Since 2000, and especially in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, the Sports Engineering and Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University has worked with UK Sport to provide technology solutions to help Team GB win more medals. We have two criteria: offer value for money and influence gold medals.
One of the particular success stories for London 2012 was boxing. iBoxer was created to suck in data from a number of different sources: tournament statistics, statistics from the International Amateur Boxing Association, boxers’ weights, heights and judges’ scores, cameras from the gym, YouTube and DVDs. This is all stored in one place, giving coaches and boxers easy access to watch fights and to help piece together a picture of the opponent and develop a plan. Prior to installation, the boxers had a 50/50 chance of winning a bout; afterwards, it was 75/25. We know it’s been successful because our funding has been increased for Rio.
However, it’s not just elite athletes who are set to benefit from our expertise. Sheffield aims to be the most active city in the UK by 2020, and we’re supporting this with an app-based approach called Move More, built by colleagues at the University of Sheffield. A framework will be developed around Move More, looking at how people can be encouraged to be more active in every aspect of their lives – not just their leisure time, but at home, on their commute and at work/school. One of the things this will involve will be competitions in schools and companies around the number of steps walked.
The NHS and the government are desperate for evidence that shows exercise can impact health. We hope to provide this at the Advanced Wellness Research Centre. Set to open in early 2018, on the site of the former Don Valley Stadium, this will be a hothouse involving everyone who promotes wellness: psychologists, healthcare economists and engineers. We’ll be looking to come up with technological innovations to get people moving using gadgets, equipment and installations.
Diabetes, and its co-morbidities, costs Sheffield millions of pounds every year. If we could have just 1 per cent of that money to invest in getting people more physically active, that would be a lot of funding.
We need leisure providers to get involved with getting everyone more active, but they will have to think outside of the box, finding ways of engaging with new customers rather than just fighting for the same ones.
Want to hear more? Professor Steve Haake will be among the speakers at Elevate, which takes place at London Olympia on 4–5 May 2016. Attendance is free of charge, with tickets offered on a first come, first served basis.
Register online at www.elevatearena.com where you can also see the full speaker line-up and programme.
Elevate
iBoxer is an advanced collection of data that enables coaches and boxers to study their opponents / PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Active Blackpool is deploying Cornerstone Connect, a new digital interface allowing
disparate information from multiple systems to be aggregated into one dataset, to support
its focus on reducing health inequalities and improving healthy life expectancy. [more...]
Panatta brought together four of the most influential figures in bodybuilding history on the
stage of RiminiWellness 2026: Phil Heath, Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman and Hany Rambod. [more...]
Since 2000, and especially in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, the Sports Engineering and Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University has worked with UK Sport to provide technology solutions to help Team GB win more medals. We have two criteria: offer value for money and influence gold medals.
One of the particular success stories for London 2012 was boxing. iBoxer was created to suck in data from a number of different sources: tournament statistics, statistics from the International Amateur Boxing Association, boxers’ weights, heights and judges’ scores, cameras from the gym, YouTube and DVDs. This is all stored in one place, giving coaches and boxers easy access to watch fights and to help piece together a picture of the opponent and develop a plan. Prior to installation, the boxers had a 50/50 chance of winning a bout; afterwards, it was 75/25. We know it’s been successful because our funding has been increased for Rio.
However, it’s not just elite athletes who are set to benefit from our expertise. Sheffield aims to be the most active city in the UK by 2020, and we’re supporting this with an app-based approach called Move More, built by colleagues at the University of Sheffield. A framework will be developed around Move More, looking at how people can be encouraged to be more active in every aspect of their lives – not just their leisure time, but at home, on their commute and at work/school. One of the things this will involve will be competitions in schools and companies around the number of steps walked.
The NHS and the government are desperate for evidence that shows exercise can impact health. We hope to provide this at the Advanced Wellness Research Centre. Set to open in early 2018, on the site of the former Don Valley Stadium, this will be a hothouse involving everyone who promotes wellness: psychologists, healthcare economists and engineers. We’ll be looking to come up with technological innovations to get people moving using gadgets, equipment and installations.
Diabetes, and its co-morbidities, costs Sheffield millions of pounds every year. If we could have just 1 per cent of that money to invest in getting people more physically active, that would be a lot of funding.
We need leisure providers to get involved with getting everyone more active, but they will have to think outside of the box, finding ways of engaging with new customers rather than just fighting for the same ones.
Want to hear more? Professor Steve Haake will be among the speakers at Elevate, which takes place at London Olympia on 4–5 May 2016. Attendance is free of charge, with tickets offered on a first come, first served basis.
Register online at www.elevatearena.com where you can also see the full speaker line-up and programme.
Elevate
iBoxer is an advanced collection of data that enables coaches and boxers to study their opponents / PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
The UK's four Chief Medical Officers have published a refreshed edition of Physical activity
guidelines: UK Chief Medical Officers' report, updating the evidence that underpins the nation's
physical activity recommendations and placing greater emphasis on strength, balance, reducing
sedentary behaviour and, for the first time, supporting people taking weight loss medications.
Places Leisure has exchanged contracts to build and operate a flagship £60m water and leisure
destination on behalf of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council.
The Republic of Ireland will become the latest market in PureGym’s expanding international
portfolio, with the first launch planned for Dublin in 2027.
Anytime Fitness opened more than one club a day in 2025 and is on track to maintain this rate
of growth this year, as parent company Purpose Brands targets further international expansion.
The £33.9 million Leighton Leisure and Community Centre has opened in Leighton Buzzard, UK,
creating a next-generation public leisure, health and wellbeing hub for the local community.
Walnuts Leisure Centre in Orpington, in the London Borough of Bromley, has reopened following
a £17m transformation designed to secure the long-term future of the public leisure asset and
reposition it as a community wellbeing hub.
The Gym Group, has announced that it's sustained positive trading momentum has continued
through the first half of 2026 and the company remains confident about the outlook.
Luxury boutique Pilates and wellness studio, X-Club, officially launches a
4,000sq ft flagship at
Marylebone on 16 July Built around X-Club’s four pillars of wellness – mind,
movement,
nutrition and therapy – the facility features two group exercise studi
Active Blackpool is deploying Cornerstone Connect, a new digital interface allowing
disparate information from multiple systems to be aggregated into one dataset, to support
its focus on reducing health inequalities and improving healthy life expectancy. [more...]
Panatta brought together four of the most influential figures in bodybuilding history on the
stage of RiminiWellness 2026: Phil Heath, Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman and Hany Rambod. [more...]
