Every month we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. In the September edition we start off looking how wind affects sprinter performance. We then look at countermovement jump ability of sprinters, interpreting statistics, cannabidiol, bullsh*t, and more. Read more
Dave Reddin has helped assemble performance teams and structures at England Rugby, the Football Association, and British Olympic Association. Together, they achieved historic results. On this week’s GAINcast he joins us to discuss how coaches can best work together to support a team, as well as thoughts on how sports science and monitoring can best fit into the performance equation. Read more
Every month we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. In the August edition we start off looking at some lessons we can learn from a recent editorial giving an elite athlete’s perspective on training and load management. We also look at the modern consensus on hamstring injury risk, coaching resilience, how the athlete biological passport has impacted performance, team comedians, and more. Read more
As we’re all aware, the majority of the world is currently in a somewhat unprecedented state of lockdown. In some countries, this lockdown is beginning to ease, whilst in others—as I write this, particularly the US—the rates of infection are growing, suggesting that lockdown periods may continue in the future. As lockdown restrictions start to ease further, we will likely see an increase in localized lockdowns, in which smaller, local areas are subjected to increased restrictions due to local outbreak clusters as was recently announced for Melbourne. Read more
Sports biomechanics came to age in the 1960s and 1970s with scientists like Betty Atwater at the forefront of this new field. A lot has changed in sports science over the last 50 years, but many of the foundational findings still hold and there is a lot we can learn from the analytical and technical processes used by the trailblazers of biomechanics. On this week’s GAINcast Atwater joins to discussion some of her landmark research on pitching and sprinting, as well as the work that led to it. Read more
Every month we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. In the July edition we start off by taking a look at some lessons coaches can learn from medicine in dealing with COVID-19. In addition, we break down the latest research on hamstring strength asymmetry, resilience, willpower, nitrate supplementation and more. Read more
Despite recent investments into monitoring at all levels of sports, the injury reductions and performance improvements promised have failed to materialize. Why is that? On this episode of the GAINcast Aaron Coutts and Franco Impellizzeri from the University of Technology Sydney dive into all aspects of the science of monitoring: why we monitor, technology, loading, metrics, fatigue, overtraining, subjective measures, planning, and more. Read more
Elite sport exists on a knife-edge. Push too little and you won’t get better. Push too hard and you’ll get injured. Athletes are searching for that sweet spot of performance health where they can stay healthy and increase performance. Just like performance itself, performance health is multi-faceted. Craig Pickering put together a 9-part series in June diving into detail on different aspects like load, injury, nutrition, psychosocial factors and more.
At the start of this article series, I wrote that my athletics career was a series of moderate successes punctuated by significant injuries, and that, over time, my performance became increasingly hampered by the long term effects of these injuries. As someone who has lived through the frustration of this process—and indeed, was forced to retire from professional sport because of it—I want to be able to help others avoid what afflicted me. Read more
When it comes to training, competing, and life all exert a significant amount of load on the athlete, through a variety of different mediums, including the physiological and psychological. In this article of the performance health series, I’ll explore what we can do to support our recovery from load. Read more
