The University of Western Australia’s sport science staff, students and facilities are helping Australia’s national hockey team, the Kookaburras, prepare for an important tournament in Darwin next month.
UWA’s heat chamber at the Sport Science, Exercise and Health building is providing much-needed heat training for the team in the leadup to the Oceania Cup.
PhD student Prashan Anbalagan, who is researching heat acclimatisation along with Honours student Dineshraj Naidu, who is working on heat mitigation strategies, are working with the Kookaburras under the supervision of Hockey Australia’s Dr Ted Polglaze, allowing them to gain practical high-performance athletic testing experience, alongside their research studies, overseen by UWA’s Professor Pete Peeling.
“My research is solely focused on heat, but I look at how dry as well as humid conditions, affect an athlete’s performance and also how the body adapts by acclimatising to the heat in these two environments,” Mr Anbalagan said.
Dineshraj is researching how well athletes adapt to cooling interventions such as fans, fans plus slushie drinks, or just water, while in a hot environment.
“Working with the Kookaburras is such a great experience for me – I’m really grateful to Professor Peeling for giving me this opportunity to learn and link up with Ted, to learn as much as I can and see whether it can actually help me once I’ve graduated,” he said.
Dr Polglaze is the lead sports scientist running the program for Hockey Australia and a UWA sport science PhD graduate.
“We’ve got a series coming up in Darwin against New Zealand – the Oceania Cup – which is really important in terms of rankings and then qualification for different tournaments,” Dr Polglaze said.
“There’s no point us going to Darwin if we're not prepared for the heat. So the players are doing all their training here in Perth, but they’re also coming into the chamber here at UWA and doing some additional heat acclimatisation because this is the exact type of facility we need.
“A lot of this is based on research back in the 80s and ongoing ever since and this close relationship we have with the University.
“So, we’ve really learned over the past few decades how to get our team sport athletes ready to perform at their best in hot conditions.”
The six-week acclimatisation training involves twice weekly sessions of 40 to 60 minutes, starting off slowly and building up to more intense temperatures and humidity.
“At first we started with two-and-a-half minute blocks of just passive work; just sitting down and some exercise and now it has increased to five-minute blocks of running, cycling and even some passive sitting,” Mr Anbalagan said.