Ken’s comment on: The GSK HPL in 2015

I recently had the absolute privilege to hear David Smith MBE deliver a conference keynote. Impressively David has been an international bobsledder, a two time World Champion and London 2012 Paralympic Champion in Rowing, and is now bidding to represent Great Britain in Paralympic Cycling in Rio 2016. But truly remarkable and inspirational is how David leads his life with a life threatening tumour on his spinal cord, which requires frequent and high risk surgery followed by painful mental and physical rehabilitation.

David shared his maxim for life: “Practice Gratitude”. His challenge to the audience was to be grateful for what we have – working in high performance sport, the passion we have for our work, and our health are probably things many of us take for granted. Rather than attempt to convey the magnitude of David’s courage and positivity in this short article, I’ll simply say that David received a standing ovation from the 300 strong audience – something I’ve never seen in 20 years of attending conferences!  

And so with this in mind, I reflect on just how grateful we are at the GSK Human Performance Lab for the opportunity we have to work with a wide variety of performance partners and to undertake fascinating and valuable applied research to better understand human performance. We’re indebted to the elite athletes, sports governing bodies, professional clubs and extreme explorers we work with – they invite us to contribute to their ambition and allow us to carry out some truly innovative research.

Two time Tour de France winner, Chris Froome, approached us to undertake a comprehensive physiological assessment – to start a partnership with arguably the best endurance athlete in the world has certainly been a highlight and a privilege. If you haven’t seen it already, you can access Chris’s assessment report and a short film on our website. Shu Pillinger became the first British woman to complete the Race Across America (RAAM) solo race – this was doubly rewarding for us given the support we gave before and during the event together with the fact that Shu was unsuccessful last year due to a sleep-induced crash and broken collarbone. And as the year ends, we eagerly track the progress of the Coxless Crew – an intrepid team of four women rowing across the Pacific. They’re currently on leg 3 of the trip, taking them from Samoa to Cairns. They’ve spent c. 200 days at sea and have approx. 1,400 nautical miles to go. An incredible challenge and an equally rich opportunity for us to research and better understand human performance. 

This year, we’ve completed research studies in nutrition and metabolic adaptation, protein and bone health, athletic recovery and adaptation, and the relationship between cognitive function, training load and performance. We aim to share as much of this work as possible and this year we’ve broadcast live webcasts on topics ranging from decision-making in sport to nutrition and bone health. We’ve held symposia on themes including managing muscle mass and body weight, and performance in extreme environments. All of these events are available on our Science Community website. We’ve also presented and showcased our work at many scientific and industry conferences, including supporting the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) Annual Conference. Looking ahead, much of this research will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals in 2016.

So what else lies beyond the brussel sprouts and mince pies? Of course, 2016 brings the Rio de Janeiro Olympics and Paralympics: the quadrennial pinnacle for multi-sport competition and an enormous focus for so many practitioners and applied researchers. We’ll continue to work closely with our partners, including Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee, British Triathlon, GB Canoeing to optimise their preparation and race strategies.  

And perhaps a third Tour de France win for Chris Froome? Given the reaction to our recent publication of Chris’ physiological assessment, what we can predict with certainty is the interest, excitement and no doubt criticism that next year’s publication of Chris’ full physiological data in a scientific journal will generate!