Paper of the Quarter with Dr Carla McCabe
1/15/2024 8:55 pm
By Dr. Carla McCabe
Dr. Carla McCabe is a Sport and Exercise Biomechanics lecturer in the School of Sport, at Ulster University. Her recent paper “Female cricket pace bowling: kinematic and anthropometric relationships with ball release speed” was featured as the Paper of the Quarter. If you haven’t read the thread, you can do so here (we highly recommend it). This paper is unique for a few reasons, one of which is that the work is novel, but also, Charlotte Lyons, the first author, published this as part of her undergrad work - which certainly impressed us! Charlotte even presented her research at BASES (British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences) Biomechanics Interest Group and was awarded the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award, which celebrates excellence within diverse communities in biomechanics. We sat down with Dr. McCabe to find out a little more about what went into publishing this work behind the scenes.
What is something you want people to know about this project that you don’t get to share when writing the manuscript?
I am a lecturer in Sport and Exercise Biomechanics at Ulster University, with my area of research expertise in swimming. This was the first undergraduate project that I supervised in relation to bowling in cricket, meaning it was a learning curve for both myself and my student, Charlotte Lyons.
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What was your biggest Win in this project?
Whilst supervising Charlotte as part of her BSc Sport and Exercise Science final year dissertation, there was no expectation that we would publish this research project. For Charlotte to earn her first, first-author publication, was the biggest win imaginable. |
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What was your biggest challenge/failure in this project?
The biggest challenge we had was recruiting female cricket players who had experience with bowling within Ireland.
What advice would you give to someone who might be about to undertake a similar project, that you have learned as a result of this project?
Charlotte’s advice would be to definitely bring a helping hand with you for data collection. She brought her friend Laura Cairns (and fellow student) who helped with marking the participants, setting-up equipment, general organisation etc; this made data collection so much easier!
How do you hope this paper will influence biomechanics research (next lines of research? Clinical implications? Performance implications? Translational implications? Etc.)?
We hope this paper will influence coach educators in terms of further informing coaching practice. If coach educators are more aware of the technical differences between male and female bowling biomechanics, then they will produce better educated cricket coaches!
Have the results of this paper/project led you down a certain path, if so, can/will you elaborate?
The results of this paper have caused us to further question the common practice of applying the findings reported within male biomechanical studies to a female population.
What is your favorite thing about doing biomechanics research?
Charlotte’s favourite thing about the project was making female cricket players feel valued, seen, important and supported by carrying out research with a female-only population. The findings that female bowling technique differs with respect to male bowlers was the cherry on top!
Outside of the science, what is the most important thing you learned in completing this project?
My key learning from this project was if the theme is outside your area of expertise, don’t be afraid to reach out to others. In most cases, such individuals are very approachable and willing to help. The worst case scenario is, they say no!
As my expertise is in swimming research, I contacted Dr Paul Felton (renowned cricket biomechanist at Nottingham Trent University) to bounce ideas and confirm our protocols. Paul was immensely helpful and incredibly generous with his time to discuss an undergraduate project with a student from another university! Charlotte and I were grateful for his insights and friendly collaboration.
This was the first project I have supervised in the area of cricket biomechanics, so I learned a lot of new terminology and technical aspects related to the sport. This is a picture of Charlotte (on the right) presenting me with a women’s cricket ball as a thank-you gift for being the ‘best supervisor ever’!! This ball is proudly perched in my office as a reminder of a fun project and experience with a talented student.
What is your ultimate biomechanics research goal?
Our ultimate biomechanics research goal is to continue bridging the gap between science and practice with a view to both boost performance and to provide technical knowledge for players to execute skills safely.
Acknowledgements:
@UlsterUni – Ulster University
@UlsterSchSport – my school and where Charlotte studied
@TheCricketBiom & @DrPaulFelton – who offered expert cricket advice
@IrishWomenCric @NCU_News @NCU_Knights @cricketireland – who supported this research project through volunteer participants
@BASES_Biomech – Conference that Charlotte won the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award
