Finding Things That Matter to Performance: The use of deterministic modelling

In high performance sport, successful innovations are more than “shiny new things”. And, innovations are more than just “technologies”. Successful innovations target things that create measurable improvements to performance and the factors that contribute to it. But how do you go about targeting the things that can sufficiently change within the rules of competition and within the timeframes available for Olympic and Paralympic outcomes?

Dr Peter Vint outlines the systematic approach he takes when first engaging with a sport, to determine the things that matter most to performance. His process of identifying factors and their relationship to the performance outcome is objective and unambiguous, and strictly relies on physical, mechanical and / or mathematical principles, or on the rules and regulations of the sport itself.

In this presentation, Peter considers the role of research in any innovation program, and his experiences managing the interaction between the high performance environment and University academics. Finally, Peter talks about why some innovation efforts fail in a high performance environment.