I learned that about 12% of high fit 80+ year olds die annually. Seems a bit unfair. But 27% of low fit 60-69 year olds die annually! No typo. High fit 80-yr olds are HALF AS LIKELY TO DIE as low fit 60-yr olds. Are we talking about 80-yr old Olympians? Nope. High fit is top 40%. Low fit = bottom 20%. Not too hard.

Prof Steve Blair (giving the audience both barrels of evidence, below) provided the data and reminded us that 150 minutes of moderately vigorous activity weekly (walking to and from the fridge) will leave the low fitness group in the dust. Alternatively, 70 minutes of vigorous walking to the fridge will do it. Not a big ask. As he said, the folks who are ‘too busy’ to do this generally have 3-4 hours a day to watch TV. And I guess there’ll be a few who have 10-20 years in the grave to think about it. Sounds non-PC but is actually just a fact.

Prof Dan Lieberman, ‘the Barefoot Professor’ wore black slipper type shoes to remind us not to polarize the debate into ‘barefoot’ vs ‘shod’ running. He highlighted the evolutionary advantage that humans have to run down game in the heat. 9-15 km daily, daily, daily back in the day. He really argued for the benfits of forefoot strike to prevent injuries. He’s doing an interview with the BMJ team tomorrow and there’ll be a session on running shoes/orthoses/etc. with Benno Nigg too. In the meantime see orthotics and patellofemoral pain in the BMJ.

The FIFA research team (F-MARC) including Philippe Tscholl, Mario Bizzini and Jiri Dvorak (photo above) shared the facts that 2010 World Cup football players used medication including NSAIDs and cortisone at a remarkable rate – comparable to that of osteoarthritic octogenarians in a care facility.  A concern. Doctors must do better. No lessons learned from previous World Cups in Germany and France. In a nutshell – FIFA 11+ prevents lower limb injuries and is being rolled out around the world. Football for Health — health messages with players as ambassadors and school children as the target is proving effective and electric. Great uptake – a lesson in implementation which is the theme of January’s BJSM issue (2012). No hyperlink there just yet. BJSM Blog gives you today’s news but not tomorrow’s!

We are hours away from freshening up the podcast page with a suite of interviews. Just need to get the switch at BMA house. We’ll tweet you when it’s ready (@BJSM_BMJ).

And if you add a question for any conference speaker below we’ll try to get it answered. No promises though! Or via Twitter.

PS: Thanks to our terrific team from BMJ for being at UKsem 2011. I am sure you have earned a spot for 2012!

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….

iPhone App  is being launched for the 2010 conference. (Sorry, non Apple users- wait for 2011!)

UKSEM iPhone App allows you to See what’s going on, where to go, exhibition details, speakers, plan your schedule, set reminders and link to our Video Replay.

Speakers and sessions will be uploaded to the UKSEM site immediately after the lecture- So you can review the conference presentations on our website, or on your iPad or iPhone. Don’t forget to Twitter feedback too!

If you can’t make it to the UKSEM London 2010, we’ll be at ExCel in 2011. Keep 23-26th November 2011 free. See you then!

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.

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.