Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Mountjoy, Margo
• Engebretsen, Lars

Titel

How sport and exercise medicine research can protect athlete health and promote athlete performance

Ist Teil von

• British journal of sports medicine, 2020-05, Vol.54 (10), p.563-564

Ort / Verlag

England: BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Quelle

BMJ Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• To protect athletes from injury risk from unethical player behaviours, FIFA implemented a rule change to impose a ‘red card’ for ‘elbow-to-head’ infractions, resulting in a significant decrease in head injuries.3 In response to the high prevalence of ACL tears in football, FIFA introduced an exercise-based prevention intervention that decreased these injuries by up to 50%, particularly in subelite athlete populations.4 The FIS implemented a rule change in ski jumping to minimise the performance benefit of low body weight by decreasing the ski length for those athletes with a lower body mass index. To address the scientifically documented health risk of exercising in extreme heat, both the athletics (IAAF) and football (FIFA) federations implemented rule changes to the competition structure to provide opportunities for cooling, and to stage events at times of the day when environmental temperatures are cooler.6 7 In addition to the upper limit water temperature rule in Marathon Swimming (FINA) and Triathlon (ITU),2 these International Federations also collaborated on a research project to determine a safe lower water temperature limit.8 In this case, the question was ‘How cold is too cold (for swimming)?’. Athlete health protection is already central for the International Olympic Committee—it needs to be a central focus for all International Federations.