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If you are doing any sport that requires high intensity sprints, bicarbonate supplementation can help you beat your competition on the track, field or wherever.

Ok, I know I may sound like a broken record, but in view of the fact that the supplement industry is only promoting expensive bogus, I won't stop promoting sodium bicarbonate, which is neither expensive nor bogus, as another recently published study just confirmed.

In the corresponding experiment, thirteen men aged 23 ± 1 year (height: 180 ± 2 cm, weight: 78 ± 3 kg; VO2max: 61.3 ± 3.3 mlO2 · kg−1 · min−1; means ± SEM) performed the Yo-Yo intermittent recovery level 2 test (Yo-Yo IR2) on two separate occasions in randomized order with (SBC) and without (CON) prior intake of sodium bicarbonate (0.4 g · kg−1 body weight).
Before we will be discussing the results, I would like to briefly explain what the YoYo Test (Level 2, which is aimed at  well trained and elite athletes) actually looks like... so here's what you'd do as a trainer / athlete:

"Use cones to mark out three lines as per the diagram above; 20 meters and 2.5 (endurance test) or 5 meters (recovery test) apart. The subject starts on or behind the middle line, and begins running 20 m when instructed by the cd. This subject turns and returns to the starting point when signaled by the recorded beep. There is a active recovery period (5 and 10 seconds respectively for the endurance and recovery versions of the test) interjected between every 20 meter (out and back) shuttle, during which the subject must walk or jog around the other cone and return to the starting point. A warning is given when the subject does not complete a successful out and back shuttle in the allocated time, the subject is removed the next time they do not complete a successful shuttle (see video example)" (topendsports.com)

As previously hinted at, there are two levels for each of the recovery and endurance intermittent tests: Level 1 designed for lesser trained individuals and level 2 aimed at well trained and elite athletes and starting at a faster speed. Both test variations have increasing speeds throughout the test.
Now that you've got an idea of what the highly trained young men who were competing in intense sports (middle-distance running, team sports and triathlon) and trained 5–7 times per week for at least 4 years when they were recruited for the study, had to do, you may be able to really appreciate the performance boost they got from nothing, but a single administration of 0.4g/kg body weight sodium bicarbonate (~31g | use the same protocol as in the study at hand, i.e. take it in ~25 gelatin capsules, with one fifth taken at 90, 80, 70, 60 and 50 min prior to exercise, or avoid the high dosage altogether by serial loading).

Figure 1: Blood pH (left) and YoYo IR2 performance (distance covered) in the control (= no supplement) and sodium bicarbonate group (Krustrup. 2015).

If you take a closer look at the individual performance benefits from the pH increase in Figure 1 (right) it is obvious that not all subjects benefited to the same extent. While one subject covered almost twice the distance when they used bicarbonate before the workout, the distance one of the subjects covered was even non-significantly reduced. Whether that's a result of gastrointestinal distress is not mentioned in the study (maybe because there was no distress with the previously described graded ingestion of sodium bicarbonate capsules).
References:

• Krustrup et al. "Sodium bicarbonate intake improves high-intensity intermittent exercise
• performance in trained young men." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition Sample 12 (2015):25.
• Saunders, Bryan, et al. "beta-alanine supplementation improves YoYo intermittent recovery test performance." J Int Soc Sports Nutr 9.1 (2012): 39.

Dude, it won't suffice to just bring your chains to the gym to show them off, you will also have to attach them to the barbell before squatting and benching to see results... and bro, the science on the benefits of elastic bands is much more solid - even though they are not as "cool"!

I've written about the use of bands and chains in previous waredownloadsoft articles, but Miguel A. Soria-Gila recent paper is the first meta-analysis that aggregates the available data to answer the important question, whether the use of "variable resistance" training (VRT), as the use of bands and chains is usually referred to in the literature, is generally advisable, or if the existing positive results are nothing but outliers.

Now, from the headline of today's waredownloadsoft article you already know that Sotia-Gila's analysis yielded positive results, or as the authors have it: " Long-term VRT training using chains or elastic bands attached to the barbell emerged as an effective evidence-based method of improving maximal strength both in athletes with different sports backgrounds and untrained subjects."
What is particularly interesting, though, is whether the statistically significant benefits are practically relevant enough for you to consider bringing your chains and/or resistance bands to the gym.

Figure 1: Relative strength increase in bench press (BP), back squat (BSQ), leg press (LP) and squat (SQ) in response to regular and variable resistance training; if not indicated otherwise, the variable resistance training was done with bands, only the study by Ghigarelli, et al. compared bands to chains (Soria-Gila. 2015).

To answer this question we need both, the relative and absolute strength increases in both, the variable resistance training (VRT) and control groups of the four pertinent studies in the meta-analysis - data I've plotted for you in Figure 1 and 2.

Figure 2: Absolute increase in 1-RM strength (all values in kg) in the respective exercises (see Figure 1 for abbreviations) in the seven 7-week plus studies that were part of the meta-analysis (Soria-Gila. 2015).

In five of the studies (indexed with "(T)" in Figure 1) the subjects were trained individuals, in the studies by Anderson (basketball and hockey players + wrestlers), Cronin and McCurdy (baseball, Division I) the subjects actually had ~3 or even more years of training experience. The results of these studies may thus be of particular interest for the average waredownloadsoft reader of whom I know that he / she is not a total foreigner to gym. If we assume that they / you would see the same benfits, the extra-increases on the bench and in the squat would be:

• An extra 5% increase in 1RM and thus 2x greater strength gains on the bench.
• An extra 11% increase in 1RM and thus 2.6x greater strength gains for squats.

In relative terms the benefits you may achieve after only 10-13 weeks are thus quite impressive. But can the same be said for the absolute extra-gains? Soria-Gila et al. report an extra strength gain of 5.03 kg (95% confidence interval: 2.26–7.80 kg) for all studies and all exercises. If we, again, consider only the bench press and the squat and eliminate the studies with untrained participants, the absolute values are much smaller: 1.8 kg and 2.7 kg, respectively.
References:

• Anderson, Corey E., Gary A. Sforzo, and John A. Sigg. "The effects of combining elastic and free weight resistance on strength and power in athletes." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 22.2 (2008): 567-574.
• Bellar, David M., et al. "The effects of combined elastic-and free-weight tension vs. free-weight tension on one-repetition maximum strength in the bench press." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 25.2 (2011): 459-463.
• Cronin, John, Peter Mcnair, and Robert Marshall. "The effects of bungy weight training on muscle function and functional performance." Journal of sports sciences 21.1 (2003): 59-71.
• Ghigiarelli, Jamie J., et al. "The effects of a 7-week heavy elastic band and weight chain program on upper-body strength and upper-body power in a sample of division 1-AA football players." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 23.3 (2009): 756-764.
• McCurdy, Kevin, et al. "Comparison of chain-and plate-loaded bench press training on strength, joint pain, and muscle soreness in Division II baseball players." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 23.1 (2009): 187-195.
• Rhea, Matthew R., Joseph G. Kenn, and Bryan M. Dermody. "Alterations in speed of squat movement and the use of accommodated resistance among college athletes training for power." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 23.9 (2009): 2645-2650.
• Shoepe, Todd, et al. "The effects of 24 weeks of resistance training with simultaneous elastic and free weight loading on muscular performance of novice lifters." Journal of human kinetics 29 (2011): 93-106.
• Soria-gila, Miguel A., et al. "Effects of variable resistance training on maximal strength: a meta-analysis." Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research/National Strength & Conditioning Association (2015): Accepted article.

If that's you. It's well possible that you've done it all wrong. Wearing the cuffs after the set may be the way to go!

You may have followed up on my recent suggested read in the waredownloadsoft Facebook News and read up on the recent scientific debate on the (non-)usefulness of training with cuffs (BFR-style). Well, after reading the full text of a recent study by Conor W. Taylor et al. (2015), I have to say: Maybe we have only done it wrong.

In their study, the researchers from the Loughborough University in Leicestershire had their subjects, 28 healthy trained males who were cycling 120 ± 66 km per week, all cuffed up after each set of a standardized sprint training. That's very dufferent from trying to sprint with cuffs on your legs (and usually reduced intensity) and appears to be - that's at least what the study results suggest - a potential game-changer.
Now, the good news is: The study involved both an acute and chronic exercise + BFR study of the effects of post-spring-training blood flow restriction.

• In Study 1, a between groups design determined whether 4 weeks (2 d/wk) of SIT (repeated 30 s maximal sprint cycling) combined with post-exercise blood flow restriction (BFR) enhanced maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) and 15km cycling time trial performance (15km-TT) compared to SIT alone (CON) in trained individuals.
• In Study 2, using a repeated measures design, participants performed an acute bout of either BFR or CON. Muscle biopsies were taken before and after exercise to examine the activation of signalling pathways regulating angiogenesis and mitochondrial biogenesis.

As a science expert you'll know that study 2 probably wouldn't have been done if the results of Study 1 had not been encouraging.

Figure 1: Pre- to post-changes in VO2max (absolute, top-right), relative (top-left), MAP (bottom-left), 15k time trial (bottom-right) | I marked the individuals who saw positive and negative effects for you, the # on the buttons indicate the number of subjects who benefited (green) or saw no / detrimental effects (orange | original data from Taylor. 2015).

"Encouraging", in this case, means that the scientists observed a highly significant VO2max with post-workout BFR by 4.5% (P = 0.01) but was unchanged after CON.The small advantage in the 15k time trial, on the other hand, did not reach statistical significance. That's "bad news", but the trend indicates that this might change with long(er) term studies.

Figure 2: Changes (%) in physiological and performance variables before and after CON and BFR training interventions (Taylor. 2015).

Whether that may change with a longer-term study will still have to be elucidated. What appears to be certain, though, is that the existing difference is not mediated by changes in PGC-1α, VEGF and VEGFR-2 mRNA expression between protocols. In fact, of all parameters the scientists tested to identify the underlying mechanism only the  mRNA levels of HIF-1α, the hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha, of which a recent paper by Lindholm and Rundquist (2015) highlights that it would be otherwise attenuated with long-term endurance exercise and thus lead to a blunted response to long-term exercise training (that's why rookies see fast results and pros only marginal results), differed significantly between groups (P = 0.04) 3 h after the cuffs were applied to the subject's legs.
References:

• Lindholm & Rundqist, et al. "Skeletal muscle HIF-1 and exercise." Experimental Physiology (2015): Accepted Article.
• Taylor, et al. "Acute and chronic effect of sprint interval training combined with post-exercise blood flow restriction in trained individuals." Experimental Physiology (2015): Accepted Article.

While many athletes use it and trainers all around the world are convinced that it works, the evidence on what exactly massage therapy does or doesn't do to an exhausted athlete's muscle and lymphatic system is scarce. Even the assumption that it helps reduce DOMS may be based on a placebo effect. After all, it's impossible to conduct a truly double-blinded massage study.

If they can afford it, athletes often employ their own massage therapist. It is commonly believed that sport massage after intensive exercise might improve power and perceptual recovery in sportsmen and -women. As Mehdi Kargarfard et al. (2015) point out in their latest paper, "few studies have been done in this area" to confirm what everyone appears to believe to be a scientific fact" (Kargarfard. 2015).

Accordingly, the researchers' latest study aimed to examine the effect of massage on the performance of bodybuilders - a group of athletes of which only few will be able to afford their own massage therapist, although they may in fact be among those athletes who could benefit most from massage therapy of which scientists believe that it reduces DOMS and speeds up recovery by removing accumulated extracellular fluid from the muscles, thus reducing swelling and pain via increased blood and lymph circulation - and at least the net outcome, i.e. a subjective reduction in DOMS (learn more) has been confirmed consistently (Bąkowski. 2008; Ali. 2012; Andersen. 2013; Visconti. 2014; Urakawa. 2015).
If we assume that the mechanism has been correctly identified, massage therapy appears to work very differently from ice-baths of which a recent study has shown that it may actually impair the training-induced adaptation process by soothing the fire that's fueling the corresponding processes (learn more in "Using Ice / Cold Water Immersion After Workouts Will Impair Muscle and Strength Gains, as well as Vascular Adaptations").

Table 1: Descriptive statistics of the participants (Kargafard. 2015).

What makes the study particularly interesting is that the N=30 subjects were all healthy young men (28.77 ± 3.54 years) who were free of any supplement and steroid use, but had at least 2 years experience in bodybuilding (Table 1). The participants were randomly assigned using the permuted block randomisation method to either a massage (n = 15) or a control (n = 15) group. Participants were excluded if they had any relative or absolute contraindications to exercise or exercise testing.

• Tests were performed 1 week prior to the commencement of the treatment protocols and conducted during an 8-week preseason training period to limit the training effect. 
• Both groups performed five repetition sets at 75–77% of 1RM of knee extensor and flexor muscle groups. The massage group then received a 30-min massage after the exercise protocol while the control group maintained their normal passive recovery. More specifically, ...

  "... the participants were asked to perform squats to 90º knee flexion for five sets at 75% 1RM until exhaustion (but not less than 10 repetitions); then they had to perform leg press to 90º knee flexion for five sets at 75–77% 1RM until exhaustion (but not less than 10 repetitions). One-minute rest intervals were given between sets. If a participant could not complete 10 repetitions without assistance from the spotters, the initial intensity was reduced until at least 10 repetitions could be achieved. This was followed by a 5-min rest and an isometric protocol to induce DOMS in the right quadriceps muscle" (Kargarfard. 2015).

• Participants’ diets and medications were recorded and remained constant throughout the experimental period, which excludes a distortion of the results.

Criteria under investigation included: plasma creatine kinase (CK) level, agility test, vertical jump test, isometric torque test, and perception of soreness.
All variables were measured over 6 time periods: baseline, immediately after the DOMS inducing protocol, right after the massage, and 24, 48, and 72 h after the massage, the scientists describe as follows:

"30-min standardised supine massage was performed by a licensed massage therapist with 3 years of experience on the exercised/right thigh of participants in the massage group after 2 h following the muscle soreness inducing exercise protocol. To maintain consistency and reproducibility for the entire massage procedure, tape-recorded messages were announced to remind the therapist when to change the massage strokes being performed. Western massage techniques of effleurage, petrissage, and vibration were used.

While there are rumors that massage therapy may also help you shed bod weight, this has been shown only for different techniques: "Electro-Cut" Your Body Fat - Study Shows 5.6 cm and 4.9% Reduction in Waist & Body Fat in Young Women in 6 Weeks

Each massage began with 4 min of effleurage consisting of 2 min of light stroking with the palm around the knee, and 2 min of light stroking over the medial thigh. Effleurage was followed by petrissage, which consisted of 2 min of twohanded palm kneading of the anterior thigh muscles, 2 min of two-handed thumb kneading over the medial thigh, 2 min of circular two-handed lifting of the anterior thigh, 1 min of pressing and spreading the tissues perpendicular to the long axis of the thigh, and 1 min of rolling the fingertips over the anterior thigh muscles. Two minutes of vibration was added between the petrissage techniques of circular lifting of the anterior thigh muscles and pressing and spreading the tissues.

The massage was then concluded with 3 min of effleurage over the anterior and medial thigh. While massages were performed on the experimental group, participants of the control group were asked to remain seated and to maintain their normal passive recovery regime as well as to refrain from performing any additional exercises or stretches"
(Kargarfard. 2015).

References:

• Ali, Rasooli S., et al. "Influence of massage, active and passive recovery on swimming performance and blood lactate." The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness 52.2 (2012): 122-127.
• Andersen, Lars L., et al. "Acute effects of massage or active exercise in relieving muscle soreness: Randomized controlled trial." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 27.12 (2013): 3352-3359.
• Andrzejewski, Waldemar, et al. "Increased skeletal muscle expression of VEGF induced by massage and exercise." Folia Histochemica et Cytobiologica 53.2 (2015): 145-151.
• Bąkowski, Paweł, et al. "Effects of massage on delayed-onset muscle soreness." Polish Orthopedics and Traumatology 73.4 (2008): 261-265.
• Kargarfard, M, et al. "Efficacy of massage on muscle soreness, perceived recovery, physiological restoration and physical performance in male bodybuilders." Journal of Sports Sciences (2015): Ahead of print.
• MacDonald, Graham Z., et al. "An acute bout of self-myofascial release increases range of motion without a subsequent decrease in muscle activation or force." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 27.3 (2013): 812-821.
• MacDonald, Graham Z., et al. "Foam rolling as a recovery tool after an intense bout of physical activity." Med Sci Sports Exerc 46.1 (2014): 131-142.
• Pearcey, Gregory EP, et al. "Foam rolling for delayed-onset muscle soreness and recovery of dynamic performance measures." Journal of athletic training 50.1 (2015): 5-13.
• Urakawa, Susumu, et al. "Manual therapy ameliorates delayed‐onset muscle soreness and alters muscle metabolites in rats." Physiological reports 3.2 (2015): e12279.
• Visconti, Lorenzo, et al. "Effect of massage on DOMS in ultramarathon runners: A pilot study." Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (2014).