Fitness

Stark warning against fitness trend loved by Molly-Mae’s sister &Molly Smith

Published

1 month ago

January 27, 2026

Stark warning against fitness trend loved by Molly-Mae’s sister &Molly Smith

A FITNESS trainer has warned against a viral exercise trend loved by stars including Molly-Mae Hague’s sister Zoe, saying it could lead to “physiological shock”.

The Hyrox craze – dubbed a “race for everybody” by organisers – has swept the globe since the competition was launched in Germany in 2017, with millions of people now taking part in over 30 countries, including the UK and China.

Competitors are tasked with running 1 kilometre, before hitting a functional workout station of various different exercises – which is repeated eight times.

“(Hyrox is) designed to accommodate all participants and 99 per cent of our athletes reach the finish line,” it reads on the Hyrox website.

Following the race, participants appear on a leaderboard, which are then added up ahead of a World Championship at the end of the season.

Videos of the competitions regularly appear on TikTok, with Zoe and other famous faces including ex Love Island star Molly Smith and 90s popstar Suzanne Shaw sharing their own experiences on social media.

What your trainer choice says about you…

Deputy Fashion Editor, Abby McHale, says “the ‘in’ trainers to be seen in can move as quickly as the next big fashion trend”.

Adidas = fashion ‘sheep’

Adidas has taken over as the top ‘it’ trainer brand of the past few years and they don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Starting strong with the Sambas, a trainer which this year will have been around for 75 years, the trainer style became so popular that videos were going viral last year showing a multitude of people wearing them on the same train.

Skechers = boring

The American brand has been around on the footwear market for the best part of three decades, but has never been seen as the trendiest of trainers. No matter what celebrity has been promoting the product the brand still does come with a certain stigma.

Practicality is at the heart, cushioned soles, easy to slip on and breathable, they come with a lot of functions for those who think comfort is key.

Vans = living in the past

Originally made as a skateboarding brand, it went mainstream in the 2000s with its classic black and white checker board trainers that were deemed the height of cool.

Whilst they were never the style of trainers worn to the likes of the gym, they were great worn with the likes of jeans, trousers and dresses for the skater girls. However these days they’ve fallen slightly off the radar, which means if you’re still wearing them you live in the past.

Hoka = fitness fanatic

A trainer brand specialising solely in running shoes the brand was launched in 2009 and has become a staple in runners wardrobes all across the world.

Consistently voted as some of the best running shoes you can buy, they have trainers categorised depending on what kind of exercise you are doing, from road running to hiking and even recovery trainers.

And while they may be great when it comes to exercise, that is where they should stay.

Nike = millennial

A long standing competition with Adidas, Nike has also been one of the market leaders when it comes to trainers, with the Air Force 1’s being the brands best selling shoe of all time.

They may have been the in shoe back in 2018, but they’re not in 2025, meaning if you still rock a pair you want to keep to a trend but aren’t a stickler, you know a good made trainer when you see one and love the cleanliness the all white style brings.

Veja = tight

The French footwear brand has been around since 2005 but only gained major popularity a few years ago.

They have been seen on every celebrity going, even royalty hopped on board the trend with both the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Sussex seen out in a pair.

However, the buzz around these has now died down and the fashion crowd have moved onto their next pair of trainers. Meaning that those left wearing Veja’s are the kind of people who get their wear out of everything until it falls apart.

He was rushed to hospital, and was found to have a left coronary artery blockage, for which doctors had to shock him with a defibrillator to try and get his heart to beat regularly again.

Ashley has since made a full recovery, but is now warning others to listen to their bodies while taking part in events such as Hyrox.

“It’s still up in the air as to why I got this clot but when I’ve looked into it, deep emotional stress and high-intensity exercise can cause it,” he said.

He said he credits the “strength of” his mind and body to get him through the terrifying health scare, and knows he is “so lucky to be alive”.

“I’m living proof that it can happen to ultra-fit people as well,” he added.

“It’s a case of listening to your body.”

Hyrox has been contacted for comment.

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Fitness

Business News Today: Stock and Share Market News, Economy and Finance News, Sensex, Nifty, Global Market, NSE, BSE Live IPO News – Moneycontrol.com

Published

8 hours ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

A new study suggests that high blood sugar may block some key benefits of exercise. However, researchers discovered that a high-fat ketogenic diet helped restore those benefits in mice by normalising blood sugar and improving how muscles use oxygen. Here’s what the study reveals

Fitness

Exercise Boosts Brain ‘Ripples’ Tied to Learning and Memory

Published

20 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Exercise Boosts Brain ‘Ripples’ Tied to Learning and Memory

Each time you go for a jog, ride your bike, or get active in other ways, you’re giving your brain a boost. A small new study has for the first time directly documented this phenomenon, which the researchers call “ripples” — brief bursts of electrical activity in a part of the brain called the hippocampus.

While exercise is known to improve memory, scientists have mostly studied this effect by using behavioral tests or brain imaging methods like MRIs, says Michelle Voss, PhD, one of the study’s authors, a professor, and the director of the Health, Brain, and Cognitive Lab at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

But she says these approaches can’t precisely identify where “ripples” originate, particularly in the deep brain structures like the hippocampus, a part of the brain strongly connected to memory and learning, she says.

The current study, published in Brain Communications, recorded electrical activity directly, using surgically implanted (intracranial) electrodes. “This allowed us to observe how exercise changes the brain’s memory circuits in real time,” Dr. Voss says.

20-Minute Bursts of Exercise Increase Brain Ripples

To conduct the study, the researchers recruited 14 participants between ages 17 and 50 with drug-resistant epilepsy. The subjects had already been fitted with intracranial electrodes as part of their preparation for surgical epilepsy treatment.

The participants performed a 5-minute warm-up and then rode a stationary bike for 20 minutes at a pace they could maintain. Researchers recorded their brain activity before and after the biking session.

The electrodes showed an increased rate of so-called sharp-wave ripples from the hippocampus and connections with cortical regions of the brain, which are involved in learning and memory.

“Sharp-wave ripples have long been known from animal studies to play a central role in memory,” Voss says, adding that recent studies using intracranial recordings in humans also support the importance of ripples for human memory.

“Our findings are the first to show that exercise can modulate these ripple signals in the human brain,” she says.

Researchers also observed that larger increases in heart rate during exercise were associated with larger changes in ripple activity in cortical networks, Voss adds.

What’s Already Known About Exercise, Memory, and Learning

“We know that exercise is the number-one thing we can do to enhance our memory and learning,” says Catherine Franssen, PhD, an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences and Sustainability at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. “Exercise will enhance both our ability to learn new things and our ability to remember previously learned things.”

Movement helps pump oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood to the brain, says Dr. Franssen, who was not involved with the new study: “We’re able to activate those brain cells more effectively and energize them.”

The increased blood flow stimulates the growth of new neurons and enhances the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a molecule that strengthens connections between brain cells and supports learning, says the neurologist David Perlmutter, MD, who was not involved with the latest study.

Exercise helps build connections between neurons, which deepens and strengthens brain networks, Franssen says.

Physical activity also improves metabolism, which improves insulin sensitivity, helping blood sugar regulation and giving the brain a “more stable and reliable supply of fuel,” Dr. Perlmutter says.

“This is critically important because the brain is an energy-intensive organ, consuming roughly 20 percent of the body’s energy despite representing only a small fraction of body weight,” he adds.

The Research Has Limitations

Voss says researchers were careful to “exclude signals that contained epileptic activity. However, of course, we can’t statistically control for the accumulated effects of having epilepsy on the brain.”

The exercise-brain ripple patterns observed in the current study also closely match those observed in healthy adults using noninvasive brain imaging, such as MRI, she added.

“That convergence across very different methods is one of the strongest indicators that the effects are not specific to epilepsy, but reflect a more general human brain response to exercise,” Voss said.

Researchers also didn’t directly test memory performance, Voss notes. “While hippocampal ripples are strongly linked to memory processing in decades of neuroscience research, the next step will be to measure how exercise-related changes in ripples relate to memory performance in the same individuals.”

Future studies should also compare exercise with other everyday activities, such as sitting quietly or light movement, to determine how specific these effects are to aerobic exercise at the intensity that was studied, she says.

Satisfy Your Brain’s Exercise Craving

It’s never too early or too late to start exercising for brain health, Franssen says.

People of any age, from grade-school children to people in their nineties, can benefit from increased physical activity, Perlmutter says. “My recommendation is to consider taking advantage of the connection between physical activity and brain health across the entire range of human aging.”

Any type of exercise is great, Franssen says, but especially “repetitive behaviors,” like swimming, jogging, and walking.

“Sometimes we let the hugeness of putting in a huge fitness routine get in our way,” she says. “Having a little exercise snack every so often is also very important to improving cognition.”

Fitness

Higher Fitness Levels Amplify Brain Benefits After Exercise, Study Finds

Published

1 day ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Higher Fitness Levels Amplify Brain Benefits After Exercise, Study Finds

Increasing our level of physical fitness leads to a bigger release of brain-boosting proteins following one session of exercise, a new study led by a UCL researcher has found.

The study, published in Brain Research, took a group of inactive unfit participants through a 12-week training programme of cycling three times per week and made them fitter. Researchers found as their fitness increased, so did the amount of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) released following exercise, resulting in improved brain function.

Just 15 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise releases BDNF, a brain protein which is known to support the formation of new neurons and new synapses (connections between brain cells), and maintains the health of existing neurons. This is the first study to show that for unfit people, just 12 weeks of consistent training can boost the brain’s response to a single 15-minute workout.

The study, led by Dr Flaminia Ronca (UCL Surgery & Interventional Science, and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health), involved 30 participants – 23 male and seven female – taking part in the 12-week programme. To assess fitness levels throughout the programme, participants completed VO2max tests every six weeks, which measures the maximum rate of oxygen your body can consume and use during intense exercise.

BDNF levels were measured pre- and post-VO2max testing, alongside a series of cognitive and memory tests, while also measuring changes in brain activity in the prefrontal cortex – where executive functions such as decision-making, emotion regulation, attention and impulsivity are controlled.

By the final week of the trial, results showed that baseline levels of BDNF did not change, but participants did show a larger spike of BDNF following intense exercise, compared to how their brains responded to intense exercise before the 12-week programme. This was linked to improvements in VO2max (aerobic fitness).

Higher overall BDNF levels and stronger exercise-induced increases were also associated with changes in activity across key areas of the prefrontal cortex during attention and inhibition tasks, though not during memory tasks.

Overall, the results showed that increasing physical fitness can enhance the brain’s ability to produce BDNF in response to acute bouts of exercise, which can have a strong positive influence on neural activity.

Lead author Dr Flaminia Ronca said: “We’ve known for a while that exercise is good for our brain, but the mechanisms through which this occurs are still being disentangled. The most exciting finding from our study is that if we become fitter, our brains benefit even more from a single session of exercise, and this can change in only six weeks.”

Notes to editors:

For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact: Tom Cramp, UCL Media Relations , T: +447586 711698, E: [email protected]

The research paper: ‘BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise’, Flaminia Ronca, Cian Xu, Ellen Kong, Dennis Chan, Antonia Hamilton, Giampietro Schiavo, Ilias Tachtsidis, Paola Pinti, Benjamin Tari, Tom Gurney, Paul W. Burgess, is published in Brain Research, March 2026,

About UCL (University College London)

UCL is a diverse global community of world-class academics, students, industry links, external partners, and alumni. Our powerful collective of individuals and institutions work together to explore new possibilities.

Since 1826, we have championed independent thought by attracting and nurturing the world’s best minds. Our community of more than 50,000 students from 150 countries and over 16,000 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.

We are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.

We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research – championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors.

For 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge.

We were the first in England to welcome women to university education and that courageous attitude and disruptive spirit is still alive today. We are UCL.

www.ucl.ac.uk | Read news at www.ucl.ac.uk/news/ | Follow UCL News on Bluesky and LinkedIn

Journal

Brain Research

DOI

10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise

Article Publication Date

4-Mar-2026

Media Contact

Tom Cramp

University College London

[email protected]

Journal
Brain Research
DOI
10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253

Journal

Brain Research

DOI

10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise

Article Publication Date

4-Mar-2026

Tags
/Health and medicine/Human health/Physical exercise

bu içeriği en az 2000 kelime olacak şekilde ve alt başlıklar ve madde içermiyecek şekilde ünlü bir science magazine için İngilizce olarak yeniden yaz. Teknik açıklamalar içersin ve viral olacak şekilde İngilizce yaz. Haber dışında başka bir şey içermesin. Haber içerisinde en az 12 paragraf ve her bir paragrafta da en az 50 kelime olsun. Cevapta sadece haber olsun. Ayrıca haberi yazdıktan sonra içerikten yararlanarak aşağıdaki başlıkların bilgisi var ise haberin altında doldur. Eğer yoksa bilgisi ilgili kısmı yazma.:
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Keywords

Tags: 12-week cycling training program benefitsbrain plasticity and physical fitnessbrain-derived neurotrophic factor after exerciseeffects of aerobic exercise on BDNFexercise and neuron healthexercise-induced neurogenesisfitness level impact on brain proteinsfitness training for cognitive improvementimproving brain function through fitnessmoderate to vigorous aerobic exercise effectsphysical fitness and brain healthVO2max and brain function correlation