The US-Mexico soccer game brought out a bunch of Christian Pulisic where-did-he-come-from articles: How was the next star of American soccer, Christian Pulisic, created? (Pro Soccer Talk, Joe Prince-Wright) Christian Pulisic opens up about rise at Borussia Dortmund and U.S. national team (The Washington Post) Das American: Christian Pulisic’s Spectacular Rise (VICE Sports) Christian Pulisic: […]
Read More →Category: Applied Sports Science
Sports Science: Week in Review, Oct 31-Nov 6
The Cubs’ win in the World Series generated lots of reports on how to build a championship team: Five years in the making, ‘The Plan’ ends Cubs drought (Yahoo News, Reuters) MLB: How Theo Epstein transformed the Cubs roster (ESPN, Bradford Doolittle and Luke Knox) The Cubs Just Ended Baseball’s Analytics War (The Ringer, Rany […]
Read More →Sports Science: Week in Review, Oct 24-Oct 30
Believe something positively affects your performance, practically anything, and it can actually enhance your performance, that’s what Brad Stulberg writes in a blog post for the Science of Us blog at the New York Magazine website. Stulberg includes a point made by David Martin and Shona Halson that “the exercise-science community should stop overlooking the […]
Read More →Sports Science: Week in Review, Oct 17-Oct 23
The first age of sports analysis is closing, the era that Bill James originated and which depended solely on numbers, statistical analysis and truth-telling. We’re entering the second era where the technology that enables data capture is as critical as the analysis. Two categories of sensor technologies matter most. Wearable sensors attach to athletes or […]
Read More →Sports Science: Week in Review, Oct 10-Oct 16
New research by Stephanie Kovalchik in the Journal of Sports Sciences makes a couple of points about the career arcs of elite female tennis players. The very best tend to earn their first professional ranking at a younger age (15) and they stay ranked further into their careers (until almost 30). The subtext of the […]
Read More →Sports Science: Week in Review, Oct 3-Oct 9
Sports science is a complex solution to the complex problem of athlete health and performance. Unfortunately the perception of sports science is that of next big things, secret weapons and magic bullets. It should not be a secret that sleep and recovery and nutrition can contribute significantly to on-field performance. There are also emerging technologies […]
Read More →Sports Science: Week in Review, Sep 26-Oct 2
Data analysis has become a core element of sports journalism. Normally it’s evidence in support of an insight, like a younger athlete’s rise or an older athlete’s decline. Sometimes, like this week, you see stories where the analysis is the story. Analytics-centric journalism often points to a revolution in progress: college football, baseball fielding, basketball […]
Read More →Sports Science: Week in Review, Sep 19-25
Investing in sports science and analytics is no guarantee of wins. In some cases it looks like it resulted in classic cases of “paralysis by analysis.” Team Sweden was collaborating with SAS, makers of high powered statistical software, in its World Cup of Hockey effort. The tournament was a success until the semifinals where, according […]
Read More →Sports Science: Week in Review, Sep 12-18
Developing young athletes with elite potential in the U.S. is a never ending discussion, often just below the surface of a sports daily news. Youth development in U.S. soccer has grown side-by-side with the sport and has become a rich subject for writers. Every American sport has its pathways for surfacing talented young players and […]
Read More →Sports Science: Week in Review, Sep 5-11
Back to school time is a time for transition in the professional sports. Football and European soccer are gearing. Hockey and basketball are almost ready to get going. The offseason is pretty much over. Off season usually means different things to team management than it does to players. Front offices assemble rosters (also this) and […]
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