Ayako Higashihara: A Festival of Sports Medicine and Science Research

2024/04/24

This year, an Olympic and Paralympic year, athletes challenging themselves in the quadrennial festival of sports are training hard every day. Meanwhile, the IOC World Conference on Prevention of Injury & Illness in Sport is held every three years, and I am participating in it. It can be called a festival of sports medicine and science research, where researchers from around the world gather to discuss the latest research findings to scientifically support the healthy competitive lives of athletes.

I want to support athletes through research so they can perform at their best without suffering from injuries. With that thought in mind, I chose my seminar during my undergraduate years in 2004, the year of the Athens Olympics. Since then, my research theme for the past 20 years has been "prevention of muscle strains."

Among injuries that significantly impact an athlete's performance and career, muscle strains occur with particularly high frequency. Even at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, 59 athletes suffered muscle strains, 24 of whom were forced to withdraw from competition. In addition to the high frequency of occurrence, the high rate of re-injury is another reason why the importance of muscle strain prevention is being emphasized.

The sporting movements that we and athletes perform casually every day are realized by the central nervous system issuing commands and moving muscles. In the sports field, it is often said that "muscle strains occur due to a breakdown in coordination between the nervous system and muscles," but in fact, there is still no scientific evidence to support this. Furthermore, some athletes complain of "muscle discomfort" during training or matches, or a sensation that it is "difficult to apply force" after a muscle strain, but these phenomena have not been proven either, making the decision on when an athlete should return to competition a very difficult challenge. It is our duty as researchers to provide answers to these questions and challenges that arise in the sports field.

"I want to support athletes who are dedicated to their sport."

This desire remains unchanged and continues to be the driving force behind my research. Each piece of scientific knowledge we researchers provide is just one piece of a puzzle. Nevertheless, by filling in that one piece, a landscape that was previously invisible may come into view. With such expectations in my heart, I hold onto my puzzle piece and participate in this festival of sports medicine and science research.