Center for Sport Training and Research
Center for Sport Training and Research: Maximizing Athletic Performance through Technology and Science
Long gone are the days of denying water to athletes to demonstrate “toughness.” Modern day sport training relies heavily on technology and science to fully maximize athlete performance.
The mission of the Center for Sport Training and Research (known as STAR) is to conduct multidisciplinary sport science research while providing athletes evidence-based training practices.
Over the years, STAR athletes have included both professional and amateur athletes in basketball, volleyball, golf, track and field, softball, rowing, and baseball.
STAR has seen a significant increase in athletes as they will go from training 150 athletes per week to 300 by the end of the year.
The number of athletes has created a perfect storm of evidence-based training for the athletes and research for STAR’s faculty and students.
“It’s absolutely crazy right now – all of our faculty are red-lining it, and we get students involved through the STAR internship program while faculty are separating themselves from peers in their fields,” says Associate Professor Dr. Will Wu, founder of the STAR program.
“I’m really excited about what we are doing in sports injury and prevention – we have a software platform and database to aggregate all our sport injury and assessment data for long term tracking and injury prediction.”
“Our sport psychology group is doing exciting research in mental toughness, coaching behaviors, athlete efficacy, and psychological skill use.”
“The biomechanics and motor control group just started a project with our national championship men’s volleyball team looking at shoulder kinematics and anticipatory skills in volleyball – we are all having a ton of fun right now.”
Dr. Wu says the growth has been a nice confluence of timing and personnel, “we are very fortunate to have a very supportive and forward thinking dean in the College of Health and Human Services. Monica Lounsbery has been extremely supportive and sees STAR’s multidisciplinary approach as a productive model of research in our college.”
Dr. Will Wu directs STAR and is joined by an extremely talented group of faculty that combines their research prowess with their experience working with athletes. The STAR team is comprised of discipline-specific directors: Drs. Mimi Nakajima (Athletic Training), Tiffanye Vargas (Sport Psychology), Leilani Madrigal (Sport Psychology), Sharon Teng (Physical Therapy), Kevin Valenzuela (Biomechanics), and Dave Sabo (Strength & Conditioning).
When asked about what makes this center unique Dr. Wu says, “you have a group of very talented individuals who are team oriented, selfless, and work extremely well together”. STAR takes pride in its multidisciplinary approach to solving complex problems. “We succeed based on viewing research and training with a variety of lenses -- once we understand that as scientists, we can make leaps and bounds in answering questions and helping athletes reach their full potential.”
For more information about STAR, please contact Dr. Wu at will.wu@csulb.edu
