It was established in 1990 by the Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine with Gordon Matheson as the founding editor.

It is the pre-eminent non-surgical sports medicine journal of North America.

There are active associated CJSM Blog and Podcast sites which are edited by Deputy Editor James MacDonald.

It has a current ranking of Orthopedics 16/82, Sport Sciences 16/85 and Physiology 22/81 with an Impact Factor of 3.165.

[1] These rankings generally place the journal in the top quartile of the fields related to sports medicine.