Sports Medicine: The concept, The science

KOCHI:Sports Medicine, also known as sport and exercise medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the prevention and treatment of injuries related to sport and exercise. Sports Medicine has three main objectives.

Performance enhancement- First objective is to enhance performance for sporting activities. This can be strength training for power events or endurance training for events like long-distance running. The exercise regime for both are different.

1)Endurance training is the act of exercising to increase endurance. The term endurance training generally refers to training the aerobic system Endurance training is essential for a variety of endurance sports. A notable example is a distance running events, 800metersupwards to the marathon with the required degree of endurance training increasing with race distance. Other examples are cycling and competitive swimming. Long-term endurance training induces many physiological adaptations, especially in the cardiovascular system.

2)Strength training - a type of physical exercises specializing in the use of resistance to induce muscular contraction which builds the strength, anaerobic endurance, and size of skeletal muscles.Strength training can provide increased bone, muscle, tendon and ligament strength and toughness, improved joint function, reduced potential for injury.

Injury prevention - The second objective of Sports Medicine is injury prevention by understanding the biomechanics of human movement and strengthening appropriate muscles to prevent injuries to joints and ligaments. It also involves education of athletes to avoid repetitive strain. Extreme endurance training puts stress on the heart and can cause sudden collapse.

Treatment of injuries - The third aspect of Sports Medicine is the treatment of injuries sustained during sports. This starts with the management of acute injuries on the field. Later in the hospital, appropriate treatment is given. Then a rehabilitation programme is given to enable the athlete to come back to pre-injury performance level.

Sports nutrition - the study and practice of nutrition and diet with regards to improving athletic performance.Sports Nutrition focuses its studies on the type, as well as the number of fluids and food taken by an athlete.

Athletes may choose to consider taking dietary supplements to assist in improving their athletic performance.

Energy supplements - Athletes sometimes turn to energy supplements to increase their ability to exercise more often. Common supplements include Caffeine, Guarana, Vitamin B12, and Asian ginseng.

Recovery Supplements- help athletes recover from post-exercise muscle soreness. Only branched chain amino acids supplements have shown some benefit in controlled studies.

Performance Enhancing Supplements - Bodybuilders may choose to use illegal substances such as anabolic steroids. These can quickly build mass and strength but have many adverse effects. Blood doping also known as blood transfusions increases oxygen delivery to exercising tissues and has been demonstrated to improve performance in endurance sports, such as long-distance running.

Sports psychology - an interdisciplinary science that draws on knowledge from many related fields. It involves the study of how psychological factors affect performance and how participation in sport and exercise affect psychological and physical health. In addition to instruction and training of psychological skills for performance improvement, applied sports psychology may include work with athletes, coaches, and parents regarding injury, rehabilitation, communication, team building, and career transitions.

Fitness Training - Let’s discuss the benefits of exercise for physical fitness. There are several studies showing a significant reduction in morbidity and mortality due to heart disease in physically active persons compared with sedentary control groups.

The most recent recommendations advise people of all ages to include a minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity of moderate intensity on most, if not, all days of the week. Combined aerobic and strength training is most effective in association with diet restriction for the prevention and treatment of obesity.

Exercise and mental health - One of the largest studies to date on exercise and psychological health shows that the optimal amount of physical activity for improved mental health may be from 2.5 to 7.5 hours of activity per week. There are good data that rigorous physical activity for 30 minutes a day is a fairly effective treatment for depression.Yet, when a person feels that frequent bouts of exercise are a need, rather than a choice, then physical activity has the potential to be compulsive.When exercise is a compulsion, it is likely to be seen as part of a constellation of symptoms in a mental illness, such as anorexia or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Fitness Training is a totally unregulated field.Medically supervised exercise and evidence-based training is vital in promoting safe fitness in the general public and in athletes.

Dr Prasad Mathews

Senior Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine

KIMS Hospital, Thiruvanathapuram

(The views expressed by the author are his own)