As the Golden Bears and Pandas hit their stride in their respective fields of play this season, a visionary new approach to athlete health takes aim at improving their performance.
Dr. Michael Kennedy, assistant professor in athlete health in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, is looking at a novel approach to sport performance and athlete development that combines the technical and tactical components of each sport with sport science and health research. The goal, says Kennedy, is to enhance the health, well being, and ultimately the performance, of our varsity athletes. ?The idea (behind the approach) is simple: healthier athletes are better performers.?
Student athletes face many challenges that can affect performance, from well-being issues related to being a young adult and a student, to performance issues like preventing injury and illness and training in the off-season. Understanding which health factors are the most important for the various sports will enable coaches to customize training programs and develop healthier athletes.
Kennedy believes this approach will dramatically change the understanding of what constitutes ?healthy athletes? in the future. ?This represents a fundamental shift to a holistic model, where the term ?health? encompasses a variety of concepts related to the physical, psychological, medical, and personal aspects of the student athlete.?
?Dr. Kennedy?s work in this area crosses a lot of the traditional boundaries of applied sport science by the addressing the athletes? health and conditioning needs,? adds Dr. Dan Syrotuik, vice dean of the Faculty. ?That is not to say the person holding this position has all the content knowledge to provide testing, training, nutritional education, athletic training, psychology support services, and so on, but that they provide the linkage for many disciplines currently within the Faculty and across campus to support the varsity student-athletes needs.?
Dale Schulha, director of Athletics and a driving force behind creating the position, believes it is critical to the future direction of the Golden Bears and Pandas athletic programs. ?We strive to offer a broad-based program of excellence in high performance sport and want to remain on the leading edge of Canadian university sport; this unique model certainly positions us well in this regard,? he says.
Kennedy believes this is an opportunity to influence long-term athlete health. ?By developing our athletes with age appropriate training, we are giving them the foundation and tools to build and improve as they move on to national and international programs.?
Kennedy?s approach reflects the influence of his doctoral studies in rehabilitation medicine. That experience exposed him to clinical populations experiencing significant challenges. He saw firsthand how rehabilitation could have significant affects on the health outcomes of those populations.
?These are ideas that can be transferred directly to our athletes,? explains Kennedy. ?A patient with a chronic disease such as heart failure faces similar challenges to an athlete coming back from injury. The team-based approach that has been used in rehabilitation is what we are trying to achieve. Of course, our end goal is very different because not only do we want to get our athletes back to normal function, but back playing at an optimal performance level, something that takes an incredible, integrated effort.?
A coach himself, Kennedy relishes the opportunity to work with an accomplished crew of master coaches, therapists and sport scientists in the Faculty. He plans to continue his research into hypoxia (shortage of oxygen) as it relates to sport performance, and sees an opportunity to develop unique performance tests for athletes that can be validated for both general and sport-specific performance factors.