Sometimes readers are looking to combine science with exotic travel, the 2009 Arctic Conference next June, will be hard to beat. Up close and personal with Paul Hodges and LJ Lee not to mention penguins, polar bears and giant Aleutian seals.

It will be a great trip and a great blend of the latest science and clinical application for lumbopelvic-pain and postpartum health. The conference program is listed on the website and it is for both physicians and physiotherapists.

BJSM eLetter from Henare R Broughton of Auckland Rugby referees’ Association.

The study presented by Hamish Kerr et al., Collegiate rugby union injury patterns in New England: A prospective cohort study, deserves comment. In a general sense the injury pattern may be attributed to the confrontational type of game that the players had been taught. The tackle features as the event with more injuries occurring as illustrated in the study. In this type of game the fact that T-boning occurs, that is, where the ball carrier runs directly towards an oncoming defender(s) the tackler(s) creates an opportunity for a front-on tackle where head/neck and shoulder injuries are a commonality for the tackler and lower limb injuries for the ball carrier.

Reference is made to ‘ball in play’ time of 42 percent in 2003 Rugby World Cup but at the Under 21 Rugby World Cup in 2006 this was 40 percent with an average of 134 rucks/game. These figures may suggest that most of the time more infringements were occurring and that there were more interaction instances between the ball carrier and the defenders. The authors however, suggest that U.S collegiate games may have lower ‘ball in play’ time and fewer rucks (Law 16) and tackles (Law 15) per game. Does less ‘ball in play’ time mean that there were more stoppages? More infringements occurring?

Nevertheless, the authors’ observations where there were fewer rucks in a game suggests that there may have been fewer tackles and a more open type of game was being played. Less tackle injuries could be expected if that were the case. The results from the data could have benefited from categorizing the injury data as relating to the defense injury pattern and the offensive injury pattern. Such an account would enhance the interpretations to be made of the data. This study provides an opportunity for relating injuries to how the game is played.A comparison with an open type of game may be worth an analysis.

Reference: The International Rugby Board. (2007). Laws of the game. Dublin: The International Rugby Board.

The full article can be found here.

Another excellent patient information to download!

Patient Information Sheet 17 - Lateral hip pain

More patient information sheets can be found here.

Another response by Fergus J. Dignan to Noakes’ paper <em>How did A V Hill understand the VO2max and the “plateau phenomenon”? Still no clarity?

Click to view more reader responses to this article.

Dear Editor,

I very much enjoyed reading the Review article (1) by Professor Noakes and the letter (2) in the same edition of the BJSM July 2008.

As he rightly states measurement of VO2max has several limitations in determining an athlete’s potential. He also pointed out in the letter that research has shown that ‘the rating of perceived exertion (RPE) rises as a linear function of the duration of exercise that remains’, and extrapolation from this ‘that humans have an exquisite capacity to predict accurately the duration of exercise they will be able to sustain at any exercise intensity’.

Would it therefore not be possible to determine an athlete’s optimal running distance by getting them to run on a treadmill for 10 minutes and asking them to run as fast as possible for imagined
distances of 5k, 10k, 40k, etc?

1. NOAKES TD. Testing for maximum oxygen consumption has produced a brainless model of human exercise performance. Br J Sports Med 2008; 42:551-555

2. NOAKES TD. Rating of perceived exertion as a predictor of the duration of exercise that remains until exhaustion. Br J Sports Med 2008; 42:623-624