Most of us realize the importance of hydration to exercise. Drinking water before, during, and after workouts regulates your body temperature, delivers nutrients and oxygen to your cells, and removes waste. But did you know that proper hydration is also an important part of preventing injuries?

Competitive athletes learn from their first day of training that in order to become better, stronger, and faster, they need to train harder than they have ever done before. They also know that overtraining is a real possibility, this creates a delicate balance between training hard and getting the proper rest.

Quiz: If you’ve just hurt yourself — for example, sprained your ankle or tweaked your shoulder hitting a tennis serve  — do you ice the injury or apply heat to it?

Or how about chronic soreness or swelling from conditions like osteoarthritis or lower back pain? What’s more effective: heat or cold?

These are questions many people have, and a surprising number aren’t certain about the answer.

The spine is a complex series of 24 vertebrae along with the fused bones of the sacrum and coccyx that form the very center 

In recent years, the general public has become more educated about the dangers of concussions than at any previous time in history. This increased awareness may be attributed in part to advances in sports medicine, improvements in diagnosis and treatment, and increased media coverage — particularly of major sports stars, both past and present, who have suffered career-threatening head injuries.

A head injury is defined generally as trauma to the cranium (skull), scalp, or the brain. The two basic categories of traumatic head injury are open head injuries, in which the skull is broken or pierced, or closed head injuries, in which the skull remains closed/unbroken.

School is starting up again throughout Texas and the rest of the nation. For U.S. school kids, this means a return to carrying heavy backpacks — and the sore backs and posture problems that result.

Broad-spectrum antibiotics are an extraordinary medical development. Taken as directed, they have saved countless lives by treating and even preventing certain types of bacteria-caused infections. Millions of people have safely taken these drugs to successfully combat infections of their sinuses, lungs, and urinary tracts.

However, in 2008, 2013, and 2016, the US FDA (Food and Drug...

With its elements of school spirit, dance, gymnastics, and daring stunts, competitive cheerleading is an extremely popular high school athletic activity. Over 400,000 high school girls participate in cheer each year, and many continue on to compete in college. When practiced safely and responsibly, cheer is a fun activity with a low rate of injury — safer than most other high school sports....

More than one million high school athletes play football in the United States each year. The sport is characteristically exciting, fast-paced, and physically rough, ensuring that every player will regularly experience all manner of bumps and bruises during their season.