Sport and Exercise Science
Understand responses to physical activity
Sport and Exercise Science involves an complete understanding of physiology – the science of life.
Depending on what Sport and Exercise Science course you study, you'll explore the psychological and biomechanical principles to help improve athletic performance.
Why study Sport and Exercise Science?
To break records, push boundaries and help people perform at their best.
You'll learn how to optimise factors in sport and then apply it to things like physiology, psychology, biochemistry, biomechanics and nutrition. Get ready to investigate how we can boost health and wellbeing through physical activity.
Careers and opportunities in Sport and Exercise Science
In today's health-conscious world, the sports and health industries continue to expand. And job opportunities are vast in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Prepare to follow our students into careers like:
- Health and fitness training
- Professional sports clubs, including UK Sport
- Schools and higher education institutions
- The health sector, including the NHS
- Private health and fitness clubs, spas and public sports
- Setting up your own business or consultancy
An introduction to Sport and Exercise Science using Biomechanics
Biomechanics explores how exercise can help us understand how our bodies work – from what the limits of human endurance are, to how they're affected by chronic health conditions. It's used to improve performance and reduce injury risk. Take a look at this through the biomechanical principle of balance.
How do we balance?
What is balance? Why do we need it, both in sport and in everyday life, and how do we maintain and improve it for sporting performance?
Our centre of mass, stability and our own senses can all impact our ability to balance - both in everyday life and in sport.
In the images below, the centre of mass is represented by the blue circle, and the red area represents the size of the base the person is standing on. Although the centre of mass of the person’s body hasn’t moved, the size of the base they are standing on has.
In the first image, the centre of mass has a larger area over which to keep the person stable. In the second image the person has to raise her arms to achieve a similar level of stability or balance.
This is why you feel less balanced standing on one leg compared to standing on two.
Measuring balance
Balance is measured to help athletes identify areas for improving their sporting performance.
Why is studying balance important?
By understanding how we achieve balance and the conditions that affect it, you'll contribute to improvements in many aspects of both sporting performance and everyday life, including:
- Reducing fall risk
- Improving sporting performance
- Reduce the likelihood of injury
- Enhancing injury rehabilitation
Sport and Exercise Psychology
Interested in the psychology of sport?
Sport and exercise psychologists help athletes manage the mental demands of their sport. Ciara graduated in 2021 with a BSc and MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology from the University of Portsmouth. She's now a Wellbeing Access Worker for Herts Mind Network. See what Ciara’s role entails and how she’s applying the skills she learnt during her time at Portsmouth.
I'm Ciara Nolan and I'm a Wellbeing Access Worker for the Hertsfordshire Mind Network.
The University of Portsmouth stood
out to me because it's really well regarded and the sport faculties are really respected.
They had a lot of work experience opportunities, and the lectures themselves just seemed like they all came from really solid backgrounds that they could provide a lot of knowledge for us.
It was kind of there or nowhere.
By the end of finishing my A-levels, it was everything that I could have wanted it to be and more.
I joined netball on the first day, then I became the media sec, so I started the newsletter that still goes on today, which is really cool.
In the third year, I was the social sec so I organised all of the Purple Wednesdays, invited all of the club.
Then we all went to Croatia on a sports tour so I organised that and we all managed to get there and back, so it was a really good time.
We had a lot of knowledge at the undergrad that really helped in the masters.
Some of my peers didn't go to Portsmouth and they were really behind compared to where we were, so in that sense, I don't think we could have been more ready for the masters and we got a lot of practical support.
Since graduating in 2020, I landed my dream role, which is providing access to people who might not already know about mental health services.
So I did get that passion for it in uni because I did my dissertation research on the levels of mental health literacy in athletes and unfortunately, not many people do have good knowledge of that.
I think I just want to allow for my knowledge that I've learnt at uni to kind of go out there and speak to members of the public who might not already know and at least change some people's perceptions of mental health and then also just the support that's available to them so that one day it might help them.
I think without the University of Portsmouth, I'd be a bit lost and I wouldn't know what I want to do.
It really did steer me into the direction of what I want to achieve in life.
One of the proudest moments of my career at the moment is probably attending these events and people come up to you and they really would like some support quite urgently and there is support available and they can get help.
I feel really proud of myself, every night I can go to sleep and think that I've hopefully helped one more person with their mental health today.
