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This case study demonstrates how research at the University of Bath on athlete technique and performance in sprinting and hurdling events has been translated back to the end users in order to improve their performance. The primary pathway to impact is via Dr Salo's involvement in applied work with virtually all top British sprinters and hurdlers and their coaches over the last 5 years (including all those who have represented Britain in major Championships). As a consequence of his research since 1998, Dr Salo has helped specific athletes to win medals, brought new insights to coach education and practice, instigated changes to routine practices within UK Athletics and also translated his expertise to other Olympic sports.
John Gerrard's cinema scale simulation Exercise (Djibouti) 2012 emerged from research he carried out as the Legacy Fellow at the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art. The output of the research has created impact by engaging new audiences with contemporary art and increasing its appreciation and understanding among the general public. Further, the project has stimulated debate about the relationships between politics, competitive sport and military warfare and helped to change existing perceptions of the role and function of contemporary art in society and culture. Exercise (Djibouti) 2012 has inspired a creative legacy for future generations, contributing to the success of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 Festival, and it has delivered creative synergies and developed new working practices through innovative collaborative partnerships with non-academic organisations.
Brackenridge's research on sexual abuse and prevention has informed a range of practice communities including: law, psychiatry, sport psychology, medicine, the arts, sports development and social work. It has effected change in policy, practice and regulation at local, national and international levels, including: advocacy (e.g. for the FA); professional development (e.g. for the IOC, FINA and FIFA); committee and expert advice (e.g. for the National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers Research Committee, the Dame Janet Smith enquiry into abuse by Jimmy Savile at the BBC, and the NSPCC's Child Protection in Sport Unit). At the international level, this work has prompted reform in the management of welfare services in the Olympic movement and in UNICEF's network of sport for development programmes. This impact was recognised through the award of an OBE in 2012.
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.
As a consequence of research carried out at the University of Stirling, as set out in this case study, enhancement of the capacity of National Sport Associations has been achieved:
The impact of the research by Professor Gleeson on immune responses to exercise and predictors of infection risk in athletes has altered practice of sport science support personnel, coaches and athletes in several areas including: immunoendocrine monitoring procedures, training prescription and the use of nutritional interventions to reduce exercise stress responses and minimize risk of infection. In this way, the research conducted during 2008-2013 at Loughborough University has impacted internationally upon the ways in which sports scientists operate, and athletes and games players are prepared for competition.
In the last decade, sport has earned unprecedented recognition in international policy circles as a tool to support international development. Nonetheless, many have challenged this `new social movement' (Kidd, 2008), concerned by its uncritical application of Global North models of sport to Global South contexts. Addressing these concerns, Brunel researchers and collaborators have drawn on the field of international development studies to investigate how principles of local ownership and partnership can be applied to sport. Since 2010, empirical studies and critical conceptual analyses have contributed to this. Specifically through building organisational capacity at local level, supporting partnership between funders and recipient organisations, and developing national as well as international policy guidance to ensure community level experiences and perspectives are represented in sport for development policy and strategies.
This case study examines the impact of a series of research articles on coach-athlete interactions. This research has been used in the development of training courses/educational materials, for example the FUNdamentals courses ran by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, and for bespoke training sessions such as the Scottish Institute of Sport's Coaching Matters series. Additionally, it has been disseminated to larger coaching groups as lay summaries/guidelines published in sport specific magazines such as Athletics Weekly and Cycle Coach. The case is made that this research has been widely disseminated and has had discernible impact on sports coaching practices.
We have developed, and applied, an approach to help athletes view the psychological stress of competition as a challenge (positive) rather than a threat (negative). This approach either has been, or is shortly to be, used in professional football, professional cricket, international rowing, international Futsal, as well as being applied to the workplace and in education. Central to this approach is a protocol, underpinned by theory, for assessing cardiovascular responses to the psychological stress of competition that indicates a challenge or threat state. Based on this protocol feedback is provided which is used to identify, and support, those who may need to develop a challenge approach. The impact of this work is disseminated through public engagement events and invited talks.
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.