Honours - Exercise Science

Australian perspective in relation to managing academic and sporting commitments with only two studies published to date (Cosh & Tully, 2014; Cosh & Tully, 2015). Furthermore, there is no known research through a co-production and collaborative lens involving all relevant stakeholders in the student-athlete programs. During 2022 we collected pilot data examining the perspectives of the relevant stakeholders (e.g., student-athletes, alumni student-athletes, academic staff, elite athlete performance program coordinators and well-being officers within national sporting organisations) and are currently analyzing the data with a view to present this to collaborative partners (Australian Institute of Sport) and Australian Universities and start the next phase of the project in 2023. 

The honours project will continue this work examining the student-athlete in relation to wellbeing with several options including:

1. Development of tailored, evidence-based online resources for student-athletes to support their academic endeavors. 
2. Exploration of the role of the coach in student-athlete wellbeing relative to their academic and sporting endeavours.

Supervisors: Dr Justine Stynes (Strathfield)/Dr Ann-Marie Gibson (Blacktown)/Dr Alyse Wilcox (Melbourne)

Contact: Justin.Stynes@acu.edu.au

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.

Some specific outdoor projects students could currently be involved in include:

1. Australian Tertiary Outdoor Education Students Graduate attributes, Thresholds Concepts
2. Connecting Communities to Nature assessing the outcomes of the Nature Stewards program
3. Outdoor Education in the Victorian Curriculum (must be based in Victoria)
4. Outdoor Health the emergence of an International movement
5. Green Scripts for Health and Wellbeing

Supervisors: Dr Beth McLeod and Dr Sandy Allen-Craig

Contact: Beth.Mcleod@acu.edu.au

Campus: Brisbane/Strathfield/Melbourne

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.

Supervisor: Dr. Gert-Jan Pepping and Mr. Daniel Chalkley

Contact: gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au

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.

Supervisors: Dr. Gert-Jan Pepping and Mr. Daniel Chalkley

Contact: gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au

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.

Supervisor: Dr Michael Cole

Contact: Michael.Cole@acu.edu.au

Campus: 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.

Supervisor: Dr. Gert-Jan Pepping, Dr. Francesca Fernandez

Contact: gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au

Age-related changes in cognition (e.g. memory, problem solving) are often exacerbated in degenerative neurological conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease. This decline can impact the person’s ability to self-monitor their motor performances, which can make it difficult to retain movement and speech-based improvements in response to behavioural therapies. 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, texting while ascending stairs, or solving a child’s problem while preparing a meal. Despite the essentiality of multi-tasking to our way of life, very little is known about the impact of dual and triple-task training on the motor, cognitive and/or speech performances of ageing adults. This Honours project will provide the student with an opportunity to work toward developing a novel training task to assess and potentially improve multi-tasking in older populations. The findings from this project will help guide future research involving participants with neurological conditions.  

Supervisor: Dr. Michael Cole

Contact: michael.cole@acu.edu.au

Campus: Brisbane

Identifying talented junior long jumpers is challenging as there is very little data available to guide talent identification. Several Australian athletes have come through the National Institute Network pathways and gone on to be successful at international benchmark events. However, we currently have little understanding of how these athletes have progressed to this point, and what variables may discriminate between promising juniors that do or do not go on to be successful at the senior level. The proposed honours project would use 10+ years of retrospective data and data from current/upcoming competitions to develop an understanding of how biomechanical variables of long jump performance change over an athletes’ development. This project will be undertaken in conjunction with Athletics Australia (Emma Millett, Lead Athletics Biomechanist), VIS (Danielle Trowell) and Australian Catholic University.

Supervisor: Dr Mark Moresi

Contact: mark.moresi@acu.edu.au

Campus: 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.

Supervisor: Dr. Gert-Jan Pepping
Contact: gert-jan.pepping@acu.edu.au
Campus: 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.

Supervisor: Dr Jonathon Weakley

Contact: Jonathon.Weakley@acu.edu.au

Campus: Brisbane

This project explores the predictors and correlations of in-competition performance outcomes of Australian and international powerlifters. Investigations will be conducted using already collected data in Australian and international powerlifting competitions. Current investigations include an analysis of long-term data to determine the maximal rate of strength gain, correlations of competition tactics (attempt increases) and overall competition placement and factors influencing in-competition performance. Results of the work contained herein may contribute to development of novel training and competition practices within and external to the sport of powerlifting.

Supervisors: Dr Daniel van den Hoek
Contact: Daniel.VandenHoek@acu.edu.au
Campus: Brisbane

Our Research Program, From combat to campus: Health and wellbeing of Australian Defence Force veterans and their families, has a current focus on studying the clinical, psychosocial, academic, and social outcomes for Australian Defence Force veterans. We aim to investigate the impacts of transition to civilian life for veterans of the Australian Defence Force. We also hope to help their families develop appropriate support pathways which facilitate this transition. This project will evaluate the effectiveness of an exercise and lifestyle intervention program currently delivered to veterans and their families through the ACU Exercise Lifestyle Clinics.  

Supervisor: Dr Daniel van den Hoek

Contact: Daniel.VandenHoek@acu.edu.au

Campus: 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. 

Supervisor: Dr Jonathon Weakley

Contact: Jonathon.Weakley@acu.edu.au

Campus: Brisbane

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.

Supervisors: Dr Doug Whyte and Assoc Prof Adrienne Forsyth

Contact:doug.whyte@acu.edu.au

Australian perspective in relation to managing academic and sporting commitments with only two studies published to date (Cosh & Tully, 2014; Cosh & Tully, 2015). Furthermore, there is no known research through a co-production and collaborative lens involving all relevant stakeholders in the student-athlete programs. During 2022 we collected pilot data examining the perspectives of the relevant stakeholders (e.g., student-athletes, alumni student-athletes, academic staff, elite athlete performance program coordinators and well-being officers within national sporting organisations) and are currently analyzing the data with a view to present this to collaborative partners (Australian Institute of Sport) and Australian Universities and start the next phase of the project in 2023. 

The honours project will continue this work examining the student-athlete in relation to wellbeing with several options including:

1. Development of tailored, evidence-based online resources for student-athletes to support their academic endeavors. 
2. Exploration of the role of the coach in student-athlete wellbeing relative to their academic and sporting endeavours.

Supervisors: Dr Justine Stynes (Strathfield)/Dr Ann-Marie Gibson (Blacktown)/Dr Alyse Wilcox (Melbourne)

Contact: Justin.Stynes@acu.edu.au

Eye tracking is a tool that allows the collection of non-invasive data that can obtain a lot of unconscious information. Eye tracking technology records eye movements during real-world activities and is useful to help understand decision making processes and attention during different tasks. This information can be being used to inform training practice and support the development of elite sportsman. This Honours project will allow a candidate to use real world data to investigate the attention and decision-making demands of current AFL Umpires. Furthermore, this project will allow the candidate to influence real-world practice with their findings. This project is ideal for a highly motivated candidate who enjoys AFL, working with technology and analysing and investigating large data sets. This project will be undertaken in conjunction with Professor Damion Farrow who is a skill acquisition expert and is currently the AFL Umpiring Coaching and Innovation Manager.

Supervisor: Dr Jodi Sita
Contact: Jodi.Sita@acu.edu.au

Maintaining hydration is important for optimal performance.  To date, most research on dehydration has looked at physiological aspects, such as changes in cardiovascular function and thermoregulation.  However, there is growing evidence to suggest dehydration may also affect cognition and skilled movement.  Performance of skilled movement requires an individual to be appropriately balanced; therefore any disruptions in balance, because of dehydration, will likely have a negative impact on athletic performance.  This project will examine whether dehydration impacts static balance and would be ideal for a candidate with an interest in both motor control and physiology.

Supervisor: Dr Doug Whyte

Contact: Doug.Whyte@acu.edu.au

Campus: 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.

Supervisor: Nirav Maniar
Contact: Nirav.Maniar@acu.edu.au
Campus: 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.

Some specific outdoor projects students could currently be involved in include:

1. Australian Tertiary Outdoor Education Students Graduate attributes, Thresholds Concepts
2. Connecting Communities to Nature assessing the outcomes of the Nature Stewards program
3. Outdoor Education in the Victorian Curriculum (must be based in Victoria)
4. Outdoor Health the emergence of an International movement
5. Green Scripts for Health and Wellbeing 

Supervisors: Dr Beth McLeod and Dr Sandy Allen-Craig

Contact: Beth.Mcleod@acu.edu.au

Campus: Brisbane/Strathfield/Melbourne

The ability to maintain a coordinated motor output while simultaneously performing a cognitively demanding task is critical for a range of everyday activities.  Dual-tasking can range from the relatively simple (e.g. walking and talking), through to more complex combinations, such as those experienced by athletes and emergency responders; where rapid decision making in response to multiple stimuli is required while under a high degree of physical strain.  This project aims to validate a new method for assessing dual task performance using a non-motorised treadmill.  This cross disciplinary project is ideal for a candidate looking to extend their understanding of motor control, biomechanics and physiology.

Supervisor: Dr Doug Whyte

Contact: Doug.Whyte@acu.edu.au

Campus: Melbourne

This project explores the predictors and correlations of in-competition performance outcomes of Australian and international powerlifters. Investigations will be conducted using already collected data in Australian and international powerlifting competitions. Current investigations include an analysis of long-term data to determine the maximal rate of strength gain, correlations of competition tactics (attempt increases) and overall competition placement and factors influencing in-competition performance. Results of the work contained herein may contribute to development of novel training and competition practices within and external to the sport of powerlifting.

Supervisor: Dr Daniel van den Hoek

Contact: Daniel.VandenHoek@acu.edu.au

Campus: Melbourne

Australian perspective in relation to managing academic and sporting commitments with only two studies published to date (Cosh & Tully, 2014; Cosh & Tully, 2015). Furthermore, there is no known research through a co-production and collaborative lens involving all relevant stakeholders in the student-athlete programs. During 2022 we collected pilot data examining the perspectives of the relevant stakeholders (e.g., student-athletes, alumni student-athletes, academic staff, elite athlete performance program coordinators and well-being officers within national sporting organisations) and are currently analyzing the data with a view to present this to collaborative partners (Australian Institute of Sport) and Australian Universities and start the next phase of the project in 2023. 

The honours project will continue this work examining the student-athlete in relation to wellbeing with several options including:

1. Development of tailored, evidence-based online resources for student-athletes to support their academic endeavors. 
2. Exploration of the role of the coach in student-athlete wellbeing relative to their academic and sporting endeavours.

Supervisors: Dr Justine Stynes (Strathfield)/Dr Ann-Marie Gibson (Blacktown)/Dr Alyse Wilcox (Melbourne)

Contact: Justin.Stynes@acu.edu.au

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.

Supervisors: Dr Grant Duthie 
Contact: grant.duthie@acu.edu.au

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.

Some specific outdoor projects students could currently be involved in include:

1. Australian Tertiary Outdoor Education Students Graduate attributes, Thresholds Concepts
2. Connecting Communities to Nature assessing the outcomes of the Nature Stewards program
3. Outdoor Education in the Victorian Curriculum (must be based in Victoria)
4. Outdoor Health the emergence of an International movement
5. Green Scripts for Health and Wellbeing

Supervisors: Dr Beth McLeod and Dr Sandy Allen-Craig

Contact: Beth.Mcleod@acu.edu.au

Campus: Brisbane/Strathfield/Melbourne

This project explores the predictors and correlations of in-competition performance outcomes of Australian and international powerlifters. Investigations will be conducted using already collected data in Australian and international powerlifting competitions. Current investigations include an analysis of long-term data to determine the maximal rate of strength gain, correlations of competition tactics (attempt increases) and overall competition placement and factors influencing in-competition performance. Results of the work contained herein may contribute to development of novel training and competition practices within and external to the sport of powerlifting.

Supervisor: Dr Daniel van den Hoek

Contact: Daniel.VandenHoek@acu.edu.au

Campus: Strathfield