Guest Blog By Nick Smallwood

Mo Farah knows the fine line between success and failure. At the World Athletics Championships last summer, he missed out on 10,000m gold by a quarter of a second. A few days later, he sprinted down the finishing straight to win the 5000m by 0.28secs.

In championship distance races, which tend to be slow and tactical, the margins are sometimes even slimmer. The thrilling 10,000m duel between Paul Tergat and Haile Gebreselassie in Sydney was decided by nine hundredths of a second – less than the margin of Usain Bolt’s 100m triumph in Beijing.

In Beaverton, Oregon, Mo Farah is working hard in preparation for London 2012, running up to 120 miles a week. Eat, sleep, run, repeat. After the disappointment of fourth place over 3000m at the World Indoors in Istanbul, Farah said: “I’ve got to keep my head down and keep training twice as hard.”

The problem is, the competition will be doing the same; pounding the trails in the thin mountain air.

But Farah and his coach Alberto Salazar have a few tricks up their sleeve in Tracktown USA. No mountains? No problem. Mo sleeps in an altitude tent, fine-tuning his cardiovascular system while he sleeps. Sore legs? Then Mo can jump into a $75,000 Hydroworx pool, and knock out a few more miles on an underwater treadmill. Fatigue is scientifically assessed using metrics such as blood lactate content. This helps to reduce the risk of overtraining.

To boost recovery, Mo hops into a cryogenic chamber, cooled to -104c. Extreme caution is advised in using this particular training aid; US sprinter Justin Gatlin gave himself frostbite when he stepped into a chamber wearing sweaty socks. Cold therapy is not without risk and its effectiveness is hotly disputed. But like his coach, Farah leaves no stone unturned in the search for those crucial fractions of a second.

When Africa-based runners leave London with a clutch of medals, the question of whether the expensive training aids at the Nike sponsored Oregon Project give its athletes an unfair advantage may seem irrelevant. The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) has investigated the Oregon Project and concluded that everything is above board. Like it or not, the unrelenting search for competitive advantage is part of professional sport.

WADA continues to monitor the use of altitude tents, which allow athletes the perfect combination of sea-level training and life at high altitude. Ultimately, if a training aid is legal and there is a suggestion that it will boost performance, someone will be trying it.

Yet for all the innovations in training methods, running remains a simple sport at heart. The most important ingredients for success are hard work, talent and a pair of running shoes.

Related papers in BJSM:

What is the biomechanical and physiological rationale for using cold-water immersion in sports recovery?

Funky treatments in elite sports people: do they just buy rehabilitation time?

Sports and exercise medicine—specialists or snake oil salesmen?

Respiratory physiology: adaptations to high-level exercise

Just a quick alert that Richard Budgett, the Chief Medical Office for the London Olympics, shares his very special insights.

He was an Olympic Gold medal winner in Los Angeles before serving the UK and now the world!

Click here for the podcast

And remember, the IOC, through its Medical Commission, supports the 4 of the 16 issues of British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) annually. See recent editorial about Youth Olympic Games here. The BJSM is the leading clinical source of sports and exercise medicine.

Looking for a world class conference bringing together sport and exercise medicine, conditioning and science with nutrition, rehabilitation and high performance coaching?. This conference will provide new knowledge for those working with elite sport and recreational athletes as well as those presenting to all clinicians for exercise prescription. See the UKsem home page including the concise video (and Andy Franklin-Miller’s very modish shirt)…Will you be there?

The UKsem site is the best place to find the conference program. Names I am looking forward to hearing from include Roald Bahr (sports injury prevention-always great value), Dan Lieberman (the ‘barefoot doctor’), Damien Comolli (the secret to Liverpool’s success), Vern Gambetta (the art and science of coaching).Vern has over 4000 followers as @coachGambetta on Twitter so you know he’s doing something right.

‘Sleepers’ for many will be Carl Askling on hamstring rehabilitation and Richard Frobell on conservative management of ACLs. The former has terrific programs for both prevention and treatment. He discovered the difference between ‘type I’ (sprinters/football players) and ‘type II’ (stretching/dancer’s) hamstring strains and their very different prognoses. Great teaching videos for both rehab and determining return to play.

Dr Frobell headed up the New England Journal of Medicine RCT which randomized ACL patients to rehab or surgery. Not every conference presenter can open up with that claim…’Thanks for coming and if you doze off during my talk you can read all about in the NEJM….’. Good one. 10 years of hard work to become the overnight sensation. BJSM comments on that paper are here in a WarmUp and here in a podcast with Dr Frobell and his research team. Do your homework and then ask him the stumper at UKsem. Or buy him beer for the great effort!

I’ll stop there as I want you to use your coffee break to go to the UKsem site, not to read this. And by ‘sleepers’ – I meant – ‘under the radar’ — not lectures to sleep in. I would reserve sleeping for Friday morning 9:35 – 10:05. Something about how Mad Men, the Marlboro Man and Freakonomics have the answer to ‘smokadiabesity‘? Weird!

The UKsem site is great but if you insist on only following BJSM pages you can see Andy Franklin-Miller’s WarmUp about the conference here and listen to two interviews with the mellifluous BBC-trained sports physician and fashionista.

July podcast – his conference highlights

October podcast – lower limb biomechanics plus a sneaky conference plug in the last 3 minutes of this 24 minute file.

Nice shirt….

The aim of ASICS UKSEM is to develop the multidisciplinary team- from GP to elite team doctor, physiotherapist in private practice, soft tissue therapist, strength and conditioning coach, or high performance coach. All to provide superior patient outcomes.

We are delighted to be endorsed by the Fitness Industry Association, The British Association of Sport Rehabilitators and Trainers (BASRaT) and The Physiological Society (PhysSoc). These partnerships help our speciality develop and advance. We are very excited about the future!

At the conference:

• Keynote Speaker, Dr Eddie Coyle speaks on The Limits of Human Performance.
• Lord Coe speaks about the Olympic Games, London 2012 (taking place at the same venue as the UKSEM!)
• Kevin Giles reveals more about the 5 in 5 UK schools project.
• 6 DJO Academic Awards has attracted more than 150 Abstract submissions for 40 oral presentations.
• Bolt-on workshops from Gambetta, Bosch & Giles, James Earl’s Anatamy Trains.
• BASEM Masterclass GP Programme runs a parallel GP question approach
• Exhibition stands by our 3 major supporters: ASICS (discussing new technologies), Technogym (launching a new cardiologist designed exercise prescription programme) and Maxinutrition (revealing exclusive research about safe weight loss).

See the UKSEM Website for more details. BJSM featured this event on the October cover and Editor’s Warm up.

Arthritis Research UK and the Institute of Sport and Exercise Medicine (ISEM) are holding a conference to investigate the prevention and management of osteoarthritis following sport or exercise.

Leading international speakers presenting at Tackling Osteoarthritis in Sport include Dr J Richard Steadman (Colorado), renowned for his knee surgery and rehabilitation work with elite sportspeople; and Jiri Dvorak (based in Switzerland), Chief Medical Officer to FIFA. The conference is hosted by Professor Alan Silman of Arthritis Research UK and Professor David Patterson of ISEM.

The two-day event will consider existing research into the development of osteoarthritis as a result of sporting activity, as well as debating and setting the agenda for future research.

It has been awarded 10 CPD credits by the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine (UK).

Professor Silman says:

“Although many people feel they do not have access to medical expertise, we do know how to manage sports injuries in the short term. However, the same cannot be said for managing the longer term implications. There is a lack of knowledge about prevention of longer term problems especially the development of osteoarthritis. Many people who take part in regular sporting activity end up with debilitating pain throughout their lives due to previously sustained injuries or ‘wear and tear’.

“We need to learn from the world’s experts and create a research agenda to better understand the causes and management of osteoarthritis following sport or exercise. We welcome attendance and contributions from those who have an interest in this area, and in the course of future research.”

For further information and to secure your place at the conference, please visit the official website at www.sport.arthritisresearchuk.org. For further enquiries please contact Riikka Williams at sport@arthritisresearchuk.org or call +44 (0) 20 3008 6778.

This is really going to be an awesome meeting so beg, borrow, or just bust through the security to be part of this historic event.

The website is www.uksem.org, and there are regular updates on Twitter.

Organiser Andrew Franklyn-Miller reports that the participants will represent a very broad church; from physician to physiotherapist, soft tissue to strength and conditioning, physiologists to immunologists, coaches to fitness professionals. This is a  one stop shop programme where participants all learn from each other in a world class conference.

ASICS have joined us in a similar format to Australia to partner this, as Europe’s largest annual Sports and Exercise Medicine conference and help us develop it as a brand promoting excellence. We have an iPhone app on the way which will allow users to  track abstracts, identify where workshops and lectures are occurring, access our twitter feed /uksem  to post their thoughts and these posts will be broadcast on a big screen in the main hall. We are using the brand new ICC conference Centre at ExCeL, London, as well as one of London 2012′s competition venues. These state-of-the recording so attendees can catch up via the iPhone app later. There are also six £1000 academic prizes for best abstracts in a variety of categories.

The format this year is dual stream on each day with over 30 speakers from 7 countries so the delegate has bundles of choices.  We have a number of optional Saturday workshops from a trimuvirate of Vern Gambetta, Frans Bosch and Kelvin Giles on Athletic development  through high performance to rehabilitation, The Graston Myofascial technique , and hopefully The Tom Myers Anatomy trains workshops.

This year we are joined by the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Conference on our final day bringing  cutting edge performance in the rehabilitation of injured servicemen and women and techniques and evidence based protocols along with some inspiring tales of  prosthetic function and high performance.

Themes include High Performance, Rehabilitation, Immunology in Sport, Exercise Medicine, Sports Psychology, Innovations in Sports Medicine and  Myofacsial Injury.

Feel free to access the website for more information and help.

ECOSEP Congress is an international interdisciplinary event which is held every two years and attracts over 400 participants from all over Europe.

This year it will take place with the 12^TH Annual Scientific Conference in Sport & Exercise Medicine, Centre for Sport & Exercise Medicine, Queen Mary, University of London.

The 2^nd ECOSEP congress will be held in London 9-11^th September 2010. Prof  Nicola Maffulli, Dr. John King , Prof Charls Galasko, Prof Karim Khan, Dr. Nat Padhiar, Zoe Hudson, and Dr. N Malliaropoulos form part of the organising committee and we welcome contributions from Sports Medicine physicians, Physicians, Rehabilitation medicine physicians, Orthopaedic surgeons, Podiatrists, Podiatric surgeons, Academics, Researchers, Physiotherapists, Osteopaths, Manual therapists, and Exercise therapists.

This will be an important meeting which we hope will galvanise sports physicians into action in preparation for the 2012 Olympics in London.

The Organising and Scientific Committee welcomed you to join participate as a delegate or as an Oral or Poster presenter.

www.ecosep.eu

www.aesculap-academia.co.uk