train wherever you are, and gives you real-time feedback. With sensors along its length, the band quantifies workout performance as you move. The companion app gives verbal feedback as you flex, logs stats, tracks progress and offers on-demand strength and HIIT training workouts. The band is available in medium (5-15 kg) and strong (15-25 kg).

Exercise & Cancer. Movement is medicine and even one dose counts. A new study has shown that a single workout produces anti-cancer proteins that can slow tumor growth in patients with advanced prostate cancer.

While the connection between higher levels of physical activity and lower risks of cancer has been well documented, exactly how exercise helps to fight cancer isn’t entirely clear.

Last year, researchers at Edith Cowan University in Australia set out to investigate. They had 10 men with prostate cancer train for 12 weeks. At the end of the program, the men had high levels of myokines, which are proteins produced by skeletal muscles. Myokines can directly suppress tumor growth and kick start other anti-cancer processes in the body.

For the new study, the Edith Cowan team had nine patients with late-stage prostate cancer perform a single workout for 34 minutes on a stationary bike. The scientists took samples of the participants’ blood immediately before and after the session and again 30 minutes after the workout.

The blood sample taken right after the workout had elevated levels of myokines compared to the before workout sample. At 30 minutes after exercise, the myokine levels went back to baseline.

When the team applied the immediate post-exercise blood samples to prostate cancer cells, the high levels of myokines suppressed tumor growth by as much as 17%. They are hopeful that their findings will help inform doctors’ advice for patients with prostate and other forms of cancer.

Study supervisor Rob Newton says “the optimal dose of exercise…is likely to be 20-plus minutes each day and must include resistance training to grow muscles, increase the size and capacity of the internal pharmacy and stimulate the myokine production.”

One Minute to Longevity. It’s more good news for the health benefits of quick bursts of activity. A team at the University of Sydney has a new paper out that focuses on “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity” or VILPA. VILPA lasts a minute or two and raises your heart rate (think high-energy playtime with the kids or running for a bus).

For the study, the scientists used wrist-worn tracker data from 25,000 people who did not exercise or play sports. About 89% of the people did some type of VILPA and around 93% of those bursts of movement lasted up to a minute. The movement happened an average of eight times a day, totaling about six minutes of high-intensity activity.

The research team then used health data over a seven-year follow-up period to study the connection between VILPA and the risk of premature death from cancer, cardiovascular disease and a general “all-cause” mortality.

There were 852 deaths recorded in the follow-up and the team found that just three bouts of VILPA each day was associated with a 38% reduction in all-cause and cancer mortality and a 48% reduction in cardiovascular disease mortality risk. Eleven bouts of VILPA a day was associated with a 65% reduction in cardiovascular death risk and a 49% reduction in cancer-related risk, compared to no VILPA at all.

The results were similar when the team compared the effects of VILPA with 62,000 people who did regular exercise. Lead author Emmanuel Stamatakis suggests that short bouts totaling three to four minutes a day “could go a long way” and there are many daily activities “that can be tweaked to raise your heart rate for a minute or so.”

Extra Point

Watch

Boys in Blue. A four-part docuseries from filmmaker Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, Lone Survivor), Boys in Blue focuses on the Polars, a Minneapolis-based football team from North Community High School. It takes place during the 2021 season, as the players deal with the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.

The Polars are coached and mentored by members of the Minneapolis Police Department and the series follows the team, parents and local officials as they navigate life after Floyd’s killing. It’s a compelling look at how football offers common ground to unite the officers and the students and provides a safe harbor from the civil unrest of their community.

Boys in Blue premieres Friday, January 6 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime.

Listen

40+ Fitness. If you’re over 40 and looking for actionable fitness and health information, host Allan Misner has you covered. Since its launch in 2015, his podcast has featured interviews with over 350 experts. Recent topics include keto and brain health, how to improve your running form and why most people fail at their health and fitness goals.

Read

The Birth of a New Brand of Exercise Fetish. This piece from historian and author Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores the rise of exoticized consumer fitness products in the 1990s, from Bikram yoga to Tae Bo. The article is adapted from her book, Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession, which is out in January.