Doctors Graham Sorbie and Ashley Richardson of Abertay University, Scotland are looking for golfers in the UK to complete a 10-minute survey about golf injuries. Both those that have and have not suffered injuries are eligible, but you must be 16 years of age or older to be eligible for the study.
With the evolution of the modern golf swing, the researchers, from the University’s Sports Science department, feel this is the appropriate time to survey the type, regularity and severity of injuries suffered by UK based golfers. The survey has full ethical approval from Abertay University and will help inform the future direction of their work in regards to golf performance and injury prevention.
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Dr Richardson says: “We have had an encouraging response to this so far, so thanks to all members that have completed the survey so far. We are 10 percent of the way to our target of 1000 responses so please continue to complete and share with friends. We are excited this is going to help inform the future our our research group’s work.”
Dr Richardson is currently the Programme Leader for BSc Sport and Exercise Science, and combines lecturing with biomechanical research and consultancy. Before joining Abertay, he lectured at Buckinghamshire New University and the University of Hertfordshire and combined this with practising Sports Therapy in amateur rugby. He completed his PhD in the field of biomechanics focusing on the kinematics of the golf ball during a putt.
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Injury
His research interests include whether Omega-3 supplementation can improve joint stability, whether a ‘prehabilitation’ protocol may be able to reduce injury risk, and the impact of fatigue on lower limb kinetics. He also focuses on quantifying how different biomechanical factors influence sports performance, and teaches on key concepts in biomechanics for sport and exercise, advanced biomechanics and injury prevention, anatomy, exercise for injured athletes and research methods in performance analysis and biomechanics.
One of the questions Dr Richardson is researching is related to lower limb kinetics, in connection with biomechanical risk factors of lower limb injury. Can athletes at risk be identified before the injury occurs, so a prehabilitation protocol can be implemented reducing the identified risk factor? Additionally, his studies address how lower limb kinetics and kinematics change throughout fatigue and interventions to overcome this.
On the way in which biomechanical factors relate to sports performance, Dr Richardson says: “I have an interest in quantifying how different biomechanical factors influence sports performance. An example of this is how different golf putter parameters influence the initial direction of the ball roll, whereby, the face angle, putter path and impact point all have an influence, but to what degree?”
On how movement variability can influence sport technique, he says: “A recent development within sports biomechanics is the dynamical systems theory, which outlines how variability and patterns of variability affect movement, performance and injury risk.”
http://abertay.co/golfinjury
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