Combining Research With "Servicing" to Enhance Sport Performance

In high-performance environments, the interaction of sport scientists with coaches and athletes is often referred to as servicing. In some cases, providing services to athletes (eg, collecting training data) is considered one of the primary roles of the sport scientist. In both professional and Olympic sports, research is rarely considered a priority, often thought to have little value and, for some, an activity that only “academics” embrace. However, as the assessment of the physiological, psychological, and skill-based determinants of elite athlete performance continues to progress in complexity and sophistication, it may be the case that athlete servicing and research should be viewed on a continuum rather than as 2 separate entities.