Physical Activity Researcher

Sport as Craftsmanship (Pt2) - Dr Noora Ronkainen - Meaningful Sport Series

The classic sociological writings (Mills, 1951; Sennett, 2008) describe craftsmanship as a desire to do our work well “for its own sake”. Craftsmanship involves a holistic understanding of the craft and possession of tacit knowledge that is difficult to articulate. It is often considered a critical theory that is a response to alienating conditions in our work and educational institutions. Can craftsmanship provide a way to rethink our cultures of work, school and sport to provide more opportunities for ownership and meaningful experiences? 
In this second part of our conversation, we explore the studies that have been conducted in movement culture and sports contexts. We also discuss the relationship between meaningfulness and meaninglessness, and end with an important note that although craftsmanship seems a promising concept, it is only one potential avenue that could contribute to meaningfulness in sport. 
It is a good idea to start with Part 1 which can be accessed here: https://paresearcher.podbean.com/e/ronkainen1/

Why should we have fat percentage limit for endurance sports? Dr Ritva Taipale

Exercise physiology of women, and more specifically menstural cycle and exercise.
Dr Ritva Taipale has done her PhD on combined strength and endurance training in recreational endurance runners. Currently, she is working as a post-doctoral researcher in University of Jyväskylä (in Vuokatti Campus) focusing on exercise physiology of women and sport and wellness tech.
 
Timestamps:
2:30 Hear about unique sports technology dual career pathway for athletes!
6:30 What is the state of research in exercise physiology of women?
8:15 What are other important topics of exercise physiology of women?
9:15 Basics of menstrual cycle
12:15 How menstrual cycle is affecting exercising and sports?
14.30 Important points of female athletic triad
17:00 How common is energy availability problems in female athletes?
18:30 Should endurance sports have minimum fat percentage limit?
22:30 What mistake coaches should avoid doing with women athletes?
25:00 What are long-term health consequences of female athlete triad?
27.30 Energy availability is problem also for male athletes!
29:45 Osteoporosis in road cyclists
---
This podcast episode is sponsored by Fibion Inc. | The New Gold Standard for Sedentary Behaviour and Physical Activity Monitoring
Learn more about Fibion: fibion.com/research
---
Collect, store and manage SB and PA data easily and remotely -
Discover new Fibion SENS Motion: https://sens.fibion.com/
---

What can Philosophical Archaeology tell us about the Crisis of Modern Sport (Pt1)? Dr Sandra Meeuwsen - Meaningful Sport Series

Modern sport has an increasingly contradictory face: on the one hand, we can see a positive impact of sport in our societies, but on the other hand, we increasingly often hear about abuse and misconduct in sport, including sexual harassment, doping and corruption. How can we make sense of these contradictory trends and how can philosophical analysis help us to vision a more balanced, or more meaningful future for sport?
Dr Sandra Meeuwsen is a philosopher of sport who worked in various vital positions in sport since the early 1990s. She encountered these contradictions of sport in daily work which led her to embark on a PhD project to understand these issues. She completed her PhD in 2020 at the Faculty of Philosophy and Moral Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels with the thesis "A Critique of Sportive Reason; a philosophical archaeology of modern sport”.
In her thesis, she drew on Foucault, Agamben, Spinoza and psychoanalytical approaches to analyse our ‘knowing’ about what sport is - and what is excluded - and the shifts in this knowledge we’ve had since the rise of modern sports to its current existence.
You can find out more about Sandra's work at https://sandrameeuwsen.nl/ and follow her on Twitter @MeeuwsenPhd.

The beginning, struggles and future of this podcast? Host Dr Olli Tikkanen

In this episode host Olli Tikkanen takes role of a guest as Melissa Boswell and Hannah O’Day take the roles of hosts. Melissa and Hannah are from  podcast called Biomechanics of Our Mind’s (https://soundcloud.com/biomechanics-on-our-minds) they talk to researchers around the world about the exciting field of biomechanics.
Check the episode and find out, how did Olli end up recording podcasts in a freezing camper van?
---
This podcast episode is sponsored by Fibion Inc. | The New Gold Standard for Sedentary Behaviour and Physical Activity Monitoring
Learn more about Fibion: fibion.com/research
---
Collect, store and manage SB and PA data easily and remotely -
Discover new Fibion SENS Motion: https://sens.fibion.com/
---

Why do we need Phenomenology in Physical Education? Prof. Øyvind Standal (Pt1) - Meaningful Sport Series

Meaning has been a core concept for physical educators for a very long time, and often explored through a phenomenological perspective. Why is phenomenology central for understanding meaningful movement and physical education as an educational subject rather than mere physical activity? Are habits more than automated actions and important for meaning?
These and other interesting questions are tackled today with Øyvind Standal, a Professor at the Faculty of Education and International Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.
Prof. Standal has published extensively on physical education, especially in relation to the philosophy of physical education and phenomenology, embodiment, skills and habits. He is the author of the book Phenomenology and Pedagogy in Physical Education (Routledge, 2015).

What are the best things in podcasting? Boswell & O'Day

In this episode we have two Ph.D. students from Stanford University Melissa Boswell and Hannah O’Day. In their podcast called Biomechanics of Our Mind’s (https://soundcloud.com/biomechanics-on-our-minds) they talk to researchers around the world about the exciting field of biomechanics.
We get to hear how their podcast got started, what kind of challenges they have faced, what do they like most in podcasting- and what would be their advice to researcher who are considering starting a podcast.
---
This podcast episode is sponsored by Fibion Inc. | The New Gold Standard for Sedentary Behaviour and Physical Activity Monitoring
Learn more about Fibion: fibion.com/research
---
Collect, store and manage SB and PA data easily and remotely -
Discover new Fibion SENS Motion: https://sens.fibion.com/
---
 

Sport as Craftsmanship (Pt1) - Dr Noora Ronkainen - Meaningful Sport Series

What are the different things in your life that you do for their own sake? Is sport or exercise one of them?
The classic sociological writings (Mills, 1951; Sennett, 2008) describe craftsmanship as a desire to do our work well “for its own sake”. Craftsmanship involves a holistic understanding of the craft and possession of tacit knowledge that is difficult to articulate and is often considered a critical theory that is a response to alienating conditions in our work and educational institutions. There is a recent interest in studying craftsmanship in various organizations as well as leisure contexts, and one of them is sport and movement cultures.
In this episode, the podcast hosts Olli and Noora explore the ideas about craftsmanship and why they are promising when we are aiming to expand our understanding of what makes movement meaningful.
 

How to write a book in 5 weeks? Mr Peter Walker (Pt2)

Part 2. Mr Peter Walker - Sedentary Behaviour | New book | Writing a book | Creating an audio book
In this episode we are discussing with Guardian political journalist Peter Walker about  his new book (The Miracle Pill – Why a sedentary world is getting it all wrong), journalism, politcs and process of writing a book.
“What is the 'miracle pill', the simple lifestyle change with such enormous health benefits that, if it was turned into a drug, would be the most valuable drug in the world? The answer is movement and the good news is that it's free, easy and available to everyone.”
 
Timestamps:
2:30 What valuable Peter learned when tracking his activity?
7:00 How to write a book in 5 weeks?
11:30 What simple but crucial advice journalist and author gives to people who are thinking of writing a book?
15:00 What are the most interesting things Peter learned when being the sound actor of his own book?
18:00 Why the chief medical advisor is being listened only during pandemic and not when fighting against chronic diseases?
21:00 British politic line was “following science” in the beginning of the pandemic – how the “science” was so wrong?
 
 
---
This podcast episode is sponsored by Fibion Inc. | The New Gold Standard for Sedentary Behaviour and Physical Activity Monitoring
Learn more about Fibion: fibion.com/research
---
Collect, store and manage SB and PA data easily and remotely -
Discover new Fibion SENS Motion: https://sens.fibion.com/
---
 

Working with Validity in Qualitative Research (Pt 2) - Drs Ronkainen & Wiltshire

This is the second part of the conversation on validity of qualitative research with Noora Ronkainen and Gareth Wiltshire. The discussion draws on their article Rethinking validity in qualitative sport and exercise psychology research: a realist perspective and provides an overview of the debates, arguments of the paper, and the story behind the writing.
We also discuss their new article A realist approach to thematic analysis: making sense of qualitative data through experiential, inferential and dispositional themes, which moves to consider how the realist perspective - including considerations of validity - can inform each step of thematic analysis.
If you haven't listened to the first part of the episode yet, you can find it here: https://paresearcher.podbean.com/e/ronkainenwiltshire/
Dr Gareth Wiltshire is a lecturer at Loughborough University with broad interests related to the social determinants of health. His work is largely informed by concepts and theories derived from sociology but is proactive in engaging with researchers, practitioners and ideas across different disciplines such as medicine, education, psychology, philosophy, social marketing and behavioural science. He has specialist knowledge in qualitative research having utilised a range of ethnographic, interview and visual methods in the past. You can find out more about Gareth's work on his personal website.
Dr Noora Ronkainen is one of the hosts of the Physical Activity Researcher Podcast and creator of Meaningful Sport. Her most recent academic appointment was at the University of Jyväskylä as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions research fellow in a project "Learning and Being in Sport: A Phenomenological Investigation".

Stories in Sport that can make a Difference - Prof. Kitrina Douglas (Pt2) - Meaningful Sport Series

This is the second part of our conversation on narrative, identity and meaning in sport with Professor Kitrina Douglas. We explore the different stories that circulate in our sport culture and discuss how researchers can use arts-based methods to communicate their findings and make a difference in people's lives.
Kitrina Douglas is a Professor at the University of West London (UK), a Senior Research Fellow at Leeds Beckett University (UK), and a Visiting Professor at the University of Coimbra (Portugal). She has been one of the pioneers in the narrative study of athletes’ lives. Her narrative typology of performance, discovery and relational narratives of sport, developed together with Dr David Carless, has been a foundation for a number of studies that have followed.
Examples of Kitrina's numerous research articles on narrative, identity and sport include:
Challenging interpretive privilege in elite and professional sport: one [athlete’s] story, revised, reshaped and reclaimed
Living, resisting, and playing the part of athlete: Narrative tensions in elite sport
Kitrina has also had an important contribution to advancing arts-based and creative qualitative research methodologies. As you will hear in this episode, her work has been published in the form of films, documentaries, poems, songs, and stories.
For inspiration (songs, interviews etc.), you can visit Kitrina's YouTube channel.

How can researchers influence political decision makers? Mr Peter Walker (Pt1)

Part 1. Mr Peter Walker - Sedentary Behaviour | New book | Politics | JournalismIn this episode we are discussing with Guardian political journalist Peter Walker about  his new book (The Miracle Pill – Why a sedentary world is getting it all wrong), journalism, politics and process of writing a book.
“What is the 'miracle pill', the simple lifestyle change with such enormous health benefits that, if it was turned into a drug, would be the most valuable drug in the world? The answer is movement and the good news is that it's free, easy and available to everyone.”
Timestamps:
6:30 How non-experts’ perspective differs from researchers’ perspective?
8:30 What are the most important points about sedentary lifestyle made in the book?
10:00 What eye-opening Walker learned from the interview with Danish architect?
13:30 What is needed for determined political effort to reduce sedentary behaviour?
15:30 What covid pandemic teached us about nanny-state-arguments – and what this has to do with politics related to sedentary lifestyle?
16:30 What is needed for long-term political change?
20:00 Political correspondent’s advice for researchers – how to influence political decision makers?
22:00 Why researchers should become activists?
23:00 Top tips for researchers: How to collaborate with journalists?
27:00 Highlights of the book
---
This podcast episode is sponsored by Fibion Inc. | The New Gold Standard for Sedentary Behaviour and Physical Activity Monitoring
Learn more about Fibion: fibion.com/research
---
Collect, store and manage SB and PA data easily and remotely -
Discover new Fibion SENS Motion: https://sens.fibion.com/
---
 

Digital Health: web-, mobile-, and tracker-based interventions - Prof. Corneel Vandelanotte (Pt2)

Part 2. 
Series: Understanding Inter-disciplinary Research in Physical Activity
Host: Anum Urooj, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Follow her at Twitter: https://twitter.com/AinaUrooj
Guest: Professor Dr Corneel Vandelanotte
Corneel leads the Physical Activity Research Group and the 10,000 Steps program at the Central Queensland University. In 2004, he completed his PhD in Physical Education at the Ghent University in Belgium. In 2005, he started working at the University of Queensland and he moved to the Central Queensland University in 2009.
His research has a population-based approach to health behaviour change and is focused on the development and evaluation of innovative computer-tailored and web-, app- and tracker-based physical activity interventions.

How do Runners make sense of Run-commuting as a Mobile Practice (Pt2)? Dr Simon Cook - Meaningful Sport Series

This is the second part of our episode on run-commuting with Dr Simon Cook. Today, the conversation moves to explorations of the meanings and experiences of run-commuting, running as sustainable transport and the future potential of run-commuting as a mobile practice. We also hear about Simon’s current research on running during social distancing.
If you haven’t listened to the first part yet, you'll find it here.
Simon Cook is a human geographer and runner based at Birmingham City University. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Academic Support in the Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences. His PhD research (completed in 2020 in Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London), investigated the rise of run-commuting in the UK. His ongoing research projects focus on multi-modal mobilities, post-collision cycling practices and running during social distancing.  
You can follow Simon on Twitter @SimonIanCook and read more about his work on his Jographies blog. 

Digital Health: web-, mobile-, and tracker-based interventions - Prof. Corneel Vandelanotte (Pt1)

Series: Understanding Inter-disciplinary Research in Physical Activity
Host: Anum Urooj, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Follow her at Twitter: https://twitter.com/AinaUrooj
Guest: Professor Dr Corneel Vandelanotte
Corneel leads the Physical Activity Research Group and the 10,000 Steps program at the Central Queensland University. In 2004, he completed his PhD in Physical Education at the Ghent University in Belgium. In 2005, he started working at the University of Queensland and he moved to the Central Queensland University in 2009.
His research has a population-based approach to health behaviour change and is focused on the development and evaluation of innovative computer-tailored and web-, app- and tracker-based physical activity interventions.

Is Running a way to Flee the Absurdity of Human Existence (Pt2)? Prof. John Kaag - Meaningful Sport Series

Why is existential philosophy relevant for understanding the tensions and paradoxes of our sporting lives? How does running (and other sports) become a life-affirming activity, and in other situations a way to escape the absurdity of the human condition? This fascinating conversation with Professor John Kaag explores these questions. This is the second part of the episode and a specific focus is on ageing athletes and encountering our finitude. 
John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is the author of several books including Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who you Are. Our conversation draws from his recent essay How to Live with Dying published in The American Scholar.
You can follow John on Twitter @JohnKaag.
If you didn't listen to the first part yet, you'll find it here:
https://paresearcher.podbean.com/e/kaag/

Struggling with Teaching Load? Learn how to take Advantage of Podcasts. Dr Risto Marttinen (Pt3)

Part 3. Dr Risto Marttinen (Pt3) - Podcasting | Modern teaching tools | Article club podcast
 
Dr Risto Marttinen is an assistant professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, U.S.A.
Check excellent podcast from Risto's team: Playing with Research in Health and Physical Education. You can find it for example here.
---
Link to take part in the physical education podcast study of Dr Scott McNamara:
https://uni.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cI6Ixtc86Hpex4V
---
 
Timestamps:
5:00 Why did Risto start a podcast?
1:08:00 What you should know about using podcast as a teaching tool?
11:00 Article club podcast – why it is favourite format of Dr Marttinen?
15:00 Advantages and disadvantages of different modern teaching methods every lecturer should know.
19:00 What all educators should know about podcasting?
 
---
This podcast episode is sponsored by Fibion Inc. | The New Gold Standard for Sedentary Behaviour and Physical Activity Monitoring
Learn more about Fibion: fibion.com/research
---
Collect, store and manage SB and PA data easily and remotely -
Discover new Fibion SENS Motion: https://sens.fibion.com/
---

What can Narrative Theory tell us about Meaning in Sport? Prof. Kitrina Douglas (Pt1) - Meaningful Sport Series

Does elite sport culture steer athletes towards particular stories, identities, feelings and actions? How can athletes resist the dominant narratives, or should they? How can athletes find different stories that allow them to experience alternative meanings and think, feel and live differently?
Kitrina Douglas is a Professor at the University of West London (UK), a Senior Research Fellow at Leeds Beckett University (UK), and a Visiting Professor at the University of Coimbra (Portugal). She has been one of the pioneers in the narrative study of athletes’ lives. Her narrative typology of performance, discovery and relational narratives of sport, developed together with Dr David Carless, has been a foundation for a number of studies that have followed. In today's episode, she shares fascinating stories from her research and life as an elite athlete, and how she developed and maintained multiple self-stories that were not disrupted by successes and failures experienced in sport.
Examples of Kitrina's numerous research articles on narrative, identity and sport include:
Challenging interpretive privilege in elite and professional sport: one [athlete’s] story, revised, reshaped and reclaimed
Living, resisting, and playing the part of athlete: Narrative tensions in elite sport
Kitrina has also had an important contribution to advancing arts-based and creative qualitative research methodologies. In addition to journal articles and academic books, her work has been published in the form of films, documentaries, poems, songs, and stories. For inspiration, you can visit her YouTube channel.

Issues with Fitness Testing in Physical Education - Dr Risto Marttinen (Pt2)

 
The current state and issues in with Fitness testing in PE.
Dr Risto Marttinen is an assistant professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, U.S.A.
Check excellent podcast from Risto's team: Playing with Research in Health and Physical Education. You can find it for example here.
---
Link to take part in the physical education podcast study of Dr Scott McNamara:
https://uni.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cI6Ixtc86Hpex4V
---
Timestamps:
2:00 Why California stopped fitness testing in schools?
8:00 4-points to make fitness testing feasible in PE
14.00 What all can go wrong in real-world data collection with school age youth?
20:00 What would be ideal activity tracker for youth?
---
This podcast episode is sponsored by Fibion Inc. | The New Gold Standard for Sedentary Behaviour and Physical Activity Monitoring
Learn more about Fibion: fibion.com/research
---
Collect, store and manage SB and PA data easily and remotely -
Discover new Fibion SENS Motion: https://sens.fibion.com/
---

What do we know about the Spiritual Dimension of Sport in Sport Psychology? Drs Nesti & Ronkainen (Pt2) - Meaningful Sport Series

In this episode, facilitated by Olli Tikkanen, Noora and Mark discuss their work together on the spiritual dimension of sport. In this second part of the conversation, we start by exploring the ways that the spiritual dimension has been studied in sport research. We talk a bit about the interest on mindfulness in sport psychology and how it has been distanced from spirituality and philosophical ideas. Mark and Noora discuss their favourite topics in the book: applied sport psychology practice (for Mark), ageing, spirituality and sport (for Noora).
The discussion draws on the book Meaning and Spirituality in Sport and Exercise: Psychological Perspectives  (Routledge, 2018). The book explores the many forms of spirituality in sport from a psychological perspective including experiences of transcendence and finding deeper meaning to moments of disjuncture such as career-threatening injury and ageing.

Where did the Education Disappear from Physical Education? Dr Risto Marttinen (Pt1)

Part 1. Dr Risto Marttinen - Physical education | Lifelong participation | Student centricity
 
Dr Risto Marttinen is an assistant professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, U.S.A.
The increasing focus of PA in school Physical Education (forgetting the E in PE)
The impossibility of PE (in the USA at least) to meet the MVPA goals through prescriptive PE due to time restrictions (obesity, MVPA)
Check excellent podcast from Risto's team: Playing with Research in Health and Physical Education. You can find it for example here.
 
Timestamps:
5:00 Why wrestling teaches a lot of life skills?
10:00 Where did the education disappear from the PE?
15:30 What is role of motor competence for lifelong participation?
18:00 How to be student-centric in PE?
20:00 Does PE need to be fun?
23:00 Simple put clever: informal sports!
24:00 What are constituents of meaningful experiences in PE?
29:00 Lifelong participation – goal of PE?
33:00 Why PE teachers do not need to study more exercise physiology?
---
This podcast episode is sponsored by Fibion Inc. | The New Gold Standard for Sedentary Behaviour and Physical Activity Monitoring
Learn more about Fibion: fibion.com/research
---
Collect, store and manage SB and PA data easily and remotely -
Discover new Fibion SENS Motion: https://sens.fibion.com/
---

Stories of Athletes from Underserved Communities - Rob Book (Pt2) - Meaningful Sport Series

Athletes from underserved communities often have unique challenges and their pathways have received relatively little attention in the study of athletes’ careers. This episode continues exploring these athletes’ stories with Rob Book who is working on an exciting PhD project in this area. We discuss these athletes' cultural transitions and lessons learned from Rob’s work from both research and applied practice perspectives.
Before his doctoral research, Rob worked as a physical education teacher and coach in one of the most challenging school districts in the United States. He then transitioned from a teacher to a researcher to explore those athletes' developmental pathways who come from these communities.
Rob and his supervisory team have recently published two articles that form the basis of our conversation. See here:
Oatmeal is better than no meal: the career pathways of African American male professional athletes from underserved communities in the United States 
Sink or swim: career narratives of two African American athletes from underserved communities in the United States.
Rob Book is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark. His research project is 'Empowering youth athletes against the odds: Athletic talent development environments in underserved communities'. 
You can follow Rob on Twitter @book_rob.