Anti-doping Blog

In these days of doping scandals, athletes can find themselves wondering about the other athletes lining up beside them. Canadian weightlifter Christine Girard, awarded medals from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games in December 2018, advises athletes to stay true to their values, work hard, and trust in the system. Learn more about her journey…

Well-planned vegetarian eating

Thinking about making some changes to your diet now that Health Canada has released an updated Food Guide? Plant-based and vegetarian diets offer many health benefits including the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. This article from the Dietitians of Canada offers tips and meal options for well-planned vegetarian eating.

Unstructured play

A review of the evidence shows unstructured play improves physical health and gross motor skills, fun and creativity, social health and team work, resilience and risk management skills, mental and emotional health, and learning and attention at school. Learn more in this infographic.

Outdoor Play

Outdoor play is a basic childhood need, and taking risks is an essential part of play. Whether sledding down a hill, building a snow fort, or playing pond hockey, children are often happiest when playing, and this type of risky play contributes to children’s health, development and wellbeing. Unfortunately, research indicates only 37% of children play…

RAE Impacts

The “relative age effect” (RAE) advantages relatively older individuals in an age group while disadvantaging the relatively youngest. This age inequality can have significant impacts on sport and educational performance, and long-term health and wellbeing. Learn more in the SIRCuit.

Walk Score

Walking for transportation or leisure can contribute to the health of our nation. “Walk Score” is a scientifically validated method for measuring the walkability of any address based on proximity to nearby amenities and pedestrian friendliness (i.e. population density and road metrics such as block length and intersection density). Click here to check out the…

We Need to Talk about Mental Health

Life as a high-level athlete has its ups and downs. There is success and failure, stress, pressure, endless doubts, injuries, days where you are surrounded by people and others where you are completely by yourself. It’s a train of emotions, one after the other, almost simultaneously. It can be too much to process. In the…

Alberta Sleep Quality

While 71% of Albertans report meeting daily sleep recommendations, 25% rate their sleep quality as fairly bad to very bad, according to the 2019 Alberta Survey on Physical Activity. Sleep behaviour is an important determinant of health and wellbeing, with impacts on neural development, learning, memory, emotional regulation, metabolic health, and cardiovascular health.

Coming of Age With Relative Age Research: Origins, Consequences, and Potential Solutions

On October 17, 2018, Relative Age Effects: An International Conference was hosted at York University where leading international scholars gathered to discuss the implications of athletes’ dates of birth on sport, health, and education. This article highlights the history of the phenomenon known as the “relative age effect” as well as its impact on sport,…

Balancing Psychological Load: New Perspectives on Recovery

Current views on recovery Recent research by Nash and Sproule (2018) asked coaches for their views on recovery in training. While recovery was widely understood as crucially important, results revealed that few coaches think about psychological and cognitive recovery with the same depth and importance as the physical aspects of recovery. One reason for the…