Welcome to the Rizzone Lab

Dr. Rizzone’s goal is to decrease obstacles for people to be physically active in a healthy manner. Her areas of research, including  sports bras/breast health, stress injuries/running medicine, and inclusivity of sports and exercise medicine  reflect that.

Sports bras are an essential piece of sporting equipment. They provide support to the breast and help dampen motion during physical activity. Breast pain and body image concerns may be barriers to activity for many girls and women. Dr. Rizzone is currently analyzing concordance of girls’ and women’s self-reported bra sizes to their objectively measured bra sizes. Additionally, she and Dr. Mark Buckley are examining the tensile fatigue points of sports bras in order to better understand bra breakage points and develop recommendations for how often to replace bras.

As co-leader of the URMC RUN team, Dr. Rizzone cares for many runners and athletes with bone stress injuries (stress fractures). There are options for both 2D and 3D gait analyses through the RUN team. Our goal is to better identify risk factors in runners and athletes that predispose them to bone stress injuries.

Throughout her academic career and work the community, Dr. Rizzone has investigated and advocated for inclusivity in sports and exercise medicine. The physical, emotional and mental health benefits of sports and exercise are well known, but not all populations have equal access. Barriers to sports participation can be as a result of gender, race, ethnicity, disability or LGBTQ+ identification.