A team of crack defiantists.

We do things a little differently at eo because great things happen when you defy convention. Knowledge collides in new and unusual ways. Ground-breaking innovations are born. Ideas are put into action.

There’s a wealth of research, studies, and new information out there – but most of it sits in specialist silos. Research for research’s sake rather than with a particular purpose in mind. Good on you, we say, but that’s not what we do.

Our scientists explore widely in the realms of science and technology for smart applications in sport. Our lab is a place where the latest research from all fields combines into something special on the field. Or in the pool. Or wherever you get your kicks. From microfluidics to miniaturisation, in-field testing to wearable tech. We’re pretty agnostic about where these discoveries come from. We only care about where they can take us.

You won’t find geeks in our lab. You will find innovative defiantists, putting knowledge to use to push the world forward.

 

Our defiantists are leaders in sport performance. Let us introduce you to some of them:


scientific team

Dr Kenneth Graham PHD

Principal Scientist

Dr Paul Bloomfield

Chief Medical Consultant

CONSULTING team

John Quinn

Clinical Exercise Physiologist

Jock Campbell

High Performance Director, Jock Athletic

Nik Popovic

Head Performance Coach, University of Southern California

Our scientific approach

When the eo scientists put pen to paper they’re not looking to collect data measurements that are sorta, kinda accurate. It has to be dead on – or it’s not worth doing. We’re not throwing stuff at walls and seeing what sticks. We’re testing, refining, testing, refining, on and on until we know what we’re delivering is useful and accurate. If it’s not, it’s not worth doing. And we won’t do it.

Research papers

Olympic performances have improved dramatically over the last hundred years, driven to a great extent by the emergence of sports science. The aim of this study is to describe a new aspect of sports science, the role of mathematics and physics in the precision training of 2024 Olympic swimming hopefuls.

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The validity/reliability/accuracy of sensors used in sport are important to allow for confidence in the quantitative changes in values measured and recorded. The use of first principle physical techniques for evaluating the values recorded by sensors allows for both tracing measures back to known standards and easy replication by others. 

This document outlines a seiers of measures designed to assess the accuracy and reliability of the IMU sensors in eo SwimBETTER to detect displacement (distance) ini a controlled condition.

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The validity/reliability/accuracy of sensors used in sport are important to allow for confidence in the quantitative changes in values measured and recorded. The use of first principle physical techniques for evaluating the values recorded by sensors allows for both tracing measures back to known standards and easy replication by others. 

This document outlines an initial series of pressure measures on 4 handsets (8 sensors) conducted at an aquatic centre with a 5-metre deep pool. 

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https://doi.org/10.1080/14763141.2019.1650102

The aim of the study was to investigate whether jerk cost (JC) can discriminate between swimming levels. Nine elite and nine non-elite swimmers swam a 50-m front-crawl sprint wearing a 3D accelerometer on their back between the inferior angles of the scapulae. Lap times and JC were calculated from the acceleration signal and compared between groups and between swimmers within a group. The elite swimmers swam significantly faster lap times than the non-elite swimmers (p < 0.001). They did so with significantly lower levels of JC compared to the non-elite swimmers (p = 0.005). Furthermore, a stepwise multiple linear regression showed JC accounted for 32.9% of the variation in lap time of the elite swimmers. These results indicate that it is possible to discriminate elite from non-elite swimmers using JC: elite swimmers swim with lower JCs than non-elite swimmers. Additionally, swimming at higher speed is associated with more accelerations and decelerations in both elite and non-elite swimmers, which is reflected by higher JCs and lower smoothness. In sum, JC provides an index of swimming technique that is easy to use in training practice.

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Context: In front-crawl swimming, the upper limbs perform alternating movements with the aim of achieving a continuous application of force in the water, leading to lower intracyclic velocity variation (dv). This parameter has been identified as a crucial criterion for swimmers’ evaluation.

Purpose: To examine the assessment of intracyclic force variation (dF) and to analyze its relationship with dv and swimming performance

Methods: A total of 22 high-level male swimmers performed a maximal-effort 50-m front-crawl time trial and a 30-s maximal-effort fully tethered swimming test, which were randomly assigned. Instantaneous velocity was obtained by a speedometer and force by a strain-gauge system.

Results: Similarity was observed between the tests, with dF attaining much higher magnitudes than dv (P < .001; d = 8.89). There were no differences in stroke rate or in physiological responses between tethered and free swimming, with a high level of agreement for the stroke rate and blood lactate increase. Swimming velocity presented a strong negative linear relationship with dF (r = −.826, P < .001) and a moderate negative nonlinear relationship with dv (r = .734, P < .01). With the addition of the maximum impulse to dF, multiple-regression analysis explained 83% of the free-swimming performance.

Conclusions: Assessing dF is a promising approach for evaluating a swimmer’s performance. From the experiments, this new parameter showed that swimmers with higher dF also present higher dv, leading to a decrease in performance.

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The aim of this study was to propose a group of parameters able to quantify not only arm coordination but also inter limb coordination. These include the well know index of coordination with the relative duration of the stroke phases and two new parameters: the Index of synchronization (Ids) between arms and legs actions; and the Index of inter limb coordination (IdIC) calculated as the relative foot position during successive arm stroke phases. These parameters were compared between experts and amateur swimmers in a maximal front crawl sprint. The influence of arm stroke in leg kick parameters was also assessed, comparing the full stroke condition with a condition without arms actions. Sixty-five per cent of expert swimmers used synchronized limb actions while 95% of amateur swimmers used non-synchronized limb motions. These synchronized expert swimmers also converged towards a specific coordination pattern between foot position and arm stroke phases. In the condition without arms, both groups changed kick rate and amplitude. The present study reveals the interdependency of arms and legs actions and the importance of coordination and synchronization between limbs. Therefore, the proposed group of overall indexes of coordination provides a more complete marker for the analysis of swimming technique.

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Sports-related concussion is associated with a range of short-term functional deficits that are commonly thought to recover within a two-week post-injury period for most, but certainly not all, persons. Resting state electroencephalography (rs-EEG) may prove to be an affordable, accessible, and sensitive method of assessing severity of brain injury and rate of recovery after a concussion. This article presents a systematic review of rs-EEG in sports-related concussion. A systematic review of articles published in the English language, up to June 2017, was retrieved via PsychINFO, Medline, Medline In Process, Embase, SportDiscus, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library, Reviews, and Trials. The following key words were used for database searches: electroencephalography, quantitative electroencephalography, qEEG, cranio-cerebral trauma, mild traumatic brain injury, mTBI, traumatic brain injury, brain concussion, concussion, brain damage, sport, athletic, and athlete. Observational, cohort, correlational, cross-sectional, and longitudinal studies were all included in the current review. Sixteen articles met inclusion criteria, which included data on 504 athletes and 367 controls. All 16 articles reported some abnormality in rs-EEG activity after a concussion; however, the cortical rhythms that were affected varied. Despite substantial methodological and analytical differences across the 16 studies, the current review suggests that rs-EEG may provide a reliable technique to identify persistent functional changes in athletes after a concussion. Because of the varied approaches, however, considerable work is needed to establish a systematic methodology to assess its efficacy as a marker of return-to-play.

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A variety of assessment tools are currently available to help clinicians assess Sports Related Concussion (SRC). Currently, the most widely available tools are neither objective nor portable, and are therefore not ideal for assessment at the site and time of a suspected injury. A portable system was developed to deliver a measurement of the steady-state visual-evoked potential (SSVEP). This system involved a smartphone housed in a Google Cardboard frame, which delivered a 15-Hz flicker visual stimulus while an electroencephalography (EEG) headset recorded EEG signals. Sixty-five rugby union players were tested during their regular season and were stratified into healthy, concussed, and recovered groups based on clinical examination. Their SSVEP response was quantified into a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The SNRs of players in each study group were summarized. Additionally, the SNRs of individual players who had baseline, post-injury, and post-recovery readings were analyzed. Sixty-five participants completed a baseline evaluation to measure their SSVEP. Twelve of these participants sustained a medically diagnosed concussion and completed SSVEP re-testing within 72 h. Eight concussed players received follow-up SSVEP testing after recovery. Concussed participants had a lower SNR [2.20 (2.04-2.38)] when compared to their baseline [4.54 (3.79-5.10)]. When clinically recovered, participant SNR was not significantly different to their baseline [4.82 (4.13-5.18)]. The baseline SNRs of the players who experienced a concussion during the season were not different to those of players who did not experience a concussion [4.80 (4.07-5.68)]. This is the first study to identify differences in SSVEP responses in male amateur rugby union players with and without concussion. It is also the first SSVEP demonstration for concussion evaluation at point-of-care. SSVEPs are significantly attenuated in the presence of concussion in these male athletes. Individuals returned to their baseline SSVEP following clinical recovery from the concussive injury. The use of SSVEPs has the potential to be a supplemental aid for the assessment and management of concussion.

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The goal of this study was to measure the neurophysiological and cognitive functions of a sport-concussed child and to longitudinally assess the recovery pattern. An 8-year-old girl suffered a concussion while playing soccer. Visual evoked potentials (VEPs) were recorded at 7 weeks pre-injury and 24 h, 7, 22, 32 and 55 weeks post-injury. A neuropsychological assessment performed at 24 h post-injury reveals cognitive impairments, mainly attentional, that resolved within 22 weeks. VEPs and spectral analyses confirm the presence of cortical impairments up to 1 year post-injury, especially affecting vigilance and attention, which were reflected in school performance.

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The neurocognitive sequelae of a sport-related concussion and its management are poorly defined. Detecting deficits are vital in making a decision about the treatment plan as it can persist one year or more following a brain injury. The reliability of traditional cognitive assessment tools is debatable, and thus attention has turned to assessments based on electroencephalogram (EEG) to evaluate subtle post-concussive alterations. In this study, we calculated neurocognitive deficits combining EEG analysis with three standard post-concussive assessment tools. Data were collected for all testing modalities from 21 adolescent athletes (seven concussive and fourteen healthy) in three different trials. For EEG assessment, along with linear frequency-based features, we introduced a set of time-frequency (Hjorth Parameters) and nonlinear features (approximate entropy and Hurst exponent) for the first time to explore post-concussive deficits. Besides traditional frequency-band analysis, we also presented a new individual frequency-based approach for EEG assessment. While EEG analysis exhibited significant discrepancies between the groups, none of the cognitive assessment resulted in significant deficits. Therefore, the evidence from the study highlights that our proposed EEG analysis and markers are more efficient at deciphering post-concussion residual neurocognitive deficits and thus has a potential clinical utility of proper concussion assessment and management.

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Most EEG studies used event-related potentials to assess long-term and cumulative effects of sport-related concussions on brain activity. Time-frequency methods provide another approach that allows the detection of subtle shifts in types and patterns of brain oscillations. We sought to discover whether event-related alpha activity would be significantly affected in asymptomatic multi-concussed athletes. We measured the amplitude of alpha activity (8-12Hz) from the EEG recorded during a visual-spatial attention task to compare event-related alpha perturbations in 13 multi-concussed athletes and 14 age-equivalent, non-concussed teammates. Relative to non-concussed athletes, multi-concussed athletes showed significantly less event-related perturbations time-locked to stimulus presentation. Alpha activity alterations were closely related to the number of concussions sustained. Event-related alpha activity differed in asymptomatic multi-concussed athletes when compared to controls. Our study suggests that low-level neurophysiological underpinnings of the deployment of visual-spatial attention are affected in multi-concussed athletes even though their last concussion occurred on average 30 months prior to testing.

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