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The benefits of physical activity for the healthy development of children and adolescents are now undisputed. Therefore, recommendations for physical activity based on current scientific knowledge are installed. Although there are national differences, the primary goal is to motivate children and adolescents in different settings to be more active and less inactive. The extent to which this is possible or what factors are necessary at a political, scientific and actor-oriented level is critically discussed in this article.
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Introduction: Adequate physical activity is important for a healthy and age-appropriate development in children and adolescents with congenital heart disease (CHD). To enable each child with CHD individual and harmless physical activity an exam by a pediatric cardiologist/sports medicine physician, specific recommendations based on residual findings and structures of care are needed.
Methods: A selective review of the literature in PubMed was performed to retrieve current guidelines and review articles.
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High, goal-orientated movement time is an essential characteristic of good physical education (PE). Due to the low weekly dotation of PE in the Swiss school curriculum, the question arises as to how the available teaching time is used, to what extent do the pupils exert themselves and what the subject actually contributes to the achievement of the recommended activity guidelines? The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to analyse the use of time and to determine the effort and perceived exertion of 5th grades (n = 468) during physical education (PE) lessons of 90 min.
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A lot has been published on the topic concussion in sports during the last years, conscience was sharpened, much was structured and defined more precisely, help tools were developed and rules changed. This article summarizes the fifth edition of the recently published guidelines of the “International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport”. In addition, new findings regarding gender differences and recovery will be presented, as well as the modified “return-to-sport” and the novel “return-to-school” protocols.
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During the last years, muscle strengthening exercises have been included as an essential part in youth physical activity guidelines of national and international health organisations. It is well-documented that strength training is effective in improving physical fitness and promoting health and psycho-social well-being. Therefore, the purpose of this review article is to present empirical evidence on the effectiveness of strength training in children and adolescents.
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The popularity of alpine skiing is growing among young athletes. However, this development also carries the risk of early health problems such as traumatic and overuse injuries. To support a long-term beneficial effect of an early sport specialization, the amount of appropriate volume and intensity of training need to be investigated. As a basis for a prospective and reliable data collection, we developed a training and injury database to repeatedly record the occurrence of traumatic injuries and overuse injuries. Study participants were 82 young talented alpine skiers aged between 9 and 14 years.
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The special feature in recreational scuba diving is the high ambient pressure under water. As a consequence, specific behavioral rules and special requirements exist for safe diving in children and adolescents, especially for the preparticipation examination done by the diving physician. In this overview article, we describe the physical basics of diving, the sport-specific characteristics of recreational scuba diving with a special focus on children and adolescents (Declaration of Eisenach). We describe the requirements for health and for the medical certification for scuba diving.
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The growing spine is – particularly in performance oriented young athletes – prone to overload: under pubertal hormonal influence the 48 cartilaginous growth zones beneath the vertebral endplates are mechanical as fragil as never before during growth whereas on the other side the impacting forces are becoming higher due to the longer trunk lever arm, the often apparent relative muscular insufficiency, the increasing training hours and intensity as well as the willingness and pressure to perform. The subsequent biomechanical imbalance usually results in simple functional complaints but may also entail structural changes, for example (thoraco-) lumbar Scheuermann’s disease in sports with high axial impact such as alpine skiing oder gymnastics.
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Ideally, the musculosceletal system and it’s components maintain a biologic balance during growth in order to compensate and/or adapt to intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Otherwise, the risk of acute or overuse injuries is increasing. The growth cartilage at the level of the growth plates or apophyses as well as the spine is highly vulnerable to overuse injuries, especially during the pubertal growth spurt. The diagnosis of an overuse injury is often delayed due to the undulant clinical manifestation and the treatment can be extensive and long-lasting, sometimes leading to an early cessation of sports activities.
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