On the 13th of February, Mr Streeter and his Year 12 PE Studies class went to the Western Australian Institute of Sport (WAIS). WAIS is a place which enables athletes to achieve international sporting success. When we arrived we were greeted by Myles, an Exercise Physiologist, who presented a seminar to us about Exercise Physiology in Practice. We were then given a tour of the institute where we were given the chance to play Wheelchair Basketball on the basketball courts, which really gave us a different perspective on how the sport is played. We were given a tour of their gym area where they have advanced computer systems, where each athlete has their own training program to follow each week. They have indoor tracks with cameras along the side to measure every single millisecond of their run. It can be used to analyse the way they move to see where, and what they need to improve on. Other athletes also use that area and the cameras for sports such as javelin and discus to analyse the movement of their throwing. They also have a long jump pit and a pole vault area. Included in the tour we got to see their kitchen area, acclimatisation room and exercise research lab. We also had the opportunity to perform our own experiment on environmental conditions and how extreme heat and humidity can affect an athlete’s performance.
After the experiment we were able to use the recovery room where they had three different pools. One was ice cold, one was room temperature and the last was a hot pool. This excursion really presented to us the enormous amount of work that goes into preparing athletes before their competitions or trials. It was a fantastic opportunity and we feel very lucky to have experienced it. The excursion directly related to the WACE Physical Education Syllabus.