A Letter to the 15,000!
Dear budding sport scientist So you have enrolled on a sports science degree eh? You start this week? Exciting times ahead then. So what lies ahead for you at the end of your studies? I believe sport is more important…
Tag HighPerformance
Stop to continue: Five essential steps to descending after a big competition
After a stonking weekend of sport, with so many events coming to a climax, it is worth remembering the importance of the lull after the storm. For the French national team, Angelique Kerber and Novak Djokavic there is the thrill…
Superstitions, trends and probabilities: World Cup blog
Amongst the hype that surrounds the latter stages of the World Cup, there seems to be a rabid hype for ‘trends’, masquerading as entertainment. The use of statistics, past records, first ever achievements and any old past events is…
Time, the hidden menace at big competitions and how to harness it
There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. Alfred Hitchcock There are 3 ways to slow down time. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, the faster anything travels, the slower time passes, known as…
Technology, global connections and the World Cup
“I love those connections that make this big old world feel like a little village.” Gina Bellman The Olympics is a scattergun of en masse excellence, tracked by a country’s media flitting from one venue to the next…
Making the easy easy, to give your best when it matters.
‘Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.’ Gustav Flaubert This week there was a good deal of buzz centred on a paper presented at ACSM about how…
10 exam tips from high performance sport
As exam season looms for many students young and old, I wondered what we would see in the study rooms, mental-athlete village, warm-up areas and hear from the coaches pep-talks if exams appeared at the Olympics. Here are some thoughts…
Quantity or Quality? Thoughts on medal targets, part two
It is quality rather than quantity that matters. Lucius Annaeus Seneca In the previous blog post I posed a question that many federations and governing bodies are faced with when they are considering an overall country wide medal target…
Collective Purpose
“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” John F. Kennedy I was recently invited once again to speak at the brilliant Cheltenham Science Festival in June. It is always a privilege to be surrounded by not only…
Summary of 2018 Supporting Champions Conference
On 20 and 21 March 2018, ~180 delegates, partners and speakers gathered at the Emirates Stadium, London for the second Supporting Champions Conference. Which, once again, had an unadulterated focus on finding a better way to create remarkable performance and…