Have you ever wondered what exactly goes on behind the four walls of the sportscotland institute of sport?
If so, you're sure to be enlightened by Performance LIVE!, a new series of Facebook Live programmes aimed at showcasing the work of the experts who support high-performance athletes and sports in Scotland.
Scottish sport has enjoyed an unprecedented run of success at Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games in recent years and institute expertise has been a major component of the medal haul accumulated by Scotland's athletes on the world stage.
Now, as those athletes prepare to take part in three major Games in 2018, sportscotland aims to tell more and more people about the stories behind the science and the stories behind the success, using social media as a vehicle. The Performance LIVE! series is scheduled to run until early 2018.
Athlete Masterchef
The first part of the Performance LIVE! series was Athlete Masterchef, a cooking competition for swimmers from the University of Stirling Swim Team.
The group, including Rio 2016 Olympians Duncan Scott, Ross Murdoch and Craig Benson, took part in a series of classes arranged by the institute's performance nutrition team in conjunction with Quality Meat Scotland.
Duncan Scott, winner of two silver medals in Rio, said afterwards: “It was fantastic being part of this project as it’s given me a range of new recipes to try which are not complicated - they are quick, easy, nutritious and, most importantly, very tasty.”
Thousands of people have tuned in to watch the video on the sportscotland Facebook page, and you can also view it on YouTube.
Mindfulness
Our second Performance LIVE! was a two-part introduction to mindfulness with Misha Botting, a Russian-born sport psychologist and former ballet dancer who has been working with institute-supported athletes for more than a decade.
"In the recent past the word mindfulness has become more and more common in our personal and professional lives. Now this concept is deeply embedded in high-performance sport," explains Misha, who currently works primarily with the GB Curling Olympic and Paralympic teams as well as athletes from Scottish Hockey and Scottish Gymnastics.
Watch all Performance LIVE! and other Facebook videos here.
The Warm-Up
The University of Stirling Swim Team proved to be great sports again when they teamed up with Jon Twynham, institute physiotherapist, to demonstrate the kind of stretching routines that formed part of their daily warm-up.
As Jon says in his Cutting Edge blog, "Warming up before exercise is important for many reasons but principally it allows us to ready the body for what we are about to do. It is also a great opportunity to express and develop our movement vocabulary."
Watch all Performance LIVE! and other Facebook videos here.
Find out more
To read more about the work of the experts at the sportscotland institute of sport visit Cutting Edge.
