The Victorian Institute of Sport Advancement Series offers Victorian Government secondary school students the opportunity to learn from VIS experts in the areas of nutrition and sport science for free. These education sessions cover key concepts and how they apply to everyday life and elite sport.
Sessions are aimed at high ability learners and are targeted to the Year 7/8, Year 9/10 and Year 11/12 curriculum for health and physical education.
This program is supported by the Victorian Government, Department of Education and Training, as part of the Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series Student Excellence Program.
Update 14 May 2025:
The VIS Advancement Series is now fully booked for 2025. We are no longer taking bookings for this program.
We welcome you to join the waitlist as spots may become available due to occasional cancellations.
If you have any questions, please include them in the form or contact us directly at community.programs@vis.org.au.
Nutrition Advancement
Nutrition sessions are a four-hour workshops starting at 10am, featuring VIS expert presentations, interactive activities, a guided tour of the world-class VIS facilities led by a VIS athlete or alumni, and an athlete presentation.
There are two types of Nutrition sessions for schools to choose from, Performance Nutrition or Sports Nutrition & Sports Medicine.
Performance Nutrition (for years 7-10)
These sessions will extend students understanding of basic nutrition to cover a range of curriculum areas including:
- The function and food sources of major nutrients important for health and wellbeing.
- Food selection models to promote healthy eating among youth. Example: Australian Guide to Healthy Eating.
- Navigating nutritional panels on food products.
- The importance of matching energy intake with energy requirements.
- Performance nutrition for different sports.
- Nutrition for post-exercise recovery.
Sports Nutrition & Sports Medicine (for VCE, Units 1-4)
These sessions will extend students understanding of complex nutrition and sports medicine areas within the PE curriculum including:
- Actual and perceived benefits and potential harms of legal and illegal substances and methods that enhance performance of the musculoskeletal system, such as nutritional supplements and hormones, blood doping etc.
- Critically analyse the physiological effects of legal and illegal strategies that enhance the performance of the cardiovascular system on the individual.
- The ethical and sociocultural considerations of legal and illegal practices associated with enhancing the performance of the musculoskeletal system in sport.
- Fuels (chemical and food) required for resynthesis of ATP at rest and during physical activity.
- Nutritional and rehydration strategies including water, carbohydrate and protein replenishment to enhance recovery.
Sport Science Advancement
Sport science is a broad topic that can be applied uniquely to different sports.
These education sessions will take students through an interactive session where they will learn about each of the different areas of sport science and how they relate to elite athlete performance, such as physiological, performance analysis, skill acquisition and biomechanical principles.
The aim is to deliver age-appropriate content, specific to the health and physical education framework.
Sport Science Curriculum
Sessions will be targeted toward the Year 7/8, Year 9/10 and Year 11/12 curriculum and competency levels, with focus on the following areas:
- Acute physiological responses to exercise in the cardiovascular, respiratory and muscular systems.
- Performance enhancing practices from a physiological perspective – heat and altitude training and how VIS athletes use the VIS climate chamber.
- Biomechanical principles for analysis of human movement.
- Assessment of fitness including the purpose of fitness testing, aims, reliability & validity, standardised tests used for aerobic power, anaerobic capacity, etc.
- Performance analysis as it relates to live coding and its application to inform decision with regards to game tactics and opposition scouting.
- Skill acquisition fundamentals to adapt or acquire skills for performance.
