In less than two months’ time, myself and two fellow PESS postgraduate researchers,
Cillian McDowell and Brett Gordon, along with Dr. Matthew Herring will be heading across the pond to Denver, Colorado to attend the American College of Sport Medicine’s 64th Annual Meeting, 8th World Congress on Exercise is Medicine, and World Congress on the Basic Science of Exercise and the Brain. ACSM is a comprehensive sports medicine and exercise science conference and the place to be as a researcher in sport and exercise medicine with over 6,000 attendees from around the world presenting research that covers the science, practice, public health, and policy aspects of sport medicine, exercise science, and physical activity.
This will be my first time attending ACSM and I am looking forward to the opportunity to attend and present at one of the premier international conferences for our field. In particular I am looking forward to attending the presentation of Dr. Mai-Lis Hellenius (Karolinska Institute) on Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Prevention, and attending symposiums on Environmental and Occupational Physiology and Psychology, Behaviour, and Neurobiology. There is also an opportunity for students to join and present at the Psychobiology and Behaviour Interest group as part of the Marsh Center Student Research Award. Awardees will receive a $500 award, recognition at the annual meeting, and be expected to present the highlights of their research at the Interest Group meeting during the week. Additionally, Cillian and I will be serving as student co-chairs of sessions with Dr. Dane Cook (University of Wisconsin-Madison) as part of ACSM’s initiative to provide students experience with moderating scientific sessions.
There will be a lot happening during the week so here’s what we will be up to:
I will be presenting during the Physical Activity and Mental health session on a recent acute study completed in collaboration with Drs. Brian Carson (PESS), Stephen Gallagher (UL Department of Psychology), and Matthew Herring examining mood, affect, and anxiety before and 10 minutes after maximal fitness testing, which included an isometric mid-thigh pull test and a maximal treadmill test. We sought to understand how mood can effect performance on maximal fitness testing and consequently how maximal fitness testing can effect mood.
Cillian McDowell will be attending his second ACSM Annual Meeting to present the findings from a meta-analysis he completed in collaboration with Drs. Matthew Herring and Dane Cook (University of Wisconsin-Madison), which is focused on the effects of exercise training on anxiety symptoms among Fibromyalgia patients. The associated manuscript was recently accepted for publication at Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise (ACSM’s flagship journal).
Brett Gordon will be attending his first ACSM Annual Meeting to present the findings of a meta-analysis focused on the effects of resistance exercise training on anxiety symptoms during the Physical Activity and Mental Health session. He completed this work in collaboration with Drs. Matthew Herring and Mark Lyons, and the associated manuscript is currently in review at Sports Medicine.
Dr. Matthew Herring will be making the trip over to provide two presentations, serve as Session Chair for a session focused on Physical Activity and Mental Health, and to engage in programming activities for the Psychobiology, Behavior, and Neuroscience topical area at ACSM. One of his presentations will focus on the first evidence of the acute effects of aerobic exercise on mood among young adults with worry symptoms indicative of probable Generalized Anxiety Disorder, an ongoing collaboration within the Sport and Exercise Psychology Lab here at UL for which he, Dr. Mark Campbell (UL), and Dr. Mats Hallgren (Karolinska Institute) have a manuscript currently in review at Psychology of Sport and Exercise. He also will present findings regarding moderators of exercise training effects on depressive symptoms in Multiple Sclerosis, a collaboration with Drs. Susan Coote and Sara Hayes (UL Clinical Therapies), Dr. Rob Motl (University of Alabama at Birmingham), and PESS post-graduate Karl Fleming; the manuscript from this collaboration was recently accepted for publication at American Journal of Preventive Medicine and should be electronically available soon.
ASCM is right around the corner and I am looking forward to representing PESS and UL at one of the largest sport medicine conferences in the world. Be sure to keep an eye on Twitter between May 29th and June 3rd for updates and highlights from the conference!
ACSM Annual Meeting May 30-June 3, 2017 – Denver, Colorado, USA.
Katie Andrews is a postgraduate student in the PESS Department. Katie.Andrews@ul.ie
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