One of our goals at the Huffines Institute is to encourage activity. But we also encourage common sense when you exercise. I don’t know if it is the time of the year (spring), a lack of proper guidance by society, or just youthful beliefs of invincibility, but the general lack of concern for their own basic safety that I’ve seen exhibited recently by runners, pedestrians, or bicyclists gives me pause.

I caught an interesting interview last week with Dr. Mark Emmert, the NCAA president. There were a variety of topics covered during this candid interview, including whether the NCAA Basketball tournament would ever be expanded beyond the current 68 teams, whether college athletes would ever become ‘more than amateurs’, the current web of regulations that college athletic programs have to work within, and whether there will ever be a playoff in the football bowl system division.

This past Sunday, 60 Minutes ran a piece on a Dr. A. Potti, a fairly renowned cancer researcher, who while at Duke University evidently manipulated his data so that his results would appear to better than they were.  There is no excusing this type of manipulation (or of data fabrication – which also happens in science as well), especially because it appears some cancer patients’ treatments may have been dictated by these flawed results.  But it leads to a bigger question: “Is scientific misco...

Everyone talks about 'reaching the masses', but rarely do you have a chance to do so. At the Huffines Institute, we are thrilled because our local newspaper - The Eagle - has agreed to start porting the content from our website to their website to a new Health section. They are starting with this blog, and will gradually port over the other content over the next couple of months. I'm noting this because it is important that 'we' all talk - I'm using the universal '...

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...

Even Scientists have to pay attention to what is new in their field. While we all read articles in the Sports Medicine journals, those articles are not the newest information available. For the newest discoveries, findings, and applications, we all attend 'meetings'. Sometimes these meetings are held on the state-level, sometimes the regional level, and sometimes the national / international level. This week sees the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), o...

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 ...

How do you know the Sports Medicine professional you are seeing knows what they are doing? When we go to a physician, or an accountatnt, or even hair stylists, we all know to look for some type of licensure or professional certification to ensure that the individual we are seeing has knowledge and experience that pertains to what we're there for. But how do you do this when you see Sports Medicine professionals?