Applied Sport Science

• Train and work in our Centre for Sport and Health, with its sports laboratory, and strength and conditioning suite.
• Learn from staff with high-level sports or industry experience.
• Benefit from a blend of lectures and practical sessions, to give you a practical and career-enhancing learning experience.
• Gain specific knowledge and skills relating to the promotion of active and healthy lifestyles across the lifespan.
• Obtain industry experience and relate your studies to the real world through work placement, volunteering and shadowing opportunities.
• Graduate ready to work in sport, health or exercise roles.

Our degree course offers a comprehensive sport science experience, where you'll explore the scientific principles and techniques that underpin health, wellbeing and sporting performance. You'll also focus on the specific knowledge and skills required when testing, assessing and evaluation human movement and performance.

As part of your degree, you’ll learn to work with athletic populations, demonstrating and applying the four key subdisciplines of sport science: physiology, psychology, biomechanics and nutrition. These central themes provide the basis of a thorough appreciation of human performance in the context of sport and exercise.

In addition to the core modules, in this Applied Sport Science course, bespoke modules focus on the skills required for lab and field-based testing of a range of athletic populations. You will learn how the human body functions when engaged in sport and exercise and how to interpret and evaluate its responses to different physical challenges. 

With its focus on applying scientific principles to real-world challenges, sport science is the perfect way to combine your love of sport with a rewarding and impactful career.

You'll gain a comprehensive understanding of how the human body performs during physical activity, and the skills to analyse and enhance athletic performance, promote health and fitness, and prevent or rehabilitate injuries.

As a graduate, you'll be ready to pursue opportunities in areas such as coaching, sports science, personal training, physiotherapy, and sports management.

What can you do with an Applied Sport Science degree?

An Applied Sport Science degree offers a range of career opportunities in athletic performance, health, and wellness. Graduates can work as sports scientists, strength and conditioning coaches or biomechanists, helping athletes improve performance and reduce injury risk. In health and rehabilitation, roles such as exercise physiologist or rehabilitation specialist focus on aiding recovery and enhancing physical well-being.

Our degree also opens pathways in coaching, fitness training, and sports technology, where scientific principles are applied to optimise performance. Additionally, it provides a solid foundation for further study in fields like physiotherapy, sports medicine, or academic research.

Possible careers include:

• Biomechanist 
• Clinical Cardiac Physiologist 
• Exercise Physiologist
• Lecturer/Teacher 
• Nutritionist
• Performance Analyst
• Personal Trainer
• Rehabilitation Physiologist
• Respiratory Physiologist
• Sports Coach
• Strength and Conditioning Coach

You may also decide to continue to postgraduate study, where you can further refine your knowledge and skills.

Employability and personal career development

Informed by employers, our courses support an integrated approach to employability. You’ll have opportunities to develop the skills and abilities they are looking for and gain a deeper understanding of how your academic learning relates to the world of work through Live Briefs and Ruskin Modules.

To amplify your career ambition, you will need to actively dedicate time outside of your studies, whether you choose to explore placements, internships or volunteering. Or you could make a social impact by collaborating with our partner organisations through our volunteer scheme Students at the Heart of Knowledge Exchange (SHoKE). These all give you an edge, providing you with experience that you will be able to evidence on your CV and talk about in interviews.

Our Employability and Careers Service offers a range of expert advice and support to build your unique professional profile, including tailored career appointments, advice on writing your CV, and help to complete job applications. You’ll have 24/7 access to the Careers Centre, our comprehensive online digital resource, which empowers you to start building a Personal Career Development Plan from the very start. Design your future at ARU.