We welcome back to the podcast Supriya Nair, a 14-year-old foil and epee fencer from Redmond, Wash., who fences with the Rain City Fencing Center. When we last spoke to Supriya about a year ago, she had just received an award for her groundbreaking experiment, Neurofencing, which explored the importance of pre-bout warm-ups through a neuroscientific lens. Now, we're catching up with Supriya to see how her research has evolved and what new insights she has for us.
In this episode, we welcome back to the podcast Supriya Nair, a 14-year-old foil and epee fencer from Redmond, Wash., who fences with the Rain City Fencing Center.
When we last spoke to Supriya about a year ago, she had just received an award for her groundbreaking experiment, Neurofencing, which explored the importance of pre-bout warm-ups through a neuroscientific lens. Now, we're catching up with Supriya to see how her research has evolved and what new insights she has for us.
If you missed our first conversation with Supriya last year, you might want to consider listening to Episode 8 to hear how this all got started. But to catch you up, Supriya had always heard from her coaches that pre-bout warmups were important, but wondered if there was any quantitative data to prove it. So she set out to investigate this for herself — using special equipment to test that hypothesis. The result was an award-winning experiment she calls Neurofencing.
Now she’s back with even more data and insights.
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First to 15: The Official Podcast of USA Fencing
Host: Bryan Wendell
Cover art: Manna Creations
Theme music: Brian Sanyshyn
EPISODE 34
[INTRO]
[00:00:01] BW: Hello, and welcome to First to 15, the official podcast of USA Fencing. I'm your host, Bryan Wendell, and in this show you're going to hear from some of the most inspiring, interesting, and insanely talented people in the sport we all love. First to 15 is for anyone in the fencing community and even for those just checking out fencing to see what it's all about. So, whether you're an Olympian or a Paralympian, a newcomer, a seasoned veteran, a fencing parent, a fan, or anyone else in this wonderful community, this podcast is for you. With that, let's get to today's episode. Enjoy.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:00:40] BW: Today, we welcome back to the podcast, Supriya Nair, 14-year-old foil and épée fencer from Washington, and fences with the Rain City Fencing Center. When we last spoke to Supriya about a year ago, she had just received an award for her experiment, neuro fencing, which explores the importance of pre-bout warm ups through a neuroscientific lens.
Now, we're catching up with her to see how that research has evolved, and what new insights she has for us. If you missed our first conversation, you might want to consider listening to that one first. That's episode eight, and then you can kind of hear how this all got started. But to quickly catch you up, Supriya had always heard from her coaches that these pre-bout warm ups were important, but then she wanted to find the data to prove it. So, she set out to investigate that for herself using special equipment to test it. We're going to get into that here in a second, and that was the experiment called neuro fencing.
Now, she's back with some more data and insights. Welcome, Supriya. Thanks for joining us.
[00:01:36] SN: It's great to be back on the podcast again.
[00:01:37] BW: Yes, this is awesome and we're recording this in Phoenix at Summer Nationals. So, if someone were to see your presentation here, and they say, “What's that all about?” You have kind of an elevator pitch that you'd like to give people, especially for those who might be listening that are just hearing about neuro fencing for the first time.
[00:01:56] SN: Yes, so if I can do this in one sentence, go, I think that'd be easiest for people. The whole goal of neuro fencing as a project is to analyze the impact of a 15-minute warmup prior to fencing, and the way we're looking at that is on muscle slide. You have the muscle movement time or the time it takes from the start, on guard position, to finish fencing lunge. So, we are expecting that that time, will reduce by about 10%. We’re looking at the heart as well and we're looking at how that transitions from a resting to an active state. Then, we're looking at how the brain also transitions from a relaxed to an alert state.
Just as a brief way of summarizing the findings, the muscle movement time for what we found did reduce by about 10% after the 15-minute warmup. So essentially, you hit faster after you warm up, the heart rate, and BPM does transition from a relaxed to an alert state, and that also given that the heart has to pump more blood and more nutrients to the muscles, also helps the muscles in that they don't have to contract as hard and they can work more efficiently.
The brain is still a work in progress as the EEG or electroencephalogram is a very noisy set of data. That is still a work in progress. But yes, I think that is one sentence go.
[00:03:26] BW: Yes. It's really interesting, and we should say that it kind of brings some actual scientific data to what coaches and others like just say, anecdotally, “Well, you've got to do this”, and that it's kind of what inspired you to do the research in the first place, right?
[00:03:42] SN: Yeah, it is.
[00:03:42] BW: Let's paint a picture of what has happened over the past years since we last talked, because I know that this kind of neuroscience, neuro fencing journey that you've been on has only gotten more interesting.
[00:03:55] SN: Yes. Last year, when we last talked, I was using equipment called Backyard Brains. The company is founded by Dr. Greg Gage. These are kind of just small adreno kits that you can use to see your own activity, and your own neuron action potentials going on in your body. But last year, I had actually laid on this on myself because of COVID restrictions. So, this was not a very statistically significant sample. But since we last talked, Dr. Mariam Zachary, whom you actually connected me to –
[00:04:31] BW: Right. Sinai,one of our US fencing partners, right?
[00:04:34] SN: Yes, she gave me the opportunity to do the same experiments with multiple fencers over there, which was kind of surreal at first. But then, I got connected to Dr. Petrino who kind of helped me out in setting up the experiments and timeline, and when I would go to New York eventually, and experiment with people, Dr. Mariam Zachary also helped me recruit sponsors for the study.
But before I did all of that, I had to go through what's called an Institutional Review Board or an IRB.
[00:05:11] BW: And that's because you're working with human subjects?
[00:05:13] SN: Yes. It's because I'm working with human subjects in particular. So, what you have to do for that is you have to submit a study protocol, and that you list of what exactly you're doing in a very detailed manner. Then, you have to, since we're dealing with fencers aged 10 to 15, we have to put in parent consent forms, so the parents have to agree that their children can partake in such a study. A lot of other things need to be given to the IRB, and then they have to approve the study.
It took actually a long time for me to do that. Scheduled experiment time was the end of March, but we only got the approval by February.
[00:05:56] BW: Gotcha. It just takes a long time.
[00:05:59] SN: It does.
[00:05:59] BW: They probably also don't see a bunch of like 14-year-olds sending in, so you have to look average. That's just a side note that that seems like really cool.
[00:06:09] SN: But it's probably the most time-consuming paperwork I've ever done. I don't look forward to doing that again. But it's part of research. So, we have no other choice.
[00:06:18] BW: Good experience, right?
[00:06:19] SN: Yes. After that was done, then I actually went to New York, and I got to use so many new pieces of equipment that I thought I'd never see in my life. I got to use the Delsys Trigno system, which are eight small EMG plus, like accelerometer and gyroscope sensors, which guys can learn more on my talk on July 7th. That was on for monitoring muscle activity. Got to see the neuro electronics cap, even though it looks super complicated, but it seriously looks like one of those things from alien movies. But it was super cool to use all of this medical grade equipment instead of small adreno kits where I started. I also got to do the experiments on multiple fencers, which also boosted the sample size. But yes, it was a thrilling experience overall.
[00:07:14] BW: So, what is the advantage of this medical grade equipment over just – would anybody could go purchase online?
[00:07:22] SN: I think that the Backyard Brains equipment that anyone can purchase really is a good starter to understanding how your neurons look like. But it obviously has its own defects and that it is pretty noisy. Sometimes the software gets a little buggy. It crashes. All of the technical difficulties. But then, once you start using these, like FDA approved medical equipment, then you can't really eliminate noise in data, it's always there. But there's going to be a lot less of it. It's just something that is just more reliable. It's been approved and tested. It's something that I think people would be more comfortable in using. I think it's just better that you use that. Obviously, it's very hard to get access to these things. But once you get them, they do give you a very nice quality of data. So, it really does help.
[00:08:22] BW: Then, have you had an opportunity to analyze those new findings? If so, what have you uncovered that might have confirmed what you earlier knew, or even changed something?
[00:08:34] SN: Yes. I have actually analyzed most of the data. I have completely analyzed the muscle movement data that I've collected, and I have found that the muscle movement time or the time after warming up did improve by about 10%. That did kind of strike me a little, because when I did this on myself, I got about an 18% improvement. But then I realized, this improvement is going to be different for everyone, and it varies from person to person. But it was good that we got an overall improvement of 10%. That way, it did confirm that warming up does benefit the muscles and essentially, you can score faster touches.
I have also done completely the heart analysis and I have confirmed that the heart does transition to an alert state from a resting date, which is kind of obvious to us. It was obvious to me when I did it with the adrenal kits at first at Backyard Brands. But this kind of just reinforced it through seeing the increase minimum heart rate, and seeing the intervals between each of these heartbeats decrease. So, all the data reinforce the idea that the heart now is beating faster, it’s providing enough oxygen to all the muscles.
The brain or EEG analysis is still in progress, because of the fact that it is pretty noisy data. We are going to have to go through more complicated analysis in order to get out conclusions with that. So, that's kind of where the data analysis is at.
[00:10:21] BW: Take us in the room where the actual experiment was conducted. If I were to walk in there, what would I see? Is it someone doing fencing lunges, with a bunch of wires coming out of them? Because I've seen photos from your original experiment. Tell me what this would have looked like? Since this is an audio podcast, describe what it might have looked like.
[00:10:41] SN: Okay, for those who have not seen photos of my last year setup, I can try and describe this to the best of my ability. But obviously, seeing this in a picture would be easier.
[00:10:52] BW: Sure. We'll link to some of that in the show notes of the episode as well.
[00:10:57] SN: Okay, that'll help. But last year, the Backyard Brains when they originally sell the cables that you need to use, they're only about six feet long. They aren't actually long enough. So, I had to extend the cables. In that experiment, that I had a bunch of cables coming out of like, I had to stick the electrodes on, the cables had to be long enough to reach my laptop –
[00:11:24] BW: They were on your arm, right?
[00:11:26] SN: Yes, the electrodes were on my arm, right arm and on my right leg. But obviously, this temperament is not going to be ideal. But if you were to walk into the Mount Sinai set up in the middle of the experiment, you would probably see it is a pretty small room to be honest, as it's in New York. So, as soon as the fencer walks in, we'll – me, myself and couple other postdocs who are helping me with the experiment, which I generously thank them for, taking the time out of their work to help me over on my experiment.
First, they would sit down in a chair, probably, and then we would get their brain and heart activity. You would see Wade, who was my EEG or brain guy who's super helpful. He would help us with attaching the neuro electrics like the brain cap on the participant. You might also see Jamie or Abbie, Jamie Wood or Abbie Sawyer, who are wonderful people to help me with the EKG and the Polar H10 strap, which they would attach to the participant. Then, they would probably be sitting in that chair for around two minutes or so to get recording of their brain and heart activity.
[00:12:45] BW: Like the resting baseline?
[00:12:46] SN: Yes, like a baseline, yes. After that, they would probably be going over to the next small little section of the room, where there would be a target board, which would be attached to like a big climber, and then, they would be lunging towards that 10 times. If this were on the no warmup day, then they would go after this, then sit back down, then they would get their brain and heart activity recorded, and then they would leave. But if this were the warm up day, then probably before you see them lunge, you'd probably see them listening to me explaining the 15-minute warm up exercises and –
[00:13:27] BW: Right. Because you’ve designed a warm up specifically for this, yes.
[00:13:31] SN: Yes, I'll probably be explaining to them what the warm up exercises are and how many you do of each of them. Then, they would probably be doing that for the next 15 minutes. Then, after that, they would be sitting back down to get their brain and heart activity after they warm up. Then, they would get everything off. They would lunge towards the same target board again. After that, we get their brain and heart activity again, and then, maybe they'll have a cookie and leave.
[00:14:04] BW: Now, I know what you used to bribe the subjects, a cookie. Okay. That's awesome. I find that super interesting and have others reached out to you and said, “Hey, I heard about this”, coaches, fencers, other people?
[00:14:16] SN: Do you mean, how we recruited people?
[00:14:18] BW: No. Once people heard that the research that you're doing, whether you're at Summer Nationals or others, have people said, “I'm interested in learning more about this.” What's been kind of the response over the past year from just the community?
[00:14:33] SN: The research is kind of fresh off the plate. There hasn't been a lot of exposure time for people to actually, get into looking at it and asking me, whether they are interested in it or not. But from my yesterday's session, I did get quite a few, “Great. This is something that reinforces the idea that warming up is beneficial to the fencers.” Usually, I get a lot of, “This is a very nice presentation and it's very interesting” type comments. But since the presentation was just yesterday, and I've only been here for like a couple of days or so. Really, this has not been exposed to a lot of people.
[00:15:18] BW: Yes, fresh off the plate, like you said.
[00:15:21] SN: Yes, it is. It is fresh off the plate. But maybe route days and then when it gets to the final session on July 7th, maybe more people will come over to me and say, “Yes, this is interesting. I want to learn more about it.”
[00:15:33] BW: How about you and your career path and your goals? Because now each phase of this project, you're seeing more and more of fun stuff, but also the paperwork side. Has this changed or reinforced kind of what you want to do as a career when you're older?
[00:15:51] SN: I mean, how do I answer this question? Obviously, the paperwork part of it doesn't make me as excited or keen about doing medical research. But the whole experiment deals with human beings. You can't just go over to a person and say, “Hey, you're part of my study, you get over here.” I know, it's less paperwork. But it's just not ethically right. Of course, you have to file all this paperwork to the IRB, even though it's very time-consuming. I actually was very lucky to have met a magical friend who is, if you're watching this, I thank you very much for helping me. Her name is Mackenzie [00:16:31]. She really took the time to guide me through the IRB process. It's very nice that she was there to help me every step of the way. So, I thank her for that.
[00:16:43] BW: That's awesome.
[00:16:44] SN: I also, thank everyone at Mount Sinai who gave this 14-year-old the opportunity to walk into such a reputed institution and then conduct fencing experiments over there. So, I think all of them for that.
[00:16:59] BW: That's really cool.
[00:17:01] SN: But as a career standpoint, it has not really changed my view anyway, because I've always loved neuroscience, even the year before when I just tinkered with Backyard Brains. So, yes. I mean, there’s really no change at all. I mean, besides the fact that it's a bit annoying filing paperwork.
[00:17:23] BW: But you saw the benefit of that because you've got access to some equipment and people that maybe wouldn't have been possible. Then what about your fencing? How has that been going? Have you been able to incorporate any elements of what you're learning on the research side, out on the strip, or in practice?
[00:17:43] SN: As from a fencing standpoint, I think I'm doing okay. I have been applying some of my research practices. I mean, just the fact that you should warm up with a degree of intensity or sincerity. But I think I've been doing that since Backyard Brains phase of the project. There hasn't been any new, net new things that I've been changing.
[00:18:07] BW: So, you're continuing kind of what just started then, and just almost getting more justification for it each step of the way, right? In a sense. Not to put words into your mouth. But that sounds like how it's been going.
Then lastly, what advice do you have for other young fencers who might want to think about the science that goes into their entire fencing experience?
[00:18:32] SN: Okay. Well, the first thing, before I get into the science part of it. I do want to say to all the young fencers out there, please warm up with degree of intensity. Because warm up really does benefit and improve your athletic performance, especially fencing performance. From a science standpoint, I think if we want to get into that science part of it, you should not let any setbacks stop you from what you want to do. The human body itself is very complex, but it's also elegant and beautiful. I think everyone, honestly, should be excited to find out how it really works, especially if people can find out how it works in the context of injuries, or just if you're really keen on learning how it works, then nothing should stop you from doing that.
[00:19:33] BW: Yes, absolutely. Also, it never hurts to ask for help reaching the next level, right? Because you got connected to Dr. Zachary and the team at Mount Sinai and they saw a talented and passionate person and decided to take a chance, maybe we could say, and –
[00:19:54] SN: I think take the chances the right word.
[00:19:56] BW: Worked out so well.
[00:19:57] SN: Yes, it really does not hurt at all to ask for help. I can actually share this one story of mine.
[00:20:04] BW: Yes, please.
[00:20:04] SN: So, before I went to Mount Sinai, they told me that I had no clue what equipment was going to be used. I asked them, and then they said, “Oh, we're using something called Delsys.” I'm like, “Hmm, I don't know what it is.” So, I Googled at it and I looked at their products, and I'm like, “Okay, maybe I should get some training or documents or something before I” –
[00:20:32] BW: Watching YouTube videos like how to use it.
[00:20:35] SN: I should know how to use it before I go there and make a fool of myself in front of all of the participants. Me and my dad called the customer service. Nobody picked up at first. So, then we tried calling again, and one lady picked up. She happened to be the chairman of the company. Her name is [inaudible 00:20:56]. If you're watching this, I thank you very much for picking up the phone. I told her about what my research was, and that I was going to do these experiments with your products. She was super keen on it. She said Miss Megan Shepard, who is a product support member. She also sent Mr. Alexander Santos was also another product support member. They both helped me very much and trained me into understanding both how to use it and also how to analyze data that's coming from it using their software.
[00:21:32] BW: They were there in person to help you out? Or this was all virtual?
[00:21:34] SN: No. They were in Boston. So, both of them trained me virtual. But I did eventually meet them in person, but not during training sessions just as a casual meet. But it never really hurts to ask for help. You really don't know who you're going to come across to give you that. So, I was very fortunate in that way.
[00:21:34] BW: Well, it was cool, too, because they easily could have said, “We're going to just use this machine and we'll give you the data at the end.” But instead, they’re like, “No, we're going to teach you how to do it”, which is actually kind of inspiring to hear about and really cool.
Well, this has been great. Speaking of inspiring, this has been awesome. Thank you so much, Supriya, and yes, thanks for joining us on the podcast. Again, our first repeat guest, so that's awesome. Then, good luck with your fencing today on National Tournament.
[00:22:28] SN: Yes. All right. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast again. It's been great.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:22:31] BW: Thanks for listening to First to 15, the official podcast of USA Fencing. We'll be back with our next conversation in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can stay up to date on all the latest fencing news by following us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. If you liked this podcast, please help us grow and reach more people by leaving us a rating or review. Until next time, I'm Bryan Wendell, and I hope to see you real soon out on the Strip. Bye.
[END]