Diving Support Profile

All information correct as of July 2012

Sport: Diving
Performance Director: Alexei Evangulov
Athletes EIS work with: 25
Investment in EIS services since 2009: £219,100.93
EIS services accessed: Sport Medicine, Physiotherapy, Soft Tissue Therapy, Strength & Conditioning, Sports Psychology, Performance Lifestyle
Hours of support received:  30,727

To view UK Sport Investment Figures for each sport visit the UK Sport website

The EIS team behind British Diving

The EIS has worked with the GB Diving programme over the last 3 Olympic cycles and delivers support to divers based in Sheffield (Ponds Forge), Leeds (John Charles aquatic centre) ,  the new state of the art Plymouth Life Centre in the South West and Southampton.

EIS support staff are fully integrated within the programme, working with the sport both in training and away at competitions.

The divers combine their work in the pool with strength and conditioning sessions in the gym as well as accessing medical support, physiotherapy, sports psychology, performance lifestyle and soft tissue therapy services giving them a comprehensive land based training programme.

For the diving pairs, strength & conditioning support is vital to ensure they are equally fit and strong.  The work done in the gym focuses on what cannot be achieved in the pool such as specific explosive strength and maximal strength work as well as more intense, full body strength based conditioning work.

“The aim of an S&C programme within diving is to increase the athletes’ power to weight ratio by combining strength and plyometric jump work.”

“Essentially we want to make the athletes as strong and robust as possible, increase their capacity to train, so they are able to perform to their maximum, whilst it also plays a crucial role in injury prevention.” Ben Fourniss, EIS Strength & Conditioning Coach

Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow will go into London 2012 full of confidence in the women’s 10m synchro event after both successfully rehabilitating from recurring injuries that interrupted their training and competition.  In an event such as synchro diving, any time away through injury for one has a significant impact on the training of their partner and in Tonia and Sarah’s case was exacerbated due to their differing training locations, Tonia in Plymouth and Sarah in Leeds.  In both cases but at their respective times of rehabilitation, EIS Physiotherapist Lucy Follett co-ordinated for local delivery a multidisciplinary team of EIS practitioners to support each diver which included a doctor, physiotherapist, psychologist and strength & conditioning coach.

Though, physiotherapy support to diving has tended to go beyond purely injury prevention and rehabilitation.  Due to the increasingly complex dives now becoming part of their repertoires, physiotherapy is now playing a part in enabling the delivery of the more complex dives.

The divers also benefit from the support of Performance Lifestyle which aims to provide divers with the support and skills required to develop a lifestyle conducive to consistent levels of high performance in training and competition.  Additionally, there is a consideration for life after sport and developing the transferable skills that will assist with this transition.  It is an individualised support discipline with the remit for each diver adapted dependent upon their specific personal development needs.

Case Studies

Rehabilitation programme helps Barrow battle back
Sarah Barrow is a Leeds based individual and synchronised 10m diver... (Download PDF 372KB)

Support helps Couch combat chronic patellar tendinopathy
10m diver who has been managed by her English Institute of Sport (EIS) support team for a chronic patellar tendinopathy... (Download PDF 371KB)