Modern Medicine is called to provide answers to a large number of questions related to various forms of exercise. Does sports, in its contemporary intense form, truly promote health, or do the morphological and functional adaptations of the organs to systematic training lead to manifestations of pathological conditions?

Can exercise be used as a means of physical rehabilitation, as therapeutic exercise for various diseases? How dangerous is athletic activity when specific health issues such as asthma, diabetes, or heart diseases exist? What are the specific medical problems of "elite" athletes or female athletes or children? How can the choice of appropriate nutrition or the administration of certain legal ergogenic substances enhance performance? What are the applications in research, clinical practice, and education for addressing the major issue of "doping"?

Thus, the evolution of sports cannot be understood in isolation from the evolution of sports medicine. Until a few years ago, "Sports Medicine" was a branch of medical specialties that dealt almost exclusively with the prevention and treatment of sports injuries.

Today, however, "Sports Medicine" has greatly expanded and is based on a multitude of medical specialties and other sciences aimed at solving the medical, and not only, problems of athletes and, ultimately, ensuring their health and improving their performance. From this perspective, "Sports Medicine" cannot be a simple medical specialization but a long-term experience in areas such as Physiology, Biomechanics, Functional Anatomy, Exercise Physiology, Biochemistry, Psychology, Pathology, Cardiology, Pulmonology, Orthopedics, Gynecology, Pediatrics, Hygiene, Nutrition, Physical Rehabilitation, and Coaching.

Thus, in the applications of modern Sports Medicine, the doctor plays a leading role, but in several sectors, the involvement of other scientists is also significant, such as exercise physiologists, trainers, physiotherapists, nutritionists, and nurses.

For these reasons, a textbook on Sports Medicine is not addressed exclusively to doctors but also to other scientists. Writing a contemporary book on Sports Medicine is not an easy task, as the lack of Greek literature in this field and the encouragement of collaborators in the Sports Medicine Laboratory led me to the decision for the revised and enriched re-publication of "Sports Medicine."