In the episode ‘Run Before You Can Walk’, Jenny and Frank discuss the physical activity tests that they undertook under the guidance of the HRI team when they visited the La Trobe University Flora Hill campus in September this year. Brett, Blake and Dan were able to provide Frank and Jenny with an overall assessment of their health and function after their body composition was examined, aerobic and anaerobic fitness measured and their muscular strength, endurance and power determined.

Using state of the art equipment within the La Trobe Rural Health School Exercise Physiology laboratory, Frank and Jenny undertook a Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry (DEXA) scan, blood glucose test, isokinetic dynamometry, Wingate Anaerobic Test and Maximal Aerobic Test (V̇O₂ max). See below footage of Frank performing a Maximal Aerobic Test and listen to the podcast episode ‘Run Before You Can Walk’ in full on Spotify and Apple.

The post Holsworth Research Initiative Stream Leads feature in Spirit Levels Podcast appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

Professor Redfern presented an overview of her heart disease research with a particular focus on Solve CHD, a 5-year NHMRC Synergy Grant with the aim of transforming post-discharge secondary CHD prevention and reducing the burden of heart disease by decreasing deaths, hospitalisations and costs. Did you miss the presentation? Catch it in full on the Holsworth Research Initiative Youtube channel. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep informed on our latest research news and any upcoming events.

The post HRI Seminar Series: Professor Julie Redfern appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

The Holsworth Research Initiative is excited to announce that Dr Carl “Chip” Lavie will be presenting at the La Trobe Rural Health School online seminar in August. Join us on Tuesday August 16 at 9 am for Dr Lavie’s presentation titled “Exercise is Medicine-Emphasis on Efficacy, Dosing, Adverse Effects/Toxicity”. The author of over 1500 medical publications including two cardiology textbooks, and nearly 60 book chapters, you don’t want to miss this opportunity to see Dr Carl Lavie present.

Register here

The post World leading expert in cardiac rehabilitation and disease prevention to present at upcoming seminar appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

Following on from the first Holsworth Research Initiative Seminar of 2022 featuring A/Prof Monica Maly is the La Trobe Rural Health School Seminar Series. The June seminar will feature Dr Stephen Barrett, a HRI affiliated researcher representing the Active Rural Communities stream. Dr Barrett will present on physical activity promotion by physiotherapists and exercise physiologists in a public hospital setting. This presentation will explore barriers and enablers to physical activity promotion.

Dr Barrett is a physiotherapist at Bendigo Health, and an Adjunct Research Fellow within the La Trobe Rural Health School. He completed his PhD thesis in 2021 investigating pathways to increase preventive health interventions in ambulatory hospital settings. Dr Barrett continues to conduct research that aligns with his interests including health behaviour change and preventative health with a particular focus on changes in physical activity.

Join us for the La Trobe Rural Health School Seminar Series on Monday 20 June at 1:00 pm via Zoom

If you want to know more about Dr Barrett’s research with the HRI team including the Initiative’s Director, Prof Michael Kingsley and Stream Lead, A/Prof Steve Begg, read his latest published work.

Barrett, S., Begg, S., O’Halloran, P., Howlett, O., Lawrence, J., & Kingsley, M. (2021). The effect of behaviour change interventions on changes in physical activity and anthropometrics in ambulatory hospital settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 18(1), 1-19.

Barrett, S., Begg, S., O′ Halloran, P., & Kingsley, M. (2021). The effect of a physical activity coaching intervention on accelerometer-measured sedentary behaviours in insufficiently physically active ambulatory hospital patients. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(11), 5543.

The post La Trobe Rural Health School Research Seminar Series 2022 appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

Our HRI Research Seminar Series has returned for 2022!

Representing the Human Performance stream, A/Prof Monica Maly joined us (virtually!) all the way from Canada. A/Prof Maly is the Director of the Mobilize Clinical Biomechanics Laboratory in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo. Her seminar presented on the role of exercising biomechanics to improve care in knee osteoarthritis.

A/Prof Maly has very kindly given permission for the HRI to share her presentation slides below. If you missed out on the presentation, watch it in full on the HRI Youtube channel.

The post HRI Seminar Series 2022 #1 appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

Regional cities like Bendigo are ideal for cyclists as many trips are less than 4 kilometres so easily achievable on a bike. Plus, COVID gave cycling a huge boost as people rediscovered cycling during the lockdowns. They dusted off their old bikes for exercise and bought new bikes – until the shops ran out!

But there are barriers in the way:

• The number of people riding bikes regularly has dropped from 18% In 2008 to 14% in 2021
• Only 20% of the regional population ride regularly, and
• Women make up only 25% of riders

The number of women riders is key to increasing bike riding in the community, as women are the gatekeepers to children taking up riding – and their perception of the safety of cycling, for themselves and their kids, is the biggest hurdle.

Getting more people on bikes

First, government involvement is key. We Ride Australia engages with city planners and policy makers at the federal, state and local government levels and they encourage active tourism, such as the Mount Alexander mountain bike trails. As Peter says:

Good bike investment in good locations leads to great outcomes.

To engage government, we need to show how bikes are good both for health and the economy. For example:

• a person who rides to work takes on average one less sick day per year, and
• 5 times more jobs are created for every dollar spent on bicycle infrastructure than any other transport infrastructure.

Plus more bikes on the road mean less congestion as this photo (from Canberra) so graphically shows – the same number of people, and their vehicles, is in each picture.

Finally, research from the City of Portland (USA) has identified four different kind of riders:

Cycling for more than the One Percent

To grow cycling we need to engage with the 60% of people who would ride more if they felt safer. To do this we need to:

• Make bike infrastructure safer and more attractive, for example with direct routes and better lighting, and
• Slow down car speeds – by dropping speeds from 60 to 30 km per hour in connector streets

As Peter says:

Low speed environments are the best way to introduce good bike infrastructure without spending too much money.

E-bikes for Equity and Mobility

E-bikes are great for people with a disability or injury, those who are less fit, and those want to commute to work on a bike without breaking a sweat.

Australia Post has found that e-bikes can carry more parcels than a motorbike, and Dominos Pizza have found them the fastest way to deliver pizzas.

Get involved!

HRI researcher Dr Rodrigo Rico Bini is planning to research e-bike use in Bendigo so keep an eye on this blog for more information – and the opportunity to take part in an exercise trial!

The post The Bicycle – a solution for all communities appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

How to stage successful physical activity interventions

At the March 2021 La Trobe Rural Health School research seminar, Steve Barrett presented on his work  developing an intervention that integrated motivational interviewing with cognitive behaviour therapy to help patients attending Bendigo Health orthopedic and general clinics improve their levels of physical activity. The intervention resulted in significant and cost-effective changes in physical activity in patients who self-selected into a randomised control trial for the research program.

As recruiting individuals via self-selection was unlikely to engage with ambivalent and disinterested individuals, Steve then liaised with consulting surgeons to instigate behaviour change contemplation in their patients. First he  identified factors influencing surgeons’ decision-making in undertaking health promotion activities. He used this research to inform a pathway to encourage surgeons to refer insufficiently physically active patients to a behaviour change intervention.  He found that the surgeon’s referral resulted in significant and maintained increases in physical activity in their patients.

Physical activity and behaviour change

Engaging people attending hospital clinics in behaviour change interventions results in maintained improvements in physical activity and other health-related outcomes. Steve found that:

• engagement with practicing clinicians is essential in facilitating integrating preventive health interventions in routine care, and
• understanding the clinicians’ perspectives and the co-design of simple referral pathways facilitates the integration of effective preventive health practice into standard care.

Steve will continue to research recommendations for clinicians and researchers to inform effective behaviour change interventions aimed at promoting health in ambulatory secondary care.

Steve’s research supports the Holsworth Research Initiative’s aim to:

address the global challenges of inactivity and chronic disease

Do you want to find out more?

Read the journal articles resulting from this study:

The effect of behaviour change interventions on changes in physical activity and anthropometrics in ambulatory hospital settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis. (2021).

A physical activity coaching intervention can improve and maintain physical activity and health-related outcomes in adult ambulatory hospital patients: the Healthy4U-2 randomised controlled trial. (2021)

Cost-effectiveness of telephone coaching for physically inactive ambulatory care hospital patients: economic evaluation alongside the Healthy4U randomised controlled trial (2019)

Surgeons and preventive health: a mixed methods study of current practice, beliefs and attitudes influencing health promotion activities amongst public hospital surgeons (2019).

Integrated motivational interviewing and cognitive behaviour therapy can increase physical activity and improve health of adult ambulatory care patients in a regional hospital: the Healthy4U randomised controlled trial. (2018)

Integrated motivational interviewing and cognitive behaviour therapy for lifestyle mediators of overweight and obesity in community-dwelling adults: a systematic review and meta-analyses (2018)

The post Behaviour Change Interventions in Hospital Clinics appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

Our next Active Rural Individuals seminar will be held from 1-2 pm on Wednesday 25 November.  Dr Jonathan Rawstorn will present on a 21st century (pandemic-friendly) approach to delivering exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation. Dr Rawston is a Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Deakin University’s Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN). His telerehabilitation research focuses on program design, development, evaluation and, most recently, translation into clinical practice.

Register for this event by clicking on this link and following the prompts: https://hri-active-rural-individuals-webinar.eventbrite.com.au

The Violet Marshman Oration

We’d also like to give a shout out to our colleauges in the Violet Vines Marshman Centre for Rural Health Research. They will be holding their annual Violet Marsham Oration on Tuesday 24 November from 4:00 pm to 5:15 pm. Click on this link to register:

https://www.latrobe.edu.au/events/all/violet-marshman-oration-with-magda-szubanski-ao

Award-winning actor Magda Szubanski AO will discuss the negative impact of social media on mental health, achieving positive social change even during a COVID lockdown, and her work with Phoenix Australia to create a program which provides best practice PTSD skills for disaster impacted communities.

The post Active Rural Individuals Webinar appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

A seat belt won’t save you if you drive a glass car

What lies behind a reported factor such as increase in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in women athletes when compared to men? Professor Nimphius argued that women athletes may not have access to top quality training in their formative athletic years, as there are less funds available for womens sport and coaches are less likely to be professional accredited than those in male sport. Structural inequities in the training for female athletes “set them up to fail” then blame them “for being female” when they get injured.

Control for the right factors

Studies that have compared men and women athletes for injury risk and performance have often not controlled for factors such as height, strength or motor experience. Once these factors are normalised the differences disappear or reduce to a value questionable in explaining injury risk. In fact, there is more overlap between men and women athletes than conclusions lead us to believe. Commonly modifiable variables likely explain the differences purposed to be sex/gender “specific”.

You run like a girl

Professor Nimphius also reinforced the role of self-efficacy in performance: athletes have to believe they are at their best in order to perform at their best. If a coach or an athlete believes there are inherent non-modifiable factors that limit athletic performance, if they believe in sayings such as “you run like a girl”, then their expectations of female athletic performance are going to be lower. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Making broad claims about groups does not help anyone.

Professor Nimphius concluded that research, and society, need to focus on the capability of the person, rather than the gender/sex of the person. She challenged the audience to examine the language of sex/gender difference in sports research and their own assumptions about female athletes, strength and injury. So much of the debate around female athletes and injury risk is based on ‘biological sex differences’ which is simply a way of saying the injury risk is inherent and nothing can be done about it, when these outcomes may really be the result of disadvantages inherent in an inequitable training system and the methodological bias of the research studies that support these findings. We must continue to challenge historical studies and critique the methodology of sports research studies to optimise the best research to support peak athletic performance.

Session recording

If you would like to hear Professor Nimphius’s presentation in full please follow the link below and use the password x@H++v6Bl1Dh

Failing by design in understanding female athletes (97.9 MB)

Further reading

Exercise and sport science failing by design in understanding female athletes

Comparison of quadriceps and hamstring muscle activity during an isometric squat between strength-matched men and women

Biological system energy algorithm reflected in sub-system joint work distribution movement strategies

The post Failing by design in understanding female athletes appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

Failing by design in understanding female athletes

Holsworth Research Initiative and the La Trobe Rural Health School are delighted to present our next Human Performance research webinar.

When: 11 am to 12 noon, Wednesday 23 September

Presenter: Professor Sophia Nimphius

HRI Research Theme:  Human Performance

Register here

For as much as we think we know about female athletes, their performance capability and particularly the reasons behind their risk of injury, how much of it is accurate? Is the rigour of research and balance of argument present? In this presentation, we will explore the “truths” told about female athletes and explore the research, systems and bigger picture that is being highlighted as a second surge of “Women in Sport” takes stage. Using the now infamous ACL injury as an example, we will re-visit the previously used biomechanical, physiological and motor behavioural factors stated to explain the injury rate of female athletes and ask the question; are they being framed?

Presenter

Sophia Nimphius is currently a Professor at Edith Cowan University (ECU) and Analyst/S&C Coach for the Junior Spirit (Australian U19 Women’s team). She was previously Sports Science Manager at Surfing Australia Hurley High Performance Centre and High Performance Manager for Softball Western Australia as part of a collaboration with ECU. As a passionate advocate and mentor for women and under-represented groups, she strives to enhance their representation in science, technology, engineering and math with a particular interest in driving their representation in high-performance sport positions. She contributes to many committees and boards to help drive systemic change and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD) and member of the Australian Centre for Research into Injury in Sport and its Prevention (ACRISP) at ECU; one of the International Research Centres for the Prevention of Injury and Protection of Athlete Health supported by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The post Human Performance Research Webinar appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.