Saints Ladies receive sports conditioning support

Two final year BSc (Hons) Fitness and PersonalTraining students recently started an internship with Southampton Saints Ladiesfootball club. Cormac Lisle-Fenwick and Aaron Kennedy, who are both studying the Sports Conditioning unit, have impressed head coach Mike Dixon who comments, "we are a few weeks into our sessions at the moment with Aaron and Cormac and we've been really impressed with the sessions that they have put on". 

Sports Conditioning unit leader Marcus Sanger added, "these two students have consistently applied themselves well to their studies and it is great to hear that their knowledge and skills are being so well received". Students completing the Sports Conditioning unit will also be provided with the opportunity to gain a REPs accredited Sports Conditioning certificate endorsed with 16 REPs CPD points which further enhances their employability.

Retention Guru retains interest of health & fitness students

Students studying BA Fitness Management & Personal Training and BSc Fitness & Personal Training were treated to a guest lecture from International presenter and fitness retention expert, Dr Paul Bedford. Paul delivered a 2-hour session to students across all 3 years of the degree courses, outlining the latest fitness industry research on retention within health and fitness clubs. Paul, who is known in the industry as the ‘retention guru’ stated “if you’re going to call yourself a guru, you’d better know what you’re talking about!” Fortunately Paul knows exactly what he’s talking about, as evidenced by interviewing 23000 fitness members during the course of his PhD, where he discovered that including a behaviour change intervention as part of an initial gym induction had a significant impact on retention levels. As Paul says, “if you don’t get into their head, you won’t get their body”, highlighting the importance of exercise psychology within a Personal Trainer’s skillset.

Exercise psychology features heavily across all 3 years of the fitness degree courses at Solent, and even though this lecture was delivered as part of a Fitness Facilities and Operation Management unit, it reinforced to students the links between different subject areas on their degree.

Principal Lecturer Martin Skivington, who has known Paul for almost 20 years (ironically they first met when Paul sold Martin an exercise bike for the university gym many years ago!) believes that the students will benefit greatly from hearing Paul speak. “Paul is invited all around the world to lecture on issues related to retention and so to hear him speak to the students about the latest fitness industry research can only increase their understanding of the sector and enhance their learning” stated Martin.

The video clip above shows Paul explaining why older health club members are more profitable than younger members to health club operators.

Solent Personal Training students educate local gymnastics club

Final year BSc Fitness and Personal Training students, Jon Fildes and Aaron Kennedy, volunteered to give a talk on sports nutrition to coaches and parents from Southampton Gymnastics Club this week in a bid to educate them about healthy eating and improving their athletes' diet.

Under the supervision of Emma Patel, Associate Lecturer in Diet and Nutrition and unit leader for the final year Sports Nutrition & Performance module, Jon and Aaron presented enthusiastically for an hour and professionally fielded some tricky questions from the audience.

Emma commented, "this was a great experience for the students and they did an excellent job. The feedback from the head coach and the audience was very positive as both Jon and Aaron are passionate about healthy eating and this came across in their talk. It also gave them invaluable experience of presenting to an external audience".

Aaron (left) and Jon present to an attentive audience

The only downside to the evening was getting to the venue. In true health and fitness tradition, the three of them decided to walk rather than catch the train, and ended up getting incredibly lost and spent over an hour trying to locate the club. Fortunately, armed with the maps on their mobile phones, they finally arrived with just over 15 minutes to spare, much to the relief of Emma and the awaiting audience!

Intense debate started by HESS lecturers

Intensity; in-ten-si-ty; noun.

1. Often used ambiguously within resistance training.

2. Is it time to drop the term altogether?

The definition of terminology in science is a hugely important factor in facilitating understanding and of avoiding confusion.

This is something that James Steele, Associate Lecturer and final year PhD candidate on the Health, Exercise and Sport Science programme, has highlighted in an article just published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. In it he discusses and defines the use of ‘Intensity’ as a variable in resistance training highlighting that researchers and practitioners currently use it incorrectly and should discontinue its use.

Many researchers incorrectly refer to intensity as being synonymous with the load used in resistance training. James Fisher, Senior Lecturer in Sports Conditioning and Fitness noted the issues that arise from this in a recent letter to the editor in European Journal of Applied Physiology. Instead, he noted, intensity should be used to refer to the effort used during resistance training. 

Intensity - load or effort or is it time to re-evaluate?

 The debate between using intensity to refer to load or effort has been on-going over recent years. Both James Steele and James Fisher have published articles previously suggesting that intensity best represents effort (see here and here). However, in this new article, James Steele offers the idea that in fact both sides of the argument are incorrect and the term should not be used at all in order to avoid confusion.

In discussion James mentioned “…correct definition and use of terminology in science is paramount to understanding and hopefully this paper will be of use to both researchers in controlling studies, academics in their teaching, and students in facilitating their learning.”

To read the full article follow this link.