https://ilumpfx.com/blog/ Evidence-based strength & conditioning writing from Coach Muhammad Dzulhisham: youth athletic development research and Singapore's sports science scene. en-sg Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0800 https://ilumpfx.com/blog/gymnastics-wrist-elbow-injury-risk.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/gymnastics-wrist-elbow-injury-risk.html Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0800 A 2026 meta-analysis puts wrist pain prevalence in adolescent artistic gymnasts at 53%, and a prospective cohort found that 89% of those with pain still had it a year later. The risk factors are reasonably clear. The evidence for any specific load-management rule is close to empty. Injury & Recovery Gymnastics Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/return-to-sport-after-fracture.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/return-to-sport-after-fracture.html Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Refracture in children is rare — about half a percent of all fractures. But a Finnish registry study of 20,749 fractures shows the median refracture in a distal forearm arrives at 73 days, which lands squarely in the week a young athlete is told they are fine to play again. Injury & Recovery Return to Play Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/youth-athlete-burnout-warning-signs.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/youth-athlete-burnout-warning-signs.html Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Athlete burnout has been measured as a three-dimensional syndrome for decades, and exhaustion is only one of the three. The other two — sport devaluation and a collapsing sense of accomplishment — arrive without the athlete ever looking tired, and they are the ones that separate specialising athletes from sampling ones most sharply. Youth Development Sport Psychology Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/red-s-relative-energy-deficiency-youth-athletes.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/red-s-relative-energy-deficiency-youth-athletes.html Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0800 The mental model for underfuelling in sport is a teenager trying to lose weight. In a study of 464 female adolescent athletes, 80% of those showing clinical indicators of low energy availability had no disordered eating, no eating disorder, and no desire to lose weight. They were simply not eating enough for what they were doing. Injury & Recovery Sports Nutrition Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/youth-concussion-baseline-testing-impact.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/youth-concussion-baseline-testing-impact.html Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Preseason computerised neurocognitive testing has become a default in school and club sport, on the logic that you cannot tell what has changed without knowing where the athlete started. The psychometric literature on the most widely used test has a problem with that logic, and the size of the problem is measurable. Injury & Recovery Concussion Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/acl-prevention-programs-fifa-11-pep.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/acl-prevention-programs-fifa-11-pep.html Fri, 09 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Structured warm-up programmes like FIFA 11+ have randomised evidence behind them, and a network meta-analysis ranks 11+ first for reducing ACL injury. Read the same analyses by sex and something uncomfortable appears: the strongest data sits with male players, and the female evidence base is the weakest part of the field. Injury Prevention Football Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/spondylolysis-low-back-pain-youth-athletes.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/spondylolysis-low-back-pain-youth-athletes.html Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0800 About one in twenty adults with back pain has a stress fracture in the spine. Among athletes under eighteen who present with low back pain, pooled data puts it closer to four in ten. That difference should change the first question anyone asks — and the treatment data that follows is stranger than the diagnosis. Injury & Recovery Adolescent Athletes Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/shoulder-injury-youth-throwing-swimming-athletes.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/shoulder-injury-youth-throwing-swimming-athletes.html Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Baseball spent thirty years working out what hurts a young thrower's arm, and built rules around the answer. Swimming has assembled a list of eighty candidate risk factors for shoulder pain and, as of a 2023 systematic review, has strong evidence for none of them. The two literatures are worth reading side by side. Injury & Recovery Youth Development Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/severs-disease-calcaneal-apophysitis.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/severs-disease-calcaneal-apophysitis.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Heel pain in a growing athlete gets a confident menu of answers — heel cups, orthoses, tape, rest. A 2026 Cochrane review went through the entire randomised evidence base behind that menu and found it thin, and the one thing it could say with reasonable confidence is that the two options people argue about most are equivalent. Injury & Recovery Youth Development Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/osgood-schlatter-disease-explained.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/osgood-schlatter-disease-explained.html Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0800 The standard advice for the painful bump below a growing athlete's kneecap is rest and patience. A Danish national cohort and a prospective loading study both suggest that advice is, at best, incomplete — and at worst the reason some adults still have knee problems decades later. Injury & Recovery Youth Development Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/biological-age-vs-chronological-age-assessment.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/biological-age-vs-chronological-age-assessment.html Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Estimating a young athlete's biological maturity is now routine in academies and increasingly common in schools. The methods are useful, but each carries an error margin large enough to matter — and the research is blunt about which ones should never be swapped for each other. Growth & Maturation Testing Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/relative-age-effect-youth-sport-selection.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/relative-age-effect-youth-sport-selection.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Singapore school sport sorts children by year of birth. Across youth systems worldwide that same administrative decision produces a measurable, repeatable bias toward the oldest children in the group — and the research on how to fix it is far thinner than the research documenting it. Talent Identification Youth Development Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/sprint-mechanics-coaching-cues.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/sprint-mechanics-coaching-cues.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Sprint coaching runs on a small set of inherited cues — drive your knees, claw the ground, pump your arms. Force-plate and motion-capture research has tested most of them directly, and the results split sharply: some describe real mechanics, one has essentially no supporting evidence, and how a cue is phrased may matter as much as what it says. Sprint Mechanics Biomechanics Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/force-plate-testing-explained.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/force-plate-testing-explained.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Jump height, reactive strength index, eccentric/concentric ratios, asymmetry index — a force plate printout looks like hard science. Some of it is. Some of the most commonly quoted numbers on that printout have surprisingly little evidence behind the way they're actually used. Force Plates Testing & Assessment Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/combat-sports-conditioning.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/combat-sports-conditioning.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Roadwork and shadowboxing rounds built the culture of combat sports long before anyone measured what a round actually demands. As a Muay Kru and Krav Maga instructor, here's my honest read on what the evidence says actually transfers to fight performance — and what's just tradition wearing gym shorts. Combat Sports Muay Thai Krav Maga Conditioning https://ilumpfx.com/blog/moe-vs-international-school-sports.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/moe-vs-international-school-sports.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800 I've stood on both sides of Singapore's school sports divide — as a Head of Department at an international school, and now inside MOE schools through Catch Them Young. The gap between the two systems is real, structural, and starts long before anyone picks up a ball. Schools & PE Singapore Education Youth Development https://ilumpfx.com/blog/fifa-nsa-development-trends.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/fifa-nsa-development-trends.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Physical literacy before technique, small-sided games as the default teaching method, a warm-up with its own randomised trials behind it, and GPS load monitoring written into an actual Singapore academy partnership — what FIFA and Singapore's FAS have actually built into youth football development, verified programme by programme. Youth Development Football Singapore https://ilumpfx.com/blog/ns-ippt-fitness-preparation.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/ns-ippt-fitness-preparation.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Standing broad jump. Chin-ups. Most guys picture a five-station test that was retired in 2015. Here's what the IPPT actually measures now, and what the training research — not the WhatsApp-group folklore — says actually improves push-up, sit-up, and 2.4km run performance without breaking you along the way. IPPT Preparation National Service Research https://ilumpfx.com/blog/common-parent-mistakes-youth-sports.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/common-parent-mistakes-youth-sports.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Five well-intentioned patterns come up in almost every conversation I have with sports parents — over-scheduling, early specialization, sideline coaching, ignoring pain, and comparing siblings. None of them come from not caring. Here's what the AAP, NATA, and sport psychology research actually says about each one. Youth Development Sport Psychology Parenting https://ilumpfx.com/blog/female-athlete-considerations.html https://ilumpfx.com/blog/female-athlete-considerations.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800 Female athletes face two to eight times the ACL injury risk of male athletes in the same sport — a disparity researchers have traced to specific, trainable landing mechanics. Training built around the menstrual cycle is one of the most confidently marketed ideas in women's sport science, and one of the least supported once the systematic reviews are actually read. What the evidence for each one really shows. Female Athletes Injury Prevention Research