Sport Science students visit Cyprus campus

A group of Sport Science students recently visited UCLan Cyprus.

The five day trip was headed by Course Leader Dave Fewtrell and was designed to allow the 25-strong group to undertake pre-planned field tests.

After spending their mornings on campus, the group spent time at the football/athletics field and beach delivering their tests during the week.

Undergraduate Joshua Parr kindly provided feedback from the trip: "For the majority of the time, all 25 of us spent meal times and free time together. At the start of the trip there were quite a few unfamiliar faces, but by the end everyone pretty much had a nickname for each other.

"It was a very successful trip with an amazing group of people who were willing to be very welcoming and social with one another. It’s definitely a must-do for any UCLan student who has the opportunity to travel abroad for some overseas learning. Many thanks to the tutors who looked after us, they did a great job."

UCLan SENS deliver new training programme

UCLan SENS have teamed up with Preston City Council to develop and deliver a Level 3 evidence-based training programme in Nutrition.

Certified by the Association for Nutrition, The Shape Up in the Community (SUiC) Healthy Lifestyle Training Programme is designed to improve knowledge and understanding of the importance of nutrition as it relates to a healthy lifestyle in adults, and to develop key skills required for effective delivery of Community Healthy Lifestyle Programmes to adults.

For more information please click here or email Stephanie Dillon.

Professor's globetrotting research continues

UCLan SENS' Professor Nicola Lowe has been racking up the air miles as her research activities continue apace.

Professor Lowe recently visited Pakistan as part of her collaborative project with the Abaseen Foundation.

Funded by The Wellcome Trust, Dr Lowe led the research exploring the role of the Jirga (a traditional tribal judicial system comprised of male community members) in engaging the community with health and nutrition related research.

The team also set a research and development agenda that meets the needs and priorities of the community, especially those of the mothers and children. The trip was an opportunity to finalise the report and findings.

UCLan has worked with the charity for over 10 years, undertaking research that underpins the charity’s service developments to improve access to good quality and affordable health care, education, and to seek solutions to chronic malnutrition which affect quality of life amongst the population.

Professor Lowe also chaired the first Zinc-Net scientific working group in Budapest, Hungary. The hugely successful launch event featured over 60 distinguished speakers from Europe and the USA.

Zinc-Net, the 'Network for zinc in Biology', received £500,000 from the European Commission to fund research over the next four years into the role of zinc in human biochemistry and physiology.

Professor Lowe and Zinc-Net have also been featured in Research Media's flagship publication 'International Innovation' - to view the article please click here.

For more details about Professor Lowe please click here.

UCLan help Warrriors gear up for new season

UCLan has been helping double winning Wigan Warriors prepare for the defence of their rugby league titles.

The Super League and Tetley's Challenge Cup holders are back in training and have been put through intensive pre-season fitness tests by staff and students from the Centre for Applied Sport and Exercise Science (CASES).

The Warriors players were subjected to a range of physiological checks, including the gruelling VO2 max assessment which pushes the athlete to exhaustion to test their aerobic endurance.

Warriors have visited UCLan for fitness testing for the last four years, and the session comes on the back of a demanding pre-season training camp in Florida ahead of their opening Super League game against Huddersfield on 7 February.

Head Coach Shaun Wane was on hand to watch the players' assessments: "Wigan have won six trophies in four years following a very thorough pre-season fitness regime. The scientific tests performed allow us to tailor individual training programmes for the players and over the last few years we have set a very high endurance standard, which can give us an edge going into the new season.

"I'm really impressed not only with the top quality facilities, but also with the professionalism and expertise of all the staff and students we have worked with today."

The test day enabled our undergraduate Sports Science students to gain practitioner experience in working with professional athletes and gave an insight into the practical developments of elite sports players. Several students, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, have also worked with the Super League club alongside their studies.

Division Leader Dr Steve Atkins said: "We are proud of our long-running and mutually beneficial relationship with Wigan Warriors. It provides our students with a fantastic opportunity to work with elite athletes and gain valuable experience that will be an asset when applying for jobs within the industry."

The fitness tests are part of an on-going sponsorship deal UCLan has as the 'official university' of the Super League club. The Warriors also benefit from video analysis support and a number of university degree places for its players and staff.

SENS staff join landmark cryotherapy study

UCLan Sport Exercise and Nutritional Science research staff joined forces with colleagues from the university's Division of Physiotherapy and Sports Therapy to conduct an innovative and ground-breaking international study into whole body cryotherapy (WBC) exposure.

Working in conjunction with top rugby league club Wigan Warriors and BOC, the UK's leading handler of cryogenic gases, the group aimed to determine the physiological changes that may occur during WBC exposure.

Dr Steve Atkins and Dr Stephanie Dillon joined Professor James Selfe, Karen May, Dr Howard Hurst and Nigel Garratt in the study which also extended to the Southern Hemisphere, with world leading cryotherapy researcher Dr Joseph Costello continuing a previous collaboration with Professor Selfe.

Currently based at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at Queensland University of Technology, Australia, Dr Costello's expertise in this field is exceptional.Despite becoming popular among athletes, coaches and clinicians, research into WBC is minimal regarding its use in rehabilitation, conditioning and recovery. The study aimed to identify the effectiveness of WBC looking at dose and physiological response.

During three days of testing at Warriors' training ground in Orrell, the first-team squad used the UK’s first mobile BOC-supplied cryotherapy chamber.Project coordinator Jill Alexander was tasked with processing the data and preparing the results for publication: "I had a huge multidisciplinary team of people to organise from all the participants," said Jill.

"The data collection was a huge success in the way the testing protocol was executed among the whole team of researchers, BOC specialist operators and the Wigan Warriors players and coaching staff. We could not have completed the study without everyone's overwhelming commitment."

The results have been published in PloS One Journal and can be viewed here.