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Dry Needling in Sports and Sport Recovery: A Systematic Review with an Evidence Gap Map
As athletes continuously push their physical limits, effective recovery strategies are essential for maintaining performance and reducing injury risk. Among various recovery techniques, dry needling has gained popularity for its potential to relieve muscle pain and stiffness. Despite its widespread…
Some Threads Worth Caring About in a Corresponsive Sport Science
The article discusses the concept of a “corresponsive sport science,” which challenges traditional approaches to sport science and coaching by emphasizing curiosity, care, and hope in both scientific inquiry and practical coaching. In essence, the article advocates for a shift in how sport science and coaching are approached, urging a move away from rigid, knowledge-based […]
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Promoting a culture change in junior and youth sport in New Zealand
This paper provides insight into the evolution of a project designed to address longstanding adult attitudes and behavioural issues in junior and youth sport in New Zealand. The project was funded by Sport New Zealand (Sport NZ) and implemented by Aktive, a charitable trust that works with national and regional partners to fund and deliver […]
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Preventing Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Injuries in High School Sports Participants: An Executive Summary of the Inaugural Meeting of the National ACL Injury Coalition
To address the increasing rates of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury among young sports participants, the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) and the Aspen Institute convened a meeting of a new national coalition to make ACL injury prevention a fundamental aspect of youth sports. This executive summary outlines the National ACL Injury Coalition’s goals as […]
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Longitudinal Associations Between Enjoyment of Physical Education, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, and Muscular Fitness Among Finnish Adolescents
Adolescents’ experiences in physical education (PE) have profound implications for their future physical activity behaviors and health outcomes. A longitudinal study conducted among Finnish students investigated the relationship between PE enjoyment and fitness components—cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscular fitness (MF). Here are the key takeaways from this study:Background:Regular physical activity (PA) is crucial for health, […]
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An evaluation of the behavioural inhibition system and behavioural activation system (BIS-BAS) model of pain in athletes
This article explores how athletes respond to pain through the lens of the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) – Behavioral Activation System (BAS) framework. Here are the key points and takeaways:Framework Overview: This study applies the BIS-BAS model to understand how athletes cope with pain. The BIS is activated when pain is perceived as a threat, […]
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A Biopsychosocial Framework for Sport Science: “A Jack of All Trades Is Oftentimes Better Than a Master of One.”
In his seminal work nearly half a century ago, psychiatrist George L. Engel advocated for a paradigm shift in medical thinking, proposing the biopsychosocial (BPS) model to integrate biomedical, psychological, and social factors in understanding health. While widely embraced in general medicine and psychology, the application of this holistic framework remains surprisingly underutilized in sport […]
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Regular Running Is Related to the Knee Joint Cartilage Structure in Healthy Adults
Recent research has delved into the relationship between regular running, biomechanics, and the structural integrity of knee cartilage in healthy adults. This cross-sectional study, involving 1164 participants aged 18-65, utilized advanced MRI technology and motion capture to assess knee cartilage quality. The findings shed light on how running distance, age, gender, and biomechanical factors interplay […]
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The Interruption of Rehabilitation Following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction due to COVID-19 Restrictions: Association With Return-to-Sport Testing
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, rehabilitation access was disrupted. This study compares late-stage ACLR rehabilitation outcomes before and during pandemic-related restrictions. It analyzes return-to-sport test data from two periods: pre-pandemic (Dec 2018 – Mar 2020) and during the pandemic (Jun – Oct 2020). Outcome measures include various physical tests. The findings highlight declines in post-ACLR performance […]
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Evaluating the effect of sports compression tights on balance, sprinting, jumping and change of direction tasks
This study delves into the efficacy of compression garments (CGs) during athletic endeavors, particularly exploring their influence on balance, sprinting, jumping, and change of direction performance. Employing a sample of 24 recreationally active participants, the research compares the effects of wearing compression tights (COMP) versus regular exercise tights (CON) across various tasks. Results highlight noteworthy […]
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Throwing cold water on muscle growth: A systematic review with meta-analysis of the effects of post-exercise cold water immersion on resistance training- induced hypertrophy
This paper systematically examined the impact of post-exercise cold water immersion (CWI) in conjunction with resistance training (RT) on muscle growth. Through a comprehensive meta-analysis of available data, the study aimed to shed light on whether CWI, when used as a recovery strategy after RT sessions, influences the hypertrophic response of skeletal muscles. The analysis […]
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Intraindividual variability in sleep among athletes: A systematic review of definitions, operationalizations, and key correlates.
Examining the landscape of sleep variability among athletes, a systematic review was conducted to delve into how researchers have conceptualized and investigated these fluctuations in sleep patterns. This comprehensive analysis, spanning 16 studies, highlights the varied approaches and limitations in defining and measuring sleep variability among athletes. The review uncovers critical gaps and potential pathways […]
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Effects of out-of-school physical activity interventions based on self-determination theory in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis
This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the impact of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) based interventions on children and adolescents’ physical activity levels and motivational processes, specifically when conducted outside the school environment. Analyzing nine identified studies, this research delved into the effectiveness of these out-of-school interventions, shedding light on their influence on factors like satisfaction of psychological needs, motivation toward physical activity, and actual levels of engagement.
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What happens in the prefrontal cortex? Cognitive processing of novel and familiar stimuli in soccer: An exploratory fNIRS study
Exploring the brain’s response to cognitive tasks among semi-professional soccer players, this study dives into the differences in prefrontal cortex activity during general and sport-specific cognitive tests. By analyzing the cortical mechanisms underlying expertise in soccer, the research uncovers intriguing insights into how the brain processes familiar versus novel information in athletes. Understanding these cognitive nuances could significantly impact training approaches and shed light on the intricate relationship between brain function and sports expertise. Let’s explore the key takeaways from this illuminating study.
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Big Data, Sport, and the Digital Divide: Theorizing How Athletes Might Respond to Big Data Monitoring
This article considers the relationship between Big Data and the athlete. Where Beer and Hutchins have focused on Big Data and sport, this article concentrates on the athlete’s potential response to Big Data monitoring. Drawing on the work of Andrejevic, and Kennedy and Moss, the project speaks to the Big Data–athlete relation through the theoretical […]
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A Realm of Mere Representation? “Live” Esports Spectacles and the Crafting of China’s Digital Gaming Image
This article addresses the proliferation of images and appearances in the realm of e-sports culture in urban China. The author’s findings are based upon ethnographic research and participant observation of e-sports audience members, teams, and tournaments, including the 2010 Esports Champion League tournament in Beijing, the 2012 and 2013 World Cyber Games Festivals in Kunshan, […]
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We Don’t Need No Stinking Smartphones!: Live Stadium Sports Events, Mediatization, and the Non-Use of Mobile Media
The continuing institutional interpenetration of the sports, media, and digital technology industries makes professional sports an unlikely setting for protest against the use of media. Yet, major stadiums and arenas are serving as sites where the deepening reach and influence of media in lived social and cultural experiences are reflected upon and debated. Drawing upon […]
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The Datafication of Everything: Toward a Sociology of Sport and Big Data
This paper explores the articulations of sport and ‘Big Data’—an important though to date understudied topic. That we have arrived at an ‘Age of Big Data’ is an increasingly accepted premise: the proliferation of tracking technologies, combined with the desire to record/monitor human activity, has radically amplified the volume and variety of data in circulation, […]
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Young People’s Experiences of Parental Involvement in Youth Sport
Recently parental involvement in youth sport has intensified, challenging the understanding of youth sports as an arena where adolescents can develop their identity and autonomy. On this background, our study explores how adolescents understand and negotiate their parents’ involvement in sport and how they define ideal and undesirable forms of parental involvement. Our empirical setting […]
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Women’s Experiences in the Mixed Martial Arts: A Quest for Excitement?
Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), like the majority of relatively violent sports, has mainly been organized around the capabilities of the male body. However various indices suggest that women’s engagement with MMA is growing. The purpose of this paper is to offer an analysis of women’s involvement in MMA using a figurational sociological approach. In doing […]
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Why Infer? The Use and Misuse of Population Data in Sport Research
While the use of inferential statistics is a nearly universal practice in the social sciences, there are instances where its application is unnecessary or, worse, misleading. This is true for most research on the Relative Age Effect (RAE) in sports. Given the limited amount of data needed to examine RAE (birth dates) and the availability […]
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Who Bets on Sports? Some Further Empirical Evidence Using German Data
Given the rapid expansion of the German sports-betting market and recent changes in market regulations, it is interesting to reexamine the socioeconomic profile of German sports bettors: Who bets on sports? In order to analyse this question, this study used an online survey to collect data on sports-betting behaviour (N=634). It modelled participation in sports […]
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Window of Opportunity? Adolescence, Music, and Algebra
Research has suggested that musicians process music in the same cortical regions that adolescents process algebra. An early adolescence synaptogenesis might present a window of opportunity during middle school for music to create and strengthen enduring neural connections in those regions. Six school districts across Maryland provided scores from the 2006-2007 administrations of the Maryland […]
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Where Bodies End and Artefacts Begin: Tools, Machines and Interfaces
Our use of artefacts has at different moments been characterised as either replacing or impoverishing our natural human capacities, or a key part of our humanity. This article critically evaluates the conception of the natural invoked by both accounts, and highlights the degree to which engagement with material features of the environment is fundamental to […]
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What Can Al Pacino Teach Norwegian Youth Athletes? A Norwegian Coach’s Ritual Use of Hollywood Media to Produce Team Culture
This article examines a coach’s use of a Hollywood film as a ritualized means for addressing concerns arising from boys’ participation in Norwegian handball. Through the prism of the ritual I elucidate a set of underlying cultural processes that are unlikely to be unique to this sport and setting. Participant observation among 15 year-old handballers […]
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Towards the Transhuman Athlete: Therapy, Non-therapy and Enhancement
This essay examines the future of sport by considering how medical and ethical distinctions between therapy, non-therapy and enhancement affect the likely use of human enhancements. It considers whether one can easily distinguish among these categories and investigates the legitimacy of such distinctions with respect to medical intervention. It argues that the ambiguity of medical […]
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Timing and Imaging Evidence in Sport Objectivity, Intervention, and the Limits of Technology
This article analyzes timing and imaging systems used as sports decision aids (SDAs). Evidence of athletic performance in the form of timing and imaging data is the product of distinct interactions between humans, technology, and the live environment. As such, sports decisions are fallible. Yet the measurement of athletic performance is often presented as irrefutable […]
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The Writing’s on the Firewall: Assessing the Promise of Open Access Journal Publishing for a Public Sociology of Sport
The process of digitization has transformed the ways in which content is reproduced and circulated online, rupturing long held distinctions between production and consumption in the (virtual) public sphere. In accordance with these developments over the past fifteen years, proponents for open access publishing in higher education have argued that the (not yet absolute) transition […]
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Sport and Prosumption
This article engages and extends understanding of the interrelated concepts of prosumption, the prosumer, prosumer capitalism, and McDonaldization in relation to the highly commodified and spectacularized world of professional sport. Developing an understanding of modern sport forms as having always exhibited presumptive dimensions, the discussion focuses on the contemporary sporting context. The analysis highlights the […]
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Social Benefits of Playing Wii Bowling for Older Adults
This research study investigated whether playing a digital game, Wii Bowling, with others can enhance the social life of older adults. Our research used a mixed-methods approach. Results showed that players’ levels of social connectedness increased and loneliness declined over an 8-week period. Qualitative results described participants’ perceptions of their interactions with others, conversations with […]
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Self-Tracking in the Digital Era: Biopower Patriarchy and the New Biometric Body Projects
This article employs Foucauldian and feminist analytics to advance a critical approach to wearable digital health- and activity-tracking devices. Following Foucault’s insight that the growth of individual capabilities coincides with the intensification of power relations, I argue that digital self-tracking devices (DSTDs) expand individuals’ capacity for self-knowledge and self-care at the same time that they […]
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Playing in the New Media Game or Riding the Virtual Bench: Confirming and Disconfirming Membership in the Community of Sport
This essay explores a set of new media user trends that are (re)shaping fan–athlete interaction through (para)social connections. Acting as bonding agents, the trends considered either contribute to or detract from membership in the community of sport. Accordingly, social leveling practices, invitational uses, and bridging functions serve to connect people within the community of sport, […]
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Narrating goals: a case study on the contribution of Digital Storytelling to cross-cultural leadership development
This case study and evaluation of a Digital Storytelling (DST) workshop for young women identifies the strengths, limits and challenges of transformational feminist leadership development within sport for development programmes (SDP). Based on postcolonial feminist approaches and empirical evidence, the findings demonstrate how leadership development for girls and young women from the Global South is […]
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Fit for prosumption: interactivity and the second fitness boom
This article advances the claim that a new ‘fitness boom’ has arrived, one marked by the proliferation of devices such as wearable fitness trackers. The first fitness boom of the 1970s/1980s was characterized by the heightened availability of fitness ‘tools’ and the supposition that pursuing a ‘fit’ lifestyle was tantamount to responsible living. The new […]
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Everywear: The Quantified Self and Wearable Fitness Technologies
What does it mean to wear a routine? This article explores a number of implications for the engagement of wearable fitness technology in everyday life. It straddles both a critical hermeneutic that explores the institutional prescription of wearable technology to combat the so-called “obesity epidemic” in American society, as well as a more phenomenological and […]
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Changing Work Routines and Labour Practices of Sports Journalists in the Digital Era: A Case Study of Postmedia
This article contributes to an emerging body of research that examines the transformation of sport, journalism and media practice in the digital era as part of what Raymond Williams has called the ‘long revolution’ of communications, culture and democracy. In so doing, we explore how Canadian sports journalists have attempted to make sense of, and […]
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Body Image and Prosthetic Aesthetics: Disability Technology and Paralympic Culture
The success of the London 2012 Paralympic Games not only revealed new public possibilities for the disabled, but also thrust the debates on the relationship between elite Paralympians and advanced prosthetic technology into the spotlight. One of the Paralympic stars, Oscar Pistorius, in particular became celebrated as ‘the Paralympian cyborg’. Also prominent has been Aimee […]
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Sports Coaching Research: Context, Consequences, and Consciousness
This book raises critical questions about the explanatory framework guiding sports coaching research and presents a new conceptualization for research in the field. Through mapping and contextualizing sports coaching research within a corporatized higher education, the dominant or legitimate forms of sports coaching knowledge are problematized and a new vision of the field, which is […]
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Sports and Identity: New Agendas in Communication
This volume of essays examines the ways in which sports have become a means for the communication of social identity in the United States. The essays included here explore the question, How is identity engaged in the performance and spectatorship of sports? Defining sports as the whole range of mediated professional sports, and considering actual […]
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Sport History in the Digital Era
The Internet has transformed industries across the globe and while segments of the research sector have embraced it quickly, sport historians have stepped into the digital era at a more considered pace. The editors Gary Osmond and Murray G. Phillips admit sport historians have in fact been “slow to adapt” to digital technologies (p. 6). […]
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Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes and Coaches
Olympic Weightlifting is a comprehensive guide to learning and instructing the Olympic and related lifts. Includes sections on teaching progressions, lift analyses, error correction, programming, competition, supplemental exercises, warm-up protocols, nutrition, and sample training programs. “Simply the best book available on Olympic weightlifting.” Don Weideman, Vice President, Pacific Weightlifting Association “Without a doubt the best […]
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Reading Statistics and Research (6th Edition)
Employing a non-intimidating writing style that emphasizes concepts rather than formulas, this uniquely welcoming text shows consumers of research how to read, understand, and critically evaluate the statistical information and research results contained in technical research reports. Some key topics covered in this thoroughly revised text include: descriptive statistics, correlation, reliability and validity, estimation, h […]
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Qualitative Diagnosis of Human Movement (3rd Edition)
Qualitative Diagnosis of Human Movement, Third Edition With Web Resource, focuses on the processes behind movement observation, assessment, and diagnosis, emphasizing how to recognize and correct errors in human movement. This unique text teaches anyone working in human movement–related professions how to integrate and apply knowledge from the fields of kinesiology, allied health, and engineering […]
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Powerlifting: The Complete Guide to Technique, Training, and Competition
The mental and physical demands of powerlifting are unlike any other sport. Athletes must be committed and focused on success. In Powerlifting, Second Edition,powerlifting hall of famer Dan Austin, winner of 10 world powerlifting championships and 18 national championships, teams with strength and conditioning expert Dr. Bryan Mann to offer the most comprehensive powerlifting resource […]
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NSCAs Essentials of Tactical Strength and Conditioning
The physical demands of tactical professions such as military, law enforcement, and fire and rescue require those workers to be in top physical condition to perform their jobs well and decrease the risk of injury. NSCA’s Essentials of Tactical Strength and Conditioning contains scientific information to assist in implementing or restructuring strength and conditioning programs […]
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Motor Learning and Performance: From Principles to Application (6th Edition)
Motor Learning and Performance: From Principles to Application, Sixth Edition With Web Study Guide, enables students to appreciate high-level skilled activity and understand how such incredible performances occur. Written in a style that is accessible even to students with little or no knowledge of physiology, psychology, statistical methods, or other basic sciences, this text constructs […]
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Motor Learning and Control: Concepts and Applications
Motor Learning and Control: Concepts and Applications, 12e, is an introduction to the study of motor learning and control for students who aspire to become practitioners in exercise science, physical education, and other movement-oriented professions. Each chapter presents motor learning and control as a set of principles and guidelines based on research evidence. The authors’ […]
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Exclusionary Power in Sports Organisations: The Merger Between the Women’s Cricket Association and the England and Wales Cricket
Exercise Psychology, Second Edition, addresses the psychological and biological consequences of exercise and physical activity and their subsequent effects on mood and mental health. Like the first edition, the text includes the latest scholarship by leading experts in the field of exercise adoption and adherence. This edition also incorporates research on lifestyle physical activity to […]
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Essentials of Strength and Conditioning
Developed by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and now in its fourth edition, Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning is the essential text for strength and conditioning professionals and students. This comprehensive resource, created by 30 expert contributors in the field, explains the key theories, concepts, and scientific principles of strength training and […]
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Foundations of Kinesiology
Each new print copy includes Navigate Advantage Access that unlocks a comprehensive and interactive eBook, student practice activities and assessments, a full suite of instructor resources, and learning analytics reporting tools. Foundations of Kinesiology, Second Edition provides a guided introduction to the discipline and professions of kinesiology using a holistic, learner-centered, and skill-based approach. Thoroughly […]
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Foundations of Physical Education, Exercise Science, and Sport
Foundations of Physical Education, Exercise Science, and Sport provides readers with the most up-to-date information about physical activity, physical education, and sport, while recognizing that this dynamic field and its disciplines are ever changing in our fast-paced, technology-driven society. It challenges students to commit to ongoing development and growth as professionals from the very beginning […]
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Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology
The leading textbook in sport and exercise psychology is back in a revised seventh edition, and it again raises the bar with its engaging introduction to the field. Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Seventh Edition With Web Study Guide, offers both students and new practitioners a comprehensive view of sport and exercise psychology, drawing […]
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Introduction to Kinesiology: Studying Physical Activity
Introduction to Kinesiology: Studying Physical Activity, Sixth Edition With HKPropel Access, offers students a comprehensive overview of the field of kinesiology and explores the subdisciplinary fields of study, common career paths, and emerging ideas that are part of this dynamic and expanding discipline. This engaging, full-color introductory text stimulates curiosity about the vast field of […]
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Kicking Center
Girls and young women participate in soccer at record levels and the Women’s National Team regularly draws media, corporate, and popular attention. Yet despite increased representation and visibility, gender disparities in opportunity, compensation, training resources, and media airtime persist in soccer, and two professional leagues for women have failed since 2000. In Kicking Center, Rachel […]
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Learning in Sports Coaching: Theory and Application
The facilitation of learning is a central feature of coaches’ and coach educators’ work. Coaching students and practitioners are, as a result, being expected to give increasing levels of thought towards how they might help to develop the knowledge and practical skills of others. Learning in Sports Coaching provides a comprehensive introduction to a diverse […]
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Manual of Structural Kinesiology (19th Edition)
Manual of Structural Kinesiology, 21st edition, provides a straightforward view of human anatomy and its relation to movement. While the manual is designed for use in undergraduate structural kinesiology courses, other clinicians and educators will also benefit from the text. The manual clearly identifies specific muscles and muscle groups and describes exercises for strengthening and […]
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Disability Sport: A Vehicle for Social Change?
This book contains a selection of papers presented at the “Disability sport: a vehicle for social change?” conference hosted by the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies (CPRS) at Coventry University from 23rd – 25th August 2012. The brainchild of conference organiser Dr Ian Brittain, the conference brought together around forty academics and practitioners in […]
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Why Genes Aren’t Destiny
Norrbotten is so isolated that in the 19th century, if the harvest was bad, people starved. The starving years were all the crueler for their unpredictability. For instance, 1800, 1812, 1821, 1836 and 1856 were years of total crop failure and extreme suffering. But in 1801, 1822, 1828, 1844 and 1863, the land spilled forth […]
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What Would the End of Football Look Like? An Economic Perspective on CTE and the Concussion Crisis
The NFL is done for the year, but it is not pure fantasy to suggest that it may be done for good in the not-too-distant future. How might such a doomsday scenario play out and what would be the economic and social consequences?
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The Liberating Age of Bionics
Even if progress has been inadequate, Dr. [Hugh Herr] declines to join the doubters. “Technologists, if they’re any good, are always frustrated at what seems to be the snail’s pace,” he says. Yet “there’s a technological arc that climbs upwardly with increasing slope with time” and “It’s inconceivable to me and everyone else what the […]
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The Enlightenment’s ‘Race’ Problem, and Ours
In 1734, Anton Wilhelm Amo, a West African student and former chamber slave of Duke Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, defended a philosophy dissertation at the University of Halle in Saxony, written in Latin and entitled “On the Impassivity of the Human Mind.” A dedicatory letter was appended from the rector of the University of Wittenberg, […]
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The Damage Done
Peter Grant ’83 played interhall football for Notre Dame’s Grace Hall. Dave Duerson, a classmate and casual acquaintance of Grant’s from the dorm, was an All-American defensive back and an 11-year NFL veteran who won two Super Bowl rings. Their athletic careers could not have been more different. But Grant and Duerson were alike in […]
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Tackling Injuries in the NFL
Football is a violent sport. For the last four years, about three hundred players per year suffered season-ending injuries that put them on the Injured Reserve (IR) list. These players suffer injuries that you can’t tape up and there’s no way to ‘play through the pain’. For the most part, these are serious, career threatening […]
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Sports Medicine’s New Frontiers
Surgeries that were once repairs are now reconstructions, enabling athletes to return to the field sooner and even better. Novel prostheses are allowing maimed soldiers to compete at the elite level of sports. Researchers of motor skills and pain tolerance, who once relied on crude measures, now study brain imagery to analyze neural activity. Many […]
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Snowmobile Athletes Say Injuries Are Part of the Sport
Snowmobiler Levi LaVallee had seen Caleb Moore land the trick many times. It’s a Superman Indian Air Backflip, one that Moore had done repeatedly before crashing during the X Games in Aspen.
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Sports Genes
Who has the speed gene, and who doesn’t? How much of performance is genetic? How did early humans become athletes? And can the Perfect Athlete be genetically engineered?
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Stanford Analyzes Athletes’ Concussions
The brains and the brawn at Stanford are teaming up to figure out how concussions are caused. Stanford researchers have turned the school’s football practices into a living laboratory in an effort to understand the mechanics of what happens to the head and neck when a head injury occurs.
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Plaintiffs’ Master Administrative Long-Form Complaint
Master complaint in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia that coalesces the claims from more than 85 lawsuits involving over than 2,000 former NFL players — from negligence and fraud to wrongful death and civil conspiracy — into a single document claiming the NFL withheld information related to head trauma suffered while playing the game.
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Overcoming ‘Physics Envy’
How scientific are the social sciences? Economists, political scientists and sociologists have long suffered from an academic inferiority complex: physics envy. They often feel that their disciplines should be on a par with the “real” sciences and self-consciously model their work on them, using language (“theory,” “experiment,” “law”) evocative of physics and chemistry.
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Nobody Suffers Like Jens Voigt
Want to make someone appreciate baseball? Simple. Show them Mariano Rivera, still dominant and dignified after 17 seasons. Want to build a basketball maniac? Give them 40 inelegant minutes of Dirk Nowitzki—flailing arms, stumbling feet, unshrinking in the clutch.
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NFL’s “Magic Potion” Has Risks, Players Like Urlacher Don’t Care
In an intriguing feature included in tonight’s new Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (HBO, 10:oo p.m. ET/PT), Andrea Kremer explores the NFL’s “magic potion” that “masks pain from head to toe.”
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NFL: Saints Defense Had `Bounty’ Fund
New Orleans Saints players and at least one assistant coach maintained a bounty pool of up to $50,000 the last three seasons to reward game-ending injuries inflicted on opposing players, including Brett Favre and Kurt Warner, the NFL said Friday. “Knockouts” were worth $1,500 and “cart-offs” $1,000, with payments doubled or tripled for the playoffs.
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NFL Research Yields Possible TBI Breakthrough
Football season is over but Pentagon researchers are still watching the NFL, not for sport but for science. The NFL is very active in one of the same research areas as the Defense Department — brain injuries.
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Indiana House OKs Concussion Training
The Indiana House passed a bill today requiring concussion-awareness training for youth and high school football coaches and a 24-hour waiting period for players who suffer concussions. If the bill becomes law, Indiana would become the first state in the nation to require such training. The House passed the measure 95-3. It’s one of dozens […]
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Game Changers Off the Playing Field
The people who just might be able to save the sport of football from its own self-destructive ways don’t wear whistles or hold clipboards. They don’t file lawsuits, and they don’t dole out suspensions for helmet-to-helmet hits. Instead, they tend to wear lab coats. They might spend their days poking and prodding mice, interviewing patients […]
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Football is Dead. Long Live Football
In a typical regulation football game, the two teams combine to run roughly 120 plays from scrimmage compared with nearly 300 pitches in a typical baseball game. There are no “waste pitches” in football. Every play is meaningful, consequential, suspenseful. Every play is part of a mighty struggle, a drive, and in the end all […]
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Football’s Hidden Pains
This weekend offered two of the best football games of the year, both of which I watched, though turning on the television for Sunday’s games was slightly harder after reading Dan Le Batard’s account of Jason Taylor’s fifteen painful years in the N.F.L., in the Miami Herald. Among the grotesqueries: Needles in the bottom of […]
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High School Athletes Continue to Play Despite Concussion Symptoms
High school athletes experience their fair share of dangerous head injuries during high-impact sports play, but new research shows many high school football players won’t bring their concussion symptoms to their coaches’ attention. Despite the fact that the students reported they were aware of the risks associated with concussions from football, a little more than […]
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Faster, Stronger – and High
The development of genetic enhancement in animals has led to fears that ‘gene doping’ could be abused by athletes. Meet Marathon Mouse. The rodent genetically engineered in the US can run 5km nonstop on a treadmill, compared with an average of 0.2km in its wild cousins.
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Even Football Players Without Concussions Show Signs of Brain Injury
Having a concussion may not be the only indicator of brain damage among football players. A recent study from the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Rochester reports that football players may experience long-term brain changes even if they haven’t suffered a concussion. The researchers studied 67 college football players and after each game, conducted […]
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Dying to Play
The beating goes on. This past Saturday a Tulane University football player, Devon Walker, collided with a teammate while making a tackle. Walker, who is 21, broke his neck. Fans gasped. Doctors performed C.P.R. He may or may not walk again. The incident was an urgent reminder of a problem that even the National Football […]
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Does Football Cause Brain Damage?
The critical issues in the clinical management of sports concussion include confirming the diagnosis, excluding structural abnormality and determining when players can be safely returned to competition. Despite the apparent simplicity of this process, the management of this one injury seems to provoke more debate than all other sports injuries combined. Unfortunately, this debate has […]
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Derek Boogaard: Blood on the Ice
I didn’t see it coming at all. I was in a bad position and he hit me hard, hardest I’ve ever been hit. I instantly knew it was broken. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I went straight on the ice. And I felt where it was, and my hand didn’t rub my face normally. It […]
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Derek Boogaard: A Brain ‘Going Bad’
Through the Night and into the next day, as the scrolls across the bottom of television screens spread the news of Derek Boogaard’s death last May, the calls of condolences came, one after another. Among them was a call from a stranger, first to Joanne Boogaard in Regina, Saskatchewan, then to Len Boogaard in Ottawa. […]
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Cortisone: Is it Worth the Shot?
Key Points: 1) Shots help ease pain, 2) Short-term benefit for sure; long-term effects uncertain, 3) General rule is no more than three or four a year
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Brain Injury Study: A Single Season of Hits May Harm College Athletes’ Ability to Learn
Just a single season of contact sports can take a toll on college athletes’ ability to learn, according to a new study. Overall, one season’s worth of repetitive hits did not seriously harm players’ thinking and memory skills, but when it came to learning, a small group of players was negatively affected. “The good news […]
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As ACL Tears Pile Up Doctors and Coaches Worry That Kids Are Playing Too Much Basketball
Long before high school basketball star Anthony Harris tore his ACL in December, his father was doing his best to prevent his son from suffering the serious knee injury. Anthony Harris Sr. visited multiple doctors and trainers and asked what workouts were best for strengthening the knee. He had them run tests to see how […]
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