Ç¿¼éÊÓƵ Elite Athlete Centre (PEAC)

We're really excited to be opening our brand new strength and conditioning teaching facility here within the School of Psychology, Sport and Health Sciences.

This is a state-of-the-art facility that's just been fitted by Eleiko, who are the market leaders in strength and conditioning training equipment.

So I've had access to the facility since it opened because I'm doing my dissertation research in here.

We can deliver all things performance-based, from strength and conditioning to injury rehabilitation. And it gives us the flexibility to be able to do that.

We do a lot of testing in here, general day-to-day training. You can run classes and workshops in here which work quite well.

It allows them to work and learn in a space that is industry standard and is elite.

With commercial gyms you're kind of restricted to the bodybuilding style of training, whereas here it gives you the freedom to actually train like an athlete.

It raises the standard of everyone's training. And it helps them in preparation for employment into the type of places they'll be going on placement or where they'll work in industry.

Currently I'm on a placement with the Sports Scholars Programme here at the University. It basically means day to day I work with the University's scholar athletes through 28 different sports.

I've recently just been accepted onto a placement at the University of Arizona, getting a look into how the American Collegiate System works and how it compares to here in the UK.

We've got world-leading courses and academics across the courses in the School of Psychology, Sport and Health Sciences.

On my course it's quite practical; it plays quite a big role in being able to coach in a space like this in a professional setting. This is the sort of gym we'd end up working in post-masters.

My dissertation is using the squat rack, so we're doing the comparison of load velocity training from dominant to non-dominant in a safety bar split squat.

We're running a study based on queuing—so basically the way you coach someone in Olympic lifting—and how it can affect biomechanical and kinematic outcomes, how they can produce power, how they would move through the lifts.

Having a space like this is invaluable to that.

One of my favourite things about the University and the way that they deliver their content is that it's completely backed by research.

I've been doing strength and conditioning internships and placements for the last five years, and being able to interact with people day to day and have different conversations and different scenarios with people is really, really enjoyable.