Ice slurry ingestion does not enhance self‐paced intermittent exercise in the heat

Abstract

Insect pollination underpins apple production but the extent to which different pollinator guilds supply this service, particularly across different apple varieties, is unknown. Such information is essential if appropriate orchard management practices are to be targeted and proportional to the potential benefits pollinator species may provide. Here we use a novel combination of pollinator effectiveness assays (floral visit effectiveness), orchard field surveys (flower visitation rate) and pollinator dependence manipulations (pollinator exclusion experiments) to quantify the supply of pollination services provided by four different pollinator guilds to the production of four commercial varieties of apple. We show that not all pollinators are equally effective at pollinating apples, with hoverflies being less effective than solitary bees and bumblebees, and the relative abundance of different pollinator guilds visiting apple flowers of different varieties varies significantly. Based on this, the taxa specific economic benefits to UK apple production have been established. The contribution of insect pollinators to the economic output in all varieties was estimated to be £92.1M across the UK, with contributions varying widely across taxa: solitary bees (£51.4M), honeybees (£21.4M), bumblebees (£18.6M) and hoverflies (£0.7M). This research highlights the differences in the economic benefits of four insect pollinator guilds to four major apple varieties in the UK. This information is essential to underpin appropriate investment in pollination services management and provides a model that can be used in other entomolophilous crops to improve our understanding of crop pollination ecology.

Intermittent sprint performance in the heat is not altered by augmenting thermal perception via L-Menthol or Capsaicin mouth rinses

“…During intermittent sprint exercise in the heat for example, ice slurry consumption reduced core temperature (start of protocol -0.5°C, end of protocol -0.3°C) and thermal sensation (-3) but did not influence the total distance covered or speed during jog, run and sprint phases of the protocol (Gerrett et al 2017). As skin temperature and RPE were not different, the authors concluded, in congruence with previous work (Duffield and Marino, 2007), that combined alterations in core and skin temperature are necessary for influencing intermittent sprint performance in the heat (Gerrett et al 2017). The CISP has been utilised in experiments where various manipulations of temperature perception and actual temperature have occurred.…”

“…This approach is such that it may facilitate different responses due to the elevation in pacing associated with these tasks, differentiating it from the CISP which implements fixed duration and fixed frequency of sprinting. In light of alterations in both low and high intensity running with heat stress (Konefal et al 2014;Nassis et al 2015;Watanabe et al 2017), changes in these movement velocities could also be quantified using this approach in a similar manner to other work (Gerrett et al 2017). Finally, the CISP is only 40 min in duration and therefore only replicates the first half of a field-based team sport.…”

A Matter of Degrees: A Systematic Review of the Ergogenic Effect of Pre-Cooling in Highly Trained Athletes

“…Regarding sport modality, studies included a wide variety of athletes, both individual (cyclists [18,19,24,30,[37][38][39][40][41][42], runners [20][21][22]43], triathletes [23][24][25]42], and tennis players [26]), and team-sport players (covering cricket [27][28][29], soccer [31], lacrosse [32], and other non-specified team sports [33]). Furthermore, three studies included volunteers who recreationally practice various sport activities [34][35][36]. Table 1 summarizes the main results of the selected studies.…”

“…All the studies analyzed the acute effects of pre-cooling on sports performance and compared it with non-pre-cooling controls. A total of 20 studies evaluated external techniques through 28 interventions [18][19][20][21][22][24][25][26][27][28][29][31][32][33][37][38][39][40][41]43], 8 assessed internal techniques (intake of ice or cold water) [23,30,31,[34][35][36]42,43], and 3 investigated mixed strategies (a combination of external and internal methods) [31,40,43].…”

Paper Selection Leads to a Misleading Conclusion: Updated Evidence of Ice Slurry Ingestion on Endurance Performance

“…When it comes to the measurement of elite endurance performance, a time trial off ers direct assessment and time to exhaustion as well provides reliable prediction of endurance capacity (Amann, Hopkins, & Marcora, 2008). Gerrett et al (2017) measured eff ect of ice slurry ingestion on self-paced intermittent exercise, the test of which was originally designed for soccer-specifi c intermittent movements primarily taxing the anaerobic capacity. Th is study clearly did not assess the specifi c construct of endurance capacity for the purpose of their meta-analysis.…”