Outdoors + Tech newsletter – January 20, 2020

Outdoors + Tech news articles, blog posts and research papers for January 20, 2020

 

bracelets


Kaiser Permanente expanding smartwatch partnership with Samsung

Becker's Hospital Review, Andrea Park from

Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente will expand a program launched with Samsung in 2018 for remote monitoring of cardiac rehabilitation patients, The Wall Street Journal reports.

By the end of 2019, around 4,000 Kaiser Permanente patients had been provided with Samsung smartwatches to track their exercise and medication regimens, and the health system reportedly plans to expand the program to about 5,000 more cardiac rehab patients in 2020.

 

Why fitness trackers may not give you all the ‘credit’ you hoped for

The Conversation, Katie Siek from

January is a time when many people make resolutions – and then break them. Almost 60% of Americans will resolve to exercise more, but fewer than 10% will stick with their resolution. A key to keeping resolutions is ensuring they are measurable, and a simple way to track activity is through a wearable smartwatch or fitness tracker. Indeed, almost one in five adults has used a fitness tracker.

Wearable fitness trackers can also help improve medical care by providing insights into physical activity, heart rate, location and sleep patterns. My research team uses wearable fitness tracker data with smart home sensors to help older adults live safely and independently. We also study wearable fitness tracker data along with electronic medical records and genomic data to investigate the causes of gestational diabetes. Many other researchers utilize wearable fitness trackers to better understand how lifestyles can impact health.

Unfortunately, I’ve found in my health informatics research that wearable devices may not give all the credit their users deserve, and in some cases, users may want to consider how secure and private their data is.

 

Withings incorporates two health monitoring tools into one watch

The Verge, Nicole Wetsman from

For its newest smart watch, the ScanWatch, Withings pieced together two health monitoring technologies: one that detects the heart condition atrial fibrillation, and one that measures blood oxygen levels during sleep.

The ScanWatch sends light through the blood vessels in the wrist to measure the amount of oxygen in the blood. Monitoring oxygen levels could help detect episodes of low oxygen that occur with sleep apnea, a condition where breathing stops during sleep, Withings CEO Mathieu Letombe said in a press release. Blood oxygen readings are also integrated with other data around sleep, like sleep duration and quality.

 

non-wrist wearable


CES 2020: Best of Health and Fitness

Apple Insider, Malcolm Owen from

A market that is continuing to grow, providers of health and fitness devices have used CES 2020 to introduce more items to help people improve their wellbeing. AppleInsider lists off some of the new electronic devices and services that aim to make people stronger and healthier.

 

Editorial: Wearable Sensor Technology for Monitoring Training Load and Health in the Athletic Population | Physiology

Frontiers in Physiology journal from

Various measures of the internal and external loads on athletes, as well as parameters related to their health are now being provided to a greater and greater extent by wearable sensors (wearables) (Düking et al., 2018a,b,c). These devices, including sensors and software embedded in e.g., textiles, watches and patches located on or in proximity to the body, collect, transmit, and analyse a range of physiological and biomechanical data designed to improve performance, recovery, and/or other aspects of health (Düking et al., 2018a). However, it is still unclear to what extent wearables are actually useful for monitoring load in connection with different sports and settings. [full text]

 

After delays, noise-adapting NuraLoop earbuds are coming soon and sound great

TechCrunch, Brian Heater from

A few buffet mistakes aside, NuraLoop proved the biggest disappointment of my 2019 CES. When the headphones showed up at the show as dummy units, it hurt my heart a little. The original Nuraphones made an appearance on my 2017 best of the year list, and the idea of a portable version I could take on long flights seemed almost too good to be true.

And for a full year, it was exactly that. Understandably, the Australian startup ran into a few roadblocks attempting to bring the product to market. It’s still a young company, even though its first-gen product went over remarkably well. The noise-adapting headphones were extremely well-thought-out, right down to the package.

 

software


There Should Be a Strava for Diet

8020 Endurance, Matt Fitzgerald from

… In my view, though, the best use of Strava is not bragging about your own training and racing but following the training of highly successful athletes. As long as you do so in an intelligent way (not a monkey-see-monkey-do way), observing how the best athletes approach fitness development can serve as a useful source of information to guide your approach to same. This is especially true if you follow a number of such athletes, as clear patterns will emerge (e.g., adherence to the 80/20 principle of intensity balance). Most of the best endurance athletes do most things right in their training, so you can trust that these patterns represent true best practices in endurance training.

For some time now I’ve wished that there existed a dietary analog to Strava. I think it could help athletes in a way that’s similar to what I just described on the training side. Just as most athletes fail to follow best practices in their training, most athletes also fail to eat optimally.

 

The gym of the future will be virtual, gamified, and totally immersive

Fast Company, Rina Raphael from

In the near future, you might squeeze in a sweat session while picking up some milk.

Your local gym will be tucked inside the local market, perhaps just a few feet away from the produce section. There you’ll don a lightweight VR headset and pedal your way through a virtual exotic world as trackers count your every moment. When you’re done, your phone will ping you to book a massage—it’ll know exactly which muscles are aching.

It’s not that far off: Today’s health-club sector offers the utmost in convenience and personalization, in part due to AI-enabled technology. And with consumers taking a far bigger interest in health and wellness, clubs are growing faster and more innovative than ever: Gyms experienced a 50% increase in revenue in the past decade, reports the Global Wellness Institute.

 

Kudos, leaderboards, QOMs: how fitness app Strava became a religion

The Guardian, Rose George from

… Because of Strava, I know how many miles my shoes have covered and whether I need new ones, as the app will email me to tell me (without sending me ads for shoes). After a race, I can launch Strava’s Flyby feature, an ingenious interactive map, and watch my digital self rerun the race route alongside anyone else who ran it. It is addictive, to watch these ghosts in the machine, and see where they got away, or where I caught them up, to see if they went wrong and how badly. For my efforts, I can be given “kudos” by anyone who follows me – the Strava “like”, signified by a thumbs up – and I can do the same for them. I can leave supportive comments and add photos. I can change the name of my activity from the default “morning run” or “lunch ride” to something witty and punning, and it is one of the unwritten rules of Strava that I should.

Because of Strava, I also have a ringside seat into how elite athletes train and race: more than half of the Tour de France peloton last year uploaded their stages. I can follow the training of Kílian Jornet, the world’s best mountain runner, or champion distance runner Aly Dixon. Strava has been downloaded by 49 million people in 195 countries, and the company claims it attracts a million new users a month.

 

hardware


What’s Next for GoPro: Interview From CES

GearJunkie, Bryon Dorr from

We got a chance to sit down with top GoPro executives, including founder Nick Woodman, at the Consumer Electronics Show. We talked about forthcoming product releases and the future of the storied action camera company.

Let’s cut to the chase. The main takeaways include the announced “Mod” accessories that will all hit the market soon and elevate the HERO8 Black to new heights of video production awesome.

While GoPro remains a market-leading hardware company, it’s putting a ton of energy into becoming a powerhouse software company as well. On the horizon, there are big software updates, new accessories, and a line of carrying bags in the works.

 

Soft, skin-interfaced microfluidic systems with integrated enzymatic assays for measuring the concentration of ammonia and ethanol in sweat

Lab on a Chip journal from

Eccrine sweat is a rich and largely unexplored biofluid that contains a range of important biomarkers, from electrolytes, metabolites, micronutrients and hormones to exogenous agents, each of which can change in concentration with diet, stress level, hydration status and physiologic or metabolic state. Traditionally, clinicians and researchers have used absorbent pads and benchtop analyzers to collect and analyze the biochemical constituents of sweat in controlled, laboratory settings. Recently reported wearable microfluidic and electrochemical sensing devices represent significant advances in this context, with capabilities for rapid, in situ evaluations, in many cases with improved repeatability and accuracy. A limitation is that assays performed in these platforms offer limited control of reaction kinetics and mixing of different reagents and samples. Here, we present a multi-layered microfluidic device platform with designs that eliminate these constraints, to enable integrated enzymatic assays with demonstrations of in situ analysis of the concentrations of ammonia and ethanol in microliter volumes of sweat. Careful characterization of the reaction kinetics and their optimization using statistical techniques yield robust analysis protocols. Human subject studies with sweat initiated by warm-water bathing highlight the operational features of these systems.

 

Here’s how just four satellites could provide worldwide internet

MIT Technology Review, Neel V. Patel from

In spite of what SpaceX and other companies suggest with projects like Starlink, you don’t need mega-constellations comprising thousands of satellites—and all the aggravations they cause—to provide global internet coverage to the world. We’ve known since the 1980s that if you’re okay with settling for a connection a notch below gamer-quality speeds (a half-second lag), then continuous worldwide coverage is possible with a constellation of just four satellites placed at much higher altitudes.

But HughesNet and ViaSat, the world’s biggest satellite internet providers that operate at these orbits, don’t offer anything close to global coverage. Other satellite networks that provide remote sensing and navigation services also fall woefully short of that standard. What gives?

 

gear


Is Heated Ski Gear the Future?

InTheSnow, Feature, Megan Hughes from

… In the past, heated ski gear has often been considered something of a ‘gimmick’, hugely expensive items that require extensive charging or bulky battery packs. However, in recent years heated ski gear has come on leaps and bounds and new products on the market are promising to change the ski wear game for good.

Take the Odlo I-Thermic Mid Layer for example. This award-winning mid-layer effectively regulates body temperature through use of an intelligent thermal sensor, one of the most advanced active heating systems available. Available for both men and women, it combines a stylish fit with the ultimate in high tech heated apparel, providing your own personal micro-climate.

 

Extra Cushioning May not Help Shoes Prevent Injuries

Lower Extremity Review Magazine, Nicole Wetsman from

While innovations in running shoes have helped everyone from top athletes to casual joggers push the boundaries of speed, efforts to determine the characteristics of shoes that will help reduce injury risks are more elusive. In his lab at San Jose State University, JJ Hannigan, PhD, ATC, CSCS, is working to understand the way different levels of cushioning affect gait and running mechanics—which might hint at how they affect injuries.

In a recently published study in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Hannigan found few differences between the ground reaction forces in runners’ using maximal, traditional, and minimal running shoes (see Figure 1). However, runners wearing maximal shoes had increased eversion, which might signal increased injury risk.

This new study builds on two prior investigations of maximal running shoes. “The first was a simple study, with two visits,” Hannigan said. “We had participants run in a maximal shoe, which they had never run in before, and then run in a regular shoe.” Fifteen female runners participated in that study, which showed that maximal shoes gave runners higher impact forces than regular shoes—which was surprising, he said, as he had hypothesized that extra cushioning would decrease impact forces.

 

New helmet design can deal with sports’ twists and turns

University of California, News, UC Berkeley from

As a neurologist, Robert Knight has seen what happens when the brain crashes around violently inside the skull. And he’s aware of the often tragic consequences. … Knight invented a better helmet — one with more effective padding to dampen the effects of a direct hit, but more importantly, an innovative outer shell that rotates to absorb twisting forces that today’s helmets don’t protect against.

 

materials


Adidas works with PrimaLoft to launch ocean plastic insulation.

Biomarket Insights, Liz Gyekye from

Sportswear giant adidas is working with advanced material technology company PrimaLoft to incorporate recycled plastic waste intercepted from remote islands, beaches and coastal communities in its outdoor apparel.

 

Do you need potassium, magnesium and calcium in your sports drink?

Precision Hydration, Abby Coleman from

Sodium is the main electrolyte lost in sweat and this electrolyte should be the focus for athletes when considering which sports drink they want to use to hydrate.

But what about the other minor electrolytes – potassium, magnesium and calcium? How important are they?

We do lose all three in sweat too, just to a far lesser extent than sodium, as we shall discuss here…

 

ECG, Thermocouple and Moisture Sensor Embedded into Smart Fabrics

YouTube, IDTechEx from

[video, 5:50]
 

stories


What Is Heat Exhaustion?

Live Science, Nicole Haloupek from

Heat exhaustion is a medical condition caused by elevated body temperature. It’s one of the most severe types of heat illnesses, surpassed only by heat stroke, as described in a chapter of Elsevier’s online “Handbook of Clinical Neurology” (Elsevier B.V., 2019). All heat illnesses have the same cause: exposure to high temperatures, especially when humidity is also high, and particularly when a person’s fluid intake is inadequate or they’re exerting themselves.

 

Fitness: A healthy — and well-timed — diet fuels muscles of master athletes

Montreal Gazette, Jill Barker from

The last decade has seen a steep increase in the number of athletes achieving personal bests in their 40s and beyond. This group of dedicated older athletes has redefined the idea of aging, rewriting the record books with performances in the pool, on the track, and in the saddle. So remarkable are their achievements, exercise scientists have been busy studying their training and lifestyle habits to see if they can gather more information on what successful aging looks like.

According to a group of French researchers, there is still a dearth of published research on the link between nutrition and performance in master athletes. In particular, do older athletes have a different set of nutritional needs than their younger counterparts?

“We proposed to identify the metabolic challenges that master athletes may face and that require specific nutritional recommendations,” said the French researchers in their article Nutrition for Master Athletes: Is There a Need for Specific Recommendations.

 

Want to Be Fitter? Get Your Body and Mind Outside

OZY, Stephanie Vermillion from

… “Exercise alone helps with anxiety and depression, but moving your body in nature is another bump up,” says Dave Talamo, a seasoned eco-therapist who trains aspiring practitioners through his company, Wilderness Reflections. Talamo has noticed a spike in eco-therapy interest over the past several years, which he attributes to eco-anxiety from the state of our planet. Rediscovering humankind’s connectedness with the Earth can help people cope with eco-related stress, he says. “Just being in nature helps with stress, anxiety and productivity. When you add mindfulness to this, you get another synergistic bump.”

 

The physiology behind our improvements in endurance

Triathlon Magazine Canada, Cam Mitchell from

In a review published in Sports Medicine (2018), researchers set out to define how manipulating key parameters of endurance training can influence the functionality of muscles and the respiratory system, thus giving us insight into how our bodies adapt to training.

 

biking


This Is Why Mountain Bikers Can’t Have Nice Things

Outside Online, Eben Weiss from

Bad behavior might be jeopardizing access to Kingdom Trails, one of the premier networks on the East Coast. Here’s what we can learn from it.

 

3 MTB Adjacent Tech Trends From the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show

Pinkbike, James Smurthwaite from

… In 2020, like most years, mountain bikes didn’t really feature much in the show, but there are some interesting developments to look at that could make their way into our world one day.

Here are three trends we spotted that may become commonplace on the trails in future.

1. Smart Glasses

 

data


Futureproofing triathlon: expert suggestions to improve health and performance in triathletes

BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation from

Background

Given the multi-modal nature of triathlon (swimming, cycling, running), training for a triathlon event has numerous potential health benefits including physical fitness. However, triathletes also have a high prevalence of health issues including overuse injury, illness, fatigue, and burnout. To address the ongoing prevalence of health issues, roundtable discussions were organized at the International Triathlon Union Science of Triathlon 2017 conference to develop strategic objectives deemed necessary to “futureproof triathlon”. Futureproofing as a concept serves to design new approaches and ways of thinking to reduce consequences in the future. In this case, the futureproof process aimed to develop key recommendations for triathlon.
Methods

This qualitative study had 22 participants including athletes, coaches, practitioners, academics, and policy makers who participated in roundtable discussions at the Science of Triathlon conference. Seven of these participants completed follow-up semi-structured interviews on the same topics. The data collected from the roundtable discussions and the semi-structured interviews was analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results

Five main themes were produced: “Critical appraisal and application of knowledge”; “Integrated approaches to developing, disseminating, and using research and expertise”; “Appropriate development and use of measures for monitoring training and recovery”; “Knowing your athletes and adopting holistic approaches to athlete/person-development”, and; “Challenging accepted cultural and sporting norms”. Participants indicated the need to reduce the knowledge gap between research and practice as well as a more collaborative approach to triathlon research development amongst coaches/practitioners and academics. It was stated that current monitoring tools require more research to determine which are most useful to informed decision making for coaches/practitioners. It was cautioned that data driven assessments should be used judiciously and be athlete centered. Triathlon as a sport should also have a greater focus on healthy participation and development of youth athletes.
Conclusions

A series of applied implications were developed based on these five themes as guiding principles for how to futureproof triathlon. Additionally, roundtable and interview participants who held varying positions and opinions within the sport of triathlon agreed that the unique challenge of training for and competing in a triathlon should not be forgotten in the futureproofing of the sport. [full text]

 

Fitbit user data could be key to swifter population flu tracking

MobiHealthNews, Dave Muoio from

By combining prior CDC data with heart rate and sleep measurements, Scripps developed a new disease tracking model that they say could deliver speedy and accurate estimates.

 

Relationship between workload, recovery and injury

Science for Sport, Francisco Tavares from

… 64 injuries occurred during the 27-week period, with 53 of them being related to overuse. 46 of the injuries did not result in any time-loss. The amount of injuries resulted in an occurrence rate of 14 injures per 1000 hours of training/game.

Weekly training loads, A:C workloads, and injury occurrence during pre-season were significantly higher than loads during the in-season. Players who had injuries (overuse and/or traumatic) had significantly higher A:C workloads and lower TQR in comparison to uninjured players. A:C workloads and TQR were found to be both a risk and a protective factor towards injury occurrence. In addition to this, the odds of athletes getting injured appear to increase by more than 3 times for players who had higher A:C workloads.

 

public lands


BLM Announces Upcoming “Fee-Free” Days on Public Lands in 2020

AllOnGeorgia from

… To encourage visitation and appreciation for America’s public lands, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that it will waive recreation-related visitor’s fees during five 2020 Fee-Free Days. On these five days, recreation-related fees for all visitors to agency-managed public lands across the nation will be waived.

 

Connect to the cold: Why you should consider winter camping

MPR News, Matt Mikus from

… “Some of the rewarding part of it is the challenge. And I enjoy a good challenge,” said Kurt Mead, an interpretive naturalist at Tettegouche State Park. “Cooking and preparing food when it’s cold is a different matter than when it’s warmer. Keeping yourself warm and dry for an extended period, you’re talking days, is a bit of a challenge. But if you’re mindful about it, you can make it happen and enjoy it.”

 

‘Influencers’ are ruining public lands — all for Instagram photo ops

TheHill, Rory Riley-Topping from

… The most obvious example of influencers misbehaving can be seen on the impact of our public lands. This past spring, the influx of social media influencers to California’s Walker Canyon during the “super bloom” caused city officials to close the area off to the public, citing both safety and ecological concerns, because influencers were repeatedly going off trails and trampling the flowers, causing severe damage to the soil and possibly preventing the flowers from returning this coming spring.

Influencers have consistently promoted other actions that are not only detrimental to our public lands but also illegal.

 

energy


The Return of the Lithium-Metal Battery

IEEE Spectrum, Jean Kumagai from

… XNRGI, based in Bothell, Wash., aims to bring lithium-metal batteries into the mainstream. Its R&D team managed to tame the reactivity of metallic lithium by depositing it into a substrate of silicon that’s been coated with thin films and etched with millions of tiny cells. The 3D substrate greatly increases the anode’s surface area compared with a traditional lithium-ion’s two-dimensional anode. When you factor in using metallic lithium instead of a compound, the XNRGI anode has up to 10 times the capacity of a traditional intercalated graphite-lithium anode, says Chris D’Couto, XNRGI’s CEO.

 

A Lithium-Ion Battery That You Can Scrunch

IEEE Spectrum, Sandy Ong from

Jenax wants to power a new generation of wearables with its flexible batteries

 

Lithium-ion batteries have shaped the modern world. But the smallest defect can result in exploding gadgets.

Twitter, WIRED Science from

Researchers thought a safer battery was possible so they created a new one that can be cut, shot, bent, and soaked without an interruption in power

 

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