If you didn’t see it, the U.S. Marathon Olympic Trials were held this past Saturday morning in Houston (the TV replay was on Saturday afternoon).  Experts say that we may have the strongest overall Olympic marathon team that we’ve ever had – but there is no guarantee that we’ll win any medals in this event because the Kenyans and Ethiopians have truly dominated distance running over the past 10 years.  Before you shake your head and turn to the next article, hav...

An individual diagnosed with a neurocognitive disease like Parkinson’s often face a difficult future, with their quality of life marked by difficult physical symptoms, including uncontrollable tremors. Often these tremors make walking, writing, and other movements that many of us take for granted, difficult, if not impossible. Pharmacological treatments for these tremors and other Parkinson’s symptoms work well, at least in the short term, but eventually, the brain adapts to these drugs and th...

It seems that there are times when popular literature seems to be all writing about the same thing (or maybe they all feed off each other?). At any rate, it seems that now is such a time with several popular books addressing whether performance and success is a result of inherent talent or practice and perseverance. Books like Bounce, The Talent Code, and Outliers all propose that inherent characteristics are not very important in determining final success. Rather, these authors would contend th...

Most exercise 'fads' come and go repeatedly, so I was interested in a recent session on Barefoot Running at the recent national American College of Sports Medicine meeting. Is barefoot running a fad or is there something more to it?

In the last several years, the men and women of our military services are never far from any of our minds. While most of us are more likely to think of sports medicine as relating to athletic performance or normal exericse, many don't realize that our field has been linked to military service for many, many years. Ask many veterans what the initials "PT" mean to them and in most cases they will tell you 'physical training' (and maybe with a sneer in place).

Since we put up our podcast conversation with Dr. Carol Garber this past Friday, I've had couple of interesting email conversations, and one in particular with my friend Kevin, has struck a chord that needs to be amplified a bit.  I think if you listen to Dr. Garber, you may get the sense that Exercise Scientists are only interested in state licensure and are a bit elitist to boot.  I think it is critical that we drop back a couple of steps to look at some context for this conversation that ...

Human performance still surprises the most cynical of us and truly shows that the machine we call the human body is capable of incredible feats. Yesterday (April 18, 2011), Geoffrey Mutai and Moses Mosop both ran the Boston Marathon in times approaching 2 hours and 3 mins, with Mutai winning in an official time of 2:03:02. What is amazing about this time (and Mosop's of 2:03:06) is that the world record in the marathon is currently 2:03:59 and that Mutai's time clipped almost a full mi...

Our newest podcast is a great conversation with Kevin Hughes and I'd encourage everyone to download it and listen. Kevin is a long-time comedian with many honors and probably one of the deepest thinkers I've ever known. Plus, as most comedians are, he may be one of the most astute observers of human behavior out there. Kevin has had a long and burning interest in health - both physical and mental health - and often this interest and his observations come up in his comedy. So while we...

Rhabdomyolysis – That’s a scary word to start my first Director’s blog with, but that word and the occurrence of rhabdomyolysis (“rhabdo” for short) in a cluster of 13 football players at the University of Iowa on Jan. 25 encapsulate so much of what Sports Medicine is about. Rhabdo is a condition where a lot of muscle is broken down and leads to some extreme endpoints like brown urine and potential kidney damage. While Rhabdo can occur from severe, traumatic accidents, we are hearing more a...