Sport Sciences

Movement disorders and musculoskeletal injuries: many neurological and musculoskeletal disorders affect balance and movement coordination. We are currently examining the effect of exercise (in stroke survivors) and surgical techniques (in those with ligament injury) on functional abilities during recovery.

Three research areas are the foci of current and future research:-

• Global Sporting Cultures: a continuation of cross-cultural analyses of sport will see future papers drawing on research in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Liberia, Norway, Malta and Argentina.
• Fields and Visions: Research is currently being negotiated with colleagues in Germany and Cologne which seeks to examine the role of culture and neuro-linguistic programming in sports-related instruction.
• London Calling:The recent (August 2010) successful co-application for ESRC funding of £325,000 for a project that aims to examine the policing challenges and implications that hosting the 2012 Olympics will bring to London will be the primary research focus for the next 30 months.

Kelly's research focuses on:

• Choking and the proposed underlying mechanisms of self-consciousness and reinvestment
• Attentional control and performance disruption
• The use of secondary and priming tasks to alleviate performance disruption

Dan is currently engaged in an international collaborative project, between the CCNI and The Institute of Human Performance in Hong Kong, to examine expert-novice differences in perceptual ability; the research utilises fMRI technology to identify the underlying mechanisms which explain the behavioural differences commonly witnessed. However, he also continues to examine and present on the effects of music on performance in sport; and supervises PhD candidate Harry Lim in this burgeoning area.

Dan has supervised, and continues to supervise, masters level dissertations in the following areas: expert perception, choking, reactive performance training, the use of music as a conditioned stimulus, optimising performance via imagery. All students whose work is at a suitable level are encouraged to publish their work in peer-reviewed journals.

Susan’s major research interest is in the development of student (and newly qualified) physical education teachers. There are two related themes to this work: (i) student teachers development over the course of their initial teacher education programme, particularly the development of their knowledge for teaching; and (ii) roles and responsibilities of partners in secondary physical education teacher education programmes in supporting student teachers' development. Both of these two main research areas are supported by external funding.

Richard’s main research interests are in growth hormone (GH) in sport and exercise, that is the misuse of GH in sport but in particular the body’s (endogenous) GH response to exercise. Other research interests include exercise and sports performance and, increasingly, exercise and health. His teaching interests include all aspects of physiology generally, and specifically physiology related to sport, exercise and health.

Carl’s research interests are exercise, nutrition and muscle metabolism in humans. Much of this work has focused on ways to enhance exercise performance and improve training adaptation in elite endurance athletes but Carl is equally interested in using exercise-diet interventions to improve metabolic health in obese and type II diabetic patients. In many of these studies we apply stable isotope tracers to determine in vivo substrate turnover (glucose, lipid or amino acid). These sophisticated techniques are possible in only a few laboratories worldwide.

Robin’s research is in two areas: (1) the attentional processes underlying skill failure or ‘choking’, and (2) anticipation skill and susceptibility to deception. His interest in ‘choking’ focuses on the reinvestment or explicit monitoring theory and includes investigating dispositional factors (self-consciousness), and whether explicit monitoring applies to decision making as well as motor skill execution. His work on anticipation skill focuses on examining the underlying information to which experts are attuned (e.g., by using temporal occlusion and spatial occlusion paradigms, and point-light formats), and possible implications for susceptibility to deceptive movement. Currently, Robin is conducting an RGC-funded collaborative project with Prof Abernethy and Prof Michael Wright (Brunel University) that uses fMRI to identify brain regions associated with anticipation skill in sport.

Costas has completed a number of industrial projects that include work with Nike Inc. on the Portable Sport Audio MP3 player, Sony UK on the W series of sport MP3 headphones, Bio-Medical Research Ltd. (Ireland) on the Mentor behavioural screening programme and David Lloyd Leisure Ltd on the development of a music policy for their chain of health clubs. He was principal author of the recent British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences’ (BASES) national expert statement on the use of music in exercise.

From 2007-10 Costas led a large-scale consultancy project with the International Management Group (IMG) that entailed coordinating live music with mass participation running events – Run to the Beat. He made scientific contributions and served as a media spokesperson for several events in the UK and across mainland Europe. He is currently working with three NHS trusts in Greater London on coordinating physiotherapy and stroke rehabilitation programmes with age-congruent music: The Music-in-Rehab Project.

Costas has worked extensively with the music industry to release a number of sport and exercise-related compilations including the bestselling Run to the Beat CD and Ministry of Sound: Run to the Beat 2010. He recently completed a textbook entitled Inside Sport Psychology (Human Kinetics 2011) that is co-authored by Prof Peter Terry (University of Southern Queensland). This is the first book to cover music-related psychological interventions in sport.

Costas contributed three chapters to the text Sporting Sounds: Relationships Between Sport and Music (Routledge 2009) as well as chapters in Sport and Exercise Psychology (Hodder Education 2008) and New Sport and Exercise Psychology Companion (Fitness Information Technology 2011).

I joined the School of Sport and Education at Brunel in September 2010 after several years as a sports academic at Loughborough University. I am a multi-disciplinary social scientist who has been working in sport and leisure research since the 1980s. My primary focus is on the experiences of individuals and social groups, and much of my work addresses aspects of disadvantage and exclusion - initially in the UK and Europe, and more recently in international development contexts. Over the course of my career I have had the opportunity to undertake a broad range of sports research, and also to participate in a wider range of studies within the social sciences. This has included several years working in comparative European social policy research, and also longstanding involvement in the international leisure studies research community. The majority of my research reflects this background, and addresses social policy agendas that stretch beyond sport to include issues such as multiculturalism, health and well-being, and education. I enjoy the opportunity to work with academics and policymakers in multidisciplinary collaborations to address research issues within and around sport.

For the last six years my primary focus has been on youth sport, including analysis of young people’s sport in the context of their family circumstances. I have led more than 30 projects in the area of young people and physical activity, youth sport volunteering, girls and sport, sport and youth inclusion, and support for talented young performers, and have undertaken a number of national and international evaluations for policymakers. These projects have been undertaken for a wide range of funding agencies including national sports agencies, government departments and commercial sponsors - e.g. the Department for Education, the Department of Culture Media and Sport, Youth Sport Trust, the European Social Fund, Nike, sportscotland, Sport England and UK Sport. Within youth sport my personal specialist areas are (i) sport and family, (ii) sport, poverty and exclusion, and (iii) sport and international development. Since 2007 I have been especially involved in researching the use of sport in international development contexts, and have received more than £300,000 from UK Sport, British Council, UNICEF and the European Union for research in Brazil, India, the West Indies and Zambia. As with my UK and European research, my focus is on sport within its wider context, including whether and how sport can contribute to the Millennium Development Goals of raising education levels, addressing gender inequity, and countering the HIV-AIDS pandemic.

• Choking and the proposed underlying mechanisms of explicit monitoring and distraction theories
• Attentional control and performance disruption
• The role of working memory and task complexity in performance under conditions of high and low pressure.

Pascale’s main research interest lies in the understanding of the pathophysiology of respiratory disorders in athletes. It encompasses disorders such as asthma, expiratory flow limitation and exercise-induced hypoxemia. Her research activities include relatively large as well as intervention studies in healthy trained or untrained individuals, athletes with respiratory disorders and asthmatic patients.

• Paediatric Biomechanics
• Cycling Biomechanics
• Muscle Tendon Mechanics

Alison's research interests are firmly focused upon understanding potential respiratory limitations to exercise tolerance and performance. This encompasses aspects of respiratory pathophysiology (eg, asthma), respiratory mechanics, respiratory effort sensation, muscle physiology and cardiovascular reflex control. These interests characterise her as a whole-body, integrative human physiologist.

In particular, Alison has pioneered research into the influence of inspiratory muscle training and fatigue upon exercise tolerance and performance. She has an international research profile in this area, having published some of the 'key' papers on inspiratory muscle training and fatigue (see ‘Publications’ below).

Alison enjoys a number of international collaborations, in particular, with Dr Paltiel Weiner at the Hillel-Yaffe Medical Center, Hadera, Israel, Dr Tim Mickleborough at the University of Indiana, USA, Dr Andrew Kilding at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, and Dr Simon Brumagne at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Closer to home, a long-standing collaboration with the English Institute of Sport that has brought involvement in the screening and management of high performance athletes with exercise-induced asthma and other breathing-related problems.

Daniel’s main research focuses on understanding the development and maintenance of (un)healthy and (in)effective relationships in sport. This relates to all of the key stakeholders in sport including athletes/players, coaches, referees and parents. It is intended that this research informs policy and practice to promote the welfare of people with additional vulnerability in sport.

Current research projects include:

• Monitoring abusive coaching in youth sport (with Justplay, Canada)
• Risk factors for injury in child athletes (with the British Judo Association)
• Children’s wellbeing in youth sport (Brentford Community Sport Trust)
• Perceptions of emotional abuse in youth sport (with Dr Misia Gervis)

For nearly two decades I have devoted my career to understanding bullying in schools and, particularly, how bullying affects the mental health and well-being of adolescents. I am particularly interested in bias-based bullying and how its impacts upon those who experience it and witness it. In the 1990s the focus of my research was on the nature and long-term correlates of homophobic bullying. It was conducted at a time when Section 28 of the Local Government Act was in full force and also when few organisations (including LGBT organisations), other than a few key unions (NASUWT, NUT and UNISON), were willing to listen and acknowledge that this had been and continued to be an issue in British schools.

My more recent research, conducted with colleagues from various universities in the U.K. and U.S., has focus on text and-email bullying and the experiences of witnesses. Working collaboratively with local education authorities, our studies have shown that, across five years (2001-2006), text and e-mail bullying rose with the take-up of technology by young people transitioning to high school. We have also shown that students who witness bullying at school not only are affected by that experience but share a number of similarities with victims. Issues such as feelings of powerlessness, witnessing bias-based bullying and cognitive dissonance are associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in self-harming and destructive behaviours.

My research increasingly includes the integration of theories drawn from social and developmental psychology with aspects of cognitive psychology (particularly implicit and explicit reasoning) to better understand the train of thought that takes an individual form a position of safety to one of potential harm. I hope that this research can be applied to many contexts and fields of study.

Books

Rivers, I. (2011). Homophobic bullying: Research and theoretical perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN-13  9780195160536.

The voices of pain are powerful.The author presents poignant, evocative narratives in which victims express the  maelstrom of confusion that peer abuse etched on their memories. He integrates a rich review of pivotal investigations on the topic of bullying with primary quantitative and qualitative data as he introduces three original studies that focus on the victimization of sexual minorities. His insightful discussion of classic and contemporary theories from a multidisciplinary perspective will sharpen the reader's understanding of the complex set of psychosocial factors involved in this cycle of abuse. This is a powerful, timely reminder that there are no innocent bystanders in the "bullying circle." Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty/professionals. – CHOICE

Those seeking a better understanding of the problems encountered by victims of bullying will find...Homophobic Bullying by Ian Rivers, a useful work of scholarship. Rivers compiled data from numerous studies on the form and nature of the problem and created a curriculum to help eliminate bullying in schools, starting in kindergarten with the simple message that there are different types of families, and progressing all the way through high school with lessons on the consequences that follow from homophobic taunting and exclusions. Homophobic Bullying is an academic work, written with the emotional detachment of its genre. The personal accounts from victims, while gripping, are brief. However the curriculum and supporting data make this a treasure trove for anyone creating change in a school or workplace. Homophobic Bullying should be in the principal’soffice. – Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide.

Rivers, I., Duncan, N., & Besag, V.E. (2007). Bullying: A handbook for educators and parents. Westport: Greenwood/Praeger. ISBN 0-313-33850-2

Drawing on research conducted in the US, the UK, Scandinavia, and Canada, Rivers offers insight into the immediate and long-term impact that bullying can have on the lives of students, their families, and teachers. He gives parents tips for working proactively with school administrators to resolve bullying issues, and provides teachers with materials that facilitate a better understanding of the social dynamics of the classroom, hallways, and playground. Administrators will find a quick guide to recent state and federal statutes, directives, and legislation related to bullying and antisocial behavior in grades K-12. –Library Media Connection

Lee is interested in the cardiorespiratory responses/interactions/limitations to exercise in health and disease. He is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and has been accredited by the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences. He is a member of the European Respiratory Society and The Physiological Society. In addition, he serves as a Section Editor for the “European Journal of Sport Sciences”, and as an Advisory Editor for “Frontiers in Respiratory Physiology” and “European Journal of Applied Physiology”. His research has been supported by UK Sport, ParalympicsGB, Integrated Spinal Rehabilitation Foundation, The Royal Society and The Nuffield Foundation.

• Sport Sociology and Sport Development (in particular policy and legal issues in sport)
  
• Islam and Islamophobia;
  
• Socio-Psychological aspects of Deviance;
  
• Policing
  
• Fascism, Neo-Fascism and Populist Movements;

His recent book publication is:

Testa, A. and Armstrong, G. (November 2010). Football, Fascism and Fandom: The UltraS of Italian Football, A&C (Bloomsbury), London, Black Publishers.