Sport Safety and Accessories

SIRC Newsletter now available online: Sport Accessories and Safety With all the kids back in the classroom, try outs for school sports and classes for phys-ed will be starting up again. Many of you may have already received a note from a coach or phys-ed teacher requesting that students remove all jewelry and accessories before participating in any kind of sport. As a parent or coach, it's...Read more

When is Pain "Acceptable"?

Anyone who has trained even moderately will have experienced pain sometime during a workout. However, if we all stopped exercising every time we had an ache or pain, we'd never get off of the couch. When you experience pain, it's your body telling you that it is under stress and being potentially damaged. Guidelines are always helpful in determining the extent of an injury but if you are in a lot...Read more

Troubling Tendonitis

What is tendonitis? Tendonitis is a word that is mentioned a lot in the sport industry, but few people really grasp what it is. The word tendonitis means "inflamed tendon." A tendon is a tough band of connective tissue, attached at one end to a muscle and on the other to a bone. It is a common condition in athletes that can cause significant amounts of inflammation, swelling and pain. Why does it...Read more

Warm up to Train at Your Peak

Everyone is aware of the importance of warming up to improve performance and prevent injury . There is good reason for this practice, because scientists have shown that warm muscles are flexible, resistant to tearing and can produce force more quickly. One of the major problems facing today’s athletes is muscular injury, both recreational and professional. A well-formed warm up will prepare the...Read more

Overtraining

Overtraining occurs when athletes go beyond their training regiments and do not allow enough time for the body to recover. This can damage muscles, tendons, and ligaments and even have a mental effect on the athlete. There are also cases when athletes become ill right before their major event due to overtraining. This is often caused by athletes who are already at their capacity training too hard...Read more

A Different Kind of Athlete

Athletes. They come in all shapes, size and types. They are high performance, professional, amateur, recreational, college and high school. They are also industrial. Unlike the sporting athlete who is physically trained to participate in their sport, encouraged to take the appropriate amount of rest, receives professional sports medicine and nutritional advice, the industrial athlete is not. They...Read more

Sink Your Teeth into Sport Safety!

You can sprain your ankle, break a leg, tear a rotator cuff or sustain bruised ribs, but often overlooked in the world of sports medicine and injuries are those suffered in the mouth. Essential in the prevention of athletic oral/facial injuries are properly diagnosed, designed, and custom fabricated mouth guards. Contact sports such as football, boxing, martial arts and hockey require mouth...Read more

The Play Safe Initiative (PSI)

Last week in Toronto, SIRC attended a Sport4Ontario hosted presentation by Brandy Tanenbaum from the Play Safe Initiative (PSI) with the RBC First Office for Injury Prevention at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Sunnybrook RBC-FOIP). As a member of the collaborative Stewardship Group involved with PSI, SIRC has come together with organizations of all sizes and shapes, to commit to...Read more

Pilates: Great for Athletes

With the hectic and time consuming training schedule of athletes, it is often hard to find time to recover from a workout. Add to this the fact that often athletes are repeatedly using the same muscle groups, they are leaving themselves open to injuries. These days, many athletes (especially teenagers) are turning to Pilates as a great way to switch up their work out and help with injury...Read more

Injury Risk for Female Athletes

We are all aware that women and men differ in general physiology, and it is easy to extrapolate that they differ in physiology in response to exercise and physical activity. While women are prone to many of the same exercise-related injuries, a recent article in the SIRC Collection draws our focus to the injury risks of women in exercise and athletics and the special concerns of the female...Read more