OBJECTIVES The purpose of the study is to explore the changing trend of research keywords in the field of sports medicine the contributions of outstanding authors, institutions, and countries participating in the research, and the technologies directly related to the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) in the field of 4IR sports medicine before and after 4IR.METHODS The sample data of this study was retrieved from all the bibliographic information of the top two journals in the sports medicine field (i.e. Sports Medicine and British Journal of Sports Medicine). A bibliometric analysis was carried out by using CiteSpace, and python was used for further text mining on the key nodes in the analysis results.RESULTS The study has found that cardiovascular disease has always been popular in the research field of sports medicine; improving people’s quality of life and avoiding the risk of disease through physical activity, as long as research related to cruciate ligament may appear frequently again in the next few years. After 4IR, the field of sports medicine began to shift from a single study of epidemiology to multidimensional research of epidemiology, preventive medicine and psychology; the population characteristics of the researches began to be more segmented. Also, more collaboration between authors, institutions and institutions involved in sports medicine research has found. Germany and hospitals have become emerging forces after 4IR, and meta-analysis and systematic review are common concerns of Germany and hospitals. The impact of 4IR on sports medicine is mainly manifested in the application of sensors, intelligent monitoring, metabolomics and genomics, which having a great prospect in application.CONCLUSIONS The study sorted out the changes in research trends in the field of sports medicine before and after 4IR, and at the same time proved that the impact of 4IR on sports medicine has already existed, and more scholars need to pay attention. 4IR has brought new forces and new trends to the field of sports medicine, which deepened the research cooperation in this field. Wearable devices, intelligent monitoring, metabolomics, and genomics have applied and had a positive developing trend in sports medicine field.