☕️ S&C Daily — The Jump That Catches Fatigue First

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A recent Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research study tested whether the countermovement rebound jump - a max countermovement jump immediately followed by a fast rebound off the landing - reads neuromuscular fatigue better than the standard CMJ.

Across two games, 29 Division I college football players jumped 24 hours before and 24 and 72 hours after. The rebound jump picked up clear drops in power, RSImod, and jump height at 24 hours post-game, recovering by 72 - and proved more sensitive to acute fatigue than the standard jump, while certain CMJ metrics better tracked how game load shaped recovery. The authors call it a time-efficient tool for spotting post-game fatigue.

Oklahoma has hired Abigail O'Connor as associate AD for performance nutrition, AD Roger Denny announced. O'Connor spent eight years at Michigan, where she oversaw all of the football program's nutrition and was its performance dietitian through three Big Ten titles and the 2023 national championship, eventually rising to director of football performance nutrition.

She's also a certified strength and conditioning coach. She reunites in Norman with new OU football administrator Mark Taurisani, a former Michigan colleague. "The Sooners got better today," Denny wrote. The hire follows lead football trainer Jonathan Gress leaving earlier this month for the Tennessee Titans.

Human performance scientist Andy Galpin makes the case on X that thirst lags well behind actual fluid loss - by the time you feel it, performance has likely already dipped. His numbers: a 2% drop in body weight cuts physical performance about 10%, with skill and reaction time slipping even before that.

His team built a free calculator to set a concrete fluid target instead of guessing.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick shared a new European Heart Journal study in which researchers found micro- and nanoplastics in the coronary blood of 84% of heart attack (STEMI) patients, versus 40% of those with stable coronary disease and 32% of healthy controls. The plastics often came alongside higher inflammation (IL-6 and TNF-alpha) and were more common in people exposed to more air pollution and smoking. As Patrick put it, we still don't know whether microplastics contribute to heart attacks, "but this association is very alarming to me."

A new Molecular Neurobiology review lays out the molecular case for why exercise protects the brain. When a protein complex called the NLRP3 inflammasome gets over-activated, it drives the neuroinflammation behind neurodegeneration.

Exercise, the authors write, prompts the release of "exerkines" - signaling molecules like BDNF, irisin, and IGF-1 - that tamp down that over-activation and help guard neurons, the blood-brain barrier, and synaptic plasticity. Their conclusion: the findings build the theoretical basis for using exercise as targeted prevention against neurodegeneration.

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