Overview
We are investigating how people move during high-intensity activities to understand how to enhance performance, reduce injury risk, and optimise human-equipment interactions. Our research spans biomechanics, motor control, performance analysis, and sports engineering, focusing on movement patterns in various sports. Through applied research and collaborations with athletes, coaches, and industry partners, we aim to deliver practical solutions that improve performance, safety, and training outcomes across a range of sports.
Our projects focus on:
Our ongoing projects span a variety of sports, including cricket, netball, football, motorsport, and cycling. Our main areas of focus are:
We investigate how athletes move to enhance performance and reduce injury risk. This focus helps develop evidence-based strategies for improving technique and training.
We study the physical, cognitive, and environmental factors that affect movement patterns in sport. This focus helps identify barriers to optimal performance and develop strategies to overcome them through targeted interventions and training.
We examine how variability in movement patterns influences performance, injury risk and adaptability in sport. This focus helps athletes develop more robust movement strategies and improve their ability to respond to changing environments.
We explore how the design of sports and assistive equipment, such as footwear, prosthetics, and wearables (e.g. sports bras), impacts human movement, comfort, and performance. This focus helps improve equipment functionality, enhance user experience, and reduce injury risk.
We study how athletes acquire and develop skills to improve performance and succeed. This focus involves analysing performance during training and competition, understanding skill adaptability, and creating evidence-based pathways for long-term talent development.
Postgraduate Research Projects
Katie Reeves – Optimising the design, support and adjustability of sports bras for pre- and post-partum women
This project aims to understand the user groups needs and investigate the performance of current products. This should provide recommendations to improve future products to ensure the user groups needs are met and to minimise the barriers pregnant and post-partum women face towards being physically active.
Salahuddin Haowlader - The Effect of Minimalist shoes in combination with textured or supportive insoles across the lifespan
This project aims to develop our understanding of how minimalist footwear and textured or supportive insoles effect static and dynamic stability across young, middle and older aged adults. No research has previously assessed the effect of these footwear/insole technologies in combination across such a large age range. This work may inform footwear choice in adults to improve their balance and activities of daily life.
Cassandra Conway – Developing the pit crew athlete: Biomechanical and physical considerations for optimal performance
This project aims to develop pit stop analysis system to identify biomechanical and physical characterises of pit crew athlete and their relationship to pit stop performance. The knowledge gained by this research could lead improvements in motorsport performance analysis and tailored training practices for the pit stop athlete.
Helen Norris - The Effect of Dynamic Balance on Golf Performance
This project aims to investigate suitable methodologies to accurately discriminate between the dynamic balance abilities of golfers during golf strokes. This could enable an evaluation for the effectiveness of interventions, such as exercise or insoles, to provide better understanding of how they can aid golf performance.
Matt Stoner – Performance, training and injury in elite field hockey players
This project aims to understand current training practices in elite field hockey, and how these can be improved to better reflect match demands, and reduce the risk of injury, using global positioning systems. This project will also be one of the first to determine match demands within indoor hockey using a local positioning system.
Keara Peters - A biomechanical analysis of non-contact immediate stops in netball
This project aims to investigate the biomechanical demands of deceleration within netball. This may be an isolated action, proceeding a change of direction, or involve a secondary task. This information could provide key insights for athletes, coaches and practitioners to effectively modify training for injury risk and performance.