Thesis (M.H.S.A.)--University of Michigan, 1980.

Increased interest in and opportunities for participation in recreation and sports have brought sports medicine into physicians' offices as another phase of health care. At one time considered to be limited to treatment and rehabilitation of injuries, sports medicine today includes many other medical aspects of sports. A preparticipation health appraisal is mandatory before entry into strenuous activity programs. Annual physical appraisals are not necessary, however, when continuing health supervision and periodic reviews of illness and injury are used to reveal needs for prompt medical attention. Cardiopulmonary and musculoskeletal capabilities must be included in the health examinations of athletes. School health personnel are important components of a scholastic sports medicine program because of their availability, their interest in all athletes, and the usefulness of their cumulative health records. Many physicians are sufficiently interested and qualified in sports medicine to serve as team physicians and be advisors on the health aspects of school or community youth sports programs.

With the increasing popularity all over the world of Ironman triathlon events, the need to determine the type, timing and number of injuries sustained by these triathletes on race day is evident. Also to determine the optimum medical staffing requirements and knowledge during these events is of importance. The Ironman South Africa 2011 (IMSA) took place on the 10 of April of that year. On that day 1742 triathletes started the event and a total of 1477 where able to complete the entire race distance in the time period allowed, (completion rate of 84.8%). Of those athletes competing, a total of 183 (male 155)(87.4%) and 28 (female)(11.3%) presented to the medical facility for treatment. The mean age of the triathletes presenting was 38.73(SD±9.82) years and the mean time of presentation to the facility was 12.35(SD±2.33) hours after the start of the event. Injury prevalence showed exercise associated collapse (EAC) to be the most common presentation at 44.8%. The medical support and staffing was established to fit the temporal model of injuries sustained by non elite Ironman triathletes. This allowed increasing medical staffing in the latter stages of the race when a greater number of athletes were expected to present for medical assistance.

The overarching aim of the current thesis was to assess the well-being and ill-being correlates of two perfectionism dimensions (i.e., self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism) in hearing and deaf athletes. In Study One (Chapter Two), a cross-sectional approach revealed the similarities in the relationships between self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism and the broader array of burning out symptoms in deaf and hearing athletes. Study Two (Chapter Three) adopted a longitudinal design, and examined whether self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism predicted changes in enjoyment and subjective vitality over four months, as well as whether changes in exhaustion over the same time period mediated the hypothesised relationships. A further purpose of study two was to examine whether the hypothesised relationships were invariant across hearing and deaf athletes. Study Three (Chapter Four) adopted qualitative semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding of high self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism in deaf and hearing athletes using a self-regulation framework. The majority of the findings suggest that self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism function in a similar manner across deaf and hearing athletes. It is hoped that the findings presented in this thesis may inform future research in deaf athletes to help protect this growing population from the perils of perfectionism.

Endurance exercise improves health partly though improvements in skeletal muscle function. Mitochondrial biogenesis is one of the mechanisms that underpin the positive health benefits of endurance exercise. Endurance-exercise and energy sensitive pathways signal to promote transcriptional processes that initiate the adaptive response. Thus the aim of this thesis was to further understand the regulation of post-exercise signalling within skeletal muscle, with specific focus on the activation of energy-sensitive mitochondrial biogenic signalling pathways. It was demonstrated that muscle-specific knockout of p53 does not impair mitochondrial protein content or enzyme activity within mouse skeletal muscle. In human skeletal muscle, fasting and fasted-exercise augment CREB\(^S\)\(^e\)\(^r\)\(^1\)\(^3\)\(^3\) and AMPK\(^T\)\(^h\)\(^r\)\(^1\)\(^7\)\(^2\) phosphorylation, while the mRNA expression of \(PDK4\) but not \(PPARGC1A\) is also increased in the fasted state. Finally, one week of nicotinamide riboside supplementation did not alter skeletal muscle mitochondrial respiration and whole-body substrate utilisation at rest or during endurance exercise, while SIRT1 and 3 activity and \(PPARGC1A\) mRNA expression at rest and following endurance-exercise are also unaffected by nicotinamide riboside supplementation. Overall, this thesis contributes novel data to the understanding of metabolism and skeletal muscle signalling following endurance exercise and how nutrition and endurance exercise could be integrated to optimise specific adaptations.

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A number of questionnaires formed the core of the research reported here. Thirteen studies were carried out in order to find out why people run. The main samples used consisted of marathon and half marathon runners. The main reasons found for starting to run were to improve physical fitness, to improve health or feel better and in order to run in a marathon/half marathon. The perceived benefits reported by runners were examined. These were found to be, in descending order of the benefits derived: improved physical health; increased well being; increased self insight; increased self discipline and improved self confidence. The runners' stated reasons for their involvement in running were also assessed. Factor analysis revealed that running shares many of the motives which underlie other leisure activities. The motivational categories identified were, in order of importance: Challenge; Health/Fitness; Well Being; Addiction; Status and Social. These categories are very similar to those proposed by Maslow (1970). The results reported here show that it necessary for running research, and exercise research in general, to be placed within a much wider context than it is at present. Two main costs were noted by runners. Firstly, a small but significant number of runners reported that running had a detrimental effect on their family and social lives. A comparison of the perceptions of runners with those of their non-running partners showed that runners may underestimate these negative effects. Secondly, a large number of runners reported injuries as a result of their running. Class and gender differences were examined. Blue collar workers were more influenced by the extrinsic satisfiers provided by running than were white collar runners but they were not any less motivated by the intrinsic satisfiers. Running appeared to be more important to the female runners sampled and it brought them greater improvements in well being.

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Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of the Pacific, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-177). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.