AUT Millennium

Today (22 March,2019) we went to AUT Millennium. We were shown around by Dustin who is from Canada.

We learned about all different kinds of machines that give you information about your body and your fitness. Did you know that some of our top sports people sometimes have their very own machines made just for them by scientists to train on because they have different needs and their bodies work in a unique way?

We used an isometric machine that measures the contraction, extension and control/strength of your muscles. Dustin said that the first set of data they collect from the machine is not the data they use because the athletes have to get used to the machines before they can do their best. The trainers collect their average scores and their best scores.

We saw two good athletes- Tom Walsh (Olympic Bronze Medalist in shot put) and Ivan a sprinter from Croatia. Tom Walsh was going into the secret training room. The room has curtains over it so you can’t see how the athletes are training and what they are able to do.

There is also a special temperature controlled room so that athletes can train in the cold or hot. This gets them ready for competitions in different countries so they are used to being hot or cold when they are competing. They can also control how much oxygen is in the room in case the athletes are going to compete up high in the mountains where it can be harder to breathe

There was a really cool jumping pad. Dustin told us that lifting our legs behind us, or trying to push our knees up high in front would not make a difference to your scores on this machine. It measured how long you were off the pad for. This helped athletes with their explosive movement. It was useful for training in almost every sport! Interestingly the member of our group who is a great gymnast and diver was able to perform the best on this machine. He was pretty explosive!

They had a strange bio-metric treadmill that creates a 3D image of your whole body. It helps you to see if you have injuries and how you are holding your body when you move. This helps you to improve your technique and avoid injuries.

We used an ultrasound machine on Dan. Not only did we find out he was not pregnant, but we also got to see the layers of his skin, tendons and muscles up on the screen in panoramic view.

To test how fast athletes can run, athletes can put on a sensor suit and run between two laser lines. We also used a treadmill with the motor removed. For lots of our group this was their favourite part! We tried out how fast we could go. We thought we were pretty fast until we heard the Usain Bolt can run 9.7 metres per second on average with a top score of 11m per second WOW!

Even though were weren’t at school doing our normal reading, writing and maths, we used our reading, writing and maths skills at so many of the stations. It was cool to see how these skills are really important in the world of sports!

We had a wonderful time and were bursting with ideas, information and facts when we got back!

We want to say a HUGE thank you to the people at AUT Millennium who helped us, Dan, Mr Steel and Sian for transporting us there and back.