Jim's Sports Lab

A couple of months back, Jim was approached to use wearables to monitor a casual runner to prepare to run a marathon – the New York Marathon no less. Natalie Merida has made the commitment to run the NY Marathon in order to raise money for Miracle Babies. This is a not for profit organisation that supports families of premature babies. The link to a series of videos can be found here. It is a worthy cause and any donations would be greatly appreciated. If you wish to donate, please click on this link.

Nat and Jim talking about bits and pieces

The videos are found here too

Video 1 General intro by Dr Jim Lee and Nat; Video 2 Nat’s marathon progress update; Video 3 Sensor introduction by Dr Jim Lee; Video 4 Nat and using the sensor during training; Video 5 Dr Jim Lee talking about the transmitting of sensor data; Video 6 Nat and why she is running the NY mararthon for the Miracle Babies Foundation; Video 7 Embracing the marathon journey.

Towards the end of February Bec Mellifont from the Uni of the Sunny Coast and Jim were invited to Japan by Professor Yuji OHGI of Keio University. OHGI san’s invitation and generosity enabled Bec and Jim to visit the National Institute of Fitness and Sport (NIFS) in Kanoya and assist in an experiment looking at forces and loads during a simulated bend of an athletics track in their Sports Performance Laboratory. This is an incredible institute with world leading facilities for research, teaching, and service delivery to sports right up to elite level.

Jim with Professor Akira MAEDA. MAEDA san is a director of the Sports Performance Laboratory

Bec at the entrance to the fantastic indoor facilities

It also gave Jim the opportunity to catch up with his colleague and friend Associate Professor Tomohito WADA who is an academic at NIFS. WADA san was an excellent host taking everybody to some very good restaurants in and near Kanoya.

Everyone enjoying a meal (OHGI san on the left and WADA san on the right)

and more of us

OHGI san inspecting high speed camera data (the cameras in the foreground)

Here are some links. One to an overview of the indoor facilities and a sample of the data collection. If anyone needs facilities to train e.g. leading into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, they would do a lot worse than utilising NIFS, whether for track and field, swimming/aquatics, or field sports just to name a few.

As Jim woke this morning, and thinking of the day ahead, he realised he was a mere pup at 21 years of age when Richmond last won a premiership. The reflection of the drought since (barring 1982 grand final appearance) has made knowing the Tiges have made it today all the more sweater.

Carn the Tiges

The Tiges 2017 Preliminary final win

Charles Darwin University has created a short video that is imbedded in a small blog that also has links to application packs and information about scholarships etc. It even makes Jim look good!!! For anyone interested, watch the video and go to the site in the link a couple of lines above

Here is a link to an article from the ABC News website. It talks about the need for doctors and specialists to better communicate with patients. I think it equally applies to us and our need to communicate to our clients effectively. Good communication creates engagement, therefore increasing a greater chance to motivate people to continue exercising – I think it is a great challenge for people to continue compliance in their exercise regime and it is our role to assist this.

Who said sport does not give back to society.  This Story of Katherine Switzer is an excellent example in many ways. The other thing about this ABC news story is that I had forgotten it was not all that long ago that women were not allowed to compete in marathon type events. People like Ms Switzer doing makes changes, sitting does not….

Over the past week, Jim has been in Kanoya, Japan as a guest of the National Institute of Fitness and Sports (NIFS). While here he streamed one of his CDU lectures live back to Australia. With the expert help of his colleague, Associate Professor Tomohito WADA of NIFS, they streamed in both 2D and (almost) 3D – it was a 360 degree camera that the viewer can have a full view of the room and if viewed on a smart phone, a virtual type view of it.

Here is Jim looking very cold delivering the lecture

The purpose of the trip was due to being invited by NIFS as a guest lecturer and commentator for the National Institute for Fitness and International Sports Academy, a week long event where international students and academics come together to learn about various aspects of sport. This year had an Olympic theme with perspectives from the coach, athlete, educator, scientist.