18 April 2024
MS Teams Webinar
Lessons learned from 50 years working with elite athletes.
The first Aquero lecture of 2024, held on 18 April, was presented by the SPRINT Research Centre in collaboration with the Mary Mackillop Institute for Health Research.
Hear how optimal sleep and nutrition are two of the most critical contributors to elite athlete performance.
While athletes are often considered at the extreme of human performance, research in nutrition and sleep in athletes can provide valuable lessons for optimising and enhancing our own health and wellbeing. Learn how sleep benefits physical and mental health, as well as techniques to protect and enhance sleep. Discover, using a case study of an elite athlete, how to achieve changes in body composition - increased muscle mass and reduced body fat - for a healthier lifespan. Professor Louise Burle also unveils the newest addition to the ACU Health Precinct: a metabolic chamber.
Professor Louise Burke
ACU | Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research
Louise is a sports dietitian with 40 years of experience in the education and counselling of elite athletes. She worked at the Australian Institute of Sport for 30 years, first as Head of Sports Nutrition and then as Chief of Nutrition Strategy. She was the team dietitian for the Australian Olympic Teams from 1996 to the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Her publications include more than 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, and the authorship or editorship of several textbooks on sports nutrition. She is an editor of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. Louise was a founding member of the Executive of Sports Dietitians Australia and is a Director of the IOC Diploma in Sports Nutrition.
She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2009 for her contribution to sports nutrition. Louise was appointed as Chair in Sports Nutrition in the Mary MacKillop Institute of Health Research at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne in 2014 and took up this position full-time in 2020.
Professor Shona Halson
ACU | SPRINT Research Centre
Professor Shona Halson from ACU's School of Behavioural and Health Sciences has been a mainstay of Australia's high performance sport network. Her research focuses on recovery, fatigue and sleep and she has been a trusted advisor to countless elite coaches and athletes. Prof Halson was named as one of Exercise and Sport Science Australia's three Female Leaders in Exercise and Sports Science on International Women's Day 2019. Prof Halson's notable career milestones include being the Head Recovery Physiologist at the Australian Institute of Sport from 2002 to 2018 and being part of three Olympic campaigns with the national team.
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