Science for Sport Podcast

Richard Graves welcomes Dr James Morehen back to the Science for Sport podcast for a practical conversation on what it really takes to work in elite performance nutrition. James reflects on his journey from Liverpool John Moores University to rugby league, England football, Premiership rugby, international rugby, and his current work with England Rugby. But this episode is less about the polished...

This week on the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves welcomes back Steve Jennings for part two of one of the most fascinating stories in sports nutrition. Earlier this year, Steve joined us to tell the story of how creatine first entered the world of elite sport ahead of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games. In this follow-up conversation, Richard and Steve look at where creatine goes next. For...

This week, Richard Graves is joined by Anna Cruse, Assistant Athletics Director for Applied Health and Performance Science and Director of Football Performance Science at the University of Utah. Anna’s route into sports science began as an international-level rower. Her interest in training, performance and data eventually took her from competing for the United States to helping develop the system...

This week on the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Great Britain track cyclist Joe Truman. Joe has spent nearly a decade as a full-time professional athlete with British Cycling, progressing through the pathway from a talent ID session at 15 to becoming a senior member of the GB sprint squad. After years of European, World Championship and Commonwealth medals, Joe recently cla...

This week on the Science for Sport podcast, Richard Graves welcomes Matt Parr back to the show for a deeper look at the work that really drives performance in elite sport. Matt is the Head of Athletic Performance at Leicester Tigers, a former professional rugby player, and the founder of High Performance Puzzle. Having worked across both rugby union and rugby league, including Leicester Tigers and...

In this episode of the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves welcomes Dr Dave Hancock back to the show. Dave has spent more than three decades working in elite sport, including roles with Chelsea, Leeds United, the England national team and the New York Knicks. He is now CEO of Apollo, where his work focuses on helping performance teams use data, technology and AI to better understand player a...

The 2026 Men’s World Cup will place unprecedented demands on international teams: 48 nations, 104 matches and a tournament staged across Canada, Mexico and the United States, with teams required to manage heat, humidity, altitude, travel and limited recovery time. In this episode of the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Dr Ben Rosenblatt, Founder of 292 Performance and former...

This week on the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Heather Farmer, Assistant Athletics Director, Sports Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Heather has been part of the UNLV athletics staff since 2016, first joining as Assistant Director of Strength and Conditioning before moving into sport science and later being promoted to Assistant Athletics Director for Sports...

In this episode of the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Olympic silver medallist and high performance coach Eric Franke. Eric competed for Germany in bobsleigh, winning Olympic silver in Pyeongchang 2018 alongside multiple World Championship medals across two-man and four-man competition. Since retiring from elite competition, he has moved into high performance coaching, work...

This week, Richard Graves is joined by Carmen Bott, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, kinesiologist, sports performance coach and educator with more than two decades of hands-on experience working with athletes across youth, high performance and professional sport. Carmen specialises in ACL rehabilitation, return to play, collision sport athletes, multi-directional speed, and menta...

In this episode of the Science for Sport podcast, Richard Graves sits down with Jamie Cook, Lead Performance Analyst for Chelsea Women, to unpack the realities of modern performance analysis in elite sport. Jamie shares his journey from grassroots coaching and internships to leading analysis within one of the most successful teams in the women’s game. Across the conversation, he offers a clear, ho...

In this episode, Richard Graves is joined by Dr Sally Needham, whose work sits at the heart of coaching, neuroscience, and human performance. Sally shares her journey from coaching within the FA to leading human development and culture work across elite environments including Brentford FC, Sheffield United, and international football. Her approach challenges traditional performance models, bringin...

Sports nutrition in elite football is often misunderstood, even by the players doing it for a living. In this episode, Richard Graves sits down with Dr. Nessan Costello, 1st Team Sports Nutritionist at Al-Ahli in the Saudi Arabia Pro League, to cut through the noise and get practical about what performance nutrition actually looks like at the highest level. Nessan has worked across the Premier Lea...

Richard Graves is joined by Jackson Polk, Director of Sports Science at the University of Southern California (USC), for a conversation that covers the full spectrum of what it actually means to do this job well, from wrangling a thousand Catapult metrics down to the handful that matter, to the perhaps surprising conclusion that conversation might be your most powerful tool. Jackson's path into sp...

What does it actually take to prepare an athlete for a sport where the environment itself is part of the challenge? In this week's episode, Richard Graves sits down with Ryan Blake, Performance Coach, Consultant, and founder of Extreme Sports Performance, to explore the fascinating and often overlooked world of action sports performance. Ryan brings a unique perspective to this conversation. A for...

This week on the Science for Sport podcast, Richard Graves is joined by former professional footballer Carl Asaba for an honest and insightful look at life inside the game. Carl’s journey into professional football wasn’t typical. From missing out on early opportunities and stepping away from the game, to earning a contract at 21 and going on to play over a decade in the professional ranks, his st...

In this episode of the Science for Sport Podcast, host Richard Graves is joined by Jordan Lucier, Senior Director of Engineering at Catapult and Co-Founder of Perch, to explore the next evolution of performance monitoring in the weight room. Perch has become one of the most widely used camera-based systems for measuring barbell velocity and strength training performance in elite sport. Now, with t...

Why Female Physiology Still Needs Greater Attention in Sport with Dr Candice Macmillan This week on the Science for Sport Podcast, host Richard Graves welcomes Dr Candice Macmillan, lecturer at the University of Pretoria, sports physiotherapist, and course author of “Contraceptives and the Female Athlete” on the Science for Sport platform. As women’s sport continues to grow professionally around t...

This week on the Science for Sport podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Emily Jacobson, Assistant Director of Sports Performance at Marquette University. Emily has spent the past decade building and refining a sports science model within a relatively small department, working primarily with men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball. Alongside her role at Marquette, she also contributes to U.S. Socce...

Fresh from pre-season camp in Australia, Richard Graves sits down with Stan Parker, Sports Scientist at the Western Bulldogs, to explore how tracking data, contextual analytics, and interdisciplinary collaboration shape performance in elite AFL. Stan’s journey spans the Brisbane Broncos in the NRL, Queensland Rugby Sevens, and now five seasons embedded within the Bulldogs’ high-performance program...

This episode explores what high performance really looks like inside two of the most demanding professional sporting environments in the world. Richard Graves is joined by Brendan Fahrner, formerly Head of Sports Science at the South Sydney Rabbitohs, and previously a long-serving performance staff member at Richmond Football Club during one of the most successful periods in AFL history. Across a...

Richard Graves welcomes former England fast bowler Ryan Sidebottom to the Science for Sport Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on longevity, resilience, and the evolution of elite cricket. Across a first-class career spanning more than 20 years, Ryan experienced the game at every level — from sweeping floors and laying bricks in the winter to winning a T20 World Cup with England. In this epis...

Behind every high-performance environment are people, personalities, and decisions that shape outcomes. This week on the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves is joined by former England international and Premier League defender Warren Barton, speaking from California. Warren reflects on a career that spanned very different eras of elite football, from coming through non-league and the famousl...

In this episode of the Science for Sport Podcast, host Richard Graves is joined by John Noonan, a highly experienced performance coach whose career spans elite football, rugby league and union, Winter Olympic sports, and the world of Formula One. John describes himself as a “gypsy of sport” driven by curiosity, problem-solving, and a deep interest in what actually moves the needle in elite perform...

This week on the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Rachel Muse, one of the leading performance chefs working with elite athletes across professional sport. Rachel is the founder of Talk Eat Laugh, a specialist performance-chef service supporting athletes in their own homes. Her work bridges the gap between performance nutrition science and real-life eating habits, ensuring ath...