Inspiring the Next Generation

by James Skitt - 12.04.13

English Institute of Sport (EIS) experts and guest speakers have been inspiring the next generation of practitioners this week as Loughborough hosted the first Skill4Performance residential workshop.

36 delegates, 12 each from the fields of psychology, physiology and nutrition, have been receiving unique insights into the environment of performance sport through a combination of seminars, presentations and workshops.

EIS Director of Technical Development Steve Ingham explained: “Support practitioners in elite sport work under pressure so it’s important that they are equipped with the skills and capabilities to do so.

“We want to encourage the next generation to start thinking about and acquiring those skills and so our aim with Skills4Performance was to explain what we’ve learnt over the last few years in order to help that generation.

“We’ve had them working under pressure and got them thinking about what they want to achieve both personally and within their disciplines. It’s been a long programme but they’ve had the benefit of absolute immersion into our environment and the pressure points and skills that are needed to navigate it.”

25 EIS practitioners were involved in delivering the programme, whilst guest speakers throughout the week included Olympic champion Amy Williams, British Athletics Performance Director Neil Black and Loughborough University Director of Sport and former UK Sport Director of Performance Peter Keen.

Keen told eis2win.co.uk: “Workshops such as these are hugely important.

“For me it’s always good to re-connect with where the story really starts and the quality of the questions they raised and the insights shared suggest to me that the next generation coming through are more informed, more aware of what they want to be and the challenges they face.

“I think it’s vital that we continue put in this layer of support, mentorship and awareness in place to help them through so for the EIS to be in that space to help shape that learning and reduce the errors is hugely important.”

Kellie Pritchard, a Physiologist currently working for Swiss Swimming , said: “I didn’t know what to expect from the week but I think the concept has been absolutely brilliant.

“The information has been so much deeper, brutally honest and valuable about high performance sport. This is a world class institute and I’ve taken so much from the speakers and tutors.”

Whilst Darren Barbour, who is currently studying for a Psychology Masters, said: “It’s been an intense week full of content, which I was hoping for and there’s also been a lot of practical and hands on content.

“You can be quite cut off when you’re at University from the actual network of applied work going on, so it’s been good to be on the inside, get a good feel for it.

“My course tutor has given me a lot of insights into the applied world at University but having a whole week of it in such a structured way from a broad range of people has been exactly what I needed. Every day there’s been a lot of take-home advice and insights into the world of sport science in high performance sport.”

View the Skills4Peformance Photo Gallery here