One of the best parts of being a faculty mentor is taking students to regional conferences. You get to show them inspiring scientific content and introduce them to peers and colleagues who share their passion for sports medicine and exercise science. 

If you’re planning to take students to an ACSM regional chapter meeting, consider these tips to help maximize their conference experience. 

1. Review the conference program beforehand. 

Conferences can be overwhelming, but reviewing the program before you attend helps set you up for success. This is especially important for first-time attendees. Discuss the different types of sessions (e.g., symposium, tutorial, thematic poster) with your students and help them choose which sessions they want to attend. You can even highlight a few presentations that you personally plan to attend or that you think would be good for your students to check out. 

2. Have your students think about their goals for the conference. 

Ask your students why they are attending the conference and what they hope to accomplish there. Having goals will allow them to be more intentional with their meeting experience. 

3. Help them develop a personal “elevator pitch.” 

As faculty, we all have our own “elevator pitches.” We’ve been doing our work for a while and understand what role we play in the advancement of our field. Our students, however, are relatively new to the discipline and may not know exactly who they are as professionals and what they hope to accomplish. Ask your students to think about who they are, what they’ve accomplished, and what they hope to do next in the context of our field. 

4. Remind them it’s okay to step out of one presentation to attend another. 

Often, there are several interesting presentations going on at once. Remind your students it’s perfectly fine to step out of one presentation to attend another. Just try to be respectful — sit in the back or close to the aisle, and try to move when the speakers are switching. 

5. Encourage them to show up to their lab mates’ sessions. 

Remind your students that friendly faces in the audience help calm nerves, and that they’d want the same support. 

6. Remind them to talk with the conference’s student representatives. 

The student representatives are great contacts. At SEACSM, our student reps help answer questions about where sessions are located and also put on a 5K —and this year we are looking to do a student bingo game to help encourage students to meet peers and other conference attendees. 

7. Ask your students to identify one or two presenters they would like to network with personally. 

Networking is one of the most important things students can do for their careers because you never know when you’ll meet someone again, especially in our field! Encourage your students to meet one or two new people, learn more about their research and find common ground. Encourage them to talk about research, but also try to make a personal connection — finding something they have in common outside of academia can help students feel more at ease and like they belong. 

8. Encourage them to say yes to opportunities that might arise. 

You never know where one “yes” will lead you. Encourage your students to make connections with researchers outside of your school. It could jumpstart their career. 

9. Remind your students to follow up with people they connected with. 

While making connections at the conference is important, you need to follow up on them. Make sure your students find a way to connect with contacts after the conference, whether via LinkedIn or email. Faculty should also consider creating an easy way to provide people with their contact information, like a QR code that links to a PDF that includes their abstract, email address and Twitter handle. 

10. Check in with your students. 

Conferences can be a little overwhelming. Take the time to check in with your students and see how they feel the event is going. 

11. Finally, remind them to have a great time!

Learn About Regional Chapter Meetings

Bhibha M. Das, Ph.D., MPH, FACSM, is a public health and physical activity practitioner and researcher with over a decade of experience in the field. Prior to joining academia, she spent four years working with communities, including underserved and rural ones, to develop, implement and evaluate physical activity promotion programs and policies. Dr. Das’s research agenda focuses on physical activity promotion as the cornerstone for improvements in quality of life in a variety of populations. Das earned degrees in public health and kinesiology from the University of Illinois and is currently an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology at East Carolina University as well as a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine® (ACSM). She also serves as member-at-large in the Southeast Chapter of ACSM (SEACSM). 

Katherine (Katie) E. Spring, M.S., is a doctoral candidate in Dr. Danielle Wadsworth’s Exercise Adherence and Obesity Prevention Lab at Auburn University. While at Auburn, she has been elected to serve as student representative for SEACSM as well as ACSM’s Student Affairs Committee. She received her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Mississippi State University. Prior to attending Mississippi State, she received her associate’s degree from Holmes Community College, where she also played for the college tennis team. Her research primarily focuses on the effects of physical activity and play on physical, behavioral and learning outcomes in young children. 

In August, President Biden announced that many federal student loan borrowers would be eligible for loan cancellation. While more details on implementation are expected in the coming weeks, here’s what we know now. 

Borrowers making less than $125,000 per year individually or $250,000 per year for married couples are eligible to have up to $10,000 in student loans cancelled. Borrowers that received a Pell Grant as part of their student aid package are eligible for up to $20,000 in cancellation. 

All loans must be federal student loans to qualify, including subsidized and unsubsidized Direct loans, Parent Plus loans and graduate school loans. Private student loans aren’t eligible for cancellation. There is no employment requirement or minimum number of payments required to receive this student loan cancellation. 

To get cancellation, you’ll need to submit an online application, expected to launch in October. Sign up here to receive email updates when the form is ready online. Loans are expected to be cancelled within 4-6 weeks of application. Applying by Nov. 15, 2022, should ensure that your loans are cancelled and any remaining balance re-amortized before loan payments resume in 2023. 

If you’re one of the 9 million people who made payments during the pandemic forbearance (March 2020 to Dec. 31, 2022), you can request a refund for those payments and then apply for student loan cancellation. Contact your loan servicer to request a refund. 

Visit studentaid.gov to check your loan balances, find your loan server, update your contact information and see if you were a Pell Grant recipient. 

PSLF 2.0 — It’s worth a second look  

If you expect to still have a loan balance after receiving the cancellation described above, consider the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. We’ve all heard the struggles of the PSLF program over the past 10+ years. I’m here to tell you to ignore what you’ve heard. Recent changes to the PSLF program have temporarily expanded eligibility to qualify for loan forgiveness; however, this opportunity ends Oct. 31, 2022 so act quickly. 

Some of the basic requirements remain the same — you have to be working full time in public service (nonprofit, government, public universities, etc.) for a qualifying employer and have made 120 payments on your Direct Loans or Direct Consolidation Loans. 

The most important temporary change now credits payments that previously didn’t count toward the required 120 payments. This includes payments made on a variety of federal student loan types, payments under any repayment plan, late payments and more. Additionally, forbearance periods and economic hardship deferment may also be credited toward your total payment count, including the pandemic forbearance period. Periods of default and in-school deferment still don’t qualify. 

Even if you haven’t qualified for PSLF before, it’s worth your time to explore the temporary eligibility expansion and see if you qualify for loan forgiveness, but you must act now before the expansion expires. 

Tips for PSLF success 

Gretchen Patch, MPH, CPH, is ACSM's Senior Director of Strategic Health Initiatives and Partnerships. Her public health expertise has guided the ACSM American Fitness Index report since 2018 and helped to lead ACSM's strategy to protect its staff and members throughout the pandemic. 

So you’ve got a client who’s asking about certain “extracurricular” substances. Or worse, you’re starting to recognize the signs that they’ve already added them to their repertoire. 

If you’ve spent enough time in fitness facilities, you’ll have run into someone using performance-enhancing substances. They can sing a siren song to clients looking to make quick gains because, frankly, they work — a reality we can’t ignore. According to a 2021 ACSM consensus statement published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise®, anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) confer significant gains in muscle strength, power and endurance. 

However, the costs far outweigh the benefits — and not just physically. Let’s explore the issue. 

How many people are on this stuff? 

The research on rates of recreational AAS use is less than optimal. The elephant in the room, of course, is that gymgoers aren’t necessarily forthcoming about their “gear” status. Investigators generally have to rely on self-reported survey responses, putting us in a bit of pickle. That caveated, the range of gym attendees using AAS seems to lie somewhere between 3.5 and 80%. 

Obviously we’re not operating with precision data here. You could run wind sprints between either end of that range. But even if we’re as conservative as possible, sticking with the absolute bare minimum figure, that means between three and four out of every 100 people who go to the gym use AAS. You’ve encountered it. 

What do AAS do? 

The answer is complex because what comprises AAS — and the other substances users take in conjunction with them — is complex. There is a wide swath of compounds and chemicals that fall into the category, from testosterone, testosterone derivatives and testosterone esters (a version of testosterone more easily absorbed into oils) themselves to designer AAS, selective androgen receptor modulators and human chorionic gonadotropin (which stimulates sperm and testosterone production). 

However, overall, research indicates that AAS users see 5-20% increases in lean body mass, a significant boost that will inevitably be attractive to many potential users. Many AAS also reduce recovery time between exercise bouts, allowing users to add significantly more volume to their lifting regimen. AAS aren’t a magic potion, and users still need to train in order to realize results, but the effects are measurable and often appealing to a particular subset of gymgoers. 

Why do people use AAS? 

According to the ACSM consensus statement, many people use AAS not so much to increase their athletic performance but because of muscle dysmorphia. The mirror is lying to them, so to speak. Other reported reasons included a desire to improve recovery between workouts, receive social recognition, decrease body fat, increase the ability to protect oneself and to increase sex drive. 

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but even from this sampling we can see there are clearly emotional factors at play, especially in the last two items. 

What are the risks of AAS use? 

Here we get to the heart of the matter. Besides infringing on the idea of fair play and sportsmanship in the athletic arena — a significant topic in its own right — AAS users risk serious physical and psychological consequences. 

Physically, the risks run the gamut: heart attack and sudden cardiac death, blood-clotting abnormalities, stroke, liver damage, erectile dysfunction and reduced testicular size in men, clitoral enlargement and amenorrhea in women, acne, baldness, renal failure, and rhabdomyolysis. 

Psychologically, AAS users may face depression, mood swings, insomnia, an increase in violent tendences, and a higher risk of suicide and even homicide. 

Once again, this is only a small sampling of the available information, and the ACSM consensus statement covers these outcomes in much more detail. 

Discouraging AAS use 

In theory, the risks listed above should immediately dissuade people from using AAS, and yet plenty still do. How do we approach the subject in a way that actually reaches someone and effects change? 

The tack to take will be different for each client, but there are some broad commonalities: First, bear in mind that for plenty of people who use or are interested in using AAS, there is a deeper psychological need at play. This makes discussions difficult because there’s often a vulnerability at the core of someone’s attraction to or use of these substances. Such vulnerabilities can cloud judgement and make people desperate for their desired result regardless of the risk. 

One good strategy is to shift the client’s paradigm from thinking only in the present to considering life in the long term. (This can be more difficult with younger clients, but it’s still worth attempting.) Explain that AAS are counterproductive over the course of the lifespan, that what they may bring in in the present will have to be paid back with interest in the future. Emphasize also that, with time, the diet and exercise programming you can provide them with should show results so long as they stick with them. As much as they may want to see big changes Right Now, being diligent and persistent will pay off in the end. 

Another tactic is to have clients consider something intangible that AAS use might take from them: seeing what their body is capable of on its own. That if they use AAS, they’ll never have the complete feeling of accomplishment that comes from achieving pure physical performance. AAS users will never know exactly how much of their results are from their own body’s expression of itself and how much are from chemical enhancement. Once you’ve crossed that bridge, there’s no going back. 

Clients may worry that their body can’t give them the results their after without AAS, but encourage them to trust the process and watch as their physical systems rise to the occasion. 

These are difficult conversations, but armed with the knowledge that AAS use has serious consequences, it’s best to dissuade any clients who might be using or interested in using. Exercise professionals are charged with improving and maintaining the health and well-being of those who seek out their services. And AAS use comes with demonstrable harms. The stakes are high, and a tough conversation is a small price to pay to save someone from the potential consequences that come with AAS. 

Related content: 
Consensus statement | Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Use in Sports, Health, and Society
Blog | Sports Supplements & Performance
CSMR article | Ten Things You Need to Know About Sports Nutrition