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Leeds academic helps develop new mathematical model to improve athletes’ training
Leeds Beckett University (LBU) has been working with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in France to develop models to examine how to get the best out of athletes taking part in running events – the research team looks at how both physiological and psychological parameters impact on an athlete’s running performance and provides tips for optimised training in their research paper ‘Modelling the optimisation of world-class 400m and 1500m running performances using high-resolution data’.
Using data from real races featuring World-class 400m and 1500m athletes including Team GB’s Matthew Hudson-Smith, Dutch superstar Femke Bol, Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigsten and European U23 champion Gaia Sabbatini, the mathematical models were created to look at how to get the best out of them in elite competition. From precise velocity data, the team identifies the physiological and physical parameters and are able to compute aerobic and anaerobic energy, force and velocity at any time during the race, and vary parameters to see their effect.
It allows manipulation of the variables to see how by changing one aspect it might change the overall performance of an athlete and help them improve their times.
The study shows that in the 400m race, a fast start is essential for oxygen consumption reasons and is the optimum strategy, despite an inevitable deceleration throughout the race. In the 1500m, athletes who can maintain a high VO2 throughout the race sustain a consistently fast cruising speed. This requires considerable energy from anaerobic resources and limits the capacity for a strong acceleration during the sprint finish.
Other areas that are highlighted in the research include how the lanes that the 400m athletes run in have a strong impact on their overall performance and the outcome of the race, with inside lanes being the worst ones to be put in and emphasises how athletes need to run the qualifying rounds as well as possible to get a favourable lane draw in the final.
Dr Brian Hanley, Reader in the Carnegie School of Sport at LBU, said: “This model is an exciting new way of using mathematics to potentially improve the performance of athletes in head-to-head events such as the Olympics. Coaches can use it to look at what they can do to change a good performance from their athlete to a great one and help them identify what approach to take to get the optimum performance from their athlete.
“We hope that coaches will see it as a uniquely beneficial way of understanding how to train their athletes.”
Amandine Aftalion, Research Director at CNRS, said: “This is the first time that such as model has also considered the variability of motor control - the role of the brain in the process of producing movement. The simulation allows us to have access to the physiological parameters of the runners – especially oxygen consumption, and energy expenditure during the race – as well as their variations. Quantifying costs and benefits in the model provides immediate access to the best strategy for achieving the runner’s optimal performance.”