Latest news
Sheffield Hallam support praised by GB women's volleyball player
Our work with one the GB women's volleyball team recently featured in a piece written for Sky Sports. Read the feature here.
Doctor of downhill racing studies for success
Sheffield-born mountain-biker Steve Peat is now officially the most successful downhill mountain-biker in history, and has attributed his success t
o his work with academics at Sheffield Hallam University.
Steve has now won more races than any other downhill mountain biker, having taken 50 podium places in his career, and won the Lisbon downhill race an unprecedented eight times.
Steve has attributed his success to a much-improved bike and a comprehensive training programme at Sheffield Hallam University. He has been working with sports scientists and psychologists there since receiving an honorary doctorate from the University last November.
Steve said, 'It's been really helpful for me to partner with Sheffield Hallam University this season. It's given me a new training regime and some structure in my life, not just in my training.
'The programme they've put together for me has really helped me get a lot stronger and I feel I've benefited hugely from more core stability, balance and strength.
'We try and structure the training to my specific discipline. I've also had some help on the psychological side, which is something I've never thought of before in racing. I've gained massively from having better goals and organisation as a result.'
To read more, click here.
Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)
The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) assesses the quality of research in universities in the UK.
The Centre for Sport and Exercise Science (CSES) is evaluated as part of the 'sports-related studies' unit of assessment (UoA 46), and has considerably enhanced its national ranking since the previous assessment back in 2001.
Under the new system introduced for RAE 2008, there is a range of approaches to interpret the data. Using the ResearchResearch 'power rank' that most authorities seem to be using, Sheffield Hallam is now ranked fourth in the UK for sports-related studies out of the 39 submissions from Universities researching in the area.
A high proportion of the University's sports research activity has been assessed as world leading or internationally excellent (35 per cent), in terms of originality, significance and rigour - and virtually all its research (95 per cent) is at least of national standing.
To find out more about the RAE and the University's 2008 results, please visit the University's research channel.
CSES-developed products win industry prizes
Two CSES-developed products, the GolfBone carrying system and Tennis GUT software, were recently recognised at the ispo-TUM Academic Challenge Awards 2009 in Munich.
Nick Hamilton and Simon Goodwill of the Sports Engineering Research Group (SERG) were the lead engineers on the projects - to find out more please click here to read the full news release.
The science of swing bowling
Dr David James visited India this January to deliver a seminar on the science behind cricket.
David spoke to students at the Heritage Institute of Technology in Calcutta on the subject of 'Engineering cricket: the science behind the game', in a seminar organised by the British Council.
He claimed that overcast conditions have nothing to do with the amount a cricket ball swings, that soft pitches are generally bouncy, and that a ball always loses pace after pitching - claims which were backed by scientific explanations, statistics and video clippings of experiments conducted in front of high-speed cameras.
According to David's calculations, a ball slides about 15cm after hitting the pitch, forms a crater, gets squashed by about 3mm and slows down 10 to 15 per cent. None of this can be seen with the naked eye.
'I went around the county grounds for four years, from 1999 to 2003, filming matches with 400-frames-per-second cameras for the England and Welsh Cricket Board's Pitches Research Group,' he said. 'This data is a result of findings after studying 4,000 deliveries.'
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