The open day will have three main themes:

1) Promoting the health benefits of regular exercise
2) Sports medicine for all
3) Introducing the science of Olympic performance

Using the facilities within Medway Park Sports Centre and Regional Centre of Sporting Excellence, we will host a rolling series of talks and practical demonstrations based around the three themes. The talks and demonstrations will be planned and delivered by the staff and students from the University of Kent and invited expets. The talks and demonstrations will have an emphasis on involvement and participation and will include:

• The effects of different types of easily available exercise and advice on performing them regularly e.g. walking, swimming, cycling, gym and home-based exercises
• Nutrition: healthy eating and eating for sport, nutritional supplements for sports
• The science of losing weight: exercise and diet
• Sports Psychology, motivation and learning new sporting skills
• Injury – what to do and how to find specialist treatment
• Training for Olympic performance – altitude training – what’s it like to train at altitude?
• Running an Olympic marathon – how fast do they run?
• Sport and exercise in Medway, how much are we doing, how much should we do, what opportunities are there?
• The physiology and biochemistry of exercise – what happens inside the bodies of normal and elite athletes?

The University of Kent was selected to be part of the public engagement programme linked to the International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport (ICSEMIS 2012). ICSEMIS 2012 which will bring together the worlds leading scientists, academics and researchers in disciplines related to sport in advance of the 2012 Games. The pilot programme, being run by Research Councils UK and Podium, aims to engage the public with science, reasearch and the academic desciplines related to sport using the excitement and interest generated by the Games.