How can elite athletes sustain high performance over time? When KI took part in this autumn's Coach Forum on Limnos, research met the experiences of coaches. Carl Johan Sundberg sees coaches as key to ensuring that knowledge reaches several generations of athletes.
When does the body need more training, and when does it need rest? At the Swedish Olympic Committee's (SOK) Coach Forum on the Greek island of Lemnos, coaches and leaders from 17 sports gathered in early October. Representatives of the Swedish Olympic Academy (SOA) also took part. The programme covered sleep, nutrition, performance psychology and returning after injury. Eric Emanuelsson and Daniele Cardinale represented KI.
KI's collaboration with SOA began in 2017, when Karin Dahlman-Wright was acting president. The Academy brings together KI, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the Stockholm School of Economics and SOK. Carl Johan Sundberg , professor at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, describes how the needs of coaches have been given greater priority over time.
Knowledge that stays with you
An elite sporting career is limited in duration. A coach, however, may work with several generations of athletes. Knowledge of exercise physiology, psychology, sleep and nutrition can therefore have a lasting impact on a coach's day-to-day work. According to Carl Johan Sundberg, KI's contribution is about both enhancing performance and making it sustainable over time.
The exchange works both ways. Coaches' experiences can help researchers formulate questions that are relevant in practice, while researchers contribute methods for investigating them. Carl Johan Sundberg sees opportunities to develop these contacts into shared research questions and concrete research programmes.
What Happens to the Immune System?
At KI, Stefan Reitzner studies how the immune system responds to individual exercise sessions and long-term training. He is affiliated with both Carl Johan Sundberg's and Petter Brodin's research groups. The immune system plays a role in recovery and tissue repair following physical exertion, but it also requires energy. How the body allocates its resources during strenuous exercise is one aspect of this research. The question is more complex than whether exercise strengthens or weakens the immune system.
For Carl Johan Sundberg, the value lies in both learning from elite sport and making research useful in that setting. Questions raised by coaches can help shape new studies. In turn, research can contribute to more informed decisions about training and recovery, with insights that may also be relevant beyond elite sport.
