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Sporting Edge
Applying science to improve sporting performance
Faster, further, longer, stronger – the sporting edge. Sports science helps athletes gain the advantage by combining scientific principles and techniques with knowledge about muscles, tendons and bones.
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Finding your way around
There are several different ways to discover the site's resources and their related content, along with ideas for grouping them for teaching opportunities:
- The collections contain groups of related resources about the Sporting Edge.
- The Connections tool is a visual interactive pathway to discovering the resources and related content for the Sporting Edge.
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FEATURED ITEMS
Meet some muscles
Meet seven muscles of the human body, and find out where they are and what they do.
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FEATURED ITEMS
Marathon versus sprint
The difference between fast and slow twitch muscle fibres could help explain the differences in sporting abilities across some ethnic groups.
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FEATURED ITEMS
Muscle types
There are three types of muscle – skeletal, smooth and cardiac – and they play different roles in your body.
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FEATURED ITEMS
Energy for exercise
The source of energy used to power the movement of contraction in muscles working is adenosine triphosphate (ATP) – the body’s biochemical way to store and transport energy.
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FEATURED ITEMS
Muscle dissection
In this activity, students compare red and white muscle flesh and relate this to muscle function, and look at muscle tissue by dissecting a chicken thigh and leg.
FEATURED MEDIA
Cross education of muscles
Gus Roxburgh demonstrates that muscle strength can be increased without a corresponding...
Collections
NZ Research
This collection provides information about the work of New Zealand’s world-class science and technology sectors in relation to the...
Science Ideas and Concepts
Scientific study requires a basic knowledge and understanding of ideas and concepts. This collection explains the ideas that are...
Looking closer
This collection contains a wide variety of resources and information about the Sporting Edge, which supports the resources in the other...
Teaching and Learning Approaches
Student activities are the main feature of this collection, along with a variety of resources for teachers to use in exploring the...
Question Bank
An inquiry approach is a method often used in science education. The question bank provides an initial list of questions about the...
Key Terms
This resource provides explanations of the key concepts encountered when exploring the Sporting Edge – the ‘basics’ that every...
Sci Media
This collection is where you can find all the images, video clips, animations and interactives that relate to the Sporting Edge.