Sports

Keeping a training journal can help an athlete understand not only what they did to perform at their best but their worst.

The extra time high school pitchers living in warm-weather climates spend in baseball activities puts them at greater risk of injuries to their pitching shoulders than their cold-weather peers, finds a first-of-its-kind study published in the February 2011 edition of the American Journal of Sports Medicine. 

More than 8 out of 10 of high school and collegiate pitchers undergoing so-called Tommy John elbow reconstructive surgery are able to return to their pre-injury level of performance after 9 months to a year of rehabilitation, a 2011 study finds.

Misconceptions abound among  baseball parents, coaches and players about the reasons for and benefits of Tommy John surgery and the relationship between pitch counts and injury risk.

Pop Warner amended its football and spirit concussion safety rules effective September 30, 2010 to provide for the immediate removal of a player suspected of having suffered a head injury or concussion and no return to play without the approval of a licensed athletic trainer or medical professional who is not the parent/guardian of the player.

A change in the definition of a chop block in high school football, along with a strong emphasis on proper use of the helmet to minimize risk of injury, highlighted the January 21-23 meeting of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Football Rules Committee in Indianapolis.

Ever wonder if media exposure can have a positive effect on sports safety? One has to look no further than to what happened after the deaths of two celebrities in skiing accidents in Europe and North America during the winter of 2008-9, the first, a German politician, wearing a ski helmet, who suffered a traumatic brain injury but survived a collision with a helmet-less mother of four on a ski slope in Austria on New Year's Day 2009 in which the woman died; the second, involving actress Natasha Richardson, who died after a traumatic head injury while skiing without a helmet on a beginner's slope in Quebec in March 2009.

Static stretching neither prevented or induced injury when compared to not stretching before running, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind large scale randomized study presented at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in San Diego.

New research suggests that more intense training and inadequate diet are placing high school athletes at significant risk for developing stress fractures in the bones of the back, hip, leg and foot, with girls more likely to suffer such overuse injury and at an earlier age than boys.

Attention hockey moms and dads: the air you and your children are breathing at the rink may be hazardous to your health. The culprit:  gas-, diesel- and propane-powered ice resurfacing machines which spew out a toxic stew of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter, all which can result in potentially serious short- and long-term health problems.