Next in our Meet the Team series we chat to Senior Lecturer Dr Mark Burnley
Why did you pick a career in sport?
I have been fascinated with endurance sports and fatigue since watching middle distance races as a kid, but my interest really grew as I tried (and failed) to be an athlete myself. How to train, eat, rest and pace an endurance effort still fascinates me, but now I get to study it as a job.
What do you enjoy most about teaching at Kent?
The most rewarding thing about teaching is watching students develop from teenagers interested in sport into twenty-something scientists in the space of 3 years. Students who study at Kent will leave really knowing their stuff, and it’s great to help with that.
What are you currently researching?
I am presently studying two related areas: first the “power-duration relationship” and exercise intensity domains, which tell us how well an individual can endure all forms of exercise and what causes fatigue. The second area of study is “physiological complexity”. In this area, we study the fluctuations in force output as the muscle fatigues in order to better understand how the muscle controls force production when it tires, and what the consequences of that are in terms of task failure and exhaustion.
What is your favourite sport to watch or play?
To watch, cricket and rugby, for no particular reason. To play, I used to play basketball at college, but I wasn’t very good. Then I realised I had a pretty good aerobic system and discovered I was a decent runner, so that’s what I enjoy doing.