How Science Goes for Gold

How is scientific insight applied to improve the performance of team GB?  We meet one of the scientists applying science to sport, ensuring the team takes to the tracks, pools, water and more in peak condition over the Olympic games...

Steve -   My name is Dr. Steve Ingham.  I'm the Head of Physiology at the English Institute of Sport.  As an applied sport scientist, it's our job to bridge fundamental research with the coach and athlete's day-to-day practice and training to try and individualise that physiological concept so that it can work for them.  So that it can improve their physiological capabilities run faster, be stronger and so on.

Meera -   Is there any particular point during an athlete's training or any particular part of a training programme that's really been influenced by scientific input?

Steve -   There's lots of ideas that make sense, but a coach might not like it.   So you bring something new forward and it feels like innovation.  It feels like change.  A probably good example of that for us recently has been changing the warm up just prior to a competition and athletes and coaches are quite protective around that because they don't really want to go messing around with different types of fancy warm ups.  

We've introduced a new high intensity warm up method across sports that's only really been possible through good scientific data, objective testing, and then showing the data to the athletes and coaches.  Athletes and coaches suddenly click and twigged,

"Yeah, I get this idea now.  Let's try it out in training and progress that through to a minor competition, and then into a big competition."  See the performance data and then that should speak for itself.

Meera -   Did it make a particularly big difference?

Steve -   The performance gain of about 1% difference, to a runner for example that's 5 meters or so, it's a lot and they don't have to work particularly hard to achieve it and it works in the right direction.

Meera -   So all of this knowledge and this scientific input, how big a role does that play today, and should it play as big a role as it is?

Steve -   If a coach or an athlete trains or prepares in a certain way that's based on just superstition or habit, that doesn't really cut it in this day and age.  You have got to have good evidence as to why you're doing a certain thing.  We've got to get smarter about improving our performance standards because other countries are; they're benefitting from scientific input and reducing the probability that they're going to fail.   Perhaps on a flip side, maximising or optimising their chance at achieving.  So I think it's great investment.  Some of the discoveries and breakthroughs can also echo down to the scientific and exercise literature.  Also hopefully, it will lead to more success.

Meera -   The athletes using this training and testing methods are certainly hoping these methods bring success.

Katie -   Hi.  I'm Katie Skelton.  I'm 24 and I'm part of the Great Britain synchronised swimming team. 

Synchronised swimming is built up of many different things.  For example, it's like dancing in the water, so you need to be able to move to music well.  You need to be very flexible so we do a lot of stretching in that area.  We also need to be really fit and strong.  So, we work a lot in the gym doing weights and a lot of fitness.  We do a lot of speed swimming like swimming up and down.  So there's loads of components to make you a good synchronised swimmer.

Meera -   What about your actual knowledge of how your body works?

Katie -   Physiology has helped us with learning about our body over the years.  For example, we do the VO₂ max test.  This is really important because we need to be fit to be able to swim our routine. 

We also do lactate testing which is really useful for us to do when we're training and they've also done it when we're at the Europeans to see whether the intensity and the lactic acid is the same during training and competing to see whether there's any difference. 

They've also done it on other teams as well to see the variables within the different teams and different countries, looking at what level the winners to where we are ranked, to see what the difference is to help us improve.

Meera -   And have you found that quite useful?  Has it led to improvements in your performance?

Katie -   Yes, because you realise when it is best to do some physical training, when it's best to go easier.  They know when we're going to really build up lactic acid and is the routine hard enough because they will need to be able to reach a certain lactate point.  So it's really helped us improve.

Meera -   And also seeing a difference are the team GB adaptive rowers.

Pam -   Hi.  My name is Pam Relph and I'm in the legs, trunks and arms mixed cox four.   That's a boat with two men, two women and a cox that we row over 1,000 meters.  Rowing is an endurance sport so I wouldn't say that I was the most powerful of athletes, but when it all gets hard, I just keep going.  I have long arms, long legs and being quite tall I think is probably the best physical traits that you need.

Meera -   Do you work with physiologists to really get an insight into what's going on inside your body whilst your training?

Pam -   Yes, so we get lactate tested during endurance training.  We have a testing called skinfold testing which is essentially measuring how much body fat you have on your body.  So for example if I was to put on weight, but my skinfold number was to go down then that would mean that the weight I've put on has been muscle mass rather than fat which is obviously good to have a lot more muscle if you want to be a professional athlete.  Another test that we can do is a VO₂ max test.

Meera -   So there's really a lot tested.  You're getting blood samples and so on out whilst you're rowing but you are also tested in the lab.

Pam -   Yeah, we're tested in the lab and we're also tested when we're on camp to make sure that we're hydrated.  We have to do urine tests every single morning to make sure that we're fully hydrated and that's quite useful to see because I think it's a 1% drop in hydration equals a 5% drop in aerobic fitness or something along those lines.  I think that having information available to you in sport is necessarily essential.  I think that if you do the training, your body is going to get fitter but I think it gives you really an idea and an insight into what your body is capable of and what stresses you can put your body under before it breaks.

Meera -   Pam Relph and before her, Victoria Skelton from team GB, and before them, Steve Ingham, Head of Physiology at the English Institute of Sport.

The buzz and thrill of the sporting event can provide a real adrenaline rush when it's an athlete's time to perform.  But with thousands of eyes directly on them and many billions more on television screens around the world, performance becomes about mind as well as body.   And when your mind gets stage fright, things can go horridly wrong.  

Thankfully, sport psychologist are on hand to help as Naked Scientist Ben Valsler found out talking to Dave Collins from the University of Central Lancashire.

Dave -   To be honest, I think that the psychology is the absolute paramount issue.  It's the paramount issue because generally, when you get to the top level, most people are as fit as each other, most people are as committed to each other.  Once you get into the modern systems of institutes and academies around the world, they are well advised on nutrition, they're well serviced on technique, they've got similar equipment.  What now makes the difference is what's going on between their ears as they train so the time that they spend in preparation and of course then on the day of execution.  The other thing to recognise is that all those other disciplines have knock-ons into the mental side so that what sort of training I'm doing and whether I perceive it's the right sort of training or not will actually determine in no small part its effects.  And if I'm confident that if I'm eating the right things and doing the right things, then that's likely to have a psychological knock-on as well.

Ben -   So, we think of sport psychology as being about getting "in the zone", psyching yourself out, just before the race or whatever event it is that you're taking part in, but clearly, it actually starts a lot earlier than that.

Dave -   It's almost like if you're going to the competition and you're very, very confident in the level of your preparation, you're very, very confident that no stone has been left unturned then probably, getting yourself into the zone and psyching yourself up for the day, is something that you don't need to do.  You know, if all of a sudden things haven't gone as well then that's when you need to get there.

Ben -   So, you've mentioned confidence a couple of times there, what are the tricks?  What are the psychological states that we need to get athletes into?

Dave -   It's easier to quickly describe what might get in the way.  Let's say you're a tennis player.  You shouldn't need to think about how you execute a forehand top spin.  You shouldn't need to think about what sorts of things you're going to do.  You might need to plan your tactics and spot what's going on.  So, there's a level of consciousness and unconsciousness that needs to apply to your techniques.  Execute techniques unconsciously, think carefully about the skills and the tactics that you want to apply, and it's where that cut off line goes and therefore, how effective you are at deploying the tools that you developed which is a big factor.  Now the confidence comes in when all of a sudden little doubts creep in to your ability to be able to execute -  maybe under these circumstances, maybe against this particular player, maybe it's the last jump in your sequence of six and you've got to hit it to win the medal or not, and that's when the manipulations that you described earlier come in - the manipulations of trying to get someone to be in the zone, to think about being in the zone.

Ben -   And what sorts of changes do we see physiologically in response to this psychological difference because presumably, there must be changes in order to enable people to perform better?

Dave -   The mind is linked to the rest of the body and it's something that's often overlooked.  

So, when someone's executing well, just in a qualitative sense, if you watch their performance, we will use words like, they seem to have a lot of time or things seem to happen quite smoothly and quite easily for them.  There is an effortlessness to a peak performance that is about executing the exact muscles in the exact ways, and the exact sequence with exactly the level of force you need and no more.  Now if I would contrast that with most people learning how to do skills, for example a learner skier would be very, very stiff, very, very jerky, movements are very hard, furrowed brow of concentration as opposed to a top class skier which would be very smooth, very flowing, low effort, enjoyable.  Those are the sorts of technical differences that anybody can see that show that someone is executing to the plan because the conscious control is grosser, cruder and less finely tuned than the unconscious control.  So when you superimpose conscious control on a move that you can do quite well unconsciously, what tends to happen is that part of the movement is exaggerated, over done or the timing goes out and as a result, the whole suffers.

Ben -   And how can we actually start to evaluate this in a more quantitative way?  What are the tricks that we can use to gather evidence about the best approaches or is it always going to be a qualitative thing where one approach is best for one person and another approach for someone else?

Dave -   It is always going to be individual because what people are doing and how they are thinking and what sorts of things are happening to them is very individual.  For example, the received wisdom in target shooting is that most people will pull the trigger or release the arrow in what's called the interbeat interval, the pause between the bump, bump that you get from your heart, the reason being, there's less tremor in the body.  So, if you were to turn out with that sort of received wisdom, what you would do is to train people to become aware of whether heart beat was and say, what I want you to do is to squeeze the trigger, is to release the arrow in the interbeat interval.  Research we've done shows that five out of the six top pistol shots in the country actually squeeze the trigger on the beat.  So, all of a sudden, what received wisdom and then lots of science actually shows doesn't necessarily apply to an individual.  Therefore, you have to make sure it's individualised.

Ben -   We've heard a lot about the new technologies that people use, very high speed footage for example.  Are there any technologies that you can learn from all that you can use to help people learn a bit more about their psychological state?

David -   I think it's very useful to be able to quantify this mystical, "in the zone" type experience.  So, my own work with athletes, I've used electroencephalography, I've attached electrodes to people's skulls, measuring what's going on, and able to point to them that, "Okay, you're going to execute better in this sort of state."  What that feels like to you is a very focused but unaware of what's going on on the outside type of situation.  Now that would be very appropriate for a weightlifter, for a shot-putter, for someone who's executing what we call a closed skill, a skill where they're in complete control of what's happening.  They don't have to react to an opponent.  You might measure electromyography.  You might stick electrodes onto their muscles to see which muscles are firing in what sequence, in what way.  You certainly would use 3-dimensional analysis of their movement what's called kinematics to look at again the sort of the patterns of movement that they execute and also, to actually show them that when they're in the zone, this is what's happening and that actually, they're moving faster for possibly less muscular effort.  And that helps them to acquire the skill necessary to put themselves there and keep themselves there when the pressure is on.

Meera -   When it comes to technology and the use of technology in sports, there's one sporting event that's miles ahead.  In fact, so far ahead, it's lapped the others many times.  Formula 1.  And one company pioneering developments on the race track are McLaren who in recent years have spun out McLaren applied technologies to spread their technology to other sports as well.  I visited their headquarters in Surrey in the UK and met Programme Director Caroline Hargrove to get up to speed.

Caroline -   Well, welcome to the McLaren technology centre.  We're just about to enter our boulevard that is also showcasing some of our old winning cars.

Meera -   Before us is an array of a range of McLaren cars.

Caroline -   We start with the very first Bruce McLaren winning car that he used at the age of 15 and he rebuilt.  It's an old Austin 7 and it sets the tone to show how motor racing has changed over the last 40 years.

Meera -   Very different.  It's gone from very much a big box-like shape to a very sleek, much closer to the ground, much wider.

Caroline -   And just even one look through our boulevard will show how aerodynamics have changed over the last 20 years.

Meera -   How big a part does science, technology and engineering play in F1?

Caroline -   It's all about science and technology from every nut and bolt, to the driver, what they eat, what they do as fitness programmes.  Everything is monitored in detail because actually, each team is quite large for two drivers when you think about it.  And it's mainly largely mechanics and engineers who are obsessed with the detail because it's about the detail.

Meera -   There are many aspects to Formula One - there's the materials you use to make the cars, there's the design of the cars, there's monitoring the movements and speeds of the cars and actually then also monitoring the driver inside.

Caroline -   Every single aspect must be done very carefully.  So, I'd say it's well-known in Formula One that carbon fibre has been transformational and it has been pushed to different limits through what Formula One has done.  And of course, the aerodynamics - huge amounts of time and effort spent in wind tunnels, especially in CFD which means computational fluid dynamics.  So lot of computational power is now available and makes that possible.  And then of course, what you learn from that gets into the design and the best suspension to cope with all of that.  And then of course, the driver has to drive this.  So, the systems, the operational systems, the data, the telemetry to monitor what's happening is quite a wide range of tasks that need to happen to make a car driving, and winning, a championship at the other end.

Meera -   Walking down the boulevard, you've got a range of cars as they've developed over the years here at McLaren.  So let's just stop by this one here.  We've reached the more modern cars, there's a range here stemming from 2007 onwards.  These are looking very different.  What have been the main developments to this car in terms of material and design?

Caroline -   Well interestingly, by the time that we're in this era, it's aerodynamics that is overwhelmingly different.  At the moment for example, we've got movable rear wings.  There are areas where the drivers are allowed to move their rear wing in order to reduce the drag that it provides.  Now you want the rear wing when you break so that it gives you the down force, but when you're going in a straight line, it brings you drag.  So there's a drag reduction system, DRS, that when you press your button, it changes the wing angle.  It gives you no drag or very little drag, so you're getting faster straight line speed, but then you flip it back up again when you want to break and you need a down force.  The key is the complexity of the steering wheel.

Meera -   There's a lot of buttons in there from what I can see.

Caroline -   Absolutely, If we lean over and look at one of these steering wheels, there are so many buttons...

Meera -   They're at least 15 or so.

Caroline -   Absolutely.  Some are rotary switches, some are buttons.  Of course there are things like a drink button.  All the others will affect say, break balance or different engine modes, or different differential modes, and these are very important these days because the cars can't refuel during a race so you start very heavy, and you're going to finish very light.  That changes enormously the characteristics and the balance of the car so you need to be able to prepare for it.  But the drivers have got to cope with that as well as coping with their driving.  

Meera -   All of this at high speed

Caroline -   Completely and all of this fighting off opposition coming to overtake them and vice versa.

Meera -   And just lastly, at the end of the Boulevard here, you've got something very different to a car, although actually not that different technically.  We've got a very slick-looking bicycle here.

Caroline -   McLaren Applied Technologies has been setup to exploit some of the Formula One technology that's come out into other areas and it makes sense for bicycles.  People see it but it was great fun to come up with a project that applied principles of finite element analysis, the use of the materials, so the carbon fibre in a certain way in order to provide this edge of performance on a bicycle.

Meera -   And you've actually seen quite good results with the bikes to date.

Caroline -   Absolutely.  We were very lucky to have Mark Cavendish as one of the specialised riders last year and the very first race of this bike came out, the San Remo Race was won by Matt Goss on this bike which was lovely!

Meera -   Caroline Hargrove from McLaren Applied Technologies.  And the engineer designing the bikes she showed me is Design Director Duncan Bradley who showed me how the design of tour-winning bikes that speed through the finish line is down to the technology F1 is most famous for, telemetry...

Duncan -   Telemetry is all about the collection of data and taking information from a piece of equipment through to delivering that to an engineer so he can understand what's going on.  In the Formula One world, that would be how the engine is performing, or the tires are performing during a race, and then maybe altering our strategy accordingly to do that.  So, a lot of things that we do on a Formula One car, we can do on our say, a bike or an athlete.  So, in load conditions, the forces that are put through certain materials and from that, we're able to then see how well the material is performing with those loads and then maybe make a choice on the geometry around that or the material choice itself to make that even more efficient.

Meera -   How is the information actually collected?  So you are monitoring what speeds and potentially even things about the driver or athlete themselves, and how is that done?

Duncan -   When it comes to the telemetry system itself, and we are standing in the workshop that we're actually do all of that kind of thing now, we have a series of high speed data loggers, typically collecting a whole range of sensory information as well as how the equipment responds and ultimately, actually how does that translate into speed.  But really the key thing is actually, to interpret that data.

Meera -   So knowing what to actually do with the information.

Duncan -   Yes, indeed.  Some of these systems are extremely complex and the gains are very small so you have to really dig in to quite a lot of detail to really see the insight.

Meera -   An example here is you've got a section of a bike - in fact, we're surrounded by bikes here - there's a box located just underneath the seat.  Is this what collects everything about the cyclist and their bike?

Duncan -   Well yes, we can mount sensors pretty much anywhere on the body or on the bike.  So what we got here is a modern-day carbon fibre racing bike.  For instance, it would be really interesting for an athlete to know how the power that he's putting through the pedals results in speed at the back wheel, how the pedals transmit that to the frame, how the frame then transmits to the back wheels, but all of what happens actually in between.  So, really in quite high resolution detail, what's happening in that composite structure, what's happening between the plies of the carbon fibre, are they managing the energy in the most efficient way, is the bike flexing in the correct way.  If we understand that, we could then modify that structure to be even more efficient and save more of energy that the rider puts in, [ensuring the energy] makes it to the back wheel.  So you can see here, if the athlete pushes down on the pedal, it results in the frame flexing and power being delivered to the rear wheel.

Meera -   And the rear wheel is moving extremely fast...

Duncan -   Well yes, it moves extremely fast for a very long period of time.  So, if you're in one of the classic road races, you can be racing for 300 km so, you don't have to make many improvements to actually be quite a long way ahead at the end of the race.  It's all about marginal gains.

Meera -   So how do you then go to the next stage of working on your designs based on the information you've managed to get?

Duncan -   One area which we've done that recently is in a time-trial aerodynamic helmet where previous designs have been quite based around wind tunnel straight head-on speed, and head-on wind, but actually, when we looked into it, what actually was important was how the athlete was moving his head.  The real conditions out on the road and on the track are quite different to the optimum environment of a wind tunnel.  And by looking at those different types of influences from the environment, we're able to change aerodynamics of the helmet to give a much, much better performance over a race distance.

Meera -   And is this something that's being used by the cyclist now, out on tours or in the Olympics?

Duncan -   Yes, so currently, the helmets are being used in the Tour de France but will make an appearance in the Olympics.

Meera -   And how does it really differ in terms of what was accounted for to change the aerodynamics?

Duncan -   So within that particular example, we identified certain areas around the sides of the helmet which significantly reduced the performance of the athlete.  So with that project, we put a lot of effort into the computational fluid dynamics of the helmet and without being able to understand how that CFD or the computational fluid dynamics worked around the sides of the helmet in detail, we would never come up with the concept.  So, with a lot of sports, it's marginal gains.  You have to put together 2 or 3 things of innovation. That was just one on the helmet that we managed to find within that project.

Meera -   And this can and is being applied to quite a range of sports today.

Duncan -   So cycling isn't just the only thing that we're looking at.  Within Applied Technologies, we look at the Winter Olympic programmes, there's sailing.  In a sailboat, we have a lot of factors which can affect the performance of a boat.  It's not just the equipment itself but all the exterior environmental conditions, the wave conditions, the wind conditions.  The better you can understand that, the more optimal you can either sail the boat or you can design the structure to make most of the environmental conditions.  So, within that industry, we're really looking to give very fast, very accurate feedback on the sailboat in order for the sailors to really tune and optimise their own equipment.

Meera -   So, cycling and sailing technologies to name a few, all stemming from the speed and accuracy driven world of Formula One.  That was Duncan Bradley, Design Director at McLaren Applied Technologies.