Human Performance Labs
Helping the best get better.
Sport science combined with innovative technology is helping athletes across all sports to optimise their physical output.
Over the past 10 years the commercial and grant funded research carried out by the Sport Science team at Salford has helped the best get better in a wide range of sports. The team has refined assessment methods to enhance the reliability and usefulness of the testing methods used to monitor performance and provide insight into how athletes should train to improve performance. The research findings have helped professional strength and conditioning coaches and sports science staff understand how to conduct testing procedures correctly and how to interpret the data appropriately.
COVID-19
We are not currently able to take any customers for the Exercise Physiology Testing Service due to the current pandemic.
We will be reviewing the situation in January 2021.
Develop strength, power, resilience and resistance to injury
The team has also shown how training methods from specific disciplines such as weightlifting can be used as training modalities by other sports, enabling players across the world to develop strength, power, resilience and resistance to injury.
Working with professional sports organisations
Because we work closely with professional sports organisations, we understand the challenges faced in gathering personnel together in one place to undergo testing. As a result we frequently deliver our services at our clients’ facilities, helping professional coaches evaluate the demands of their sport on individual athletes and tailor their training programmes accordingly.
Human performance innovations
Human performance innovations researched at the University of Salford are now applied in a multitude of sports around the world, and in the military. Our laboratories continue to play a central role in training our students, creating graduates with real world skills who apply their expertise at professional organisations such as British Cycling, the English Institute of Sports, Salford City FC (owned by the Class of ’92), Manchester City FC, Manchester United FC, Liverpool FC, Sale Sharks RFU and numerous RFL clubs.
Top class facilities
The top-class facilities at the University of Salford contain an extensive range of biomechanical and physiological equipment allowing students and research staff to work together in an innovative environment that reflects that of elite sports organisations.
The facilities serve the sport and exercise science groups’ wide range of research interests and play a large role in Salford’s undergraduate and graduate level sports programmes.
Our partnerships with a variety of professional sports organisations across the North-West offer our students (undergraduate and graduate) and research students unrivalled opportunity to apply their research informed practice in real world situations, helping professional coaches to develop and improve their team’s performance.
Human Performance Lab
The Human Performance Lab is easily configurable for a number of different sport science set ups and scenarios.
30 metre running track
A 30-metre running track with a Brower Timing Gate to test speed, change of direction and agility performance, it contains the very latest equipment for measuring performance data.
Biomechanics
- Ten Qualisys ProReflex cameras provide three-dimensional motion capture of a variety of activities including running gait, walking gait, triple jump and change of direction while a Qualisys Oqus 6 camera set-up has been used to capture the three-dimensional movement of activities such as squash and weightlifting. These camera systems are used with a range of AMTI force plates built into the floor allowing us to accurately measure ground reaction forces.
- Two portable Kistler force plates that are used to measure ground reaction forces, balance and proprioception and two portable ultrasound scanners used to study skeletal muscles architecture and tendon properties.
- Five Casio Exilim EX-F1 cameras provide high-speed filming which enables the close analysis of athletic movement and we have three EMG systems that are used to measure muscle activity.
- A Fitness Technology Ballistic Measurement System with an integrated force plate and displacement transducer is used to test various aspects of weightlifting and power-based exercises; while KinCom and Biodex isokinetic dynamometers, are used for rehabilitation, strength testing and injury diagnostics.
Physiology
- Portable and static online gas analysis systems provide breath-by-breath cardiopulmonary exercise testing, including V̇O2 max tests while Wingate and Lode cycle ergometers are used to test anaerobic capacity and power and provide isokinetic testing conditions within cycling.
- An Analox G37 Multi-Assay Blood Analyser allows us to study blood lactate concentration plus our selection of field based Lactate Pro analysers lets us test athletes at their facilities.
- We also have a range of other testing equipment including Polar heart monitors, blood pressure monitors, hand grip dynamometers and a range of body composition equipment including Harpenden skinfold callipers, bio-electrical impedance analysers and a Bodymetrix system which incorporates ultrasound technology.
Body composition monitoring
Our state of the art body composition laboratory features technologies such as the BodPod, allowing athletes to monitor their body composition during different stages of the competitive season. This is extremely important in weight-controlled sports such as boxing. This laboratory also has an important role in assessing energy balance and general health status in clients who are not from sporting backgrounds.
Exercise physiology testing service
Our excellent facilities are used to support athletes via our exercise testing service. Clients undertake a variety of key laboratory and field-based tests to assist in the prescription of training and subsequent improvements in performance. This service focuses mostly on endurance-based sports, namely running and cycling. We have a strong client base, many of whom are repeat visitors.
COVID-19
We are not currently able to take any customers for the Exercise Physiology Testing Service due to the current pandemic.
We will be reviewing the situation in January 2021.