Sport, Health & Wellbeing
Giving back to sport: Kaushik’s journey from athlete to educator
Kaushik Talukdar grew up in India playing several sports, but like most kids in the country, he was an avid cricketer, competing in domestic and international competitions, right through to his university days.
“It reached a point where I realised, I couldn’t go any further with my cricket career, so I got back to the roots of my interest in sport, which was movement,” Kaushik says.
“Growing up in the late 90s as an active kid in a small town, there was always a part of me that was curious about the science behind why and how we move. We played structured sports but also indulged in a lot of unstructured free play, which is missing these days.
“But in those days, we had limited understanding and resources to figure out the science behind movement.”
Eager to pursue a career that sparked his curiosity, Kaushik decided to leave his graduate job in a bank in 2006 and moved to New Zealand at the age of 21, where he enrolled at the Auckland University of Technology to study sports science.
This opened a pathway to the sports industry where Kaushik had the opportunity to work with various organisations and elite athletes over the years, working as a strength and conditioning coach and a movement educator.
“I was fortunate enough to work with some amazing people at some of the most reputable organisations in New Zealand such as High-Performance Sport NZ, NZ Cricket, and Sport Auckland’s Pathway to Podium program, where I was able to work with some world champions, junior Commonwealth Games athletes, and even Rio Paralympians,” Kaushik says.
Through his successes with the athletes he worked with, Kaushik was recruited by St Cuthbert’s College, a private school in Auckland, as its strength and conditioning coach. He worked with female athletes aged 11 to 18 and was eventually named the school’s Head of Movement Science.
“When I started working with them, I realised that we had very little information on young female athletes, especially in terms of sprinting kinetics and kinematics. That’s what kickstarted my PhD and academia journey,” Kaushik says.
The combination of his research and experience as a strength and conditioning coach led Kaushik to the University of Canberra last year, where he currently works as a Lecturer in Exercise Physiology and Anatomy. This year, he’s launching a new short course – Fundamentals of Youth Athletic Development – alongside Professor Nick Ball.
“I was very naive when I walked into St Cuthbert’s because I thought that having worked with elite and professional athletes before, working with youth athletes wouldn’t be very different,” Kaushik recalls.
“I overlooked the fact that despite some of them being really good athletes, they are still kids who are growing into their bodies and understanding what they’re capable of.
“It inspired me to focus more on the academic side of things so that I can create some resources to help these young athletes, their coaches, trainers and parents navigate movement, science and play in a holistic manner as their bodies go through rapid changes.”
The short course presents a unique offering in Australia and is divided into six different modules aimed at filling the information gap on how to work with young athletes and addressing the unique challenges they face. It covers both physical and psychosocial factors that can help develop resilient young athletes.
“Most programs focus on adults or elite athletes, but usually people in the industry are unlikely to work with elite athletes right away – there’s a higher likelihood of them working with the youth at the community or grassroots level,” Kaushik says.
“When you’re dealing with kids, you’re dealing with biological growth, gender differences, the anatomical and structural changes that drive movement and the psychosocial elements associated with exercise.
“Those are often overlooked, so we want to help educate people on not treating young, developing athletes like mini adults, so that we can hopefully maximise their potential reduce injuries and avoid burnout that we often see nowadays.”
Kaushik envisions big things for the course – perhaps segmenting it to two separate streams with one stream targeting professionals such as coaches and therapists, and the other targeting the athletes and their parents. He would also like to collaborate with other universities and industry providers so they can expand the offering across Australia.
For now, the focus is on taking a vital first step in educating people about a healthier, more interactive and playful way to develop youth athletes, with an emphasis on every young athlete’s unique personal development.
“We want to help these young people grow and have a healthy relationship with sport, exercise and physical activity as they transition into adulthood. Along the way, if some of them become great at their sport and go pro or become an Olympian, then that’s a bonus,” he says.
Words by Mike Verzosa. Images by Liam Budge.