Research

Research to help athletes go for gold at Olympics

Scientists at the University of Essex are helping athletes push the limits of human performance to reach their maximum potential in their chosen sport.

By focusing on a number of key areas of competition and training, the researchers aim to help athletes reach their sporting goals by enhancing their performance.

By analysing the metabolic profile of certain sports, athletes can fine-tune their approach to competition and their training to help achieve the best results.

 

A boxer taking part in the research

The current research at Essex is centring on boxing and how recent changes to the rules over number of rounds and their duration could change performance.

The University has already been working with the Army boxing team at neighbouring Colchester Garrison and the national Army boxing team.

Their work now has a specific link to the 2012 Olympics as two budding British Olympic boxing hopefuls have been taking part in testing at the University’s Human Performance Unit.

As Professor Ralph Beneke of the Department of Biological Sciences explained, looking into the metabolic profile of the sport could have a major impact on training and competition strategies.

‘It means taking decisions in competition and training based on facts and not beliefs,’ he explained, and could be the difference between winning and losing.

Recession research shows who will be hardest hit

The substantial increase in the numbers of people out of work during the recession will hit ethnic minority groups, young adults and those with poor educational qualifications hardest. Those are the predictions of Professor Richard Berthoud from the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER).

The overall unemployment rate has already doubled, and things are likely to get worse before they get better according to ISER’s Richard Berthoud, who has examined earlier UK recessions to predict what impact the current downturn will have and who will be most affected by it.

One important conclusion of the research is that it is not just the unemployed who are affected by the business cycle. The research suggests that for every rise of 100,000 people who say they are actively looking for work, there will be a further 27,000 increase in the number who give other reasons (such as motherhood or disability) for not having a job, but have nevertheless been affected by the weak labour market.

Main findings include:
• The proportion of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis out of work - already high at 47 per cent - would rise by nearly seven percentage points.

• The number of 20-24 year-olds without jobs would soar by a quarter, compared with those aged 55-59 who would see a rate rise of just one in 25.

• Under qualified people - already seriously disadvantaged - would see an increase of between 4 and 5 percentage points, compared with an increase of about 2 percentage points for those with good qualifications.

Contrary to expectation, however, other disadvantaged groups with poor underlying job prospects, such as disabled people and mothers are not expected to face severe additional problems if jobs are scarce. Richard Berthoud points out that more than half of the most disadvantaged people are out of work in any case and so are relatively unaffected by a recession.

Migration grant success

Dr Ayse Güveli from the Department of Sociology and Dr Lucinda Platt from the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) are collaborating on two major studies on the impacts of migration in Europe after winning substantial research funding.

Grants totalling €5.5 million have been awarded for the two projects by NORFACE (New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Co-operation in Europe), a partnership between fourteen research councils to increase co-operation in research and research policy in Europe.

Dr Güveli and Dr Platt will work with colleagues from Turkey, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany on the first project, which involves some 500 Turkish families, their immigrant descendants in Europe and those who remained in Turkey. The research team plans to carry out some 6000 face to face interviews with family members across four generations.

Dr Güveli and Dr Platt are also part of the research team for a second project looking at the causes and consequences of early integration processes among new immigrants in Europe focusing on Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland and Great Britain.

A third project that has been successful in this round of funding by NORFACE involves ISER researcher Dr Simonetta Longhi who is part of a project involving researchers from five countries.

Also in the printed October edition of Wyvern:

• Major AHRC grant to study decision-making
• What makes girls competitive?
• Scientists use microbes for quick clean-up of dirty oil
• Breast cancer breakthrough
• Children are focus of major new study