New mail is always exciting!

New material is always arriving for the SIRC Collection. Today one of the latest issues of British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) arrived in the mail. As soon as it arrived the SIRC Librarians took a quick scan through and it looks good. In fact, it is sure to be a popular issue in the SIRC Collection over the upcoming months. This issue is the Vancouver Olympics issue covering sports such as alpine skiing, snowboarding, ice hockey and ski jumping as well as many other interesting research articles.

Here are a few highlights:

• The adoption of new rules for ski jumping based on research outlined in the article “Towards research-based approaches for solving body composition problems in sports: ski jumping as a heuristic example.”
• It takes 30-45 minutes for a swimmer (and several helpers) to dress in an expensive polyurethane swimsuit that malfunction and tears easily.
• The knee (68%) is the most injured body part in Alpine skiers followed by lower back/pelvis/sacrum (22%), lower leg/Achilles tendon (22%), hand/finger/thumb (17%) and head/face (16%).
• Full Facial Protection in ice hockey provides the best protection against overall head injuries.
• Several risk factors can combine to increase injury in Alpine skiing: low speed, high readiness for risk, new skiing equipment, old and powdered snow, and drug consumption.

If you are looking for additional information on injury prevention and sport medicine you can find it in the Online Resources Injury section which highlights past newsletters and full-text articles.

SIRC on the Road in Charlotte, NC

Nancy Rebel, one of SIRC’s sport librarians, attended the Joint Commission on Sports Medicine & Science (JCSMS) Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina this weekend. The purpose of the Joint Commission is to provide a platform through which the leaders of sports medicine and exercise science organizations from the United States and Canada can convene to promote cooperation and collaboration on various issues facing sports medicine and science. The annual meeting brings together these leaders once a year for educational sessions and collaborative opportunities providing a concrete space for leaders to meet on a personal basis and network on these issues. SIRC is pleased to have been a member of this organization for many years and we look forward to attending these meetings to keep abreast on leading concerns and issues in the areas of sports medicine and exercise science and to provide support and networking opportunities.

The main topics of discussion of this year revolved around the following themes:

Sport trauma and overuse injury prevention in youth sport
Focus: STOP program (Sports Trauma and Overuse Prevention);
Risk factors: “too much … too fast … too soon”;
Safety first

Medical, science and health fitness of NASCAR athletes
Focus: physical and mental demands on drivers and pit crews
“metalthletes"

Opportunities for Influencing Governmental policy in the United States
Focus: Childhood obesity and promoting youth physical activity (legislation);
President Obama’s focus on health care reform;
First Lady Michelle Obama to announce on Tuesday Feb 9, 2010 her platform initiative on healthy lifestyles (including highlighting physical activity and nutrition programs for children);
CDC’s role in informing and advising associations in their policy advocacy efforts

New National Physical Activity Plan for the United States to be launched May 3, 2010
Vision: For all Americans to be physically active and live, work and play in environments that facilitate regular physical activity.
The target of the plan is policy makers in the United States

Nutrition recommendations for pre-, during, and post-exercise/sport
Focus: A position statement released in March 2009 by the American Dietetic Association and the American College of Sports Medicine on Nutrition and Athletic Performance

Miscellaneous hot topics of discussion:

• Young athletes and hypertension
• Heat injuries in youth
• Energy drinks and youth
• Concussions
• Osteoarthritis
• US to look into developing a certification program for coaches
• “Exercise is Medicine”; physical activity as a treatment for chronic disease
• Importance of evidence-based practices (applying research to practice)
• Mouthguards: relation to concussions;
• Relation to performance enhancement – do mouthguards decrease lactate buildup in athletes
• Doping and drug testing; in particular the prescription of performance enabling drugs (such as medications for ADHD) and the implications on drug testing in sport (therapeutic use exemption implications)

For more information on the Joint Commission on Sports Medicine & Science or any of the information detailed above please feel free to contact SIRC (moreinfo@sirc.ca)