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By Ben Opipari Special to The Washington Post Running used to be a sim- ple endeavor. All you needed was a shirt, shorts and shoes. Now, it's far more compli- cated. We are a nation of ac- cessorizers, even in our ex- ercise. We carry water bot- tles, music players, phones and activity trackers. And although we use them to make our runs easier, here's the bad news: They could be slowing us down. To understand why an MP3 player or a water bot - tle might hinder your prog- ress, a brief lesson in biome- chanics is in order. Your up- per body plays a critical role when you run. (That's why the bad guys never get far when they escape from po - lice custody in handcuffs.) Both the arms and the torso come into play, helping the legs lift the body and work - ing together to create a smooth stride. Good running form starts in the hands. They should be relaxed and comfortable. If you're holding something, you'll create tension and im - balance in your upper body. No matter the object — a wa- ter bottle, an iPod, a set of keys — holding something alters your form and makes you exert more energy. And the more effort you expend, the faster you'll tire. To see how this happens, pretend to grip a bottle and move your arms as you would while running. Even without the bottle, your fore - arm muscles contract. Or try running with your fists clenched. That tension in your hands creeps to your forearms, then your upper arms. This makes shoulder rotation more difficult, which inhibits your leg drive. To become more relaxed, hold a saltine cracker between your thumb and forefinger, and try not to break it while running. It's easy to see how even an empty water bottle or an iPod could have a det - rimental effect on your gait. On a physiological level, when you run, your blood gets redistributed to the ar - eas of your body that need it. As your hand and forearm muscles contract, blood flow to those places increases. But as you power up that hill, your blood has better places to be — like your legs. To the casual runner, this diverted blood flow means a less en - joyable run (or a more pain- ful one). The bigger problem, how- ever, is that these objects make your form asymmetri- cal. Jonathan Cane, founder of City Coach Multisport in New York City and co-au- thor of "The Complete Idi- ot's Guide to Weight Train- ing," says he can always spot people holding something. "These people have what I call 'iPod arms.' One arm moves less than the other." When one arm has less mo - tion than the other, one stride will be shorter than the other, hence the asym- metry. "People always un- derestimate the role of arms in running," says Cane, who has been training endurance athletes for two decades. "What happens above the waist impacts what happens below. A poor stride is often the result of minimal shoul - der flexibility." Form imbalance is not only inefficient, it could lead to injury. When your arms are unbalanced — that is, when you hold something in one hand but not the other — everything about your form is unbalanced. You might end up putting more stress than usual on a muscle group. Or you might stress one side more than the other. This might not seem like a big deal, but multiply that one stride by the thousands you take over the course of a run, and it adds up. One side of your body might fatigue sooner than the other, and this fatigue and muscle im - balance could lead to injury in the long term. A good, efficient run- ning form, then, starts with proper distribution of weight across your body. "Mass dis- tribution is one of the most important elements when it comes to biomechanics. The closer the object is to your torso, the less effect it will have on your form," says James Smoliga, associ - ate professor of physiology at High Point University in North Carolina. That's the problem with your hands: They are far from your torso. The lower any mass is dis - tributed down your arm, the more impact it will have. This is why an iPod strapped to your upper arm won't af- fect form as much as an iPod in your hand. Smoliga, a former colle- giate runner who researches the effects of biomechanics and the neuromuscular sys- tem on endurance sports, says that the farther from your body you carry an ob- ject, the more force your muscles will need to gen- erate to carry it. Trans- lation: It will tire you out faster. A three-pound weight strapped to your waist might slow you a little, but strap that weight to your shoes or your hands and you're a sloth. Although the ideal amount of excess weight during exercise would be zero, Smoliga says that if you run with water, make sure it's as close to the body as possible, like the hydra - tion systems that you strap to your waist or the center of your back. Still, he cau- tions, any excess weight will alter your biomechanics, es- pecially over a long run. exercise Why you're better off running empty-handed Brennan LinsLey — associated Press Joggers run laps around Washington Park in denver. By Jeremy Olson Star Tribune (Minneapolis) MiNNeAPOLis » A new test that requires people to send stool samples in the mail for laboratory analysis is prov - ing nearly as reliable as a colonoscopy in identifying potentially fatal colon can- cers. The DNA screening test, invented at the Mayo Clinic, could become an alternative to the colonoscopy — or at least an option for the mil - lions of Americans who ig- nore their doctors' recom- mendations because they are squeamish about the rectal exam or concerned about its cost, said Dr. David Ahlquist, a Mayo gastroenterologist and co-inventor of the "Co - loguard" system. The test was 92 percent accurate at identifying pa- tients with colon cancer and 69 percent accurate at iden- tifying patients with the kinds of bowel lesions or pol- yps that indicate a high risk for cancer, according to clin- ical trial results published Wednesday in the New Eng- land Journal of Medicine. "Time will tell," Ahlquist said. "It's our hope that many individuals who are not being screened because of their reticence to undergo colonoscopy will choose to undergo screening with a no ni nv as iv e opt io n li ke t hi s. " Regular screening for co - lon cancer is recommended at age 50 — earlier for peo- ple with family histories or greater risks — and was credited in a report Monday by the American Cancer So - ciety for a decline over the past decade in the U.S. rate of colon cancer mortality. But the lack of uptake is also why colon cancer remains the third-leading cause of cancer mortality, and con - tributes to 50,000 deaths in the nation each year. The DNA test comes with its own "eww!" factor, in that people would need to fish out their own stool samples and package them to send in for testing. But market research by t he t es t ki t ma nu fac tu re r, Exact Sciences of Madison, Wis., indicates that people aren't bothered as long as the test is effective and cov - ered by health insurance. Surveys showed only 3 per- cent of people being put off by having to collect a stool sample. "Our kit comes in its own sturdy box … and the patient also uses it to return the sample to the lab," said Ex - act Sciences spokeswoman Cara Tucker. Test results would be sent to doctors in about two weeks. The findings published Wednesday come from a company-funded clinical trial of 10,023 people who we re a t no rm al r is k fo r co - lon cancer. They come about two weeks before a U.S. Food and Drug Administration committee is scheduled to decide whether the test is safe and effective for clini - cal use. In an unusual step, the U.S. Centers for Medi- care and Medicaid Services are reviewing the test before the FDA review is complete — an indication that the fed - eral agency might expedite Medicare coverage of the test for the nation's elderly population. Federal approval could mean the Cologuard test would be available as early as midsummer. The study was a head-to- head comparison with an ex - isting test called FIT, which detects cancer by finding hidden blood in stools, and showed that the new DNA screening found more can - cers and cancer risks. Cologuard works because tumors and polyps in the co- lon "shed" cells that are de- tectable in human waste, Ahlquist explained. How- ever, the DNA test resulted in some false positives — about one in 10 tests sug- gested patients had colon cancer or an imminent risk for it, when they didn't. In clinical care, patients with positive results from Cologuard would undergo colonoscopies to confirm the results, said Dr. Thomas Im - periale, an Indiana gastroen- terologist who was lead au- thor of the study. False positives do cause stress and anxiety, he said, but in the end they would di - rect patients to receive colo- noscopies that they would have likely received anyway if the DNA test didn't exist. The rate of false negatives was low, and would likely be overcome if patients re - peated the test over time, he said. screeNiNg test An alternative to the colonoscopy — though it has its own 'ick' factor By Marilynn Marchione The Associated Press Women with a faulty breast cancer gene might face a greater chance of rare but deadly uterine tu - mors despite having their ovaries removed to lower their main cancer risks, doctors are reporting. A study of nearly 300 women with bad BRCA1 genes found four cases of aggressive uterine cancers ye ar s af te r th ey h ad p re - ventive surgery to remove their ovaries. That rate is 26 times greater than ex- pected. "One can happen. Two all of a sudden raises eye- brows," and four is highly suspicious, said Dr. Noah Kauff of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. His study, reported Mon - day at a cancer conference in Florida, is the first to make this link. Although it's not enough evidence to change practice now, doc - tors say women with these gene mutations should be told of the results and con- sider having their uterus removed along with their ovaries. " It's i mp or t a nt for women to have that infor - mation ... but I think it's too early to strongly rec- ommend to patients that they undergo a hysterec- tomy" until more research confirms the finding, said Dr. Karen Lu, a specialist in women's cancers at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. She plans to study sim - ilar patients at her own hospital, the nation's larg- est cancer center, to see if they, too, have higher uter- ine cancer risks. About 1 in 400 women in the U.S., and more of east- ern European descent, have faulty BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes that greatly raise their risks for breast and ovarian cancer. Doctors advise them to be screened early and of - ten for breast cancer, and to have their ovaries out as soon as they have finished having children to help pre - vent ovarian and breast cancer, because ovarian hormones affect breast can- cer as well. But the role of BRCA genes in uterine cancer isn't known, Kauff said. His study looked at 1,200 women diagnosed with BRCA gene mutations since 1995 at Sloan Kettering. Do cto rs w er e ab le t o tra ck 525 of them for many years after they had surgery that removed their ovaries but left the uterus intact. The vast majority of uterine cancers are low- risk types usually cured with surgery alone. 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