Waikato gets its first sports performance and wellbeing clinic
Wintec, the Waikato Institute of Technology, has opened the regions’s first sports performance and wellbeing clinic to help improve residents’ health and nutrition while enhancing training and athletic prowess.
The new Waikato Human Performance Hub at Wintec’s Rotokauri Campus provides exercise science services to amateur, competitive and professional athletes and teams, as well as those looking to improve their health and wellbeing.
Wintec’s Centre for Sport Science and Human Performance Director, Greg Smith says The Waikato Human Performance Hub is a response to the high demand in the region for training, knowledge and expertise in this area.
Smith explains “there’s currently limited access to services that allow people at all levels to improve their performance or benefit from clinical services.
"The Waikato Region is quickly becoming the sporting and exercise epicentre of the country. We have a growing number of athletes here and a demand for expert services to help them achieve their goals.”
This is a paid service giving the community access to Wintec’s expert staff, facilities and services such as individually prescribed exercise programmes for people with health issues; sports nutrition and exercise programmes; physiological and biomechanics testing and advice, and strength and conditioning assessments. Also on offer is physiotherapy assessment and treatment, sports psychology services, food diary analysis and behaviour modification through exercise.
New Zealand netball player Laura Langman is a local athlete who has worked with Wintec’s sports performance tutors for a number of years to support her performance goals.
Langman adds "I am really pleased to see that Wintec’s staff and students will make the sport science services I have enjoyed available to everyone that wants to achieve their sporting and wellbeing goals.
The hub is run by expert staff within Wintec’s Centre for Sport Science and Human Performance. Wintec’s students studying within the centre will also have the opportunity to gain on-the-job experience.
Smith says the hub will initially focus on two areas - exercise science and exercise as medicine within a health context. Later, the services will extend into the outdoor recreation and education space to include services such as short courses for teachers on outdoor activities, equipment hire and corporate team building challenges.
He concludes “our regional demographics and health statistics, plus the fact that we have many developing and high-performance athletes in the Waikato, is evidence of the need for these services to be made available.”
The Waikato Human Performance Hub offers: exercise physiology, sport-specific testing and recommendations, nutrition advice, mental skills training, biomechanics, strength and conditioning and a biokinetic clinic.
To find out more about Waikato's Human Performance Hub visit www.wintec.ac.nz/whph
Images: Young athletes (top) and an older exerciser (below) put the Waikato Human Performance Hub to the test.
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