“Mindless” Athletes: A Need for Holistic University Sport Performance Enhancement Programs

Popular former baseball player Yogi Berra, known for his eclectic, off-the-wall comments, stated what most coaches and athletes believe, “Ninety percent of the game is half mental”. In a more straightforward manner, former Olympian Bruce Jenner detailed the importance of the psychological skills of athletes, “You have to train your mind like you train your body”. Today, as compared with 20-30 years ago, coaches, athletes, and athletic directors have a much better understanding of how gaining the “mental edge” can giveone athlete or team the competitive advantage over another athlete or team. Researchers investigating the effects of psychological skills training show that positive effects were evident in at least 85% of the studies. Yet it appears that most college athletic programs do not formally recognize nor employ sport psychologists/mental enhancement trainers (SP/MET) for their teams. Why is this so?

Traditional Cryotherapy Treatments are More Effective than Game Ready® on Medium Setting at Decreasing Sinus Tarsi Tissue Temperatures in Uninjured Subjects

The daily application of cryotherapy for orthopedic injury pain management is a common practice in clinical settings. McCaffery reported in 1979 that cryotherapy was the most effective, yet underutilized modality for pain. This underutilization of cryotherapy for pain management may be in part due to unclear relationship between cryotherapy application and orthopedic injury pain

Within-Season Variation of Fitness in Elite Youth Female Soccer Players

Participation in women’s soccer has increased significantly in recent times. It is estimated that women in 132 countries participate in soccer, with up to 1.4 million alone in the UK playing at various age groups and levels of competition. Despite this, female soccer players are seen as a specialist population. The demands of elite women’s soccer are reported to be similar to that of elite male soccer regarding the mean match intensity (~85% of maximal heart rate), and distance covered (~10 km). However, research has reported that junior female players possess a significantly lower aerobic capacity than that of elite senior players, indicating that the activity pattern of youth soccer will differ somewhat from senior play. Irrespective of this, it would still appear that good anaerobic capabilities and welldeveloped aerobic fitness are pre-requisites to successful performance at elite level in women’s soccer, regardless of age.

The Importance of Target Tissue Depth in Cryotherapy Application

Cryotherapy is commonly used for the immediate care of musculoskeletal injuries. Cold application following injury is theorized to decrease the metabolic demand of the injured tissues. As a result, the tissues require less oxygen and secondary injury (i.e., tissue death due to lack of oxygen) is reduced. In doing so, cryotherapy reduces the deleterious effects of the injury potentially improving recovery time.Tissue cooling is mitigated by a variety of factors including, the type of cryotherapy applied (e.g., ice massage, ice bags), length of application, and the physical characteristics of the person (e.g., skinfold thickness) and body part on which it is applied.