The first in-person Centre for Youth Sports Medicine (CYSM) Conference took place at IET London: Savoy Place on Friday 5 June, bringing together the UK’s adolescent sports medicine community for a day of shared learning, collaboration, and innovation.
The conference had a clear purpose; to help advance clinical excellence in sport and exercise medicine for young athletes.
Adolescent athletes are not simply smaller adults or scaled-down professionals, yet the care they receive is often based on models designed for one or the other.
The CYSM is a pioneering collaboration between the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health (ISEH), HCA Healthcare UK, and Meliora Medical (formerly Return2Play) -forming to address this gap by promoting evidence-based, age-appropriate approaches to adolescent athlete health and performance.
The conference brought together leading experts in sports medicine, nutrition, orthopaedic surgery, physiotherapy, women’s health, and rehabilitation.
Talks covered the latest developments in injury assessment, management, recovery, and performance support for adolescent athletes.
Supporting young athletes requires a clinical approach that recognises the unique challenges of growing bodies, developing minds, academic pressures, parental expectations, and the physical demands of competitive sport.
Throughout the day, there was dedicated discussion time, encouraging collaboration, knowledge sharing, and practical learning among attendees and speakers. The conference closed with an evening networking reception, providing further opportunities for connection across disciplines.
Key themes included cardiovascular and respiratory health, heat-related illness, nutrition, sleep and stress management, the female adolescent athlete, growth and maturation, common sports injuries, and emerging trends in the treatment and rehabilitation of adolescent-specific conditions.
The event was proudly recognised by the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM), gaining its stamp of approval, as a credible event in sports medicine.
Find out more about the Centre for Youth Sports Medicine.
