Exercise can provide a much-needed mental health boost during the COVID-19 pandemic. But stress and anxiety may hold you back, new research suggests. According to a survey by researchers at McMaster University in Canada, some people may need mental health support to exercise during the pandemic. “Maintaining a regular exercise program is difficult at the…  read on >  read on >

Young baseball players are at risk for overuse injuries, but there are ways to play it safe and prevent such problems, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) says. “Overhead athletes, such as baseball players, place significant repetitive stress on the shoulder and elbow joints,” orthopedic sports surgeon Dr. Nima Mehran said in an academy…  read on >  read on >

Dialysis is time-consuming, making it hard for kidney failure patients to keep fit. But cycling during treatment sessions could boost patients’ heart health and cut medical costs, new research shows. Dialysis can lead to long-term scarring of the heart, which can eventually lead to heart failure, so British researchers decided to find out if exercise…  read on >  read on >

Exercise guards against a host of chronic diseases that can plague people as they age, but can it also protect against severe cases of COVID-19? New research suggests that’s so: Being physically active reduced COVID-19 patients’ risk of hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admission and death, and even being just somewhat active provided some protection.…  read on >  read on >

A cloth mask can limit your ability to exercise, so it might be a good idea to alter your workouts when wearing one, researchers say. Some previous studies have assessed how surgical face masks might impact exercise, but few have looked at cloth masks. In a new study, researchers compared the exercise performance of 31…  read on >  read on >

Most people are familiar with common sun-protection advice, from wearing and reapplying sunscreen to putting on a hat. But a new Canadian study finds that for people who take certain blood pressure medications, that advice becomes even more critical because those drugs can increase their sensitivity to the sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays. The researchers…  read on >  read on >

Turning down the music at your fitness classes won’t affect the intensity of your workout, researchers say. It’s common for fitness instructors to crank up the volume — sometimes to levels loud enough to damage hearing — because they think it will help students work harder. But researchers at the University of Maryland School of…  read on >  read on >