RESEARCH, INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO
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Another thing they’ll be looking at is recovery
boots. Dr Driller used them with a number of
elite athletes in Australia, where he introduced Ms
Fitzgerald to the concept. The boots, which inflate
in four sections from the foot up, are used to speed
up the removal of metabolic waste from the muscles
and enhance blood circulation following exercise,
aiding the recovery process.
Dr Driller says most of the evidence that
the boots work is anecdotal. “Athletes swear by
them, but we need actual data to determine their
effectiveness in a recovery setting.”
They’ll use a number of different performance,
physiological and perceptual measures to test the
recovery of players after hard training sessions both
with and without using the recovery boots.
SO, if you’ve been taking beetroot juice
shots to improve your sporting performance,
new research shows that it’s good for you;
more so if you’re an average rather than
elite athlete.
Joe McQuillan, new teaching fellow
and Sports and Exercise Science Laboratory
Manager at the University of Waikato,
is studying the benefits of beetroot juice
supplementation on cycling performance for
his PhD (through AUT).
Mr McQuillan's is a cyclist himself. He's
based at the Home Cycling at the Avantidrome
in Cambridge where BikeNZ has its HQ and
the University of Waikato, tertiary partner
with the Avantidrome, has a testing lab that’s
used by athletes and students.
For his PhD research Mr McQuillan
tested cyclists taking large and small doses of
beetroot juice over short and long periods.
“We found taking 140mls a day for
three days had the same effects as taking
it for longer. It’s concentrated, about the
equivalent of four beetroots in a 140ml
dose, and it’s the nitrate in the vegetable that
affects performance.”
Mr McQuillan measured the nitrate levels
in the athlete’s blood, how their levels changed
and the effect that had on performance.
“The improvement, say over four kilometres,
was about three seconds.
“But we found the body reaches a
saturation point after a certain number of
loading days and fails to respond any better to
increased doses.”
New Zealand cyclists went off to the
Olympics in London and Commonwealth
Games in Glasgow with their beetroot
shots. “Even though they’re elite athletes
and the results weren’t as impressive as they
were for average cyclists, there can still be a
placebo benefit to taking the juice,” Mr
McQuillan says.
“What we don’t want to create is
an impairment in performance from
supplementation.”
Before the Commonwealth Games, Mr
McQuillan and fellow Waikato staffer Dr
Matt Driller were working with our world
champion sprint cyclists, testing and
monitoring aspects of their fitness. “We
measured their oxygen consumption,
training intensity and recovery between
workouts,” says Dr Driller. It helps
coaches and BikeNZ’s own sport scientists
to get a better understanding of the
cyclists aerobic and physiological states and
enables them to modify training and optimise
what they’re targeting. And while the cyclists
get questions answered, university staff and
students are getting good access to elite
athletes.
“There are mutual benefits to this working
relationship,” says Dr Driller.
In the University of Waikato’s sport
science lab at the Avantidrome, university staff
can also work with athletes to measure a range
of variables including blood lactate, peak
power over set time periods, VO2max and
metabolic efficiency.
Mr McQuillan says the students are
getting good value out of the lab, assisting
in the lab, learning how to use the testing
equipment, and integrating with various
sports who are making use of University
of Waikato expertise. “It’s a good training
ground.
“The students are being exposed to
unique,
hands-on
practical
learning
environments. I believe sports science
is a science that’s growing. People are
becoming more aware of what sports science
can offer,” he says.
Increased
performance
PERFORMANCE FOCUSED: Joe McQuillan is working with New Zealand's elite cyclists at
the Avantidrome in Cambridge.
Magic getting fit for sleep
MORE and more sporting events are being held
at night, and for the athletes it’s pretty hard to get
to sleep afterwards; they’re so wound up following
such intense and strenuous activity, not to mention
the adrenaline rush from playing in front of large
crowds. Yet sleep is known to be essential for athletic
recovery and night games mean a nightmare for
sleeping patterns.
Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic netball coach Julie
Fitzgerald and Senior Lecturer Dr Matt Driller from
Waikato University are working together to study
aspects of recovery in players from New Zealand’s
number one netball franchise.
Ms Fitzgerald and Dr Driller, a sports
physiologist, worked together at the Australian
Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra, and now, both
based in the Waikato, are working together again.
Dr Driller has secured a Waikato University
summer research scholarship for a student to work
with him during the Magic’s pre-season training to
monitor aspects of recovery. To test sleep patterns,
the netballers will go to bed wearing an actigraph,
like a wrist-watch embedded with accelerometers
that can pick up the slightest of movements.
“We’ll be able to tell how long a person takes to
fall asleep, how many times they wake in the night
and how long they sleep for, allowing us to assess
both quality and quantity of sleep,” says Dr Driller.
“This is really building on what we did at
Australian Institute of Sport,” says Ms Fitzgerald.
“The research Matt conducted with the netball
programme there, particularly in regards to sleep
and recovery, was invaluable and changed the way
many of us (players and coaches alike) think.
“Players were given valuable feedback that will
assist them not only with coping with the demands
of high performance sport, but generally in life. I’m
excited to be able to continue this work with Matt
and have full confidence that this will be a great
innovation for our Kia Magic team and eventually
elite sport in New Zealand.”
Researcher looks for key
to successful migration
THEY’VE had success on the track
in Glasgow and now a University of
Waikato Postdoctoral Research Fellow
is aiming to find out whether moving
to Cambridge to train at the Home of
Cycling had anything to do with it.
New Zealand cyclists returned
from the Commonwealth Games with
more than a dozen medals, making it
one of the country’s most successful
sports. Now Dr Rebecca Olive is
launching a research project looking
at athletes who have moved to the
Waikato to train at the Avantidrome
and what impact the move has had on
their performance.
“The ultimate goal for any athlete
is gold medals, so they will be happy
with the success they’ve had in
Glasgow,” she says.
But what has the experience
been like for the athletes and staff of
BikeNZ, many of whom moved from
towns and cities which had been
home for most of their lives?
“They
often
come
from
communities that have supported
them for a long time. I’m interested
in what impact this has on athletes.
What this experience is like for them,
migrating for their sport and how
it impacts. Things such as how this
migration affects relationships and a
sense of belonging.”
Hers is a social and cultural
research project, focussing on the
people rather than the sport itself,
but she will encompass whether these
migrations impact performance.
“How the athletes feel is important
to their trainers as it can affect
performance, both for better or worse.”
Among the wider issues she will
consider are whether facilities such as
the Avantidrome serve as a magnet
for young people hoping to break into
the top echelon of the sport and what
impact they have on towns such as
Cambridge, which is now home to
many of the country’s best cyclists,
on top of long being home to our
best rowers. “What does this mean
for Cambridge and the Waikato?
Do they become part of the
community and contribute to the
regional identity?”
Dr Olive hopes to begin
interviewing athletes and staff of
BikeNZ in the next few weeks.
DR REBECCA OLIVE
TRIAL BOOTS: Kia Magic's Jo Harten testing
recovery boots.
