15 minute read
Unraveling the Threads of Human Performance
ISSM and FSU’s Sport Psychology Program are Leaders in their Fields
By Melissa Powell
There are countless threads woven into the complex fabric of human performance. Each one impacts our ability to excel in sport, physical activity and our day-to-day lives. Sleep, chronic disease, motivation, nutrition, injuries, concentration, rest, temperature and environment, mental health—the list goes on.
Faculty and students at the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences embrace this complexity, diving into innovative research on diverse populations, and exploring practical applications to elevate human performance and wellbeing. They’re even bringing their expertise to the community through involvement with outreach testing and student practicums.
Take the FSU Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine (ISSM), for example. Located on campus in the McIntosh Track and Field Building, ISSM is a state-of-the-art research institute dedicated to optimizing health and human performance.
ISSM’S Inclusive Approach to Human Performance
Under Health, Nutrition, and Food Sciences Professor Michael Ormsbee’s leadership, ISSM excels in sports science, exercise and nutrition research. And ISSM’s pursuits extend even further beyond athleticism and sports.
“The focus has always been a pretty large umbrella of human performance,” Ormsbee shares. The institute’s inclusive approach encompasses everyone from elite athletes to the general population and those seeking to improve their overall health.
Over the years, ISSM and its affiliates have conducted research with tactical athletes (e.g., firefighters), those with chronic conditions, FSU’s student athletes, and older adults to name just a few.
“Performance isn’t limited to athletes. We all need to perform in life and at work. So, while our populations vary, our end goal is similar,” said Ormsbee, who has been director of ISSM since January 2022.
Ormsbee has worked closely with the institute since it was established in 2010 with founding partners Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic, FSU Athletics, the FSU College of Medicine and Nike. Since then, ISSM has evolved from a warehouse to a full research lab equipped to assess movement data and fall risk, measure body composition, aid with recovery and injury rehabilitation, and plenty more. It even includes a biochemistry laboratory that can test blood, urine or saliva for metabolic and hormonal changes.
As part of its continuous growth, ISSM is building a research-based weight room to accommodate exercise training studies and clinical trials.
“I’m just one of the lucky ones that absolutely loves what I do,” Ormsbee said. “Imagine being able to find answers to any question you have about something you love and doing that every day. That’s how it started for me. My initial research questions were just things I saw and wanted to know more about.”
One line of research Ormsbee and ISSM are most known for is eating before bed, also known as pre-sleep feeding. In general, snacking before bed hasn’t typically been recommended, but Ormsbee and his research teams have found that consuming protein-filled snacks like protein shakes or cottage cheese about 30 minutes before bed has a positive effect on muscle quality, metabolism and overall health.
“That research was born out of just looking at other athletes and active people eating late at night and not having any problems with it,” he said. “That was the initial seed of a question that launched a whole line of research. It’s just a neat position to be in where we can be a leader, do something no one else has done, and try to make these pathways to advance the field.”
ISSM’s research impact is amplified through its expansive interdisciplinary collaborations.
An Ecosystem of Collaborations
A sampling of ongoing projects at ISSM include psychological-based studies measuring stress response to different scenarios; Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis research with the FSU College of Medicine and FSU’s Program in Neuroscience; collaborations with the FSU College of Nursing to analyze biomarkers in the blood; and work with Robert Hickner, Linda Grizzard Owens Professor in the Department of Health, Nutrition, and Food Sciences.
Hickner and Ormsbee’s latest research seeks to discover how resistance training like weightlifting (as opposed to endurance training like running on a treadmill) might affect fat metabolism in postmenopausal women classified as obese. The study is funded by the National Institutes of Health. In addition to federal funding, studies at ISSM have been funded consistently across the past 14 years through industry partners, supplement companies, or organizations like the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
At any given moment, there’s a lot of different projects going on, added Ormsbee. “As far as deciding what to take on, I’ll always go with what will advance the work my team is most interested in, and where we can have the biggest impact. That’s why expanding is so important, and bringing in more researchers who can grow the areas we don’t have expertise in currently.”
ISSM has more than 15 official affiliates including Meredith McQuerry, the Carol E. Avery Associate Professor at FSU’s Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, and director of the ThermaNOLE Comfort Lab® and Textile Testing Lab. Her research focuses, in part, on assessing the effect of functional performance apparel and protective clothing on human performance during physical activity.
“Meredith has been a fantastic friend and collaborator who does turnout suit design and textile testing work with firefighters specifically,” said Ormsbee. “So, what design features can you add in for better mobility or protection? And then the physical performance side where you test firefighters wearing it.”
McQuerry has been a long-time ISSM affiliate working to improve functional design and engineer a better performing suit. The collaboration has complemented ISSM’s work on heat tolerance and heat stress. The ISSM team is testing a supplement to mitigate heat stress on cyclists in the ThermaNOLE Comfort Lab® heat chamber, and in the future, firefighters during live burn training in Tallahassee.
ISSM has also collaborated on countless projects with FSU Athletics. The effort is spearheaded by Assistant Director of Sport Performance Elisa Angeles, who also serves as associate director of athletics research. Together, Angeles and Ormsbee have collaborated on past and present projects to assess athletes’ health and performance. Angeles and an ISSM team recently conducted a study on early detection of COVID-19 in female athletes using wearable technology, as well as a study on pre-sleep feeding, sleep quality, and markers of recovery in NCAA Division I female soccer players.
“We’re also working on expanding our reach in orthopedics and sports medicine by working with Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic affiliates,” said Ormsbee. “We have all the necessary infrastructure to handle that work; we just need personnel with that specialty because if we do it, we want to do it well.”
With the hire of Assistant Professor and FSU alumnus Kyle Smith this fall, the institute is also building an exercise immunology laboratory.
Bringing World-class Testing to the Community
ISSM’s outreach testing program is now re-open to the public. It began in 2016 and was reopened in 2022 to assess overall health and improve athletic performance of the general public.
The facility offers body composition measurements, lactate threshold tests, cholesterol panels and blood sugar analysis, and fuel utilization assessments, among other services. ISSM also has an anti-gravity treadmill ideal for running and exercising with less body weight and stress on joints.
“A big component of ISSM is outreach,” said Ormsbee. “People can come in, use our facility, pay for services, and get world-class testing and advice.” The facility is set up more like an athletics or performance training facility than a pure academic facility, which is often exciting to clients who walk in the door, he added. “You feel like you’re a part of FSU in a different way.”
ISSM also offers group services for local athletics teams, gyms, fitness organizations, and running clubs.
“We’ve had a range of athletes, young and old, come through for testing,” said Kieran Paterson, master’s student and student outreach coordinator for ISSM. “We’ve had a great turnout of local triathletes, and we’re setting up partnerships with local high school athletic departments and sports clubs. I even met with an 82-yearold more recently to discuss where we can help her in her search for longevity and healthy aging.”
Students like Paterson are vital to ISSM’s success both in its outreach efforts as well as research, said Ormsbee.
“Without a doubt, nothing we do could exist without the help of students,” said Ormsbee. “From the very first day stepping on campus, I’ve had graduate students help with every single project we do.”
ISSM typically has several doctoral students contributing to research and outreach each semester in addition to a handful of master’s students, interns, postdoctoral fellows, a slew of volunteers and undergraduate students, and even international visiting scholars.
Through student involvement, collaboration, outreach, and interdisciplinary research, ISSM continues to grow its presence toward becoming a top authority in sport science, human performance, nutrition and sports medicine.
“The mission has always been consistent,” said Ormsbee. “And that’s to be the leader of this field and set a global example for integrating research in athletics medicine, sports sciences, and nutrition.”
To learn more about ISSM and its outreach testing services, visit issm.fsu.edu.
Peak Performance and Enjoyment: The Dynamic Duo of Sport Psychology
While physical training, exercise and nutrition is integral, the mind also wields unparalleled influence over human performance. Sport psychology explores the intricacies of goal setting, concentration, motivation, relaxation, and more. Those mental skills help people perform consistently and foster resilience, both in sports and exercise as well as in day-to-day activities and at work.
But it’s about more than just performing at your best. It’s about enjoying it too, says FSU Sport Psychology Professor David Eccles.
“The percentage of the population who engage in sports at all is extremely small. We’re interested in making sports more enjoyable and encouraging others to find enjoyment in it.”
As sport psychologists work to create enjoyable and healthy sporting environments, avoiding burnout is often at the center of the discussion. Eccles’ research focuses largely on balancing deliberate practice and rest, and understanding what contributes to athletes feeling mentally rested.
The 24-hour Challenge
“However much you want to be a skilled performer, you can’t spend 24 hours a day practicing,” Eccles said. “It’s been proposed that in terms of high-quality deliberate practice, you have four good hours in any 24 hours. The remainder of the time, you need to be engaged in more restful activities and sleep; otherwise, you begin to overtrain.”
Deliberate practice goes beyond merely attending practice, but having clear and specific goals, seeking out feedback, sustaining focused effort, and prioritizing areas of weakness.
Whether in physical activities like lifting weights and improving at a sport, or even in mental pursuits such as learning and studying, rest is often deemed critical – as critical as training and practicing itself, says Eccles.
But there’s a gap in research on what exactly it means to be resting, and how athletes can effectively achieve restfulness. “There’s sleep, and there’s plenty of focus on physical recovery modalities like ice baths after training, massaging and stretching, but mentally, how should you spend your free time outside of training and competition?”
Eccles’ research team within FSU’s Sport Psychology program has been interviewing NFL players to better define what “rest” means to athletes and what obstacles they face in feeling rested. The research even spans into college athletics with researchers talking to NCAA Division I coaches about their perceptions of rest and its level of priority.
“What we do when we’re away from our work or when we’re away from our sport is equally as important as what we’re doing when we’re practicing,” said doctoral student Gabriela Caviedes.
Caviedes became interested in sport psychology through her own experience with mental rest and recovery as a catalyst for better performance as a college student.
She studied in Hawaii for a semester as a sophomore and quickly noted the cultural differences. “It was very outdoorsy and focused on hiking, getting out in nature, and being active,” she said. “It was shocking to experience the effects it had on my own performance as a student and overall happiness. It made me realize I wanted to help people do simple things to make their life more enjoyable and perform better. It wasn’t until then that I thought or even knew about the field of sport psychology.”
The proverbial Google search brought Caviedes to sport psychology, and eventually to FSU to pursue her master’s, which she received in 2021. Now pursuing her Ph.D., she works with Eccles to explore the psychology of rest and its influence on performance. Her current research is focused on using resting interventions to prevent burnout and keep athletes motivated.
Much of Caviedes’ current research was informed by work with local athletic teams and individual athletes during her student practicums.
From Research to Practice
Both master’s and Ph.D. students in FSU’s Sport Psychology program complete student practicums. They work hands-on as mental performance consultants with local athletes, coaches and teams under the supervision of veteran doctoral candidates and Brian Foster, teaching faculty in the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems.
The college has established a relationship with more than 30 active sites in the Tallahassee area spanning community colleges, high school and college athletic departments, club teams and more. One student is even working with professional racecar drivers.
“It’s a great setup. Although we’re a research focused program, we get these applied opportunities and it’s been one of the biggest learning points for me to rotate through all these different sports,” said Caviedes, who has worked with collegiate tennis, softball, cheer, and dance teams to find ways to make the most of their personal time, rest, and keep their routine fresh to help avoid burnout. She has also worked closely with athletes and coaches on team dynamics and communication, a popular focus for college teams.
What’s piqued her interest most, she says, is the importance and difficulty of balancing daily demands with sport demands. For collegiate student-athletes especially, time management is paramount as they juggle classes, travel, practice and competition alongside their personal lives. “Even when they have their rest days or off days, they’re still watching film or doing community service,” she added.
“It takes self-discipline and, ironically, a little bit of effort to be good at taking time to have a period of lower effort,” Eccles said of rest.
For some, this means spending time with friends and people who aren’t involved in their sport, going to new places away from their training facility, or watching TV unrelated to their sport. Similar strategies are often applied to avoiding burnout in jobs.
“The first key is actually switching off, and the second is helping student-athletes find a quiet zone, especially if they have roommates” added Caviedes. “One of the primary components of being rested is having a low cognitive load where you don’t have to think hard about anything. And to find that, you need a relaxing environment and low stimulation.” That can be a quiet room in a house, or a walk outside, she says.
An Alumni Perspective
Many students use practicums as a springboard toward becoming a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) through the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. Certification is important for those who want to work directly with clients and take their research into the field.
Whether through published journals, other writings, or consulting, bridging the gap from research to practice is a priority says two-time FSU Sport Psychology graduate and CMPC certified consultant Anna Ward (M.S. ’15, Ph.D. ’22).
“Our goal as practitioners is to recommend mental strategies and tools from standard protocols and well-researched interventions that we know work,” said Ward, who cites working with youth gymnasts and FSU Cheerleading as her favorite experiences in FSU’s Sport Psychology program.
As a relatively young academic field, sport psychology continues to receive more and more interested applicants. Ward, who is now a lecturer at Boston University, focuses on making sure students and aspiring practitioners are well-equipped to soon spearhead the field’s growth. Her current research explores supervision practices in sport psychology, student experiences, professional development for practitioners, and multicultural competencies to improve outcomes among athletes, clients, and sport psychologists alike.
“I think we’re seeing this growing trend of what’s to come in the field. Everything started in sport, and I think we’ll always stay there, but then we added exercise because the same principles and psychological outcomes can be applied as we look more at mental health, wellbeing and exercise,” Ward said. “Then we moved into other areas working with military populations, musical performers, highstress occupations and business, so we’re really seeing a trend of adding on more domains under the general umbrella of performance psychology.”
As FSU faculty, students and alumni continue to make their mark on the growing field, the mission remains simple: empower people to perform at their best- and enjoy doing it.
