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We are at the end of the 2nd term at sportBU, it has been a frustrating one dominated by dissertations, group work and the end of competitive season motivational dip. But still our athletes have made some very significant gains in strength and ability. The max testing results show that again the majority of athletes improved in all of the tests, with the remaining having improved in 4 of 5. This always makes me happy and I think the athletes are really seeing the benefits in their remaining fixtures. The table below shows the figures for the average increase in each of our tests for those who tested in October and March:
 
It is interesting to see that it is the women who showed the larger increases in most lifts. I am very pleased to see this and hope that we continue to get large numbers of female athletes into the programme and making athletic gains. I do not think that these figures truly represent that gains made across the board, as we had fewer people testing in March due to the previously mentioned academic commitments. I would like to think that they would have been even better if all athletes had tested.

The gallery to the right has the tables for the strongest and most improved athletes this far.

There have been some very good improvements on the overall leader board but I am most pleased with the improvement board this time, as our athletes have continued to work hard and increase the level throughout the team.

The most dedicated team to the programme has to be women’s basketball, which added more sessions to their programme and showed a consistently strong attitude to improving and supporting each other. This was supported by their scores in testing and that they still hold the majority of the improvement scores.

Women’s Hockey and Netball deserve a mention for their efforts this term. For the most part they showed good attitudes and numbers at training, Netball especially have sent many girls to their Monday night session and have worked hard (some of the time!), well done to them for their unbeaten run in the BUCS league this season. The Hockey girls hold most of the women’s strongest athlete records and have been lead from the front by Brimyard’s strong training attitude.

The records for men have been dominated by Rammon from the Rugby team. He lost his vertical jump record to a volleyball player (no real surprise there) but held the remaining 3 and increased 2 of them, he is being chased all the time by Chris (Cricket) and Jack (Rugby), as a first year I am expecting a lot from Jack while he is here.
This term I again saw some great attitude changes to training, we are slowly turning people around to the fact that they will get better at their sport if they train hard in the gym.

During March we had our first external intern: Jack Brunet came down from Sheffield Hallam University to see how we run our programme, he was here for the back end of the term and it was good to have him. Hopefully he will have learnt something about University S&C and will continue working in it.

Next term we have the sports ball, where I will be awarding the accolades of sportBU’s Strongest Athlete 2009-10. There are a few people in the running for each sex and I hope those nominated will be pleased about it. I should explain that the awards are for strength proportional to body weight so everyone has a chance of winning.

The term will be dominated by exams; it is very likely that the performance suite will be closed at some point due to its proximity to the hall and noise problems, so we will have to be clever about how and where we run sessions. I foresee sleds, tyres and beaches coming into play!