In this short blog, I wanted to provide a quick overview of the chapter I wrote titled ‘Deceleration in Sport: Incidence, Demands and Implications for Training?’ which features in the book edited by Paul Jones and Tom Dos Santos titled ‘Multi-Directional Speed in Sport: Research to Application’. In this chapter and this blog ‘deceleration’ is referring to whole body horizontal deceleration that occurs prior to the many changes of direction that players perform in multi-directional sports. As I highlight in the opening paragraph of the chapter, deceleration has been largely overlooked in comparison to acceleration and maximum velocity sprint running …

In my previous blog I outlined why deceleration and braking have such significant implications for sports performance and injury-risk reduction for athletes participating in multi-directional sports. I highlighted that: Intense decelerations are highly frequent in match-play, and The braking steps associated with decelerating are characterised by a unique ground reaction force profile imposing high impact peaks and loading rates across very short time periods (I will go into more detail of these mechanical demands in the next post). It is therefore vitally important that athletes involved in multi directional sports are well prepared to tolerate these forces to reduce the …

Welcome to Human Braking Performance! My name is Dr Damian Harper and I am delighted to officially launch the Human Braking Performance website. This website is dedicated to generating and sharing new knowledge, insights and solutions to coaches, sport scientists and medical practitioners on how to optimise athlete performance and injury resilience by enhancing deceleration and braking performance capabilities. In this first post I wanted to start by discussing why deceleration and braking have such significant implications for sports performance and injury-risk reduction, particularly for athletes participating in multi-directional sports such as: soccer, American Football, basketball, rugby, tennis… to name …