Surfing Australia has officially announced a ground-breaking new partnership with Edith Cowan University (ECU) that will see leading and highly respected Sports Scientist Dr Jeremy Sheppard become a part of the team at Surfing Australia.
Dr Sheppard officially commenced with Surfing Australia on April 4, 2011 as the sport’s first ever full-time Sport Scientist.
The three-year partnership has come as a result of the new Australian Sports Commission funding initiative with
Surfing Australia.
With new funds being allocated towards research and improving surfing’s National High Performance Framework, the opportunity to engage Dr Jeremy Sheppard’s services has become a reality. The result is a partnership that will see Australia maintain its status as the world leader in surf education and high performance training.
Dr Sheppard will be based at the Surfing Australia HPC full-time with his workload spilt 50/50 between Surfing Australia and Edith Cowan University.
The added bonus with this agreement is that Dr Sheppard’s 50 per cent workload for ECU will involve overseeing PhD students on research that will be specifically related
to surfing.
“Surfing Australia sees this as a genuinely exciting progression for our sport. We will now have an in-house Sport Scientist to complement our new High Performance program and new innovative High Performance Centre and we will be able to gain valuable research for our sport’s future success,” Surfing Australia CEO Andrew Stark said.
“This announcement represents one of the most significant steps for our High Performance Program to date.”
Dr Jeremy Sheppard has been a strength and conditioning coach for 18 years, having worked for national teams in Canada, the USA, Europe and Australia. He has worked with athletes who have won national, Commonwealth, European, World, and Olympic medals and worked with sporting organisations like the Queensland Academy of Sport, Australian Institute of Sport, Canadian Sport Centre; and sporting teams in the Australian Football League, National Rugby League and National Football
League (USA).
Jeremy is a graduate of a PhD, Master’s of Sport Science, graduate diploma in Elite Coaching, and an undergraduate degree in Human Movement.
His research projects have garnered awards from the Victorian State Government, the National Strength and Conditioning Association (USA), the Australian Institute of Sport, the National Sport Science Quality Assurance Program and the National Elite Sports Council as well as several industry partners.
He has also published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and abstracts and nine text-book chapters.
“I am really excited to take up this outstanding position,” Dr
Sheppard said.
“ I have been given the opportunity to apply my passion to training athletes, by serving as Sport Science Manager with Surfing Australia.
“Surfing is a sport which plays the dominant role in my life and I’ll be working for a country that is dominant on the world stage. Surfing Australia is a body that has great governance and professionalism, world-class coaches to work with, like Martin Dunn, and an impressive vision for the future including the new High Performance Centre training facility,” Dr Sheppard said.
“One of our early initiatives will be to create a Surfing Australia Scientific Committee to help drive our best practice in terms of athletic development, athlete management, and research.
“We are assembling people who are world leaders in their respective sport science fields, which will help drive how we train and prepare our surfers, in turn paying big dividends towards our ability to retain our place as the top surfing nation,” added Sheppard.
“Through the partnership with Edith Cowan University, I will get to combine this work with my passion for teaching and mentoring students in coaching and research as a Senior Lecturer in Strength and Conditioning/Sport Science.
“Edith Cowan University is possibly the best university in the world for strength and conditioning, employing world experts in several fields of sport science, so this relationship is both exciting and humbling to be a part of. Working with colleagues at Edith Cowan University will be a major highlight for me personally, but importantly the world-class group of staff there and their exceptional facilities and equipment will support my success in the position with the university, as well as advance our training and research outcomes with surfers in Australia,” said Sheppard.
Professor Rob Newton, who is the Foundation Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at Edith Cowan University, has been crucial in facilitating this agreement and he, along with Dr Sheppard and the students at ECU, is keen to get started on the range of research options which have been made possible through this exciting partnership.
“Edith Cowan University is committed to teaching and research in the sports sciences and this new partnership with Surfing Australia will result in both immediate and long-term benefits for the sport of surfing,” Professor Rob Newton said.
“There is enormous scope for research into surfing, with the potential to improve performance through improved training methods and reduction of injury risk by understanding the mechanisms, more informed athlete coaching, technique and equipment modification and better physical conditioning. This alliance of Surfing Australia and ECU takes surfing into the future, drawing on the latest scientific methods and a strong industry partnership to address issues currently facing surfers and coaches. ECU is very excited to be working with such a forward thinking and innovative organisation as Surfing Australia.”
Some examples of the research that will be explored are:
• Incidence of trauma injuries surfers incur when executing progressive surfing manoeuvres and possible preventative training strategies that could be incorporated into training programs to prevent and reduce the incidence of such injuries
• Fitness training for surfers
• Dry-land training methodologies used when teaching aerial surfing
• The influence of technique on sprint-paddling performance in competitive surfers
• The relationship between upper-body strength qualities and kinematics in sprint paddling performance of high-performance surfers
• The effect of strength training on paddling performance in high-performance surfers
• An examination of lower body strength qualities in surfers
• An evaluation of the use of micro-sensors to quantify training load in high-performance
surfers.
