BioAlchemy is a Biomechanics, Sport Science and Performance Analysis consultancy that has provided services to professional teams and national sporting organisations for over 10 years.

It is run by Alec Buttfield (PhD, ESSAM ASpS2), a Biomechanist with 17 years experience in providing sport science services to elite athletes in a range of different sports.

Performance Solutions

As an applied sport scientist, Alec's career has been focussed on implementing performance solutions in high performance sporting environments. From integrating new and innovative technology and using it to define ideal performance tailored to individual athletes, such as the use of early prototypes of personal GPS and inertial sensor units for race and technique analysis in rowing and sprint kayak, or more recently integrating machine learning into the analysis of golf swings to leverage the hidden performance correlations within the data, his focus has been on using technical skills to achieve a performance solution for athletes.


Cross discipline projects and approaches

In his work both as part of a service team in a sports institute and as a consultant, the majority of the service teams Alec has been involved with have comprised inter-related disciplines. He has for the overwhelming majority of his career worked in performance teams where he was the sole biomechanics, performance analysis or skill acquisition expert, so has developed a close understanding of the relationships between service fields and the broader coach and athlete objectives.


Support at the highest levels of elite sport

Alec has provided sport science support at all levels of competition from Olympic games to regular weekend competition across a range of individual and team sports. These roles have demonstrated his technical skills to provide a service in a high pressure environment and also his ability to adapt his service delivery to fit the situation. He has often been part of a relatively small service team for intensive and high pressure periods, delivering support to athletes and coaches.


Contributing to the knowledge base

Alec has contributed to the broader biomechanics and sport science knowledge base through his own academic work (including a PhD pioneering methods to extract information on an athlete's physical condition from accelerometery data collected by Catapult GPS units) and through other peer reviewed articles (a list can be found here).


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