What kinds of opportunities can AI unlock for high performance sport? Are there psychological considerations that need to be taken into account for female high-performance athletes? What are some persistent myths and emerging truths about the protein needs of high-performance athletes?
These are just some of the questions that will be discussed at the Tanenbaum Institute for Sport Science (TISS) inaugural conference this fall. The conference, scheduled for September 14 and 15 at the University of Toronto (U of T) Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport, will feature internationally renowned speakers from Canada and abroad, who will share innovations in sport science and sport medicine.
“It feels gratifying, exciting and wonderful to see this conference come to fruition,” says Ira Jacobs, a professor of exercise physiology at the U of T Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE) and director of TISS. “It’s gratifying because of the excellence of the researchers and practitioners who have accepted the invitation and, in most cases, will be travelling from afar to share their expertise at the inaugural scientific conference of an organization that is just finishing its second year of operations.
“It’s exciting because we’ll have an opportunity to enjoy two intense days of experts sharing their accumulated knowledge across a broad spectrum of sport science and sport medicine disciplines - all focused on the wellness, safety and performance of high-performance athletes.
“And, it’s wonderful because we are able to share this amazing opportunity with researchers, clinicians and the broader high-performance sports community right here in the GTA.”
Geared towards the research community, the first day of the conference (Saturday, September 14) will explore the latest research related to disability sports, enhancing performance with AI and advances in athlete recovery.
Open to the wider high-performance sport and athlete community, the second day of the conference (Sunday September 15) will focus on critical issues affecting high performance athletes such as sport integrity, inequities in sport, protein intake, sport concussions, early athlete development and wearable tech.
“The inaugural TISS conference is a very rare opportunity to hear experts from around the world sharing their empirically based knowledge from research that has all been focused on high performance sports and athletes,” says Jacobs. “In fact, many of our speakers are researchers whose work has been instrumental in supporting the physical and mental needs of high-performance athletes competing at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games - from training to coaching to rehabilitating from injury - so their perspectives will be very current and very timely.”
Jacobs hopes one of the takeaways of the conference will be an increased awareness of the broad audiences TISS is hoping to inform – from scientists, clinicians and researchers interested in high-performance sports and high-performance athletes to the general high-performance sports community of athletes and those who support them, including their families, coaches, sport policy and decision makers, and members of integrated health and research support teams specializing in rehabilitation, physical and mental performance, sport analytics, nutrition, biomechanics, etc.
“TISS is a unique research-focused organization whose “raison d'être” is to support the performance, wellness and safety of the high-performance athlete - and that includes athletes who are able bodied, those with disabilities, and the recreational athletes who aspire to achieve their personal definition of high performance,” says Jacobs. “Supporting the generation of new knowledge that will be shared through events such as this conference is one of our key mandates.”