Joshua O Keeffe Email & Phone Number

Sports and Exercise Graduate from the University of Limerick, I gained hands on experience in all areas related to physical, biomechanical and psychological testing to accompany the knowledge assembled over the course of my degree. A notable part of this course is the Jacinta O Brien event that is hosted every year, which I acted as the head of administration, secretary to the executive committee and a liason between the public and private executive committees. This event involved exercise and movement based tasks and raised 6000 euro for three Limerick based charities. As a part of the degree, I undertook a research internship in the Department of Sports, Leisure and Childhood studies in MTU Bishopstown, where I became involved in research projects funded by the IRFU, GAA and Athletics Ireland amongst more. From data collection, analysis and planning to academic writing, reflection and even student assessment, this placement provided a wide variety of tasks that developed my professional and personal skills. Alongside this, I was presented with the opportunity to develop my coaching abilities by engaging with the underage development squads in Kerry GAA. Acting as an assistant strength and conditioning coach, I was involved in set up, coaching ~120 athletes prior to their field session, correcting and demonstrating movement technique and data collection for a project undertaken examining athlete maturation. In my final year, I undertook a project examining the influence and differences of spatiotemporal variables between athletes that won medals at international events, competed in the finals and national athletes. Over 500 athletes were individually analysed in this study using video replays of 5 different race types for both male and female athletes. Ultimately, in races using longer distances (400 m and 400 m hurdles), athletes are more reliant on longer stride lengths whereas in shorter events (100 m and 100 m hurdles) athletes rely on a faster stride rate. This indicates a need for a greater force production in long distance events versus a faster force production in short distance events.

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  University Of Limerick

  Sports And Exercise