Dr Sylvia Moeskops (Cardiff Metropolitan University): Nature or Nurture - Can young females benefit from strength training?

Dr Sylvia Moeskops is a lecturer in Strength and Conditioning at Cardiff Metropolitan University. She has recently completed her PhD which investigated the effects of growth, maturation and training on strength and power development in young female artistic gymnasts. Her interest in the topic was inspired from her experiences as a young gymnast and her time coaching artistic gymnasts. Sylvia works as a strength and conditioning coach in the Youth Physical Development Centre at Cardiff Metropolitan University. She currently leads the programming and delivery for the young artistic female gymnasts. She has also recently started strength and conditioning provision in local gymnastics clubs & delivering S&C CPD workshops for Welsh Gymnastics.

In this episode Sylvia discusses:

• How her 8 week Master's study set the scene for her PhD Research.

• The resource intensive nature of running a 10 month long term training study for her PhD.

• The importance of having a control, gymnastics only and a combined training group to demonstrate training effect.

• The extensive testing battery they used to determine if S&C improved performance in youth female gymnasts.

• Why she spent 8 weeks focussing on movement competency even with gymnasts.

• The importance of cognitive maturity in determining young athlete's programs.

• The results, benefits and applications of her PhD research in training young female athletes.

You can check out Sylvia work via her Research Gate profile here  and keep up to date with her via the Instagram account: @project_spring_gymnasts and via @sylviamoeskops on Twitter.

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