Sports Medicine and Sports Science - Programmes

Fast-Track Practitioners are put through their paces by Elite Coach Graeme Randall

The main work of the Sports Medicine and Sports Science team is the development and delivery of the highest quality professional development programmes, all of which are targeted at improving the performance impact of the UK’s Sports Medicine and Sports Science practitioners. The programmes utilise input from the UK’s university sector, sports medicine and science associations, the UK’s and the worlds leading Sports Medicine and Sports Science practitioners.

The professional development programmes fall into the following categories:

Think tanks

Workshops where practitioners explore the boundaries of performance science and seek to develop new and improved practice

Master classes

Workshops where practitioners enhance their skills and knowledge by learning from an expert

Performance forums

Workshops where the key performance science issues for a sport are identified and strategies are put in place to help the sport or sports overcome these issues.

Fast-track Practitioner Programme

The Fast-Track Practitioner Programme (FPP) is a partnership approach between UK Sport, the home country sports institutes, the national governing bodies, the British Olympic Association and the British Paralympic Association, and draws upon skills and expertise from the private sector. It is a one year scheme designed to accelerate the professional development of young practitioners who demonstrate the potential for employment within the high performance sport. With continuing professional development, these individuals will grow into the next generation of high performance system practitioners.

Each participant on the programme will take part in a challenging and innovative professional development opportunity consisting of a series of workshops held at various venues throughout the UK. A number of common themes will be progressively developed over the workshop series; designed to equip them with the essential non-technical skills or “high performance competencies” needed for independent practice with high performance athletes.

All participants on the FPP are provided with close on-the-job support from their suitably qualified mentor. In this way, the messages and learning experiences from the workshops are re-enforced within the working environment to ensure that the programme participants hone and develop the technical and non technical skills that their professional discipline requires.
Applications for positions on the programme are advertised on the UK Sport website in May of each year, with the start date of the programme being the 1st October.

Mentor programme

The mentor programme runs in tandem with the FPP. All participants on the FPP are supported over the 12 months by a suitably qualified mentor from within the high performance system.

These mentors attend a series of workshops throughout the year which helps them develop their own mentoring skills allowing them to challenge and support their participant in the best possible way.