Mr Price recently moved from Western Australia where he completed his Exercise Science Undergraduate and Honours degrees while working with both men’s and women’s teams in the Western Australian Football League (WAFL). Continuing on from Jake Jennings, who is set to submit his PhD thesis in the coming weeks, Lachlan will spend the next three years embedded in the La Trobe University Bendigo Pioneers team conducting research and improving player performance.

“I’m excited to work within the AFL Victoria system and the Coates Talent League. Some of Australia’s best AFL talent is being produced here along with some of the best coaches and medical teams”.

“I’m interested in learning more around how our physical and technical training approaches can influence performance, but also how they can improve development”.

PhD supervisor, Associate Brett Gordon, said La Trobe University in Bendigo is looking forward to strengthening its relationship with the Pioneers throughout the course of this PhD.

“We observed such great benefits for both organisations with the previous industry funded PhD, which saw Jake Jennings embedded with the Bendigo Pioneers for three years. We can only anticipate similar outcomes with Lachlan as we look to extend the work previously started”.

The Coates Talent League is the country’s premiere under-18 Australian rules football competition.

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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.

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The HRI Director and Stream Leaders have had the privilege of supervising a number of higher degree by research students since the Holsworth Research Initiative began in 2019. These students now work across a broad range of industries including academia, applied sports science and clinical practice.

In this new series, we will update our subscribers on where our past HDR students are now and how their research degree with the La Trobe Health School and the Holsworth Research Initiative helped shape their career.

Part 6: Dr Paul Xanthos, Teaching-Focused Lecturer, Sport and Exercise Science, La Trobe University

Part Six of our Where Are They Now blog series features Dr Paul Xanthos, a previous PhD student of the HRI and a current Teaching-Focused Lecturer in the discipline of Sport and Exercise Science at La Trobe University.

Dr Paul Xanthos completed his PhD in 2019 under the supervision of HRI Director Professor Michael Kingsley and Active Rural Individuals Stream Leader Associate Professor Brett Gordon. During his PhD studies, Dr Xanthos developed a relationship with cardiology department staff members at Bendigo Health including the Director of Cardiology, Dr Voltaire Nadurata. It was through this relationship with Bendigo Health and the cardiac rehabilitation team that Dr Xanthos was able to recruit participants for his intervention studies.

Cardiac rehabilitation in regional Australia

Dr Xanthos and his supervisory team investigated the functional outcomes from exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation in regional Australia. The submitted thesis consisted of a series of four studies with two published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

A comparison of age-standardised event rates for acute and chronic coronary heart disease in metropolitan and regional/remote Victoria. A retrospective cohort study.

The effectiveness of an Australian cardiac rehabilitation program following current national guidelines

Implementing resistance training in the rehabilitation of coronary heart disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Are changes in physical and cardiovascular function effected by shorter-duration cardiac rehabilitation that includes resistance training?

Dr Xanthos’s PhD consisted of a systematic review and meta-analysis, two cohort studies and a randomised control trial. The main findings from these studies were;

# Increasing chronic coronary heart disease event rates in Victoria and higher acute and chronic CHD event rates in regional/remote areas when compared to metropolitan areas, highlight the need to enhance secondary prevention measures, particularly in regional locations.

# The lack of systematic progression in exercise volume undertaken throughout standard-care cardiac rehabilitation suggests that standard-care cardiac rehabilitation might not elicit sufficient physiological adaptation in some patients to change physical function or arterial stiffness.

# Modifying standard-care cardiac rehabilitation to include purposefully prescribed resistance training can improve physical function.

# In practice, cardiovascular function did not appear to further improve after a shorter-duration combined purposefully prescribed resistance training and aerobic training CR program when compared to a longer aerobic-based CR program.

# Purposeful exercise prescription appears required to maximise improvements in physical and cardiovascular function after cardiac rehabilitation.

A focus on teaching craft

Dr Xanthos currently works for our very own La Trobe University and is based on the Bundoora campus where he teaches undergraduate sport and exercise science students. He is also currently completing a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education which he is expecting to complete by the end of 2022. Although the scope to apply his research findings has been limited, Dr Xanthos reports incorporating his research experience into teaching, particularly regarding exercise testing. When asked about his career aspirations, Dr Xanthos expressed his enjoyment of his current role and the desire to further develop his teaching craft to help develop high-quality sport and exercise science graduates. The temptation of academia remains though, with Dr Xanthos reporting a longer-term goal of a research-related career where he can focus on using exercise to improve both health and athletic performance outcomes.

Up next week is Part seven of our 8-part blog series. We will be following up with Dr Samantha May, a Sport and Exercise Medicine Registrar with Alphington Sports Medicine Clinic and Club Doctor for the Melbourne Vixens Netball Team.

Missed our previous posts in this series? Read them at the HRI blog using the links below and while you’re there, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter so you can stay informed of all the latest HRI news.

Bendigo local GP Dr Stephen Bovalino

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Mid-Sweden University Dr Craig Staunton

Allied Health Education & Research Manager at Goulburn Valley Health, Dr Emma Macdonald

Allied Health Research and Knowledge Translation Lead, Bendigo Health, Dr Stephen Barrett

High Performance Manager at Old Scotch Football Club, Dr Jodie Palmer

The post Dr Paul Xanthos appeared first on Holsworth Research Initiative.

This study was made possible as a result of funding received from the Holsworth Research Initiative Small Grant Scheme. Holsworth Research Initiative Stream Leaders Associate Professor Brett Gordon and Dr Daniel Wundersitz co-authored the paper with Associate Professor Gordon recently highlighting the importance of such research to regional and rural areas.

It is important to identify potential treatments for obesity as we know that regional and rural areas have greater rates of obesity and more commonly poorer health outcomes. 

Dr Van Schaik is quick to understate the findings in terms of weight loss and caffeine and capsicum annuum fruit powder supplementation as a potential treatment for obesity but does suggest that the results provide a basis for pharmacologically targeting the receptors on adipose tissue that caffeine and capsicum annuum fruit powder act upon.

Dr Van Schaik isn’t trying to minimise his findings, he is acknowledging the preliminary nature of the investigation and that although supplementation in the present study resulted in a large effect on glucose metabolism, it is still unknown what drives this response. He suggests that the reduction in blood glucose levels due to caffeine and capsicum annuum fruit powder supplementation could be due to changes in insulin signalling and that this is a logical direction for future research. Dr Van Schaik also proposes that the study should be replicated in different cohorts including women, overweight individuals and those experiencing metabolic dysfunction to determine if caffeine and capsicum annuum fruit powder supplementation has the same outcomes on energy metabolism, fat oxidation and glucose homeostasis.

Congratulations to Dr Lachlan Van Schaik and his research team on contributing to the literature on such an important topic! You can read the full article published in Frontiers in Physiology here.

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World-leading expert in cardiac rehabilitation and disease prevention, Dr Carl “Chip” Lavie, presented a seminar titled Exercise is Medicine to La Trobe staff, students and alumni and members of our industry partner organisations on Tuesday August 16. Dr Lavie presented his body of research supporting the use of exercise as medicine including specific information around the efficacy, dosing, adverse effects and toxicity.

Dr Lavie has been involved with the HRI since 2020, contributing as a co-author on two papers alongside the Initiative’s Director, Professor Michael Kingsley and Stream Leads Associate Professor Brett Gordon and Dr Daniel Wundersitz. An initial systematic review reporting on heart health and endurance exercise was published in 2020 with a follow up intervention study completed earlier this year.

We at the Holsworth Research Initiative are very grateful to Dr Lavie for his time and look forward to continuing to work alongside him in future research endeavors.

If you missed the seminar or would like to watch it again, please use the links below.

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Research from the Active Rural Individuals stream is focused on helping people safely and effectively manage health conditions through exercise.

The La Trobe Make a Difference campaign

The fundraising campaign “Make a Difference” launched in 2017. The second phase launched in 2018 once initial targets were met with the campaign now extended, with a $200 million target to be reached by 2027. We at the Holsworth Research Initiative are proud to be a part of this milestone.

Watch the Make the Difference campaign video.

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Physical activity and exercise guidelines are fairly broad – 150-300 mins of moderate exercise per week, and 2 bouts of resistance training per week. Brett wants to narrow down these recommendations for people living with chronic conditions. He has three major studies underway.

Exercise frequency and cardio

The first study is the impact of exercise frequency on cardiac rehabilitation. Brett and his team worked with Bendigo Health to modify their approach to cardiac rehab. They found it was more effective if they increased the frequency and reduced the duration. Now they are following up to see if the long term benefits are still there, but all the evidence that we have suggests that they are.

Increase frequency and reduce duration: two exercise sessions per week for six weeks were just as effective as one exercise session a week for twelve weeks

Exercise and blood glucose levels

Brett’s second long-term study is on the impact of exercise intensity and frequency on blood glucose levels in people who are overweight and not exercising and at risk of developing diabetes and heart disease. Here, the team found that intensity of exercise doesn’t matter. Even moderate exercise, like walking or stair-climbing, lowers the amount of blood glucose.

Three times a day: ten minutes of exercise after each of the three main meals has more impact than one bout of thirty minutes exercise after dinner.

Resistance training

Brett’s third study focuses on the impact of resistance training. Historically, resistance training has meant travelling to a dedicated fitness centre but he is now starting to look at ways to implement resistance training just using people’s own body weight or with things they might have sitting around at home.

Resistance training reduces fatigue: build short bouts of resistance training in with walking exercise with people with diabetes and pre-diabetes to double up on the health advantage.

Want to learn more?

You can read the published article here.

Holsworth Research initiative aims

Brett is using the Holsworth Research Initiative funding to further his mission, in support of the Holsworth Research Initiative aims to:

• optimise function and performance for all individuals, and
• address the global challenges of inactivity and chronic disease

We look forward to bringing you more updates on Brett’s research. Stay tuned to this space!

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Brett Gordon researches how to prescribe safe, effective exercise for people with underlying health conditions, like diabetes and pre-diabetes, obesity and cardiac conditions. He wants to develop ways to help people manage their conditions through exercise, safely and effectively.

This is a research story all about movement, both metaphorically and literally. For a start, Brett moved a lot when he was young. His father was a bank manager in rural towns, and moved every few years. Brett reckons he had lived in ten small towns before he was eighteen.

On the move again

Brett’s research journey really started at the Austin Hospital building exercise prescriptions for people with cardiac disease. Cardiac disease is one of the major causes of mortality and morbidity in the world today yet only 20-30% of people who have a cardiac event attend rehab sessions. At the time, the beneficial effects of exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation were developing but the implementation was not consistent. He decided to research how to improve it, so people can get maximum benefit from their exercise, and reduce their risk of having another cardio-vascular event.

He went on to study how people with chronic fatigue syndrome and diabetes can best manage their condition with exercise, and found that resistance training was a safe method that actually reduced their fatigue and improved wellbeing.

La Trobe Bendigo teaching & research success

Meanwhile, Brett was ‘on the move’ in other ways. He was keen to return to the regions so took the opportunity to work with La Trobe Bendigo. Brett is proud of his department’s teaching success and how it interacts with La Trobe Rural Health School research.

Demographics show that people who live in regions are at higher risk of developing heart diseases and diabetes. It is vital to provide expert evidence-based exercise prescriptions for people living with chronic conditions in the regions. This will reduce heavier health problems like the cardiac consequences of diabetes.

With Bendigo’s exercise physiology teaching program, Brett feels La Trobe is building an expert workforce to help take the department’s research into the community and improve the health and well-being of regional people.

“Every year we have 20 to 30 students graduate as exercise physiologists from Bendigo campus and 80% of them work in the regions. That’s a huge contribution, every year, to regional health and well-being.”

Holsworth Research initiative aims

Brett is using the Holsworth Research Initiative funding to further his mission:

“We know exercise is a great help in managing cardiac and metabolic conditions but it is so hard to keep going. We want to make sure  that we can prescribe exercise so that people can exercise in safe and effective ways.”

We look forward to bringing you more updates on Brett’s research. Stay tuned to this space.

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A/Prof Gordon and his research team are keenly interested in how exercise professionals can help people living with chronic conditions get “the best bang for their buck” when they exercise.

As Brett says:

Exercise is a proven way for people to control their blood glucose levels and prevent chronic disease states like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, especially for people living with or at risk of diabetes. But which exercise is best for people living with these conditions?

High intensity or resistance exercise?

Research has shown that short, vigorous bouts of exercise lower blood glucose, which is great news as high levels of blood glucose is bad for tissues and organs, such as kidneys, eyes and nerves, and is a key driver in developing diabetes.

Brett and his team set out to find out if high intensity exercise, such as cycling, or resistance exercise (sets or ‘reps’ of repeated lifting and lowering exercise) were equally good at controlling blood glucose levels.

Knowing which exercise method is best will help exercise physiologists decide whether prescribing high intensity exercise or resistance exercise gives people the best tools for maintaining their health.

Advantages and disadvantages

• High intensity exercise often requires expensive equipment (such as a bicycle) or high impact activities, such as going to gym classes. It is also viewed as more “enjoyable” than continuous exercise.
• Resistance exercise is low cost and can be completed at home with or without specialised equipment, but has not been investigated for its enjoyment.

Blood glucose and stress hormones

A/Prof Gordon and his team asked volunteers to trial both the high intensity interval exercise (using an exercise bike) and the resistance exercise (using sets or ‘reps’ of squats, calf raises and an incline leg press). They measured the amount of glucose in the blood before, during and after exercise.

• They found that high intensity interval exercise could cause a marked rise in blood glucose for the hour following exercise.
• This change in blood glucose was not seen after resistance exercise, meaning that this might be a better way for people with chronic conditions to maintain their health.

Why is resistance training better for people with diabetes?

• It seems that the stress hormone, cortisol, released during exercise influences how the body uses or produces glucose.
• High intensity interval exercise uses both aerobic and anaerobic energy systems while resistance exercise primarily uses the anaerobic energy system.
• Resistance exercise promotes the uptake of glucose from blood without stimulating glucose production.

Brett is keen to stress that:

This is a preliminary “proof of concept” study into the fascinating and complex interaction between hormones, blood glucose, exercise, and energy-systems.

He and his team hope to build on this research to further explore how hormones influence the body’s energy-system use, and the impact of this on exercise so they can pin-point the best ways for people to exercise and maintain their health.

We look forward to providing future updates on this research.

Do you want to learn more?

Read their paper on glucose responses to exercise.

This research fits with the Holsworth Research Initiative aim:

To address the global challenges of inactivity and chronic disease

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Dr Gordon has received funding from the Holsworth Research Initiative in the La Trobe Rural Health School to investigate if dietary supplements containing caffeine and capsaicin (the active component of chili peppers) can help maintain weight loss. As he says:

It is important to identify potential treatments for obesity as we know that regional and rural areas have greater rates of obesity and more commonly poorer health outcomes. At the moment it is particularly important to manage conditions like obesity as that has been identified as a condition more commonly associated with worse outcomes if COVID-19 is contracted.

Obesity: a global challenge

This research addresses one of the key aims of the Holsworth Research Initiative:

to address the global challenges of inactivity and chronic disease

Adult weight gain and obesity are worldwide problems. Among developed countries, Australia has one of the highest proportions of overweight and obese people. Weight gain leads to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, obesity-related cancers and osteoarthritis.

Can Caffeine and Capsaicin save the day?

Caffeine and capsaicin are two cost-effective and safe, natural supplements that show promise in assisting people to manage and maintain weight loss.

Further research is needed to discover the best ways that they can be used (alongside diet and exercise) to manage weight loss, maintain weight loss and ultimately reduce the risks of chronic disease.

Weight loss is hard and expensive

When people lose weight by calorie restriction and exercise the weight is almost always regained over time because the body is programmed to resist weight loss. Further, prescription weight loss drugs are expensive and can have negative side effects, so many people are turning to alternatives.

The research team hopes that this study will help understand how the body balances energy consumption and expenditure and identify the ways in which caffeine and capsaicin increase energy consumption. This will pave the way for more research in the future.

We look forward to providing regular updates on this project.

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