Suni et al 2012 published a study concerning the incidence of absenteeism, pain and function in the military. Groups were randomly assigned to intervention or control. The intervention group was an anti-tank and an engineering cohort while the control group was a signal and a mortar cohort. The intervention was to train and educate the(…)
No one will deny the power the mind can have on the body. With just a minor shift, the mind can turn wins into losses and losses into total victory. We’ve all seen games where at the half, one team is so far behind, we contemplate going home because it’s over; they then regroup and(…)
Ramadan has coincided with the Olympics this cycle and there has been a real discussion about its effects on the athletes who are observing it. Ramadan is the 9th month on the Muslim calendar during which adherents abstain from food and water during the hours the sun is up. This generally involves waking before dawn(…)
In professional soccer, both speed and endurance are key physical performance indicators, and while endurance can be tested alone in a high performance lab (VO2max test), the most accurate on-field performance indicator is The Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test (version 1 & 2) which we talk about here. A study just published in The Journal of Sports Medicine and(…)
Knapikk (et al.) 2011 published a 6-year retrospective on the FBI’s physical training program. The FBI determines fitness levels using the physical fitness test. It is administered 4 times over a 17-week period. It consists of push ups to failure, 1 min max sit ups, 300m sprint, 1.5 mile run and pull-ups to failure. Over the(…)
US Air Force Combat Controllers are among the most elite special forces in the world. Their training lasts approximately 24 months and the attrition rate averages 75%. Their job is essentially to enter an enemy controlled area before anyone else in the US military does, and provide air traffic coordination, communications and painting targets for(…)
Bigger, faster, stronger: a profile of the modern professional athlete. One strength and conditioning component that’s been put on the back burner these past few years is maximum aerobic power. Recently, the publication of the Brazilian male judo national team anthropokinetic data demonstrated the importance of maximum aerobic power on judo-specific performance. Seven different weight-classes of athletes(…)
Test-Retest Reliability, one of the fundamentals of science and technology is being able to reproduce with accuracy the same result. Otherwise, we don’t know how it works, why it works, how to use it or when it won’t work. In medicine, these ideas are a little more complicated given the inherent complexity of organisms and(…)