The School of Sport and Exercise Sciences provides an excellent environment to conduct your first steps into postgraduate research. Choosing to study for an MSc (by research and thesis) allows you to work directly with our research-active staff who have a considerable breadth of interests and can supervise you across a range of areas in sport and exercise sciences, sports therapy and sports management.
Explore our staff expertise and research projects on offer for Master’s by Research students below.
MSc Projects (by Research and Thesis)
- Alternative physical activity interventions for improving health
- Caffeine and immune responses to exercise: is there a genetic influence?
- Does increasing respiratory muscle strength improve breathing pattern, reduce exercise respiratory symptoms and improve exercise performance?
- Examining impacts of novel modes of static transport
- Nutritional strategies to protect the gut during exercise
- Nutrition, immunity and illness in athletes
- Optimising the use of GPS to support team game training and performance
- Physical activity and breathing impacts on blood pressure control
- Psychological skills training to improve endurance performance
- Psychosocial factors related to weight-regulation in combat sports
- Raman Scattering Detection of substances used in sport doping
- Research into the varied roles and value of sport history, heritage and museum sites, practices and cultures in contributing to local, regional, national or wider social, cultural or political issues and debates
- Research into the role of sport and physical activity within expat/migrant community development, health and wellbeing
- Research investing the socio-cultural aspects of global sport and physical cultures; with specific emphasis on the historical or heritage, educational, policy or community identity aspects
- Social Prescribing within the Fitness and Leisure Sector
- Use of exercise rehabilitation to improve exercise capacity and reduce symptoms in people who report exercise respiratory symptoms and/or have respiratory disease (e.g. asthma)
- The effect of muscle pain on knee extensor maximal voluntary contraction
- The role of self-control and habit formation in physical activity and sedentary behaviour
- What is the impact of airway disease on breathing pattern?
- Why does pain not always feel the same? Investigating the variation in response to exertional pain
MSc Projects (by Research and Thesis)
Research investing the socio-cultural aspects of global sport and physical cultures; with specific emphasis on the historical or heritage, educational, policy or community identity aspects: Dr Geoff Kohe
Projects within this theme may adopt a UK focus or draw from other international contexts, however, will primarily adopt Qualitative Social Science methodologies. Example projects may include studies of sport-event legacies, sport education initiatives, sport and corporate relations, sports workers welfare, or sport governance.
Research into the varied roles and value of sport history, heritage and museum sites, practices and cultures in contributing to local, regional, national or wider social, cultural or political issues and debates: Dr Geoff Kohe
Projects within this theme may adopt a UK focus or draw from other international contexts, however, will primarily adopt Qualitative Social Science methodologies. Example projects may include examinations of international or national sport heritage museums and sites, critique of digital sport heritage spaces, or investigations into public engagements with sport history.
Research into the role of sport and physical activity within expat/migrant community development, health and wellbeing: Dr Geoff Kohe
Projects within this theme may adopt a UK focus or draw from other international contexts, however, will primarily adopt Qualitative Social Science methodologies. Example projects may include mapping engagement with sport/physical activities among migrant populations, interrogating national and domestic government policies on sport resourcing, analysing existing sport-for-development initiatives, or interrogating the role of charity providers within migrant (re)habilitation.
Examining impacts of novel modes of static transport: Dr Katrina Taylor & Dr Sam Smith
The use of e-scooters, and alternative, electric and ‘static’ transport modalities has increased in popularity, and could potentially become the future and primary form of human mobility. Despite their perceived social and environmental benefits, their possible impact on physical inactivity and markers of health has yet to be considered. How should schemes promoting these forms of transport be best developed to account for potential physiological and psychological adaptations that may occur from acute or prolonged use? 2 MRes studentships (One to focus on physiological variables and one to focus on psycho-social impacts).
Alternative physical activity interventions for improving health: Dr Katrina Taylor
This project will expand upon previous research into HIIT and Isometric exercise training and will look to explore the use of novel, low cost, short duration, accessible physical activity interventions. Optimising training interventions for maximal health improvement will be explored while measuring the impact these can have on markers of health and disease.
Physical activity and breathing impacts on blood pressure control: Dr Katrina Taylor & Professsor John Dickinson
Raised blood pressure is associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases and mortality. Physical activity and breathing training have both been demonstrated to reduce raised blood pressure and maintain healthy blood pressure. This project will explore the effects of acute and short-term physical activity, breathing training interventions, and combined interventions on blood pressure readings.
Social Prescribing within the Fitness and Leisure Sector: Dr Katrina Taylor
Social prescribing aims to meet the social, emotional and practical needs of individuals, to improve overall health and wellbeing. The NHS-10 year plan aims to improve personalised care, enabling individuals to make informed choices about support they receive, by improving access to a range of services. The fitness and leisure sector plays a key role in supporting activity opportunities with diverser health and wellbeing benefits. This project is offered in partnership with ukactive, to monitor and analyse findings from an ongoing national evaluation into social prescribing, exploring how it currently connects with fitness and leisure activities in local communities.
Does increasing respiratory muscle strength improve breathing pattern, reduce exercise respiratory symptoms and improve exercise performance?: Professor John Dickinson
This project will investigate whether improving the strength of breathing muscles (e.g. diaphragm) can reduce exercise respiratory symptoms and improve exercise performance. Findings from this project will inform the therapy offered to individuals who report exercise respiratory symptoms that limit their exercise capacity.
What is the impact of airway disease on breathing pattern?: Professor John Dickinson & Dr Carol Smyth
This project will investigate whether there are differences in breathing pattern between health and people with airway disease (e.g. asthma). The project will then investigate whether strategies such as breathing pattern training can reduce the impact of respiratory disease and improve exercise capacity. The project will use 3D motion cameras and require the student to use MATLAB software.
Optimising the use of GPS to support team game training and performance: Professor John Dickinson & Professor James Hopker
The project will focus on using GPS analysis to record individual performance in the team games. The project will as which variable are most valuable to coaches and whether any of the data can be used monitor and influence training and match performance.
Use of exercise rehabilitation to improve exercise capacity and reduce symptoms in people who report exercise respiratory symptoms and/or have respiratory disease (e.g. asthma): Professor John Dickinson & Dr Steve Meadows
This project will investigate the use of exercise as a therapy to reduce exercise respiratory symptoms in people with and without respiratory disease. In a similar design to pulmonary rehab participants will attend group classes and the student will monitor changes in exercise capacity, respiratory function, respiratory symptoms, and quality of life. The outcomes of the project will assess whether patients who do not currently meet the requirements to be referred for pulmonary rehabilitation can benefit from such activity.
Why does pain not always feel the same? Investigating the variation in response to exertional pain: Dr Sam Smith & Dr Lex Mauger
Naturally occurring muscle pain during physical exertion is a well-recognised phenomenon that occurs across all populations. Whilst non-damaging, the perception of exertional pain is typically interpreted as an aversive threat to the body that should be avoided or overcome. Pain is however complex and subjective and is experienced differently both between individuals and for the same individual across different situations and states. The aversive and unpredictable experience of exertional pain can therefore have implications for exercise adherence and performance.
The effect of muscle pain on knee extensor maximal voluntary contraction: Karthikeyan Muthumayandi
PoseNet, which uses the TensorFlow.js library (by Google), estimates the movement. PoseNet can recognise anatomical landmarks and compute and analyse 3D kinematic and spatiotemporal data of human gait using any commercial webcam (please see the picture attached). Despite its potential, the accuracy of a system like this in determining the kinematics parameters of human gait is still unclear. The feasibility and accuracy of measuring gait spatiotemporal and kinematic data with a 2D web camera will be investigated in this research project.
Nutritional strategies to protect the gut during exercise: Professor Glen Davison
Heavy exercise may cause damage to gut cells and a temporary increase in intestinal permeability. This may contribute to gastrointestinal complaints frequently reported by athletes. Strategies that reduce the effects of exercise on gut damage and permeability may be of benefit. Numerous nutritional interventions have been studied, but further research is required to better determine the optimal type, dose and duration of supplementation for optimal benefit. This project will allow the student to investigate the effects of novel nutritional strategies on gut damage and permeability markers in response to exercise.
Caffeine and immune responses to exercise: is there a genetic influence?: Professor Glen Davison
Caffeine has been studied extensively as an ergogenic aid and there is some evidence showing it may protect some components of immune function in response to prolonged exercise. There is, however, large inter-subject variability in responses to caffeine, with some individuals suggested to be ‘non-responders’. Recent research shows this may be related to genetic factors, with a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the CYP1A2 gene identified as a key predictor of responses to caffeine. However, there is no current research on the influence of this SNP on immune responses to caffeine, and this will be the aim of this project.
Nutrition, immunity and illness in athletes: Professor Glen Davison
Exercise has been shown to affect most areas of the immune system in some way. Moderate exercise or training may enhance immunity and lower upper respiratory illness (URI) risk whereas intensive training may have the opposite effect in some athletes. Strategies to maintain or enhance immunity are of benefit to such individuals. Nutritional strategies and supplements are an attractive intervention as they are easy to implement within a normal training programme. However, much of the research on their effectiveness is limited in the markers used to quantify immune function and illness risk. This study will investigate a nutritional intervention in this context, with the use of high value (i.e. in vivo and/or clinically relevant) outcome measures.
Psychosocial factors related to weight-regulation in combat sports: Dr Chris Fullerton
Many combat sport athletes actively manipulate their body mass through chronic strategies (gradual energy restriction and exercise training) and acute interventions before weigh-in (energy restriction and dehydration) to gain a competitive advantage against lighter, smaller, and weaker opponents. This project will examine personal, situational, and contextual factors driving these behaviours.
Psychological skills training to improve endurance performance: Dr Chris Fullerton
This project will examine the effectiveness of selected brief psychological skills training interventions (e.g., imagery and self-talk) on competitive endurance performance (e.g., time trial performance in cycling, running, and rowing).
The role of self-control and habit formation in physical activity and sedentary behaviour: Dr Chris Fullerton
Starting and maintaining regular physical activity requires self-control (restraint) to avoid the alternative sedentary option. An important aspect of self-control is the ability to learn new habits and use self-regulatory skills. This project will investigate individual differences in these abilities to identify whether self-control plays a key role in PA and sedentary behaviour.
Raman Scattering Detection of substances used in sport doping: Dr Donna Arnold and Professor James Hopker
The standard protocol for detecting doping in competitive sports often takes several days to perform in a laboratory-based environment and requires complex procedures and expensive equipment. However, the portable nature of RAMAN technology, which has been extensively used in a law enforcement environment, provides an opportunity to take measurements in the field rather than a laboratory environment. Therefore, RAMAN technology provides the potential for both a rapid and field adaptable method for drug detection in a sports environment. Surface-enhanced RAMAN spectroscopy (SERS) is a form of vibrational spectroscopy that can identify analyte substances uniquely. It provides direct structural information about target molecules in solid or solution form and identifies qualitative differences between similar samples. SERS has also been used for quantitative analysis of drugs in mixtures in complex biological samples (e.g. blood and urine). This project aims to apply SERS to detect drugs associated with sports related doping.
Academic staff and research Areas – School of Sport and Exercise Sciences
- Sports Nutrition
- Exercise Immunology
- Anatomy and Function of Fascia
- Myofascial Pain
- Adaptation of fascia to mechanical loading
- Respiratory problems in athletes
- Disordered breathing during exercise
- Self-regulation
- Affective and perceptual responses to exercise and training
- Sport Nutrition
- Post Operative rehabilitation and return to sport after articular cartilage repair
- Response to exercise training
- Endurance performance
- Elite sports works lives
- Sport organisation contexts and relations
- Regulation of work rate during exercise
- The role of exercise-induced pain in fatigue and endurance performance
- Exercise in cardiovascular disease
- Exercise in Parkinson’s patients
- Broader factors that impact on health and people’s ability to exercise and preserve, or improve their health and functional capacity
- Regulation of pain during exercise
- Breathing mechanics of athletes with and without breathing pattern disorders
- Use of physical activity as an alternative or adjunctive therapy in the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases