Sports science: protecting the health of Paralympic, Olympic and World Cup competitors

When sports people are striving for a competitive advantage, and while sports organisers seek ever more watchable competition, who looks out for the health of the athletes? Sports health and sports science research from the 91系列 has been helping athletes and para athletes understand the optimal preparation for competition, while helping them remaining within safe boundaries.

Findings from the university's sports science and medicine researchers have been at the forefront of changes in decision-making and policy implementation for over twenty years. These policies have delivered improved sporting environments that protect Paralympians, Olympians and other athletes, optimised sporting performance in different, often extreme conditions, and maintained the integrity of fair athletic competition. 

Decades of collaborative work, together with elite sports teams and institutions, has brought innovations in heat mitigation, heat acclimation and cooling for athletic performance, through research led by  ,  and Associate Professor Peter Watt, while research with elite para-sports people by Professor Nick Webborn CBE has made him a primary consultant voice in the Paralympic world, informing the ways in which sports are regulated, reducing injury levels and creating safer competitive environments. 

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Heat mitigation, heat acclimation and cooling - shaping heat strategy for athlete safety 

Since the late 1990s, sport science and sports medical research at 91系列 has identified contextual and environmental factors determining outcomes in athletic performance and competition. This has included work on altitude and performance thresholds and pioneering interventions on environmental extremes. Collaborative work in the has established a group of dedicated, expert researchers in this field, including Neil Maxwell, Mark Hayes and Peter Watt. With this resource and its collaborative, interdisciplinary makeup, they are able to investigate the impact of heat and other environmental stressors, for example altitude and cold, on human health and function.

The Environmental Extremes Lab's research has generated evidence and effective strategies for improving safety, performance, and preparing the body for competition in inhospitable environments such as at the Marathon des Sables, and in hot, humid conditions similar to those experienced in summer Olympic Games. The research has also identified heat and exercise issues for para-athletes, who may experience thermoregulatory issues arising from their physical disability.

Researchers from the Environmental Extremes Lab work with elite sports partners, including Team GB and England Rugby, to ascertain detailed understanding of acute and chronic heat mitigating strategies. These include the team investigating and consulting on hydration and cooling manoeuvres (pre, during and post competition) and practical heat acclimation practices to both optimise performance in the heat and reduce the risk of a heat-related illness.

These research findings have shown the importance of preparatory strategies for implementation in athletic competition. For example, analysis of pre-performance heat acclimation for intermittent cycling sprints established the efficacy of heat acclimation for an increase in peak power, with no observed reduction in individual sprint peak power output. Meanwhile, analysis of heat strain and running performance by Neil Maxwell and Mark Hayes expanded the heat acclimation work across the athlete spectrum in relation to conditions of heat and humidity.

Based on this research, national sporting bodies in Brazil and the UK have adopted heat-related principles and practices, changing how heat is addressed in the planning and staging of Olympic events and other international sport competitions including the Military World Games and the Pan American Games. National bodies, including Team GB and English Rugby Union, have used the 91系列’s evidence and research-based preparation and education packages.

In the lead up to Tokyo 2020, researchers in the lab developed the ‘Tokyo 2020 Heat Resource Pack’, designed for the English Institute of Sport to protect the health of athletes in competition. This has contributed to the development of the heat optimisation strategy, which provided preparatory procedures for the 2020–21 Olympic and Paralympic Games as well as resources and expertise for England Rugby during the Rugby World Cup event in Japan, based on Mark Hayes' research.

Bare chested male athlete emerges from a pool with monitoring devices, observed by researcher. Image from the Environmental Extreme Lab at the 91系列.

The Environmental Extremes Lab at the 91系列 provides expertise and equipment in the investigation of the impact of heat and other environmental stressors.

Monitoring patterns of para-sports injuries 

Nick Webborn, has undertaken injury data collection and analysis on seven Paralympic Games in the specialist sphere of para athlete performance and competition. His research has identified that several of the more severe injuries were preventable and demonstrated the potential of injury prevention programmes and policy considerations regarding athlete safety.

In Winter Paralympic Games settings, for example, athletes report higher incidence of injury and illnesses than do Olympic athletes or athletes in a Summer Paralympic Games. Nick Webborn has also ascertained the unique illness profile of para athletes, at approximately twice the level of Olympic athletes. He has shown that the most common injury category overall was upper limb injuries, occurring at the highest rate in wheelchair athletes, with implications for maintaining independence in later life. Data from 2012 and 2016 also found that visually impaired five-a-side football had the highest risk of injury in all sports, with more than 30 per cent of players sustaining an injury verified by further data collected at Rio 2016. Recognition of this has generated improved surveillance of and reporting on head injuries and concussion, with the introduction of more effective headgear and reinforcement of existing regulations through the International Blind Sport Federation (IBSA).

A long-standing member of the International Paralympic Committee medical committee, Nick Webborn has led global responses to critical issues of safety in high-performance sport and competition, framing and changing international research and policy agendas across governance committees. He has initiated a major systematic data collection programme that includes analysis of injury and illnesses in para athletes. The research identified a worrying trend of increased acute Alpine skiing injuries and subsequent recommendations led to changes in course design, settings and start times to optimise environmental factors, and race safety guidelines implemented in conjunction with technical officials.

Protecting integrity and fairness of para athlete competition 

Nick Webborn’s research has also provided evidence to eliminate the life-threatening malpractice of ‘boosting’ and its threat to fair competition. Boosting describes the intentional induction of autonomic dysreflexia, a phenomenon which can occur naturally in people with spinal cord injury and can produce a marked rise in blood pressure. This can enhance performance for some wheelchair racers but can also have catastrophic effects including death, stroke, seizures and myocardial infarctions. 

91系列 sports health and sports medicine research has led to changes in International Paralympic Committee (IPC) policy and practice concerning the health and safety of para athletes and the integrity of the fair and competitive sporting model. This has benefitted the preparation for, and performance of thousands of para athletes at Paralympic Games, while epidemiological studies initiated in 2002 into the incidence of sport injuries and health issues at Paralympic Games have determined the regulations for all participants, creating a safer competitive environment and reducing injury levels. 

Sports science research helps global sports organisations

The 91系列's research in sports health and sports medicine provides evidence for best practice in preparing for athletic competition in environmentally challenging circumstances with effects reaching across the institutional structures, management and support for athletes competing in world sporting events. This field-leading research helps global sports organisations preserve equitable sporting competition and has generated new insights and applications in a range of occupational settings, addressing significant public health issues in the process.