Discipline: Exercise and Sport Science & High Performance Sport

Anterior Cruciate Ligament rupture is a highly common knee injury occurring in high performance team sport athletes. The purpose of this research project is to quantify the accuracy of a new triple hop test that assesses the single leg function of athletes using two dimensional markerless motion capture. Team sport athletes will undertake triple hop test and will be concurrently monitored using two dimensional markerless motion capture and a criterion three dimensional marker based motion capture system (VICON). Joint kinematics (hip and knee angular velocity) will be assessed for accuracy.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Assoc. Prof. Grant Duthie (grant.duthie@acu.edu.au), Dr. Mark Moresi, Dr, Paul Taylor and Dr. Michael Psarakis

Campus where project is available: Blacktown and Strathfield

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are commonly used in team sports to quantify the demands of competition and training. Previously, the validity of these systems has been established using discreet running activities. However, in a practical setting GPS are regularly used over longer durations (2 to 45 minutes). Therefore, there is a need to investigate the ability of GPS to quantify the running activities over durations specific to what they are commonly used for. This project will use the VICON system as the criterion measure to compare outputs from various GPS systems. The outcomes of this project will help establish the suitability of using GPS to quantify running activities in team sport athletes.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Assoc. Prof. Grant Duthie (grant.duthie@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Blacktown and Strathfield

OptoJump systems are widely used to measure spatiotemporal parameters in sprinting, such as contact time, flight time, and step length. Despite their popularity due to portability and ease of use, the validity of OptoJump compared to gold-standard force plates has not been thoroughly established for these specific metrics. Additionally, the influence of various settings and filters within the OptoJump system on measurement outcomes remains unexplored in current research. This project aims to investigate the validity and reliability of OptoJump by comparing its measurements of contact time, flight time, and step length against those obtained from force plates during sprinting. By examining how different settings and filters affect the results, this study will provide critical insights into the reliability and accuracy of OptoJump systems. The outcomes will help determine the suitability of using OptoJump for precise spatiotemporal assessments in sprint performance analysis.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr. Michael Psarakis

Campus where project is available: Blacktown

Analysis of performance in competition environments is vital to understanding how we can support the design of more representative training environments. This honours project aims to understand what impact performance outcomes in the National Football League with a specific focus on successful and unsuccessful pass outcomes from the quarterback. This honours project is ideal for candidates interested in integrating performance analysis and skill acquisition principles to better understand performance and ultimately, enhancing training design.

Project Supervisors: Dr. Chris McCosker (chris.mccosker@acu.edu.au) and Dr. Adam Hewitt (adam.hewitt@acu.edu.au)

Campus: Blacktown/Brisbane/Melbourne/Strathfield

The association between repeated head acceleration events (HAE) and long-term brain health is of considerable concern in contact and combat sports. Instrumented mouthguards (iMG) now allow for the accurate quantification of HAEs, however little is known about HAEs in combat sports like boxing. To address this, this project will use iMG to quantify the volume and magnitude of HAE during boxing sparring in the lead-up to competitive fights in men and women elite amateur fighters. Specifically, the project aims are to: Determine the feasibility of iMG for capturing HAE during boxing training; Understand the volume and magnitude of HAE during training;

Determine whether HAE change in the lead-up to a fight; Produce a high quality publication addressing these aims. The proposed honours project will provide you with the opportunity to apply principles of sports science and strength and conditioning in a real-world setting working with athletes and coaches in the lead-up to a sanctioned fight.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Assoc. Prof. Richard Johnston (richard.johnston@acu.edu.au); Assoc. Prof. Grant Duthie (grant.duthie@acu.edu.au); Shreya McLeod (MHSc / MACP) (shreya.mcleod@acu.edu.au); Dr Patrick Campbell (patrick.campbell@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Blacktown/Strathfield

Having a nuanced understanding of the physical capacities necessary for functional performance of athletes is critical for many people working in high performance sports. Importantly, the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the competition environment means that viewing the physical capacities in isolation could be detrimental to performance outcomes. This honours projects aim to understand how the physical capacities of athletes in high performance sport are currently understood and subsequently trained. This honours project is ideal for candidates interested in integrating resistance training and skill acquisition principles to better understand performance and ultimately, enhancing training design.

Project Supervisors: Dr. Patrick Campbell (patrick.campbell@acu.edu.au) and Dr. Chris McCosker (chris.mccosker@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

Autoregulation during resistance training helps account for changes in physical qualities and fatigue across the training mesocycle. Common autoregulatory resistance training methods include repetitions-in-reserve (RIR), rating of perceived exertion (RPE), and velocity-based training (VBT). These methods have been shown to have greater strength, power, and muscle hypertrophy responses when compared to traditional prescriptive methods (e.g., percentage-based training) and reduce the physical mental stress on an athlete. This Honours project will provide a candidate the opportunity to investigate the effects of these autoregulatory training methods on physical adaptation and would be ideal for a student who enjoys resistance training and strength and conditioning.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr. Jonathon Weakley (Jonathon.Weakley@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

Velocity-based training (VBT) can be used to enhance physical adaptations and allow for improved resistance training prescription. Furthermore, it can help autoregulate training loads and mitigate the effects of fatigue from previous training sessions. This Honours project will allow a candidate to investigate how VBT can alter the training response and enhance training quality when athletes are in a fatigued state and need to maximise power outputs. Furthermore, this project will influence real-world practice and help drive better training prescription. This project is ideal for a candidate who enjoys strength training, team sports, and strength and conditioning.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr. Jonathon Weakley, (Jonathon.Weakley@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

A critical aspect of decision-making and a baseball-player's on the pitch behaviour is their situation awareness (SA), that is, the level of awareness that an individual has of a situation; a player's dynamic understanding of 'what is going on around them' during the game. Research has shown that SA is importantly linked to player's decision-making development, performance, and rehabilitation. That is, SA: i. can be (and needs to be) developed from a young age and needs to be promoted and maintained during training; ii. is related to player's and referee's performance and expertise; that is, better, more skilled/expert players/referees possess a higher degree of SA; iii. is related to injury proneness, as well as rehabilitation; that is, lowered SA is a precursor to injury, and increased/recovered SA can be used as an identifier for game readiness following rehabilitation. In this honours projects, which takes place in ACU's Perception-Action Rehabilitation Clinic and Learning Environment (PARCLE), we use Virtual Reality to assist player development, player monitoring, and rehabilitation in baseball.

Suitable for exercise science, high performance sport, science, and psychology students.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Prof. Gert-Jan Pepping (gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

A critical aspect of decision-making and a baseball-player's on the pitch behaviour is their situation awareness (SA), that is, the level of awareness that an individual has of a situation; a player's dynamic understanding of 'what is going on around them' during the game. Research has shown that SA is importantly linked to player's decision-making development, performance, and rehabilitation. That is, SA: i. can be (and needs to be) developed from a young age and needs to be promoted and maintained during training; ii. is related to player's and referee's performance and expertise; that is, better, more skilled/expert players/referees possess a higher degree of SA; iii. is related to injury proneness, as well as rehabilitation; that is, lowered SA is a precursor to injury, and increased/recovered SA can be used as an identifier for game readiness following rehabilitation. In this honours projects, which takes place in ACU's Perception-Action Rehabilitation Clinic and Learning Environment (PARCLE), we use Virtual Reality to assist player development, player monitoring, and rehabilitation in baseball.

Suitable for exercise science, high performance sport, science, and psychology students.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Prof. Gert-Jan Pepping (gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

A critical aspect of decision-making in team-sport and a player's on the pitch behaviour is their situation awareness (SA), that is, the level of awareness that an individual has of a situation; a player's dynamic understanding of 'what is going on around them' during the game. Research has shown that SA is importantly linked to player's decision-making, development, performance, and rehabilitation. That is, SA: i. can be (and needs to be) developed from a young age and needs to be promoted and maintained during training; ii. is related to player's and referee's performance and expertise; that is, better, more skilled/expert players/referees possess a higher degree of SA; iii. is related to injury proneness, as well as rehabilitation; that is, lowered SA is a precursor to injury, and increased/recovered SA can be used as an identifier for game readiness following rehabilitation. We have a number of honours projects, in which we use a wireless wearable technology system (SATS) to assist player development, player monitoring, and rehabilitation in team-sport (soccer, field-hockey, AFL) to address important research questions in skill acquisition and SA.

Suitable for exercise science, high performance sport, science, and psychology students.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Prof. Gert-Jan Pepping (gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au) and Dr. Daniel Chalkley

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

Gait-related falls are a large public health burden, and both the sheer number of gait-related falls, and the associated societal costs continue to increase. Recent research has shown that an individual's ability to adapt their gait is an important factor related to gait-related falls and mobility as people age. In the current honours project, which takes place in ACU's Perception-Action Rehabilitation Clinic and Learning Environment (PARCLE), we will use Virtual Reality and the task of bushwalking as an activity that can improve gait adaptability of community dwelling older adults. Suitable for exercise science, high performance sport, science, and psychology students.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Prof. Gert-Jan Pepping (gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

Oxytocin (OT) is a protein-based biomarker that has been hypothesized as a physiological mediator of an integrated 'anti-stress' response attributable to social affiliation, with resulting long-term health benefits and that facilitates socio-cognitive responses. Although there is considerable support for the idea that OT is involved in the encouragement of important processes linked to greater performance in sport, empirical support for this association is preliminary and limited to laboratory studies, making it difficult to generalise them to elite sport environments. What's more, there is very limited knowledge about the individual differences in athlete oxytocin reactivity. In this honours project, we will develop a methodology to study the association between social cognition, sport performance and oxytocin (OT).

Suitable for exercise science, high performance sport, science, and psychology students.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Prof. Gert-Jan Pepping (gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au) and Assoc. Prof. Francesca Fernandez

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

Age-related changes in cognition (e.g. problem solving) are often exacerbated in degenerative neurological conditions, such as Parkinson's disease (PD). This decline can impact the person's ability to self-monitor their motor performances and negatively influence their ability to retain balance and movement rhythmicity. To effectively navigate and engage with real world environments, we are often required to multi-task; whether that be engaging in a conversation while walking, or texting while ascending stairs. Despite the essentiality of multi-tasking to our way of life, very little is known about the impact of dual-tasking on the motor symptom severity, gait characteristics, and movement rhythmicity in people with PD. This Honours project will provide the student with an opportunity to further develop their skills in motor control and biomechanics to better understand the implications of multi-tasking on locomotion in people with PD.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Assoc. Prof. Michael Cole (michael.cole@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

Parkinson's disease (PD) is an age-related neurodegenerative condition characterised by slowness of movement, muscle rigidity, and resting tremor, but as the disease progresses postural instability and gait difficulties begin to affect activities of daily living. Declines in physical functioning effectively expose people with PD to a nine times greater risk of recurrent falls, and a five times greater risk of sustaining fall-related injuries compared with healthy individuals of a similar age. Prospective research shows more than 50% of falls experienced by people with PD occur during walking or transferring tasks, implicating postural instability and gait difficulties as likely contributors to a large percentage of the falls experienced by this population. The proposed Honours project would provide the student with an opportunity to apply principles of biomechanics, motor control and neuroscience to better understand the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease and investigate their potential role in the falls experienced by this population.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Assoc. Prof. Michael Cole (michael.cole@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

A critical aspect of decision-making in team-sport and a player's on the pitch behaviour is their situation awareness (SA), that is, the level of awareness that an individual has of a situation; a player's dynamic understanding of 'what is going on around them' during the game. Head accelerations resulting from heading or tackles can influence a players situation awareness. To assist concussion research and management, in this project we will use wearable technology to measure an athlete's situation awareness and how it is affected by head accelerations, repetitive head impacts, and concussion in team-sport.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Gert-Jan Pepping (gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au), Dan Chalkley, Thomas McGuckian, and Richard Johnston.

Campus where project is available: Brisbane and Melbourne

There is scope within the school to explore Honours topics in Outdoor Leadership, International Volunteer Programs, Sports Community Engagement Programs and Sport and Physical Activity. These could involve qualitative, quantitative or a mixed-methods approach. It is also possible to combine two areas within the Faculty. For example, the psychological impact of outdoor and environmental education, or the impact of community engagement activities on students' mental health.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr. Beth McLeod (Beth.Mcleod@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane/Strathfield/Melbourne

About one in three of Australians aged 65+ fall at least once per year and the cost of these incidents is estimated at 41% ($3.7bn) of all injury expenditure. The negative consequences of falls can significantly impact individuals and communities. A large-scale Australian population-based prospective risk factor survey is underway, which uses online falls tracking to investigate the effects of the walking environment on prospective falls in adults over the age of 65. This honours project aims to assist in the creation of a mobility prescription tool for health care practitioners based on the data collected. You will be embedded within the STOP Falls Research Group in Brisbane. You will be involved in supporting ongoing projects occurring within STOP Falls, with existing local and international partnerships in community and aged care settings. You will gain experience in collecting, processing, and analysing movement data in these real-world settings, and use gold-standard technologies that include 3D motion capture (Vicon), inertial measurement units and virtual reality in our purpose-built biomechanics and perception-in-action laboratories.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Prof. Gert-Jan Pepping (gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

Military organisations observe a high burden of musculoskeletal injuries (MSKI) to their personnel, resulting in MSKI being primarily responsible for high rates of limited duty days and disability, increased costs of medical care, attrition in training and serving personnel, losses in overall military operational effectiveness, and an increased burden of care on the community veterans are returned to. Despite the considerable extent to which injury surveillance and risk factor research has been undertaken to date, there is little evidence of a reduction in the overall high incidence burdens of MSKI, nor reductions in the overall burden MSKI places on military organisations and health systems. This honours project seeks to provide insight into one of the primary potential issues within the MSKI research in military personnel, namely quantifying the considerable heterogeneity of injury definitions within injury surveillance systems. This project is ideal for candidates interested in applying principles of exercise and sport science in tactical personnel.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr Patrick Campbell (Patrick.campbell@acu.edu.au) and Assoc. Prof. Richard Johnston (Richard.johnston@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane

Resistance training is an effective method for the development of strength and power. Traditionally it is monitored through simple methods (e.g., counting repetitions, volume load). However, more advanced methods have been developed. For example, velocity-based training is an advanced monitoring method that uses technology to measure performance. But to use this method, the tools that monitor exercise velocity must be accurate. Therefore, this study will aim to validate the technology that underpins this training method.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr. Jonathon Weakley (Jonathon.Weakley@acu.edu.au), Dr. Mark Creaby and Assoc. Prof. Grant Duthie.

Campus where project is available: Brisbane/Blacktown

Analysis of performance in competition environments is vital to understanding how we can support the design of more representative training environments. This honours project aims to understand what impact performance outcomes in the National Football League with a specific focus on successful and unsuccessful pass outcomes from the quarterback. This honours project is ideal for candidates interested in integrating performance analysis and skill acquisition principles to better understand performance and ultimately, enhancing training design.

Project Supervisors: Dr. Chris McCosker (chris.mccosker@acu.edu.au) and Dr. Adam Hewitt (adam.hewitt@acu.edu.au)

Campus: Brisbane/Blacktown/Melbourne/Strathfield

Recent research conducted in the SPRINT Research Centre has demonstrated that microtechnology devices such as Global Navigation Satellite System Units (GNSS) with embed Inertial Measurement Units (IMU's) commonly worn by team sport athletes can be used to derive valid and reliable gait variables such as contact time, flight time, step time and vertical ground reaction force. Furthermore, these units have been demonstrated to be able to detect fatigue related changes in running gait through variables such as vertical stiffness. These advances allow detailed gait analysis in the field although are not currently available in the software provided by microtechnology companies. However, the software provided by companies does report variables that are supposedly representations of gait such as number of footstrikes and a range of other metrics but the validity and reliability of these metrics is unclear. The aim of this work is to compare these proprietary metrics to validated gait measures during running. A student undertaking this research would have the opportunity to assist/be exposed to other projects in the SPRINT Research Centre. This would include research involving a range of technologies used in High Performance Sport (e.g. force plates, accelerometers etc.) in addition to the potential for development of skills for data analysis such as coding in R.

Project Supervisor(s): Professor Stuart Cormack (stuart.cormack@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Melbourne

This project is part of the ACU collaboration with RSL Victoria to support the wellbeing of Victorian veterans (those who have served in the Australian Defence Force) and first responders.

Many veterans are known to have physical and psychosocial vulnerabilities related to service, and others report negative changes in their physical activity levels after transition from the military. Older veterans are encouraged to maintain activity levels and social interaction to improve their overall health. Psychosocial and physical 'lifestyle' activities are therefore seen as a priority wellbeing enabler for veterans and their family members. Yet few programs have been evaluated for their ability to enact change in psychosocial and physical activity outcomes in this cohort.

RSL Active runs lifestyle and fitness programs across Victoria at RSL Sub-Branches, designed to allow veterans to maintain healthy lifestyles that support wellbeing. This project works with RSL Victoria as well as the ACU supervisory team, to develop and pilot an evaluation of some RSL Active programs. There is scope for the student to investigate one of a range of suggested enablers of participation or change in veterans. The project involves coordination with the RSL Victoria State Branch and Sub-Branches, and travel in various regional Victorian locations to collect data.

This project would suit an Exercise Science or Psychology Honours student and may involve a combined student project, depending on the field of study of the student. The student does not require any background in working with military or veterans; however a genuine interest in supporting veterans and their families is necessary.

Project Supervisors: Dr. Doug Whyte (doug.whyte@acu.edu.au) and Carolyn Deans (RSL Victoria)

Campus where project is available: Melbourne

Iron deficiency is a global health problem estimated to affect ~33% of non-pregnant women globally. Comparative to men, women can face additional challenges to maintaining healthy iron stores, which includes menstrual blood loss and cyclical changes to estrogen concentrations across the menstrual cycle and the life span. Furthermore, female athletes are at increased risk of iron deficiency due to the additional impact of high-volume exercise on iron regulation. This project will have you lead one arm of an ongoing randomised control trial, where you will be involved in recruitment, data collection and data analysis. You will examine the effectiveness of two different oral iron supplements (Ferrograd C™ and Maltofer™) to determine which is better at repleting iron stores over 12 weeks in team sport athletes. You will also determine which supplement is associated with better tolerance and adherence.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr. Alannah McKay (Alannah.mckay@acu.edu.au) and Dr. Sophie Broome

Campus where project is available: Melbourne

A critical aspect of decision-making in team-sport and a player's on the pitch behaviour is their situation awareness (SA), that is, the level of awareness that an individual has of a situation; a player's dynamic understanding of 'what is going on around them' during the game. Head accelerations resulting from heading or tackles can influence a players situation awareness. To assist concussion research and management, in this project we will use wearable technology to measure an athlete's situation awareness and how it is affected by head accelerations, repetitive head impacts, and concussion in team-sport.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Gert-Jan Pepping (gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au), Dan Chalkley, Thomas McGuckian, and Richard Johnston.

Campus where project is available: Brisbane and Melbourne

Hydration is critical for performance. Dehydration not only reduces physical performance but also performance across a range of cognitive tasks including sensation, perception, motor coordination, executive function, attention, and memory. It also appears to impair learning in school children, but whether dehydration impairs the learning of sport-related motor skills remains unknown. Sport-related motor skills are often developed through implicit learning, capitalising on subconscious processes to automate the skill performance, making it more robust in the face of fatigue or psychological pressure. Therefore, this study will assess the impact of thirst and hydration status on implicit learning in young adults.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr. Doug Whyte (doug.whyte@acu.edu.au) and Assoc. Prof. Adrienne Forsyth

Campus where project is available: Melbourne

Work from the SPRINT Research Centre has demonstrated that GNSS units commonly worn by team sport athletes are capable of accurately detecting a range of gait variables such as contact time, step time and vertical ground reaction force (VGRF). It has been assumed that specific firmware and software is needed to ensure that VGRF can be accurately measured, and that corrections scan be made to values based on the orientation of the unit arising from trunk lean of the athlete. However, it is not known if this assumption is correct based on how the units are used in team sports. This project will involve participants completing a series of 15m runs at various paces whilst wearing multiple GNSS devices. Data analysis will compare the gait characteristics derived from different firmware and software. The student involved in this project will learn to use GNSS devices, timing gates, as well as MATLAB and/or R to process the data. It would suit someone who is interested in working with data.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Prof. Stuart Cormack (stuart.cormack@acu.edu.au), Dr. Paul Tofari, Dr. Yi-Chung Lin

Campus where project is available: Melbourne

High intensity acceleration, deceleration and rapid change of direction (e.g. sidestep cutting) efforts are common in many popular sports. However, such tasks are also commonly associated with injury to the lower body. These injuries often include hamstring strain injuries, groin strain injuries, calf strain injuries, anterior cruciate ligament rupture, and ankle sprains. Despite the association of these injuries with the aforementioned high intensity tasks, little is known about the musculoskeletal demands of performing such tasks. Musculoskeletal modelling allows for the estimation of quantities that are otherwise impossible to measure during high intensity movements, including the forces and strains experienced by muscles, tendons and ligaments. This project will utlise musculoskeletal modelling to predict muscle, tendon, and ligament forces and strains during acceleration, deceleration and sidestep cutting tasks. Three-dimensional motion capture data, ground reaction forces and muscle activation (electromyography) data will be collected from participants as they perform the required tasks. This data will then be used in an established musculoskeletal modelling pipeline to estimate key muscle, tendon and ligament forces.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Nirav Maniar (Nirav.Maniar@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Melbourne

Analysis of performance in competition environments is vital to understanding how we can support the design of more representative training environments. This honours project aims to understand what impact performance outcomes in the National Football League with a specific focus on successful and unsuccessful pass outcomes from the quarterback. This honours project is ideal for candidates interested in integrating performance analysis and skill acquisition principles to better understand performance and ultimately, enhancing training design.

Project Supervisors: Dr. Chris McCosker (chris.mccosker@acu.edu.au) and Dr. Adam Hewitt (adam.hewitt@acu.edu.au)

Campus: Melbourne /Blacktown/Brisbane /Strathfield

There is scope within the school to explore Honours topics in Outdoor Leadership, International Volunteer Programs, Sports Community Engagement Programs and Sport and Physical Activity. These could involve qualitative, quantitative or a mixed-methods approach. It is also possible to combine two areas within the Faculty. For example, the psychological impact of outdoor and environmental education, or the impact of community engagement activities on students' mental health.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr. Beth McLeod (Beth.Mcleod@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Brisbane/Strathfield/Melbourne

Repeated high intensity running has been shown to cause reductions in vertical stiffness (Kvert) which decrease running efficiency via an increased oxygen cost for a given running speed. This project will examine the links between Kvert and running economy in team sport athletes. The student involved in this project will learn how to use Global Navigation Satellite System Devices, Cosmed K5 Portable Metabolic System and analyse data from these systems.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Prof. Stuart Cormack (stuart.cormack@acu.edu.au), Dr. Paul Tofari, Dr. Doug Whyte, Dr. Yi-Chung Lin

Campus where project is available: Melbourne

The Victoria Police Mounted Branch is responsible for patrolling, crowd control, land searches and ceremonial duties. The horses are exposed to various stimuli during training to prepare them for real-world duties. However, the quantification of the training process and response to training is not well defined. This project seeks to validate various subjective and objective tools to better understand this process and help inform initiatives for future training interventions. An Honours student will be embedded in the SPRINT Research Centre in Melbourne and gain experience using various technologies (e.g., GNSS, HR, IMUs), and develop data analytic skills (e.g., R coding).

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Dr. Bianca Share (Bianca.Share@acu.edu.au) and Dr Paul Tofari (Paul.Tofari@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Melbourne

The Australian Football League (AFL) is the elite competition for Australian Football. Teams competing the in the AFL strive to maximise the performance of their players while also trying to minimise the risk of injury. Often the success of approaches to mitigate the risk of injury is determined by comparing the number of injuries a team has sustained compared to the average of the other teams in the AFL. However, the injury risk profile of teams across the AFL varies and as such benchmarking the number of injuries from any one team to the average across the AFL is not an appropriate comparison. Therefore, this project aims to develop injury prediction models for individual teams in the AFL by using publicly-available historical data and then will apply these models across the 2024 AFL season. This project would suit a student with a background in either 1) Exercise and Sports Science who is interested in developing injury prediction and computer programming skills or 2) IT with an interest in applying their skills in the sporting domain.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Prof. David Opar (David.opar@acu.edu.au), Dr Nirav Maniar and Dr Heifeng Shen

Campus where project is available: Melbourne

Anterior Cruciate Ligament rupture is a highly common knee injury occurring in high performance team sport athletes. The purpose of this research project is to quantify the accuracy of a new triple hop test that assesses the single leg function of athletes using two dimensional markerless motion capture. Team sport athletes will undertake triple hop test and will be concurrently monitored using two dimensional markerless motion capture and a criterion three dimensional marker based motion capture system (VICON). Joint kinematics (hip and knee angular velocity) will be assessed for accuracy.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Assoc. Prof. Grant Duthie (grant.duthie@acu.edu.au), Dr. Mark Moresi, Dr, Paul Taylor and Dr. Michael Psarakis

Campus where project is available: Strathfield and Blacktown

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are commonly used in team sports to quantify the demands of competition and training. Previously, the validity of these systems has been established using discreet running activities. However, in a practical setting GPS are regularly used over longer durations (2 to 45 minutes). Therefore, there is a need to investigate the ability of GPS to quantify the running activities over durations specific to what they are commonly used for. This project will use the VICON system as the criterion measure to compare outputs from various GPS systems. The outcomes of this project will help establish the suitability of using GPS to quantify running activities in team sport athletes.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Assoc. Prof. Grant Duthie (grant.duthie@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Strathfield and Blacktown

The association between repeated head acceleration events (HAE) and long-term brain health is of considerable concern in contact and combat sports. Instrumented mouthguards (iMG) now allow for the accurate quantification of HAEs, however little is known about HAEs in combat sports like boxing. To address this, this project will use iMG to quantify the volume and magnitude of HAE during boxing sparring in the lead-up to competitive fights in men and women elite amateur fighters. Specifically, the project aims are to: Determine the feasibility of iMG for capturing HAE during boxing training; Understand the volume and magnitude of HAE during training;

Determine whether HAE change in the lead-up to a fight; Produce a high quality publication addressing these aims. The proposed honours project will provide you with the opportunity to apply principles of sports science and strength and conditioning in a real-world setting working with athletes and coaches in the lead-up to a sanctioned fight.

Project supervisor(s) and contact email address: Assoc. Prof. Richard Johnston (richard.johnston@acu.edu.au); Assoc. Prof. Grant Duthie (grant.duthie@acu.edu.au); Shreya McLeod (MHSc / MACP) (shreya.mcleod@acu.edu.au); Dr Patrick Campbell (patrick.campbell@acu.edu.au)

Campus where project is available: Strathfield/Blacktown

Analysis of performance in competition environments is vital to understanding how we can support the design of more representative training environments. This honours project aims to understand what impact performance outcomes in the National Football League with a specific focus on successful and unsuccessful pass outcomes from the quarterback. This honours project is ideal for candidates interested in integrating performance analysis and skill acquisition principles to better understand performance and ultimately, enhancing training design.

Project Supervisors: Dr. Chris McCosker (chris.mccosker@acu.edu.au) and Dr. Adam Hewitt (adam.hewitt@acu.edu.au)

Campus: Strathfield/Melbourne /Blacktown/Brisbane