Episode4 : Ed Daly speaks with Duncan French, PhD about his past career working with Olympic athletes, his current role in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and his thoughts on concussion & athlete monitoring
Dr Duncan French has over 20 years of experience working in high performance and Olympic athletes. He’s currently the head of the UFC performance institute in Las Vegas and Shanghai. In previous roles, he was the Director of Performance Science at the University of Notre Dame, USA. Technical Lead for Strength & Conditioning at the English Institute of Sport and the national lead for S&C to both Great Britain Basketball and the Great Britain Taekwondo’s Olympic program. He was also the Head of Strength & Conditioning at Newcastle United FC in the English Premier League for three seasons.
About the podcast:
The Heads-Up Podcast are a series of interviews with ex professional male rugby players, elite female players and coaches about concussion in the sport. The podcasts discuss their early careers and very open commentary about the realities of professional rugby. Heads-Up discusses insights into injury (specifically concussion), how they managed then and how they continue to manage with life after a professional career. The players offer insights into the culture around the game, their concussion experiences and their observations on player welfare, protective equipment and law changes to the game.
About Ed Daly:
Ed Daly has over thirteen years’ experience in sports coach education and more than five years of lecturing experience in third-level institutes. Ed is currently a PhD researcher focused on investigating concussion identification, concussion management and concussion reduction strategies.
Ed is an active PhD research scientist (Oxford Brookes University) specializing in concussion education, managing athlete workload, objective concussion diagnosis and post concussion management. Currently developing research for the Irish Concussion Research Centre (ICRC) based in GMIT.
Ed is a lecture in Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) in the area of Sport & Exercise Science within the School of Science & Computing. Programme coordinator for MSc (strength & conditioning).
Before moving to a career in lecturing, Ed worked in professional sports and spent over ten years as a coach with Munster Rugby, coaching age-grade players on the professional player development pathway and in injury incidence reduction via workload management (specializing in the area of strength & conditioning).
Contact Ed Daly
Email: Ed.Daly@gmit.ie
linkedin.com/in/ed-daly-82704a74
Twitter: @ed_eddaly
https://www.gmit.ie/science/irish-concussion-research-centre-icrc
https://concussioninsport.eu