Power of Podcasts (Editorial)

The popularity of podcast listening continues to grow globally. This
has seen a rise in the number of sport science-related podcasts
providing content on nutrition, strength and conditioning, sports
medicine and sports psychology. The format of such podcasts
typically consists of an interview with an individual or group of
individuals with expertise in a specific discipline, either from the
applied world or research environment. Podcasts can be downloaded
or streamed to Desktop, Smartphone or Tablet. Podcasts can be
found via the native Podcasts app for iOS (Apple) users. Smartphones
and Tablets that use Android operating systems will need to a thirdparty
app such as Spotify. Often, the website of the podcast provides
the opportunity to stream podcast episodes. To demonstrate how
popular podcasts have become, a quick search using the terms ‘Sport
performance’ on Spotify returns results for over 100 podcasts. Once
you find a podcast of interest you can ‘subscribe’ to the podcast,
meaning that when each new episode becomes available, it will
download the episode automatically to your library.
Listening to podcasts that have highly respected guests being
interviewed, offers a number of benefits. These include, listening
to the views of established academics and practitioners, research
dissemination and application of research. We recommend
researchers to engage with podcast hosts as a means of
disseminating their own research. Doing this will provide a
platform to communicate research findings and applied practice recommendations to a large audience in an expedient fashion
compared to more traditional means. Podcast listening raises
awareness of key issues within their respective field. In addition,
advice for up-and-coming researchers/practitioners is often
provided, such as the importance of growing one’s network and
enhancing interpersonal skills. Due to podcasts being open access,
these benefits are free to take advantage of and the portability
of phones and tablets can provide flexible listening during a
commute, for example.
More and more podcasts are becoming readily available and
despite the benefit of raw authentic discussion and the sharing of
ideas, it should be noted that there is no formal quality control
process. Therefore, it is recommended to continue to think critically
when listening, with regards to the accuracy of information being
discussed. To help inform readers’ listening choice, in the future
issues of The Sport and Exercise Scientist we will be reviewing
podcasts in addition to books and apps. In the next issue, the Pacey
performance podcast will be reviewed (www.strengthofscience.
com/pacey-performance-podcast/). Please click subscribe and start
listening to the podcast prior to our review in the next issue.