Professional practice

Traditionally there has been little emphasis placed on the enquiry into professional practice in the majority of sports science disciplines. Specific disciplines tend to vary in their ability to measure the effectiveness of practitioners either qualitatively or quantitatively, although sport psychology is the exception, where, for example, a multitude of literature exists referring to reflective practice and athlete support (Partington and Orlick, 1987, Anderson et

al., 2002, Anderson et al., 2004, Cropley et al. 2007, Cropley et al., 2010 and Cropley &

Hanton, 2011).

In the discipline of physiology (my technical area) there has been little focus on the ability of practitioners to define a philosophy, evaluate and reflect on their practices and consider their own positionality in relation to their profession. Peer reviewed reflective accounts from physiologists are certainly rare in the literature (Morton, 2014). Traditionally physiologists

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have placed less emphasis on cognitive evaluation and its importance and instead have from scientific interventions. The argument appears to be, therefore, that the quality of physiology support work is difficult to quantify in a meaningful way and whilst physiological assessment and sports performance itself can aid athletes and coaches assessment of the impact of physiological support, measuring the impact of physiology on performance in relation to the practitioner involved can be abigiuous. This is frustrating when you consider reflective practices are paramount to achieve high performance both as an athlete and as the practitioner supporting the athlete. As Knowles et al. (2007) describes,

in any domain requires a combination of professional knowledge (experience and technical) and tactic knowledge (knowledge that cannot be verbalised), i.e. your values, prejudices and social norms. It is here in the exploration of tacit knowledge where enquiry into professional practice and reflection can be most effective. Further, if you understand the extent of both your professional and tacit knowledge then your skills as a competent practitioner are enhanced and can impact upon your service delivery (Knowles et al., 2001). Reflection through creative writing (self narrative) plays a key part here as it can help to unleash hidden ledge through raising conscious awareness, which in turn can drive active reflections (Saylor, 2009, Morton, in Knowles et al., 2014).

In the case of evolving a new concept to the UK high-performance sport industry, the relevance of reflective practice to development is an important point. In the process of evolving fatigue management, through sleep and associated movement behaviour, as an area worthy of measurement and analysis, I have strived to develop my awareness and ability to

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effectively reflect in the knowledge that t

provides an effective addition to an existing technical and non-technical skill set. This is in essence what this thesis embodies; a reflection on the impact of evolving a new concept (fatigue management) to the high-performance sport industry which allows me to encapsulate how my skills and abilities in problem solving including, innovation, creativity and overall capacity and ability to reflect, have developed.

1.4.3 Philosophy

Fundamentally, my philosophy towards sports science support to high performance athletes and coaches is that it should be performance focused and follow a coach and athlete centered approach. I combine this with the knowledge and dedication that sports science is about making marginal gains in an athlete performance and establishing what it takes to win from a discipline specific and holistic standpoint. Parallell to this process is a strong adherance to the theoretical principles of athletic training which underpin any scientific input into an athlete s training and performance. As a practitioner, I feel that having the daily technical

and non-

technical knowledge and skills and also self-awareness in striving to provid support service. For example,

having a global awareness of their recovery on a day to day basis, place on themselves other than training? Are they having to work in addition to train? etc. As Thompson (2010) reported,

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lements of their role e.g. project development, audits, data management, in addition to their own development interests in training, research and innovation (Thompson, 2010). This is certainly a concept I have experienced throughout my career, however, throughout this I have maintained that an evaluation of work quality and its influence on high performance athletes and coaches is crucial to effective support work. How my work supporting athletes and coaches is measured and evaluated is, to me, the difference between quality assessment and good professional development, and poor athlete progression and sustained future service provision. The process of providing world class innovative support to athletes and coaches is exemplified through the successful introduction and development of the novel concept of fatigue management and athletic performance and shall be highlighted throughout the thesis.

1.4.4 Accountability

In establishing new concepts to athletes, coaches and support staff, I believe that I need to be accountable for the interventions I am advising athletes and coaches to employ in their performance programmes. Hawkes and Miles (2001) commented that with such an emphasis on the growth of professionalism of the applied sports science industry, there is more of a need for accountability and, in order to be accountable, skills in evaluation need to be developed to allow for assessment of intervention effectiveness and feedback to athletes and coaches. To add, Thompson (pp. 1, 2010) noted how elite sport is judged on results, therefore sports scientists operate in a dynamic and volatile environment of accountability where it is This concept of accountability coincides with my personal objectives of providing a high standard of

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physiological support specific to the requirements of the athlete or sport/discipline and ensuring consistency in my working practices through purposely and regularly reflecting on my performances. In initiating a new concept to the UK high performance industry, the issue of accountability was critical. Here, the technical knowledge I gained around fatigue management (sleep and movement behaviour), highlighted in Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6, became fundamental to the process. In conjunction with my developing technical knowledge, was my ability to influence coaches, athletes and peers as to how the concept aligned into what it takes to win models. In considering accountability, Hawkes and Miles (2001) identified themes for effective practitioners, two of which resonate with the pathway I have taken in establishing a novel concept to the UK high performance sport industry.

1. Knowledge and experience are fundamental to the fact that particular attention should be paid to a solid technical knowledge and understanding of the determinants of performance and the associated physiological requirements for a given sport. In this instance and parallell to this knowledge, was having a good technical understanding of the physiology of sleep (oultined in Chapter 3) and the indivisualised nature of it.

2. A professional practical service is necessary to providing any support to elite athletes and principally when producing new innovative solutions and ideas to sports programmes. Having a proactive innovative approach is important as often research is not available to answer the performance questions in a WITTW model, so using innovative techniques with theoretical underpinnings are crucial. In this instance, understanding the theoretical underpinnings of sleep from a physiological standpoint was cruciual to identifying sleep as an area deserving further research in Sports Science . It also exemplifies how innovative techniques can be transformed into sport programmes by practitoners with an acute

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awareness of accountability, the significance of techncial knowledge and the impact on W Takes to W models of a given sport.

However, whilst such scientific underpinnings may provide a sound basis for an idea, the

I

reflective practice can be an effective tool for assessing the impact of a particular intervention and my role within that is exemplified throughout this thesis.