Caroline's weblog

Jobs in Sports Chemistry

With a degree in chemistry or in any kind of science field, you can get numerous jobs.  One of the jobs you may be interested in is in sports chemistry.  These kinds of jobs are varied in what you would be working with.  You could be working with althetes, to help them improve their performance, or you could be working on making materials to improve sports equipment. 

Maybe you are interested in getting a job at Gatorade, this is a company that works closely with althetes to develop new ways to hydrate them.  Here is a cooler website than the one above - that includes people who work in performance labs.  The Gatorade labs are located in Barrington, Illinois.

Here is a website that is more about getting a degree in sports medicine and getting a job after that. 

Here is some information about working for Sports Technology International.  They are the company that makes the polymers surfaces, that was featured in an earlier post.  They have manufacturing facilities in Pennsylvania, Shanghai, and Australia.

If you are interested in working closer to home, here is a website from BASF, and they are located in Research Triangle Park.

This is my last sports and chemistry post of the summer session.  I am going to miss writing them for you.  I have learned a lot from writing them, and also from your questions.  I hope that whatever you do with your lives, you will be happy, safe, and healthy.  Keep your eye out for one more post on Monday's lab! 

Posted at 09:57AM Aug 04, 2006 by CHRISTIAN, CAROLINE in Chemistry and sports  |  Comments[7]

Sports medicine and chemistry

Chemists have helped the sporting industry also by making medicines that help althetes and spectators.  From aspirin to help a headache to polychloroprene sleeves to provide warmth and compression to promote the healing of wounds.  Here is a website that has descriptions of many sports medicine and health products.

Banned substances and doping are common words in the English language today.  Why is this?  It is because of chemists.  Olympic athletes are commonly given drug tests to test for illegal substances.  Some chemists are helping to make these substances, and some are helping to test for these substances as well. 

Some of these banned substances were originally developed for helpful purposes.  Such as Human Growth Hormone (HGH), this was originally developed for children who have metabolic growth disorders.  This is no wonder drug, and THIS DRUG IS NOT APPROVED BY ANY SPORTS ORGANIZATION!

The NSF (National Science Foundation) is starting a list of supplements that do not contain any of the banned ingredients of the sports organizations.  Here is an article from NSF about this project, and here is a list of the approved supplements so far found.  On this list will be products and companies that have complied with NSF's testing procedures.

What do you think of chemists contributions to the sporting medicine industry?  Has it been a positive one or a negative one?  If you have any comments or questions please make a comment.

Posted at 04:14PM Jul 26, 2006 by CHRISTIAN, CAROLINE in Chemistry and sports  |  Comments[10]

Polymers in sports

Organic chemistry is the study of Carbon containing compounds.  Carbon is a essential part of polymers.  Polymers are made up of repeating monomers - which are small carbon containing covalent compounds.  Another word for polymer is plastic.  We all deal with plastics every day - in clothes, shoes, cars, soda and water containers.

There are also a lot of polymers used in sports.  From the football made from polyurethane to the football field turf made from polyethylene.  Both of these polymers are man-made polymers.  There are a lot of natural polymers also still in use in the sports industry.  For example tennis balls are usually covered in wool, which adds superior playability, consistency and durability to a tennis ball. 

So everywhere you look while watching a sporting event or playing one yourself, you will see chemistry in action.  Chemists are helping to advance sports all over the world!

Some cool websites are:
A website about sports surfaces - such as turf, playground, and track surfaces.

That doesn't interest you - then maybe a website about a polymer used in shoes and sports equipment will. 

Here is a cool pdf about lycra and kevlar - two polymers used in the Olympics but for different reasons.  Make sure you have Adobe Acrobat downloaded before you open it.

Here is a website about a new breakthrough in polymer chemistry for use in sports.  Scroll down for a description of a polymer.

And finally this a website where you can pick a sport and see what kind of plastic is in use in the sport today. 

Posted at 04:49PM Jul 19, 2006 by CHRISTIAN, CAROLINE in Chemistry and sports  |  Comments[8]

Sports drinks and chemistry

Quite a few of you said that your interests included some kind of sports - from basketball to ballroom dancing to cheerleading to snowboarding.  So I will start my own sports and chemistry section of this blog.  One of my goals of this class is to have you all love chemistry!   Well if you don't love it after you come out of this, at least you can appreciate chemistry and all that chemistry does for you on a daily basis.

Remember how we said that the density of water is 1g/mL.  What does this really mean?

This means that when you sweat while exercising every kilogram that you lose of weight is really about 1L of water that you have lost while sweating!

Here is a website that describes what an electrolyte is.  Actually an electrolyte is just a fancy word for what we have been studying in class - ions!  Cations and Anions are both kinds of electrolytes.  Electrolytes is just the word for ions that are in use in your body.

Here is a website that shows the difference between what you drink while you exercise.

Here is a really cool website about the creator of Gatorade and the chemistry which they used to help develop Gatorade with.  (Some of this chemistry might be a little advanced for you - but it is still cool to look at.)

If you have any questions - you can always make a comment to this blog.

Posted at 01:09PM Jul 12, 2006 by CHRISTIAN, CAROLINE in Chemistry and sports  |  Comments[19]