In randomised trials, pedometer users walked 2,491 more steps a day than controls (95% CI 1,098 to 3,885), and having a step goal predicted the increase. Walking programmes without a diet produced modest weight loss of 1.27 kg on average.

For mortality, people with a high BMI and good aerobic fitness fared better than normal-weight people with poor fitness. For diabetes and its risk factors, fitness did not cancel out excess weight.

Across 117 studies, dieting produced more weight loss but exercise tended to remove more visceral fat, and without weight loss exercise still reduced it. Aerobic training carried the clearest effect.

In older women measured with doubly labelled water, four months of supervised aerobic training left resting metabolic rate unchanged, and over 10 months of exercise resting metabolic rate did not change in young adults either.

On the same supervised exercise programme, individual fat changes ran from a loss of 3.2 kg to a gain of 2.6 kg. Those who lost less moved less outside their sessions, and in men also ate more; resting metabolic rate did not separate them.

Hyperventilating before each sprint made the blood more alkaline in two trials. In ten repeated cycle sprints it slowed the decline in power in later efforts, but in a repeated running sprint test it did not change performance.

In 16 recreationally active women, sodium bicarbonate before each interval session for 8 weeks produced larger gains in lactate threshold and time to fatigue than placebo, at the edge of significance (P = 0.05), while muscle buffer capacity improved in both groups with no difference between them. A 10-day progressive dosing regimen improved CrossFit-style performance, with no gastrointestinal side effects reported.

Most caffeine research uses 5–13 mg/kg. A review finds doses under 3 mg/kg (about 200 mg) can also be ergogenic with few side effects, and a cyclist trial found both 100 mg and 200 mg sped up a time trial, with 200 mg faster still.

World-class distance runners do at least 80% of their running at low intensity. Trials in trained athletes favour a polarised approach, but in recreational runners a focused distribution produced similar improvements with less training time.

In a six-week randomised trial, balance training done after interval training produced smaller adaptations than training it fresh, even when tested fatigued. Separately, muscle fatigue impaired motor-skill learning on later practice days.

Backward running produced lower knee-cap compressive forces than forward running at self-selected speeds and relied on the quadriceps for propulsion. A five-week pilot improved 3 km times, but none of these studies tested lifters or compared it with other cardio.

Caffeine–taurine combinations are widely used in commercial sports products. In a 2026 meta-analysis of 11 generally small trials they were associated with better peak power and time to exhaustion, but the analysis could not separate taurine's effect from caffeine's; a 2021 review calls taurine-alone findings limited and varied.

Adjusting training by daily HRV improved HRV itself, but its advantage for fitness and performance over a fixed plan was small or not significant in three meta-analyses of endurance training. After lifting, HRV recovered before neuromuscular markers did.

Apparent differences in how people respond to training can be inflated by measurement error and random variation. Comparing the spread of changes against a control group or a repeatability study is needed to tell real differences from noise.

In UK Biobank, the most favourable combination of sleep, activity and diet was linked to a mortality hazard ratio of 0.36 compared with the lowest third for all three, and poor sleep looked more harmful in less active people. Small gains across all three were linked to lower risk.

Ultra-endurance data show sustained energy expenditure falls with event length and levels off below three times basal metabolic rate, with an apparent digestive supply limit near 2.5 times. In the Tour de France, measured expenditure exceeded food-record estimates by 12.9–35.3% of the food-record value.

Three large cohorts, one with measured rather than reported activity. Once total weekly activity reached the guideline level, people who did it in one or two sessions had cardiovascular and mortality risks indistinguishable from those who spread it across the week.

Pooled cohorts link muscle-strengthening activity to a 10 to 17% lower risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes, with the benefit peaking at about 30 to 60 minutes a week in a J-shaped curve. Combined with aerobic exercise, the hazard ratio for death fell to about 0.6.

Six days of nitrate-rich beetroot juice cut the oxygen cost of moderate exercise by 19% and extended time to exhaustion in eight men. A dose-response study found no effect at 70 ml, with effects appearing at 140 and 280 ml.

A 29-study meta-analysis tested a hundred resting metabolic rate equations against indirect calorimetry in athletes. Five were right on average. Only one was consistent, and it still left one athlete in five outside a 10 percent band.