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…
ACL Injury Recovery
Reconstruction surgery has become a viable method for athletes to return to play after suffering an ACL injury, yet one third of patients will develop osteoarthritis within 10 years. Researchers have found that the way a patient moves after surgery has significant implications for their long-term recovery. Patients who reported lingering symptoms post-surgery were found…
Putting Multi-sport into Practice
The Coaching Association of Canada’s 2018 Petro-Canada Sport Leadership Conference focused on fostering positive change in the sport system through influence. One panel discussion attracted attention with the simple question: Is there a future for multi-sport in Canada? Led by an expert panel that included Carolyn Townsend (Sport Nova Scotia), André Lachance (Baseball Canada), Richard…
Putting Multi-sport into Practice
Is there a future for kids’ multi-sport programming in Canada? This was the question during an interactive panel presentation at the 2018 Petro-Canada Sport Leadership Conference. Learn more about the discussion in today’s SIRC blog, the last in a series about the value and possibility of a multi-sport approach to sport and physical activity in…