If you are one of the many who've resolved to get fitter this year, then this is the one resolution you should try to keep. Only 40% of men and 28% of women take the recommended amount of exercise and according to the British Medical Journal, regular exercise reduces the risk of conditions such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes by 20 to 30 per cent.

Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach launches in January 2009 with an exciting, educational array of topics from ACL injury prevention, reconstruction, and management to concussion assessment, to the role of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in athletics, to fish oil use in professional football players. Editor-in-Chief, Edward Wojtys, MD and the editorial review board have lined up some of the most widely renowned sports medicine clinicians, including Frank R.

For some, wintertime offers an opportunity to stay inside with a blanket and a good book -- but for others, the season brings with it a whole new excitement of sports and outdoor activities for children and adults alike. Hockey, ice skating, sledding, skiing (http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.

Experts from the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine urge over-40 men and women to enroll in Start, a lifestyle-changing fitness program that will help participants realistically incorporate exercise into their presently inactive lifestyles. Beginning Jan. 10, experts will guide participants through fitness and education sessions twice weekly for three months, preparing them to run or walk the Athletic Trainer River Run 5-K race in Pittsburgh on March 8.

Workplace programs that encourage employees to set exercise goals pay off, finds a new study that looked at physical activity levels of Home Depot employees who participated in the "Move to Improve" program. The program increased the proportion of employees who regularly participated in either moderate or vigorous physical activity from about 30 percent at the start of the study to about 50 percent during the last six weeks, said lead author Rod Dishman, Ph.D.

New Year is the time when many people decide to join a gym, or revisit a neglected gym membership, and in the current economic climate, gym owners will be concerned not only to attract new members but also to hold onto their existing ones, so now is a good time to get a good deal on your gym membership. According to some of the media reports from the US, gym companies are "slashing prices" (LA Times, 5 Jan 09).

New Year is the time when many people decide to join a gym, or revisit a neglected gym membership, and in the current economic climate, gym owners will be concerned not only to attract new members but also to hold onto their existing ones, so now is a good time to get a good deal on your gym membership. According to some of the media reports from the US, gym companies are "slashing prices" (LA Times, 5 Jan 09).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine recommends at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most days of the week in order to maintain and improve optimal health. This recommendation is especially important for older Americans, who can be less likely to fulfill this requirement, yet are more at risk for chronic diseases associated with aging.

Weight bearing exercise during adolescence seems to be the best for maintaining bone strength in older life, indicates a small study published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The research team assessed the impact of exercise between the ages of 12 and 18 on preserving bone strength in later life among 46 women. The women were all aged from 52 to 73, and had already gone through the menopause.

Muscle fatigue is ubiquitous among moving animals, including humans. Despite over 100 years of research, in vivo changes in muscle dynamics during exercise are not well understood. Here we show that whole-body fatigue in helmeted guinea fowl (resulting from running on an inclined treadmill) causes gastrocnemius muscle force to become highly variable. This likely represents a key mechanism underlying decreased stability commonly associated with fatigue.