This four year integrated BSc (undergraduate) and MSci (postgraduate) course will teach you to apply scientific principles to athletic performance at the highest levels of football. You’ll learn to analyse how physical activity and exercise generates health in athletes and, through detailed knowledge of physiological systems, make recommendations that ensure athletes can fulfil their full potential.
There is an increasing demand within football clubs for sport science and medical staff who can ensure that player performance is optimised in both training and competition. By working closely with our skilled academics and football practitioners, you’ll build a strong grounding in the sport science disciplines of anatomy and physiology; psychology; strength and conditioning; biomechanics; and performance analysis. Proper coaching techniques are essential, and you’ll benefit from Solent’s long history of training coaches who work at the highest levels of competitive sport.
You will be encouraged to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team, contributing to the athletic development of male and female footballers through our extensive network of partner clubs. You’ll gain experience in the design, planning and delivery of a cohesive and systematic sport science/performance support provision, working across all aspects of a club’s operations.
In the third and fourth year of study (Level 6 and Level 7) you will work with youth, academy and professional players to facilitate maximum performance and reduce injury risk. This invaluable industry experience will form the working document of evidence in support of your BASES Supervised Experience (SE) application. This goes part way towards earning your BASES accreditation as a sport and exercise scientist. This element of the course is unique to Solent University.
Students have access to the University’s professional sport and exercise facilities. These include fully equipped physiology, psychology, biomechanics and exercise labs. The physiology laboratory is officially accredited by the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES), marking it as one of the UK’s leading sport and exercise science facilities.
What does this course lead to?
As a graduate, you will be well suited to employment within a football club or other large sporting organisation. You will be looking for work within sport science support, player development and performance monitoring departments. Typical roles cover strength and conditioning; performance analysis; education and welfare; talent identification and recruitment; technical coaching; and sport psychology.
For those who discover a passion for academia, this course provides a solid foundation to progress into teaching, further postgraduate study or research.
Who is this course for?
This course is the ideal way for you to turn a passion for football into a lucrative professional career. Candidates should be:
- interested in working in professional football,
- keen to collaborate with players and coaches on improving efficiency and reducing the risk of injury,
- fascinated by physiology and the inner workings of the human body, and
- comfortable working in a scientific way, making use of testing data to deliver effective recommendations.
