Sports Science and Athlete Health, Safety, and Well-Being
This domain tests whether you can keep athletes healthy and respond correctly when something goes wrong. Expect items on load, recovery, environmental risk, and return-to-play decisions.
Monitoring and load
Track load with session-RPE (RPE × minutes), sleep, soreness, and wellness. Acute:chronic workload ratios are a flag, not a diagnosis - spikes relative to recent history are associated with injury risk, but the ratio is not a precise predictor. Use trends and conversation, plus screening for movement, strength, and prior injury.
Health fundamentals
Sleep is the strongest recovery lever. Nutrition should support energy availability; watch for relative energy deficiency in sport. Hydration matters in heat, and heat illness is preventable through acclimatization, timing, and fluids. Exertional heat stroke is an emergency requiring immediate cooling and EMS.
Concussion and emergency response
Remove any athlete with suspected concussion from play - no same-day return - and follow the institutional protocol and physician clearance. Have an emergency action plan: venue address, AED location, access route, assigned roles, and rehearsed activation. Know sickle cell trait status, asthma history, and cardiac history.
Worked example
An athlete reports two nights of poor sleep, soreness, and an RPE of 9 for a session that normally rates 6. Reasoning: this is a load–recovery mismatch. Reduce volume, avoid maximal work, screen for illness, and check in the next day. Do not diagnose - refer persistent symptoms.
Traps
Diagnosing injuries; treating one metric as truth; letting a concussed athlete "shake it off"; returning an athlete before criteria are met; ignoring heat and lightning policies.