Source: Eastern Institute of Technology – Tairāwhiti
9 seconds ago
Mike Schofield with New Zealand shot-putter Maddison-Lee Wesche, who won a silver medal at the Olympic Games in Paris this year.
EIT lecturer Mike Schofield’s research into biomechanics is reaping rewards as the shot-putter he coaches recently won a medal at the Olympic Games in Paris.
Mike, who is a lecturer in strength and conditioning at EIT, was a high performance coach for track and field throws for Athletics New Zealand in Auckland.
It was there that he became coach for New Zealand shot-putter Maddison-Lee Wesche, who won a silver medal at the Olympic Games earlier this month.
Speaking from Paris where he has been supporting Maddi, Mike said that the journey to the Olympics has been “awesome”. He has been coaching Maddi for about seven years.
“I’ve been lucky enough to apply some of the research that I’ve done within Maddi’s programme over the years, and to see it come to fruition. It’s been neat.”
Mike, who is normally based at the EIT Institute of Sport and Health (EIT ISH) at the Hawke’s Bay Regional Sports Park in Hastings, says that this semester he has been teaching a course in innovation where he has drawn on his own experience for examples.
“Part of this is showing the students that I lecture what innovation is in sport in a real-world context, and so I’ve been lecturing online from over here for ten days or so.”
“I have been going through some of the innovative tools we use in training, and in an Olympic Games programme.
“It provides a little bit of context around the application of some of the theory that they learn, to try to bridge the gap between theory and performance. It is quite a cool scenario that probably very few people, and especially students in a degree course, get to see inside an Olympic campaign, and in real time.”
Mike says there are a number of programmes that are used.
“These are iPad-based programmes, a few little sensors and bits of tech that we attach to bars and to Maddi, to measure certain variables that we’re interested in, and we’ve covered that off in class.”
Mike says that for him personally it has been important to see his historical research being used in a real world context through Maddi’s training process.
“My area of research is biomechanics and it is about evolving a technical model from a theoretical basis. Obviously it seems to have gelled with Maddi’s abilities, traits and personality, which has been quite cool.”
“The biggest thing that I’ve probably learned is that performance is a little more complex than research allows you to see, and it’s a blending of multiple pillars of sports science.”
“That’s broadened my horizons to skill acquisition and the peripheries of human behaviour combined with strength and conditioning and biomechanics. So the experience of working with someone like Maddi has broadened my understanding of performance.”
While Mike has enjoyed being in Paris, he says that the Olympic experience for him is more about performance.
“I get a real buzz out of trying to figure out the puzzle of how we throw it further?”
He says that sport science is probably a pretty new science and it is evolving year on year.
“That’s the challenge for us as lecturers and researchers is to keep up with the science and the practice. What we know today might not be what we know tomorrow.”
