We have made a number of changes to both the overall appearance of the publication, and have also added another regular feature to the contents – that of a series of discussions and guidelines that is intended to support academics, practitioners, and students in terms of the concepts and methodologies required to successfully conduct research. We hope you find the series both thought-provoking and useful.

This article principally sets out to investigate the current state of the sports medicine industry in order to make reasonable predictions about the potential development of the industry in the future. The number and diversity of providers of sports medicine has increased in recent years and includes physiotherapists, medical practitioners, osteopaths, massage therapists and sports and athletic trainers (Anderson 2003; Brukner and Khan 2005). These professions all provide sports medicine in different ways and to differing degrees. The effect of market forces on the various professions will be discussed before conclusions can be drawn on the industry as a whole.

This article is intended as an introductory text for a series of six discussions on research concepts and methodologies. In particular, the ongoing debate regarding the roles of positivism, critical realism, and interpretivism in relation to quantitative and qualitative research methods is addressed with the aim of perhaps liberating those sports therapy researchers who feel their quantitative empirical work should always be couched in positivist terms of reference, and others who may be methodologically constrained by the belief that their qualitative data can, or should, only be represented in interpretivist frameworks. The main thread here, and throughout the series, is the promotion of complementarity between qualitative and quantitative data analyses and the nature of the utility, application, and contingency of these methods within positivist, critical realist, and interpretivist research mindsets, or paradigms.

A one-day 8 hour certified CPD conference, organised by F2F Events Ltd, promoted as “an opportunity to listen, learn and discuss the latest thinking and developments on the topic of sports injuries and the ageing back”. Aimed at physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors and other health professionals. There was no mention of Sports Therapists in the pre-course literature, or even on the day, which I felt was quite a significant oversight.

The Society of Sports Therapists was first established in 1990 to address the growing demands of the industry. In 1996 the first degree in Sports Therapy was piloted in London Metropolitan University and has steadily grown throughout the United Kingdom to 18 Universities running degree programmes, and six running Masters programmes.

Effective strength and conditioning programmes are designed to optimally prepare athletes to meet the specific demands of their particular sport. To appreciate the unique demands of any sport a needs analysis of that sport must first be performed. This article presents has been separated into two parts. The first part of this article explores the latest findings from the literature in regards to the specific technical and metabolic demands that Judo competition exerts on participants. In addition to this, physiological characteristics of elite competitors are explored to find possible determinants of successful performance in each sport. These determinants are then used to establish a sample judo specific testing protocol. Part II of this article shows how the information gathered from part I can be applied to the design of a judo-specific strength and conditioning programme.

“I initially received a Bachelor of Psychology from City University of New York and later became interested in body work. After studying shiatsu and massage I decided to pursue a qualification in that area and completed a Bachelor Degree in Acupuncture.”

Coventry University began offering the undergraduate degree in Sports Therapy in the academic year 2007/2008 with a cohort of 40 students. Entry to the degree course was considered for applicants who had achieved 240 UCAS points at either A-Level or via other qualifications such as BTEC nationals etc. and all students achieved this minimum standard.