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Centre

Sport, Health and Performance Enhancement Research Centre (SHAPE)

Unit(s) of assessment: Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism

Research theme: Health and Wellbeing

School: School of Science and Technology

The Sport, Health and Performance Enhancement (SHAPE) Research Centre provides a structured and vibrant research environment in which to investigate the biological, physical, psychological and societal impact of sport and exercise for health, well-being and human performance across the lifespan. Our research draws on key areas of social and human movement sciences to advance knowledge, policy and practice in a variety of populations and communities of interest. We focus specific attention upon research that seeks to enrich the lives of young people, high performing athletes, teams, and organisations, women’s sport, and older adults. To achieve its purpose and mission, SHAPE functions across five established Research Groups, all of which are committed to producing scientific work of the highest quality in order to generate impact for its stakeholders and beneficiaries.

As part of the SHAPE research centre, we have following groups:

Led by Dr Gavin Weedon and Dr Ali Bowes is committed to cross-disciplinary, socially relevant scholarship exploring how sport and exercise are implicated in cultural, psychological, economic, and environmental issues. The group connects research on, but is not limited to, women’s sport (including work on the emerging professionalisation of women’s sport), sports fandom (including experiences of minority female football fans), mental health (such as physical activity and peer-support for those severely affected by mental health), violence and consent (specifically around combat sports), and the environment (highlighting connections between physical activity, the body and the environment). The impact of this research can be seen through garnering media exposure (e.g., BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post), engaging with sports bodies (e.g., The Football Supporters Association, Motorsport UK), and supporting community initiatives (e.g., Think Football).

Staff members:
Postgraduate Researchers
  • Reem AlHashmi
  • Debi Gibson
  • Alex Harris
  • Joseph Stanford
  • Molly Pocock
  • James Shepherd

Led by Dr Mustafa Sarkar and Dr Paul Felton conducts multidisciplinary research to understand and improve individual and team sport performance. Specific examples of their research include methods to optimise workload quantification to reduce injuries in elite sport teams, the psychosocial development of elite athletes and teams (e.g., enhancing resilience, coaching Generation Z, improving academy release processes), analysing and modelling sporting skills and movements (e.g., cricket fast bowling, paracanoe, paralympic sprinting and jumping), and approaches to improve sporting task and environmental constraints (e.g., performance in hot climates, footwear, prosthetic design). The Research Group work in collaboration with, and has received extensive funding from, various national and international sport teams and organisations including the Football Association, the Premier League, Manchester City and Manchester United Football clubs, Bristol Rugby Club, British Universities & Colleges Sport, the England and Wales Cricket Board, and the International Olympic Committee.

Staff members:

PhD students:

  • Amy Parkinson
  • Stacey Cowe
  • Devesh Patel
  • Tom McGlinchey
  • Alistair McBurnie
  • David Harrison
  • Keara Peters
  • Sally Hilton
  • Emily Dargue
  • Joseph Stanford
  • Ben Ashdown

Led by Prof. Simon Cooper and Dr John Morris, conducts research examining how we can utilise both physical activity and nutrition to enhance health and well-being across the entire lifespan. Their work encompasses both paediatric and older adult populations, measuring a range of outcomes including physiological (cardiometabolic health, physical fitness), psychological (cognitive function, self-control, mental well-being) and social (independent living) variables. The group also has a keen interest in intervention evaluation within these areas, and ultimately harnessing the power of physical activity and nutrition to improve health, well-being, achievement and quality of life. The work conducted by PANHAL has been done in collaboration with organisations such as The Daily Mile Foundation, the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Human Microbiome and Nottingham City Council. The work of PANHAL has been funded by The Waterloo Foundation, Rosetrees Trust, Education Endowment Foundation and UKRI (EPSRC).

Staff members:
Postgraduate Researchers:
  • Scarlett Fountain
  • Anna Dunn
  • Catarina Ramos
  • Nicola Camp
  • Elise Sibbick
  • Shelley Taylor (Postdoc)

Led by Dr Cleveland Barnett and Dr Neil Williams explores how exercise, technology and nutrition can positively impact health and performance. The research group works with both healthy and clinical populations, aiming to improve health in the broadest sense. Group members work in partnership with academic collaborators around the world, as well as with clinical colleagues and private companies. This full spectrum approach allows EXTEND to positively impact a wide range of people in the UK and beyond. Examples of their research include understanding the effect of prosthetic and orthotic design on mobility in patients and exploring how nutritional supplementation influences the gut-lung axis.  The EXTEND group aligns with the Health and Well-Being and Medical Technologies and Advanced Materials strategic research themes at Nottingham Trent University.

Staff members:
Postgraduate Researchers:
  • Liam Hughes
  • Andrew Brooke
  • Louis Hall

Led by Dr Ian Varley and Dr John Hough conducts multidisciplinary research with a particular focus on Nutrition and Metabolism, Healthy Ageing, Neuromuscular Physiology and Injury and Illness.  Examples of notable work conducted by the Group include research in chrono nutrition and the effect on metabolic health, musculoskeletal health with particular focus on ageing and the menopause and neuromuscular regulation in clinical and athletic populations. The Research Group’s impact has been demonstrated by media attention received in national (i.e. The Times, BBC) and international press (i.e. The New York Times, BBC World Service, CNN). The Research Group’s members have also received funding from notable bodies (i.e. The Medical Research Council, The Premier League, The FA, The Royal Society, British Nutrition Foundation, Innovate UK).

Staff members:

Head Research Staff

Director of SHAPE - Prof. Chris Harwood

Head of the Sport Performance Research Group -  Dr. Mustafa Sarkar

Head of the Musculoskeletal, Physical Activity and Metabolic Health Group - Dr Ian Varley

Head of the Exercise, Technology and Nutrition for Health Research Group - Dr Cleveland Barnett

Head of the Sport and Society Research Group - Dr Gavin Weedon

Head of the Physical Activity and Nutrition for Health Across the Lifespan Research Group - Dr Simon Cooper

Information about members of our research groups can be found in the individual groups.

Media Coverage

SHAPE researchers invest a significant amount of time on the dissemination of their research to a non-academic audience. For example, Professor Angus Hunter was recently interviewed by Nigel Farage on GB news on the piloting of banning headers in children's football in England: https://t.co/X8TT6bv68H

Dr Ian Varley has appeared on BBC Radio Five Live to talk about genetic predisposition to injury and sporting prowess. This was also picked up by ABC radio in Australia. Our researchers have written articles for The Conversation that have reached several million readers, with the three articles penned by Dr David Clayton on intermittent fasting being particularly popular, having a total of well over 1 million reads:

The Conversation articles penned by Dr Neil Williams have also been extremely popular with over 780,000 reads; some of these articles was also featured in the mainstream press:

Dr Jessica Piasecki appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live discussing her research relating to the starting age of master athletes. Mustafa Sarkar appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live talking about mental health in elite sport and the psychological impact of retirement.

Recent projects

  1. The Postpartum Exercise and Return to Fitness: Optimise Readiness For military Mums (PERFORM) study has been designed to restore physical function after childbirth and enable servicewomen to achieve their physical employment standards upon return to duty. This work is based upon a major grant (total £940,677) from the Ministry of Defence to support the work of the Women in Ground Close Combat Team.
  2. The Injury and Illness Surveillance Study is conducted by Nottingham Trent University on behalf of the English Football Association (FA) in order to realise their aim of acquiring World-leading status in the treatment and prevention of injury and illness in football. The study, based on three grants from the FA totalling ~200K, currently incorporates >50 teams in both men’s and women’s professional football and the England national teams.
  3. HUUB Design are funding and using research to develop clothing solutions for elite endurance athletes. These clothing solutions include fabric development and treatments to influence thermal conductivity by improving sweat evaporation and, thus, athletic performance. The work is part of a PhD studentship between HUUB and the Department of Engineering at NTU.
  4. The STEPFORWARD study is a randomised feasibility study that investigates patients’ acceptability of a novel prosthetic device, in older patients with vascular-related amputations and multi-morbidities. This research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research through the Research for Patient Benefit Scheme (total £249,737) in collaboration with both academic and national health service partners.

Publications

  1. Fasey, K. J., Sarkar, M., Wagstaff, C. R., & Johnston, J. (2021). Defining and characterizing organizational resilience in elite sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 52.
  2. Townsend, R., Elliott-Sale, K., Currell, K., Tang, J., Fraser, W., & Sale, C. (2017). The effect of post exercise carbohydrate and protein ingestion on bone metabolism. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 49(6), 1209-1218.
  3. Barron, D., Ball, G., Robins, M., & Sunderland, C. (2020). Identifying playing talent in professional football using artificial neural networks. Journal of Sports Sciences, 38(11-12), 1211-1220.
  4. Clayton, D., Burrell, K., Mynott, G., Creese, M., Skidmore, N., Stensel, D., & James, L. (2016). Effect of 24-h severe energy restriction on appetite regulation and ad libitum energy intake in lean men and women. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 104(6), 1545-1553.
  5. Weedon, G., Wilson, B., Yoon, L., & Lawson, S. (2018). Where's all the 'good' sports journalism? Sports media research, the sociology of sport, and the question of quality sports reporting. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 53(6), 639-667.
  6. Matthews, C., & Jordon, M. (in press). Drugs and supplements in amateur boxing: pugilistic amateurism and ideologies of performance. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 12(5), 631-646. .
  7. Dring, K., Cooper, S., Morris, J., Sunderland, C., Foulds, G., Pockley, A., & Nevill, M. (2019). Cytokine, glycemic and insulinemic responses to an acute bout of games-based activity in adolescents. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 29(4), 597-605.
  8. Saward, C., Morris, J., Nevill, M., Minniti, A., & Sunderland, C. (2020). Psychological characteristics of developing excellence in elite youth football players in English professional academies. Journal of Sports Sciences, 38(11-12), 1380-1386.
  9. Papageorgiou, M., Martin, D., Colgan, H., Cooper, S., Greeves, J., Tang, J., Sale, C. (2018). Bone metabolic responses to low energy availability achieved by diet or exercise in active eumenorrheic women. BONE, 114, 181-188.
  10. Bisele, M., Bencsik, M., Lewis, M., & Barnett, C. (in press). Optimisation of a machine learning algorithm in human locomotion using principal component and discriminant function analyses. PLoS ONE, 12(9), e0183990.

Collaborations

SHAPE has active collaborations locally, nationally and with countries on five continents.  Our collaborations now extend to over twenty countries worldwide, including: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Germany, Hong-Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Portugal, Qatar, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States,

Significant international collaborations include:

  • The Applied Physiology and Nutrition Group at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, since 2010. This collaboration focuses upon the biological actions of the histidine containing dipeptide, carnosine, and bone health.
  • The University of Limerick (Ireland) and the Sport Ireland Institute. Includes collaboration on a project funded by the Irish Research Council, Enterprise Partnership Scheme relating to the impact of low carbohydrate diets on bone health and (re)modelling in elite endurance athletes.
  • The Department of Rehabilitation at Jönköping University, Sweden, since 2013. This collaboration is focused in the area of biomechanics of postural control, balance and falls in prosthesis users.
  • The University of British Columbia, Canada, since 2015. This collaboration focuses broadly upon sport journalism.
  • Mansoura University, Egypt, since 2019. Research has investigated elite football performance by using machine learning methods to determine key determinants of success and failure. This allows coaches and practitioners to ensure players focus on the key tactics and techniques that will result in performance success.
  • The Education University of Hong Kong, since 2015. This collaboration has focused upon the effects of exercise and nutritional interventions on cognitive performance in athletes.

Facilities

The SHAPE Research Centre is ably supported by a comprehensive research infrastructure.

Our two biomechanics laboratories house multiple motion capture systems and both ground embedded and portable force plates. These systems also have mobile EMG, accelerometery and insole pressure measurement systems. These set-ups are complemented by a host of software packages for musculoskeletal modelling, simulation and statistical analysis.

Our multifunctional sport and exercise psychology laboratory, allows both quantitative and qualitative research to be conducted. The new laboratory provides a space for interviews and focus groups and also provides the equipment for effective transcription and data analysis. Cognitive booths enable participants to complete a number of cognitive tasks requiring self-control in a controlled setting with no external distractions.

Our scanning laboratory encompasses dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) machines for the determination of body composition and bone mass and strength.  These machines are used extensively for our exercise, diet and bone health research. When combined with our internal collaborative capabilities in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we have a powerful core capability for musculoskeletal imagery relating to the effects of exercise and diet on the musculoskeletal system.

Our four exercise physiology research laboratories are fully equipped with ergometers (rowing, cycling, treadmills), expired air analysis systems and blood analysers and all of the major equipment required to determine the physiological responses to exercise and diet.

The Nutrition lounge and associated kitchen provides a purpose-built area for our nutrition research, providing a relaxing environment for participants of all ages. It also encompasses cognitive function booths for the assessment of the impacts of nutrition and exercise on cognitive function.

Two environmental chambers, one of which is British Olympic Association accredited allow the manipulation of temperature, humidity and altitude for physiological, nutritional, psychological and health research.

In addition to these facilities we have access to core capabilities across the School of Science and Technology, including biosciences laboratories (including the capability for cell culture and sophisticated OMICS analyses).

All of these facilities are overseen by a team of capable and dedicated technicians who can provide valuable advice and support to our research students.

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Related Projects

Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021

The Sport, Health and Performance Enhancement Research Centre submitted impact case studies to REF 2021. 100% of NTU's research environment in the 'Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism' Unit of Assessment was assessed to be world-leading or internationally excellent.

Discover the real-world impact of their research below.

Enhancing Mobility in Lower Limb Prosthesis Users: Economic and Clinical Impact from Better Access to Advanced Prosthetic Devices

Theme: Health and Wellbeing

Units of assessment: Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism

Changing Nutritional and Training Practices to Improve the Bone Health of Elite Athletes and Sports People Internationally

Theme: Health and Wellbeing

Units of assessment: Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism