Fresh Science

Customised seats may give Australian wheelchair racers the winning edge at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. University of Adelaide engineer Amy Lewis says specialised seating can provide a cost-effective and efficient way to ensure a perfect fit between off-the-shelf equipment and every athlete’s unique body. Working with colleagues at the University of Adelaide, the Australian…

Critical power—which is the highest intensity an athlete can maintain without getting fatigued—is a better measurement of effort than the total distance they cover in a match. That’s the finding from a team of sports scientists, led by former Australian Institute of Sport Senior Sports Physiologist Ted Polglaze. With the world champion Australian men’s hockey…

Keeping your favourite footy player in the game may prove a matter of maths, a Melbourne University researcher has found. Hossein Mokhtarzadeh used mathematical models to identify the muscles that protect the anterior cruciate ligament, which is often damaged in football knee injuries and costs the game millions of dollars each year “We are improving…

The incidence of hamstring injuries may be sharply reduced if footballers  adopt a new exercise regime worked out by a young Melbourne physiologist. Camilla Brockett, a graduate student from the Department of Physiology at Monash University, said her breakthrough is based on a new understanding of “eccentric” exercise, that is, exercises where the contracting muscle…