John is a Professor in Strength and Conditioning within the Sports Performance Research Institute of New Zealand (SPRINZ), School of Sport and Recreation, at AUT University. SPRINZ is the number one Performance Based Research Fund rated sport research institute in New Zealand. John was Director or Co-Director of SPRINZ from 2009-2016. He also held an Adjunct Professorial position with Edith Cowan University in Perth Australia (2010-2017).  John’s personal research interests are in human movement research particularly around the strengthening of muscle, these themes spanning injury resistance and return to training/play, to high performance sport. Of particular interest is the applications of different types of resistance training to sporting performance and injury prevention.  Recent areas of research interest are in sport technology especially in the out-of-lab applications of inertial sensors and strain gauges to drive better return to training/play and sporting performance.

John currently supervises 12 PhD students. John has published over 400 peer-reviewed papers, supervised 40 PhD (25 as primary supervisor) and 40 Masters (20 as primary supervisor) students to completion. According to ResearchGate (RG) he has a research interest score of 19,966 (higher than 99% of RG members). John’s h-index is 91 (Google Scholar - GS), i10-index 285 (GS), had over 921,000 reads (~3,000 per week - RG), and over 27,800 citations (GS). 

John’s research is representative of this nexus, his research involvement is used to drive position and consensus statements in youth athlete development to how new training techniques and technologies are being used in high performance sport. John’s strategic focus is on building research capability and capacity within SPRINZ, and his focus on strength and conditioning as an area of academic and research specialisation has resulted in him being recognised as an internationally leading scholar in this area.

Dr Takeshi Asai is an honorary professor of the Faculty of Health and Sports Sciences, University of Tsukuba and a professor of the Faculty of Physical Education, International Pacific University.

In the field of sports science and technology, he engages in a wide range of activities including international research projects and serving as an instructor at national coaching seminars, working tirelessly to promote and develop sports science and technology. Through collaborative research with sports-related companies, he has conducted numerous studies and development projects on sports balls, sports shoes, and sportswear, successfully implementing these innovations in competitive settings. In this presentation, he would outline the fundamental aerodynamic characteristics of sports balls, focusing primarily on soccer balls. He would also discuss the vortex structures that produce these characteristics, as well as how sports techniques that utilize these principles can enhance performance.