“Is it a slow day or a go day?”: The perceptions and applications of velocity-based training within elite strength and conditioning

Velocity-based training (VBT) is a contemporary prescriptive, programming, and testing tool commonly utilised in strength and conditioning (S&C). Over recent years, there has been an influx of peer-reviewed literature investigating several different applications (e.g. load-velocity profiling, velocity loss, load manipulation, and reliability of technology) of VBT. The procedures implemented in research, however, do not always reflect the practices within applied environments. The aim of this study, therefore, was to investigate the perceptions and applications of VBT within elite S&C to enhance contextual understanding and develop appropriate avenues of practitioner-focused research. Fourteen high-performance S&C coaches participated in semi-structured interviews to discuss their experiences of implementing VBT into their practices. Reflexive thematic analysis was adopted, following an inductive and realist approach. Three central organising themes emerged: Technology, applications, and reflections. Within these central themes, higher order themes consisting of drivers for buying technology; programming, testing, monitoring, and feedback; and benefits, drawbacks, and future uses also emerged. Practitioners reported varied drivers and applications of VBT, often being dictated by simplicity, environmental context, and personal preferences. Coaches perceived VBT to be a beneficial tool yet were cognizant of the drawbacks and challenges in certain settings. VBT is a flexible tool that can support and aid several aspects of S&C planning and delivery, with coaches valuing the impact it can have on training environments, objective prescriptions, tracking player readiness, and programme success.publishedVersio

“Is it a slow day or a go day?”: the perceptions and applications of velocity-based training within elite strength and conditioning

Velocity-based training (VBT) is a contemporary prescriptive, programming, and testing tool commonly utilised in strength and conditioning (S&C). Over recent years, there has been an influx of peer-reviewed literature investigating several different applications (e.g. load-velocity profiling, velocity loss, load manipulation, and reliability of technology) of VBT. The procedures implemented in research, however, do not always reflect the practices within applied environments. The aim of this study, therefore, was to investigate the perceptions and applications of VBT within elite S&C to enhance contextual understanding and develop appropriate avenues of practitioner-focused research. Fourteen high-performance S&C coaches participated in semi-structured interviews to discuss their experiences of implementing VBT into their practices. Reflexive thematic analysis was adopted, following an inductive and realist approach. Three central organising themes emerged: Technology, applications, and reflections. Within these central themes, higher order themes consisting of drivers for buying technology; programming, testing, monitoring, and feedback; and benefits, drawbacks, and future uses also emerged. Practitioners reported varied drivers and applications of VBT, often being dictated by simplicity, environmental context, and personal preferences. Coaches perceived VBT to be a beneficial tool yet were cognizant of the drawbacks and challenges in certain settings. VBT is a flexible tool that can support and aid several aspects of S&C planning and delivery, with coaches valuing the impact it can have on training environments, objective prescriptions, tracking player readiness, and programme success

Abdominal trauma in a semi-urban tertiary health institution

Objective: There has been a global increase in the incidence of abdominal trauma in surgical patients. We conducted this study to evaluate the pattern of abdominal injuries, patient characteristics and the management outcome in our setting. Methods: It was a descriptive (combined retrospective and prospective) study of all patients with abdominal trauma admitted and managed at Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti between January 2013 and December 2016. Data on socio-demographics, clinical profile, investigations, treatments and outcome were entered into a spread sheet and analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. Results: A total of 2728 trauma patients presented during the study period. Of these, 68 (2.5%) suffered from abdominal injuries. Their ages ranged from 6 to 72 years (mean 30.3±13.2). Fifty-nine (86.8%) were males while 9 (13.2%) were females (M: F ratio = 6.6:1). Forty-nine (72.1%) sustained blunt trauma while 19 (27.9%) had penetrating injuries. Road traffic incident (RTI) (n=41; 60.3%) was the most common source of trauma, followed by assault: gunshot (n=9; 13.2%), and stab (n=7; 10.3%). Spleen (n=23; 33.8%) was the most common solid organ injured followed by the liver (n=7; 10.3%) while small bowel (n=8; 11.8%) was the most common hollow viscous injured. Forty-seven (69.1%) required operative intervention. Post-operative complication rate was 17% with wound infection (12.5%) predominating. The mortality rate was 4 (5.9%). Conclusion: RTI and assault are major causes of abdominal injury. Measures to reduce RTI, youth restiveness and criminal activities will stem the tide

From mood to movement: English nationalism, the European Union and taking back control

This article considers whether the 2016 EU referendum can be perceived as an English nationalist movement. Specifically, attention is given to examining how memories of the former British Empire were nostalgically enveloped in anxieties regarding England’s location within the devolved UK state. The comments and work of Enoch Powell and George Orwell are used to help explore the link between nostalgia and anxiety in accounts of English nationalism. Despite their opposing political orientations, when considered together, it is argued that both men provide a unique cross-political perspective on Englishness, empire and nostalgia. By way of exploring these themes in relation to the EU referendum, Aughey’s assertion that English nationalism can be perceived as both a ‘mood’ and ‘movement’ is used to highlight how a sense of English anxiety regarding its lack of national sovereignty (mood), as well as a desire to reclaim this sovereignty by renegotiating trade relations with the ‘Anglo-sphere’ (movement), were conjoined in the popular referendum slogan, ‘take back control’. In conclusion, it is argued that the contextualization of the referendum can be predicated upon an orientation to empire that steers away from glorifying pro-imperial images of England/Britain, towards a more positive and progressive appropriation of the EU referendum as a statement of national change and belonging

Race and the Legacy of the First World War in French Anti-Colonial Politics of the 1920s

There has been relatively little historical research on the small number of African veterans who stayed on in France after the First World War and became militants in the radical anti-colonial movements created in the 1920s. From his entry onto the political stage in late 1924 until his early death three years later, the most celebrated and feared of these anti-colonial militants was Lamine Senghor, a decorated war veteran from Senegal. This chapter will chart Senghor’s brief career as an activist, focusing primarily on the ways in which he projected his identity as a veteran in his speeches and writings, as well as exploring, more generally, how France’s “blood debt” to its colonial subjects became a key theme of anti-colonial discourse in the interwar period

Shades of empire: police photography in German South-West Africa

This article looks at a photographic album produced by the German police in colonial Namibia just before World War I. Late 19th- and early 20th-century police photography has often been interpreted as a form of visual production that epitomized power and regimes of surveillance imposed by the state apparatuses on the poor, the criminal and the Other. On the other hand police and prison institutions became favored sites where photography could be put at the service of the emergent sciences of the human body—physiognomy, anthropometry and anthropology. While the conjuncture of institutionalized colonial state power and the production of scientific knowledge remain important for this Namibian case study, the article explores a slightly different set of questions. Echoing recent scholarship on visuality and materiality the photographic album is treated as an archival object and visual narrative that was at the same time constituted by and constitutive of material and discursive practices within early 20th-century police and prison institutions in the German colony. By shifting attention away from image content and visual codification alone toward the question of visual practice the article traces the ways in which the photo album, with its ambivalent, unstable and uncontained narrative, became historically active and meaningful. Therein the photographs were less informed by an abstract theory of anthropological and racial classification but rather entrenched with historically contingent processes of colonial state constitution, socioeconomic and racial stratification, and the institutional integration of photography as a medium and a technology into colonial policing. The photo album provides a textured sense of how fragmented and contested these processes remained throughout the German colonial period, but also how photography could offer a means of transcending the limits and frailties brought by the realities on the ground.International Bibliography of Social Science

“Crocodiles in the corridors” : security vetting, race and Whitehall, 1945 – 1968

In July 2018, the UK’s Intelligence & Security Committee issued a report into diversity and inclusion across the intelligence and security community. The picture the report painted was far from satisfactory; in short, Britain’s intelligence agencies did not ‘fully reflect the ethnic make-up of modern Britain’. The report argued that Britain’s spy agencies – MI5, SIS (or MI6) and GCHQ – should improve black, Asian and ethnic minority recruitment, highlighting areas for improvement, especially around the vetting of recruits. This problem stems from the post-war Cold War 'security state' and the development of security-vetting programmes from the 1940s, aiming to protect Whitehall from Soviet spies and 'fellow travellers' to those with so-called 'character defects' - drink, drugs and homosexuality. But this 'security state' also saw the newly emerging multicultural Britain as a major threat. The so-called 'Windrush Generation' of migrants from the Caribbean, and migration from the Indian subcontinent and Africa, forever changed the social complexion of Britain, but posed significant questions for security officials. What was Britishness? With first or second generation migrants entering the civil service, who was a 'UK eye' and what access to secret information should they have? To what extent was discrimination justifiable to protect state secrets, and how should officials respond to new legislation such as the Race Discrimination Act? As this article shows, new entrants to the civil service faced deeply engrained prejudices, and questions over their loyalty to Britain. As late as the 1960s (and beyond), 'coloured' members of the civil service were rejected from secret posts across government, including the Ministry of Defence and intelligence and security services, especially MI5 and GCHQ, with discrimination on ‘security’ grounds justified by the landmark 1968 Race Relations Act, which barred race discrimination for housing and employment elsewhere

Butchering activity is the main risk factor for hepatitis E virus (Paslahepevirus balayani) infection in southwestern Nigeria: a prospective cohort study

IntroductionPaslahepevirus balayani (Hepatitis E virus; HEV) is an emerging virus that poses as a public health threat. The virus is now reported to be the leading cause of acute viral hepatitis, with a unique impact on African settings. Our aim was to evaluate the prevalence and risk factors for HEV infection in three cohorts (animal handlers, villagers, and students).MethodsA prospective cross-sectional study was carried out on a total of 752 subjects from southwestern Nigeria. In all individuals, anti-HEV IgG and anti-HEV IgM antibodies were evaluated by using ELISA (confirming positive results via immunoblotting), and serum viral RNA was evaluated by using two RT-PCR assays.ResultsThe overall seroprevalence of HEV IgG and HEV IgM was 14.9% (95% CI: 12.5–17.6%) and 1.3% (95% CI: 0.7–2.5%), respectively. We observed the highest seroprevalence among animal contact individuals, with butchers being the population with the highest HEV IgG seroprevalence (31.1%). Similarly, HEV IgM was higher in the animal contact group (2.2%) than in the non-animal contact cohort (0%).DiscussionsViral RNA was not detected in any of the samples. Butchering was significantly associated with higher HEV prevalence. Although all efforts to prevent HEV in Africa have focused on the chlorination of water, our study suggests that most new infections could currently be linked to animal manipulation. Therefore, education and guidelines must be provided in southwest Nigeria to ensure that animal handling and processing methods are safe

Forging connections: anthologies, arts collectives, and the politics of inclusion

The changing social and political landscape of twentieth-century Britain catalysed a remarkable rise in collaborative activity by artists and activists of black and Asian heritage. Creative communities began to gather in both local and regional contexts, with the aim of sharing resources and securing an audience. This chapter records some of these many activities, tracing the groups’ genesis, manifest objectives, and key contributions. It argues that anthologising should be understood as a specifically motivated activity. Literary anthologies of poetry and fiction served to showcase the diversity of contemporary writing, while also suggesting its coherence. Drawing on the concept of “strategic essentialism” elucidated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, I show that the anthology acts to ensure the visibility of a group, bannered as a unified and singly-titled selection of texts, while also insisting on the differences within: the heterogeneous multiplicity of black and Asian British experiences and creative practices