What is Sports Physiology?

Sport physiology is derived from the discipline of exercise physiology, and both fields have evolved from human physiology. This branch of biology relates to the scientific study of function, i.e. how organs, tissues, cells and molecules work and interact to regulate the body’s internal environment.

In a practical context, sport physiology involves the application of fundamental exercise physiology principles, for example how the body responds and adapts to exercise and/or environmental factors (e.g., altitude, cold, heat and humidity), to optimise athletic training and enhance competition preparation and performance.

How is it used?

Our sport physiologists work directly with athletes and coaches and collaborate with members of the sports science and medicine support teams by providing physiological and/or integrated solutions to address performance challenges or health related issues.

Overview of discipline

The role of the sport physiologist is to inform the coaching process by providing expert, evidence-informed support to positively impact sports performance. Practitioners often conduct profiling and monitoring sessions in the performance laboratory or environmental chamber but deliver most of their interventions in the form of training or competition monitoring in the specific environment of the sport, i.e., at the track, pool or on the playing field. Sport physiologists often travel with athletes and teams to provide support at warm-weather or altitude training camps and at competitions.

Areas of work

The sport physiologist uses their knowledge and expertise to enhance performance in a variety of ways, for example they can:

  • Identify and examine physiological determinants of sports (i.e. what it takes to win),
  • Compare athlete characteristics against international competitors or performance standards and predict potential performance capability,
  • Identify accurate training zones,
  • Monitor athlete wellbeing, readiness to train and/or return to sport,
  • Contribute to health screening through assessment of blood, hydration status, resting metabolic rate, and/or cardio-respiratory function,
  • Profile physiological adaptations and changes in physical fitness through graded exercise tests or training sessions,
  • Prescribe warm-up and conditioning programmes,
  • Design and facilitate recovery interventions,
  • Implement cold, heat and humidity and/or hypoxic interventions to induce specific adaptations,
  • Develop acclimation and acclimatisation strategies to optimise performance in challenging environments,
  • Design strategies to overcome travel fatigue and accelerate adjustment of the body clock to a new time zone to alleviate jet lag, and
  • Guide the competition taper.

Core Objectives of the Discipline

1) To ensure that the support team have a greater understanding of the physiological determinants of performance and the factors that currently limit performance through athlete, sport and/or event profiling.

2) To support the health and general well-being of athletes through the delivery of screening assessments and monitoring return to training protocols.

3) To optimise the adaptive response to training by ensuring appropriate prescription and regular monitoring and adjustment of training load and recovery and by promoting appropriate choices relating to individual lifestyle and sleep routines.

4) To support competition performance in challenging climates by providing acclimation interventions to facilitate exercise in cold or hot and humid conditions, and travel strategies to minimise the fatigue and jet lag associated with travel across multiple time-zones.

Track record

The sport physiologists working within the SNISI are accredited by the British Association of Sport and Exercises Sciences (BASES). They have travelled extensively to support athletes and teams at training camps, competitions and major Games events.

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