A Guide to Sports Medicine Electives (A BJSM Blog Series)

Explore firsthand experiences, practical insights, and expert tips from those who have already taken their Sports and Exercise Medicine (SEM) electives around the world. Key words: Sports and exercise medicine, Electives, Undergraduate education  Introduction  Imagine trading your regular lecture hall for an international sports clinic, or shadowing top doctors at a Premier League academy. Whether you’re […]

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Simpler means safer when responding to an emergency: The new FIFA Medical Set-Piece toolkit and Pre-Match Emergency Action Plan

This blog examines FIFA’s new approach to medical emergencies in football – the “Medical Set Piece.” Just like rehearsed free kicks, FIFA have created a standardised emergency protocol where medical teams practice coordinated responses until they become automatic. Here, we explore the Pre-match Emergency Action Plan (PEAP), which assigns colour-coded roles to team members, ensuring […]

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Optimising Performance Through Sleep: An Evidence-Based Review

Introduction Sleep is an important part of an athlete’s health and overall functional performance. Recently, this emphasis has grown, with some teams hiring sleep coaches to optimise this as best as possible. This has meant that more emphasis is being put on the quality and quantity of sleep for athletes and how it can affect […]

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Understanding the female athletes’ heart

Key words: exercise, sex differences, heart Why is this study important? This blog is a summary of a recently published BJSM study (1). The heart of the athlete often demonstrates physical changes as a result of regular endurance training such as bigger chamber or ‘ventricular’ size[2, 3] . However, this phenomenon has predominantly been described […]

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Concussion and depressive symptoms in high school students: impact of physical activity and substance use

Key words: Brain Injury, Physical Activity, Adolescence An estimated 1.1 to 1.9 million sports- and recreation-related concussions occur each year in children and adolescents in the United States (1). Diagnosis, prognosis, and rehabilitation for concussion have progressed substantially over the past two decades (2). Despite this, patients, families, and clinicians are often left with one […]

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Genetic liability to sedentary behaviour and cardiovascular disease

Key words: public health, physical activity promotion, genetic epidemiology Why is this study important? Paleoanthropologists have previously argued that physical activity has long been a survival need in human history, which is why humans would not have evolved to move voluntarily (1). Moreover, sedentary behaviour may be a trait selected by evolution to conserve viable […]

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Bringing reproductive, pelvic, and breast health to light: insights from the Health of Elite Retired Australian female athletes survey (HER-Aus)

Why is this study important? Women have been competing in elite sport for centuries. Although more women and girls are competing than ever before – with gender parity finally achieved at the Paris 2024 Olympics – research has not kept pace. Over the last decade, women made up only about 10% of all participants in […]

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Physical Activity During Childhood Improves Mental Health

In this blog, we report novel findings from a recent study on how physical activity during certain periods can protect children from developing common psychiatric conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and addiction (1). We also highlight that participation in organized sports seems to have a broad beneficial effect and then discuss explanations for this pattern, […]

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The SWEREX study: Understanding Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Rates in Higher-Level Athletes.

Key words: Anterior Cruciate Ligament; Epidemiology; Women in sport This blog is based on a recently published study in BJSM (1). Why is this study important? Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are a major problem for athletes involved in pivoting sports at all levels(2-4). Understanding how often these injuries happen, who is most at risk, […]

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Can Intravenous Iron Therapy Boost Exercise Performance and Reduce Fatigue in Active Women?

Key words: Iron Deficiency, Women’s Health, Exercise Performance Why is this study important?  Iron deficiency without anemia (IDNA) is a common issue among recreationally active women of reproductive age, driven by factors such as menstrual blood loss and exercise-induced iron depletion (1). While oral iron supplements are often used to address this, they can cause […]

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