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The impact of this research has been to improve the performance of elite athletes and safeguard the well-being of Paralympians. It has affected the management of athletes' dynamic physiological responses and advanced the regulatory frameworks of sporting bodies. This has changed the strategies of the USA Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee and the British Paralympic Association. The indirect impact of this primary research has been to change the routine training practices of recreational athletes and influence the advice on exercise given to military personnel and people with disabilities.
The applied research generated has targeted practitioners and athletes at all levels, and by combining expertise and knowledge from different areas (primarily Biomechanics and Physiology), aimed to directly influence the way in which muscle function is assessed in competitive sports. The studies in the area of muscle conditioning and function has generated a body of work that has the potential to be useful to coaches both in competition as well as in training, but to date has not been fully realised. By examining how the muscle responds to certain stimuli, training suggestions have been provided that can acutely increase the performance of an athlete, for example conditioning stimuli prior to athletics performance (reference 4 in section 3). These suggestions can assist both in improving the competitive performance as well as in improving the quality of the content and experience of training sessions.
Further, evaluating a range of tests and assessment tools, such as by examining their validity and reliability, monitoring and assessment becomes much more accurate and sport-specific, enabling high-quality training (such as in reference 2, section 3). In addition, as these assessments allow testing to take place within the training and performance environment the performer is accustomed to (such as in reference 6, section 3), they also result in minimal disruption of the training programme, which cannot be achieved using traditional assessment techniques which require a visit to a laboratory for the assessment to take place.
The range of applicability of the research to support uptake of the recommendations and resultant training and performance benefits has been maximised by ensuring the suggestions and equipment used are low cost and easily accessible, enabling coaches and athletes from a wide range of performance levels to utilise them, such as functional tests (such as in reference 5, section 3). The work has highlighted that coaches and athletes need to reassess their approaches to measuring performance and specific measurement techniques used, and that doing so can improve training techniques and athletic performance.
Research by Loughborough University academics has influenced the development of elite footballs used in numerous global tournaments including FIFA World Cups, UEFA European Championships and Olympic Games. Research findings have led to increased design freedoms that have allowed adidas to produce balls with improved commercial appeal resulting in a tenfold increase in sales whilst maintaining product performance in line with the highest certifiable level of FIFA standards.
Research at the University of Bath has had a significant impact on reducing the burden of injury and illness in military training and sport. We have engaged practitioner communities in evidence-based approaches to injury and illness prevention. Our research has contributed directly to reducing the burden of musculoskeletal injuries and heat illness by informing military personnel selection, training and healthcare policies. This affects approximately 20,000 military trainees per year and has resulted in reduced morbidity and estimated training/medical costs of over £60 million per annum. Our injury surveillance research has helped shape the Rugby Football Union's (RFU) medical safety policy and, based on our research, the International Rugby Board (governing 5 million players worldwide) announced in May 2013 a global trial of new scrum laws designed to reduce the incidence/severity of neck injuries.
The Centre for Sports Engineering Research (CSER) has carried out public engagement activities for many years to create a dialogue around its research with those outside higher education. Specific research is described in tennis, aerodynamics, 3D motion-capture and performance analysis and ways in which findings have been used in public engagement. The impact of the activities is a raised public awareness of sports science and technology from 165 public lectures and workshops; an interactive science exhibition with 390k visitors; an increasingly popular blog with 248k hits; 15 popular science articles with a readership of over 835k; 10 interviews on TV and 46 on Radio; 8 short films with 25k downloads; and 101 articles in the national and international print press with 256 additional articles on their websites across 22 countries.
Research conducted at Swansea University has helped transform the pre-competition strategies of elite sport. This research has focused mainly on the application of post-activation potentiation (PAP), manipulation of warm-up variables and morning priming for enhanced performance. This work has had significant impact on the recent successes of elite skeleton bobsleigh athletes at the 2010 Winter Olympics (e.g. ~4% improvement on their key performance indicator) and a number of other British sports during London 2012 (e.g. British Cycling who won 12 medals). The research continues to impact elite sports and is being embedded into athletes' pre-competition routines for Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016.
The research is this Unit has been conducted through the Sport, Health and Performance Enhancement Research Group (SHAPE). Dr Sunderland's unique research in this Unit has challenged and changed both academic thinking and real-world practices relating to heat acclimation and performing in hot environments.
This research has made, and is making, a significant impact across the world improving both physical and cognitive performance across a range of sports from elite to recreational level. Examples include: providing a fitness training manual now being used by all international hockey umpires; acclimation and cooling strategies for international hockey players; acclimation for international athletes, international netball players and recreational and charity runners.
Reach and Significance
The beneficiaries of this work include international bodies and their players (e.g., GB Hockey, England Hockey, Wales Hockey, Scottish Institute of Sport, The International Hockey Federation [FIH], International Netball Players and the Australian Cricket Team); as well as national and recreational athletes (Marathon des Sables athletes, Loughborough Students Hockey Club, recreational and sporting clubs, players and athletes).
The Birkbeck Sport Business Centre has been involved in research examining governance within the sport industry since 1999. Findings from research into the football industry have contributed to policy debate through parliamentary enquiries while research on the broader sports sector has been used by the Sport and Recreation Alliance to improve governance practices across national governing bodies of sport (NGBs). In particular, the research informed the development of the Voluntary Code of Good Governance for the Sport and Recreation Sector, a best practice guide that has been adopted by more than 60 National Governing Bodies of Sport in the UK.
Sports Integrity is focused on supporting the development of infrastructure by governments, sports bodies, betting operators and law enforcers, internationally, for identifying and addressing vulnerability to corruption in professional sport, demonstrating the following impact:
Research into the biomechanics of elite swimmers with a disability undertaken by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) has contributed directly to the development of Para-swimming both nationally and internationally. Firstly, it has made a significant and sustained contribution to the development of British Para-swimmers and their coaches, leading to outstanding performances by British swimmers at major International competitions including, most notably, the Beijing 2008 Paralympics, the IPC World Swimming Championships, 2010 and the London 2012 Paralympics. Secondly, In 2009 the IPC mandated the development of new, evidence-based classification systems for Paralympic sports and, in 2010, announced its intention to use the research findings from MMU to help devise a new classification system for Para-swimming.