Students from the Sky Sports Living for Sport group recently visited Loughborough University, number 1 University for sporting excellence in the UK. After a gruelling 3 hour journey, our budding young sports stars were treated to a tour of the University campus, and were able to watch whilst professional athletes and sports scholars were training live in a state of the art athletics arena, swimming pool and top of the range gymnastics suite.
The students then received an informative workshop about sports nutrition before getting to create their own energy drinks. Students were shocked to learn how many spoons of sugar go into making their favourite energy drinks – putting some off ever drinking them again! One student said: “It was a real eye opener to see how much sugar goes into some drinks. No wonder athletes drink them before a big race!”
The day then moved on to a fitness testing session ran by a sports science student all the way from Canada. Students learnt how to set up and run their own tests, such as testing speed through the T-run using digital laser equipment, power with the box jump test and muscular strength using the hand grip dynamometer. A very intense and competitive session even had the staff pitting their skills up against the group with Mr McLoughlin going fastest in the 15m sprint and Mr Metcalf winning the T-run test in a time of 9.63s.
The final session involved a handball taster session, introducing the group to the rules of the game and was led by the outgoing University captain. After a gruelling match, the inspired group were given some information of what courses were on offer at the University and what they need to do to gain a place in order to inspire them towards excelling in PE. Mr Metcalf is looking forward to supporting some of our students in applying for Loughborough University in future years.