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Dr John Bradley

Dr John Bradley

Profile summary

  • Visiting Formal Academic
  • Honorary Associate
  • Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies
  • School of Education, Childhood, Youth & Sport
  • Childhood, Youth & Sport
  • john.bradley

Professional biography

John works at the OU as an associate lecturer and honorary associate with the childhood, youth and sport research group. He has previously held a number of academic and applied sport science positions including lecturer in Exercise Physiology and Coaching Science at University College Cork in Ireland, and Exercise Physiologist with the Scottish Institute of Sport. John has a PhD in the field of Exercise Physiology from Glasgow University, with a thesis titled: Lactate production and the redox state of muscle.

Research interests

Part of John’s research looks at factors influencing athlete performance, and then using this to create informed conditioning programmes. He has recently analysed the injury risk factors of athletes participating in swimming and then used this information to develop an informed conditioning programmes based upon these risk factors. He is now looking to continue this research in swimming and extend it to include a range of other sports such as golf and tennis.

Another area of research interest is the role of sport and non-sport extracurricular activities on academic achievement. This can perhaps be partly summarised by the Healthy Mind, Healthy Body concept, but also including non-sport activities as well. This has resulted in the development of a dual step transfer model to explain the enhancement of school academic achievement from participation in a range of extracurricular activities.

Teaching interests

John is currently an associate lecturer with E236: Applying sport and exercise sciences to coaching, SK190: Human biology: A body in balance, and SK299: Human Biology. Alongside his role as Associate lecturer with the OU, John is interested in promoting academic achievement in school and in an online environment, applying his research into extracurricular activities and academic achievement to the online environment of distance learning.

Impact and engagement

John volunteers as a coach and advisor with a local swimming club.

External collaborations

As part of John's research, he regularly collaborates with Physiotherapy colleagues based in Scotland in research into swimming, tennis and golf. This is an active, ongoing partnership that has resulted in several publications and presentations.