The School are very proud of three students who gave research presentations at the recent 2014 UK Strength & Conditioning Association Annual Conference. Emma Hall and Lee Corry, who have both just completed their BSc (Hons) Sport & Exercise Science degrees, presented research posters based upon their dissertation projects.  Emma’s work, co-authored by her supervisor Dan Bishop, was entitled “The effect of plyometric training on handspring vault performance in adolescent female gymnasts”. Lee’s study, “Dietary nitrate enhances power output during the early phases of maximal intensity sprint cycling”, was co-authored by his supervisor Tom Gee.

 Emma  presenting her work

Postgraduate student Paul Harsley presented a poster entitled “Reproducibility of speed, agility and power assessments in elite academy footballers “. These results represent part of his ongoing MSc by Research project, which is being supervised by Dan and Tom.

All of the presentations were well received, reflecting the quality of the strength and conditioning research being undertaken within the School.  Particular congratulations are due to Lee and Tom, who were awarded a conference prize for Best Poster! This is a remarkable achievement for an undergraduate study, and the recognition added to Lee’s positive reaction to the conference:

“The UKSCA conference was a fantastic experience; it was interesting listening to leading researchers in the field, especially those whose studies I had used in my own undergraduate work. It was a pleasure to represent the University at the conference by presenting Tom’s and my poster, and was also great to see interesting posters from other universities. When our poster was announced as one of the winners it was totally unexpected and a little bit surreal. This was a very proud moment for us both knowing all the hard work that was put into the study and poster had paid off. For me this award topped off a great final academic year.”

Lee with his award-winning poster