Peak Performance

Peak Performance | Annual BioLab Excursion 

On Friday 3 November, 24 students made the early morning trip to Geelong to spend a day with the BioLab staff as they had the opportunity to experience a ‘Day in the Life of a Sport Scientist’. 

The Year 10 Peak Performance students had ventured to the Deakin University (Waurn Ponds Campus) to be engaged in the ‘Winning Edge’ session. Key activities from the session included gaining an understanding of the different synovial joints in the human body and how to measure joint angles when performing exercises. This was combined with comparing the difference between relative and absolute VO² Max (amount of oxygen that is used during exercise). 

Students from the Year 9 Peak Performance program, combined with three of our Year 8 WestVic Academy students had participated in two sessions known as the ‘Inner Sanctum’ & ‘The Human Machine’. Both sessions explored sport psychology principles such as imagery and routine to improve an athlete’s reaction time. As well as how the Cardiorespiratory systems will adapt during high intensity exercises. 

All students were able to utilise specialist equipment that is used by the world’s best athletes such as spirometers, heart rate monitors as well as the ‘Batak’ system used for measuring reaction time. 

Before students boarded the bus to head home to Horsham, we had visited ‘Bounce’ in Geelong. Horsham College students could have been easily mistaken for an elite gymnastics club as they treated locals to a ‘flipping’ extravaganza. Bounce staff were in awe of the fearless nature of our students as they climbed up the rock climbing walls with ease and showed no sign of becoming dizzy as the bounced, flipped, spun and did a whole-lot of freakishly cool maneuvers. 

A big thank you for the staff who attended a mammoth but incredibly enjoyable day with some talented students – Mr Kirkwood, Miss Bywaters, Mr Murphy & Brooklyn.