Sport and Exercise Science Research Centre (SESRC)

The Sport and Exercise Science Research Group (SESRG) provides an environment for research and innovation with real-world application.

The interdisciplinary group integrates biomechanists, physiologists, nutritionists and psychologists to target societal challenges in health, environment and performance.

Our work generates impact across stakeholders: local government, policy makers, commercial organisations, and charity partners.

Investigated topics

The group works across complementary scientific disciplines and has a unique blend of excellent facilities, knowledge and skills for research, innovation and product testing. Most of our research has addressed the following:

• Activities: Tripping, Perception, Cognition, Footwear, Shooting, Cycling, Coaching
• Populations: Athletes, Ageing, Women, Coaches, Ethnicity, Diabetes, Grassroots
• Environments: Heat, Urban, Altitude, Gym, Lab-based, Field-based

The affiliated Human Performance Centre is our enterprise arm for delivering innovative science services to individuals, businesses and communities under four branded themes:

• InnovateWell for Intellectual Property generation, product testing, evaluation and development;
• PerformWell for development and testing of tailor-made programmes for professional and recreational athletes, coaches and those wishing to initiate an active lifestyle;
• LiveWell for tailored lifestyle assessments, interventions and guidance as well as for delivery and effectiveness monitoring and evaluation of health promotion programs.
• LearnWell for student-led assessments in co-curricular activities, this programme trains our students in the BSc(Hons) Sport and Exercise Sciences to become competent and confident Performance assessors.

Previous Impact Cases

This Girl Can with Lambeth

(Leads: Dr. Katya Mileva and Dr. Rita De Oliveira)

In line with the Active Lambeth Physical Activity and Sports Strategy 2015 this project aims to increase and sustain participation in sports and exercise programmes among 14-25 year old females in Lambeth. The project was undertaken to generate the evidence base needed to inform future Council’s commissioning activity. The intervention programme within the project was designed in consultation with London Sport and the evaluation components were guided by Lambeth and Southwark Public Health Clinical Commissioning Groups. The LSBU research team’ is responsible for the monitoring and evaluation components of the project.

To date the project has reached its ambition to engage in excess of 5000 young girls in the programs delivered by notable charities and local sport and physical activity providers. This project is producing impact on public health, public services and policy via stakeholder engagement, awareness and understanding of the facilitators and barriers for engaging and sustaining active lifestyle of adolescent females from communities with high level of socio-economic deprivation. Recent analysis of these factors has been published by the research team (Hull, R. , de Oliveira, R. and Zaidell, L. (2018) An Ecological Approach to Exploring Physical Activity Interventions Aimed at Young UK-Based Females: A Narrative Systematic Review. Psychology, 9, 2795-2823. doi: 10.4236/psych.2018.914161.)

Based on their analysis, the research team has formulated a set of practical recommendations (PDF File 715 KB) on how to design effective programs promoting increased and sustainable engagement of young females in physical activity. These should take into account the multitude of factors from the intra- and inter-personal, organisational and environmental, policy and legislation levels of the ecological model of health behaviours that influence behaviour and lifestyle change in a dynamic interplay.

The team work on this project has been supported with a 3-year grant (2017-2019) from Sport England and Lambeth Council (total value £636K).

TEMULAB ® (ProTendon®)

A diagnostic device for the prevention of Achilles tendon injuries.

(Lead: Prof. Kiros Karamanidis)

The development of this device has been informed by 15 years of research conducted by Prof. Karamanidis and his team in the area of motor-tendon unit biomechanics and over 35 publications on the topic. Currently the team is working to realise the huge potential of this innovation to produce impact on sports medicine, economics, innovation, health and wellbeing. The German Federal Institute of Sports Science has invested €115K into the work of the team to evaluate elite jumpers in the German Athletics Federation (completed). Recently, the team has secured additional circa £315K investment from Lanserhof London at The Arts Club for setting up brand new state-of-art diagnostic facilities at the London franchise of the company to ensure a regular muscle-tendon unit diagnostic offer for their patients and athletes starting summer 2019.

OrthoSportsLab

(Lead: Prof. Kiros Karamanidis)

The aim of this project is to develop software for assessment of muscle structure and function for clinical settings. The current work of the team is supported with a £213K grant from OrthoSportsLab. This project has potential for impact on clinical practice and diagnostics for improved public health as well as for producing economic impact via licensing the software to clinical-end users.

Facilities

Our facilities at LSBU are accredited by the British Association for Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES).

The Sport and Exercise Science Research Group (SESRG) operates within state-of-the-art facilities, part of a £47 million development on the Southwark campus. The research group benefits from several dedicated research laboratories as well as equipment for integration and field research:

The research takes place in 7 dedicated laboratories:

• Gait analysis - Qualisys 8-camera 3D motion analysis system and 5 Kistler force platforms, Footscan pressure distribution platform, telemetric EMG and kinematics systems
• Elite Human Performance - motorised treadmill with body harness, veloergometry, Laser Doppler flowmetry and imaging for peripheral blood perfusion, Near-Infrared spectroscopy for brain and muscle oxygenation, clinical rate digital bioimpedance scales for full body composition analysis, body core and skin surface temperature psychometric suite of tests for full scale analysis of cognitive, mental and emotional state, software for sport performance and team play analysis (Dartfish), software for qualitative data analyses (MAXQDA)
• Perception-Motor Control - eye-tracker with Perception-Motor control – a range of specialist methods, including the mobile Tobii Pro 3 eye-tracking glasses can measure looking behaviour in dynamic situations, the Tobii Lab for data analysis, prism and control glasses to manipulate visual direction, and a range of other behaviour methods are used in this lab.
• Neuromuscular Physiology - a range of specialist experimental techniques for measurement of neuromuscular activation such as: surface electromyography, peripheral electrical muscle and nerve stimulation, transcranial magnetic and direct current brain stimulation, 3D accelerometery, dynamometry, whole-body and targeted muscle and tendon vibration.
• Cardiopulmonary Physiology - specialist equipment for measurements of peripheral and central cardiovascular function such as: Breath-by-breath gas analysis systems, Doppler Ultrasound and Flow-Mediated Dilation, Blood pressure, cardiac output and heart rate monitors, blood lactate, cholesterol, lipid profile, haemoglobin and haematocrit.
• Environmental chamber In addition, the team benefits from an in-house Environmental chamber for testing human performance in controlled temperature and humidity, a unique normobaric Hypoxic chamber and 4 hypoxicators for altitude simulation and training.
• OrthoSport lab - 8 TEMUTRAIN isometric training devices, custom made force plate on the basis of a WII balance board, HUMAC isokinetic dynamometer, surface electromyography, Lode Sport 2XL treadmill; custom made pneumatic driven gait perturbation device, 8 infrared cameras Qualisys motion capture system, TEMULAB, Mobil Ultrasound device (ESAOTE MyLab Gamma)
• Biochemistry - Flow cytometer, RANDOX clinical analyser and ELISA systems for testing inflammatory status and human tissue biochemistry before, during and after physical activity and exercise.