… Where does blame lie? Certainly some falls on Bryant. He’s as powerful as any figure within the Lakers’ organization and as powerful as any player within any NBA franchise. If he wanted to play fewer minutes, he could have. If he wanted to get his shoulder examined earlier, he could have. The only person who could’ve stopped Kobe was Kobe, but he didn’t, because Kobe is Kobe. He believes he will overcome.
So the blame truly falls on Scott, who hasn’t been shy about admitting his fault in the issue. And, to a greater degree, the blame truly falls on the entire organization for not stepping in at some point earlier on when Bryant was playing all those minutes.
… Bryant’s injury is the latest reminder of relying on the stability of a player of his age and mileage. Every season that the Lakers depend on Bryant as a core piece will only be more difficult than the last. His body will fail him, and in a sense it has — if by unrelated injuries — in each of the past three seasons. I’d doubt very much that we’ve seen the last of Kobe, though upon his return the Lakers should endeavor to use him in a different light. More conservative usage, even at Bryant’s dismay, could go a long way toward extending and sustaining what remains of his career.
… Bryant hasn’t hit the point where reaching awkwardly for the remote causes a groin strain, but at 36 in a league full of physical freaks, the pillar of performance is ancient and crumbling at an alarming rate.
This time? It’s a torn rotator cuff and almost certainly the end of his season. And Bryant needs to consider if there should be a next time.
F.C. Basel, the best soccer team in Switzerland, went to work one recent day on a glistening grass field set among chunky dirt mounds, overgrown vegetation and the construction site for what appeared to be a new Burger King. … In truth, Basel’s circumstances were not unusual. They were simply the consequence of European soccer’s annual winter break, an amorphous and much-debated concept that involves the shutting down of some of the major leagues around the continent for some of the coldest months. Basel and dozens of other teams have traveled to Spain’s southern coast this winter. Other clubs from Central Europe have sought green grass and warmer temperatures in Turkey or the Middle East. At least two have traveled to Florida.
Athletes tend to think of injuries as isolated incidents: Five hours on the bike equals lower back pain, or extra yardage in the pool is to blame for a case of swimmer’s shoulder. But injuries are often the sum of all stress placed on the body. According to chiropractic sports physician John Ball, poor sleep position can be a major contributor to the injury equation.
“People think of sleep as a passive activity: lie down, close your eyes, and wake up eight hours later, ready for the world,” Ball says. “In reality, sometimes the way you’re draping that leg across your body and off the bed, or holding your arm under the pillow, can often be the final factor that pushes you over the edge of injury or keeps you from recovering fully.”
Smartwatches are among the devices that appear to have escaped the regulatory glare of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FDA this week proposed new guidelines for general wellness products like exercise equipment and other low-risk devices that promote a healthy lifestyle.
The FDA’s draft guidance would loosen the oversight of general wellness products used for weight management, physical fitness, relaxation, mental acuity, self-esteem, sleep management, and sexual function, the agency said.
Background: The pivot-shift (PS) examination is used to demonstrate knee instability and detect anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. Prior studies using inertial sensors identified the ACL-deficient knee with reasonable accuracy, but none addressed the more difficult problem of using these sensors to determine whether a subject has an ACL deficiency and to correctly assign a PS grade to a patient’s knee.
Hypothesis: Inertial sensor data recorded during a PS examination can accurately predict ACL deficiency and the PS score assigned by the examining physician. … Results: The clinically determined PS grades of all 122 knees were as follows: 0 (n = 69), +1 (n = 23), +2 (n = 27), and +3 (n = 3). The SVM classification analysis was 77% accurate in correctly classifying these grades, with 98% of computed PS grades falling within ±1 grade of the clinically determined value. The system fusion algorithm diagnosed ACL deficiency in an individual with an overall accuracy of 97%. This method yielded 6% false negatives and 0% false positives.
Conclusion: This study used inertial sensor technology with SVM algorithms to accurately determine clinically assigned PS grades in ACL-intact and ACL-deficient knees. By extending the assessment to a separate group of patients without ACL injury, the inertial sensor data demonstrated highly accurate diagnosis of ACL deficiency.
Objective To review the quality of literature and measurement properties of physical performance tests (PPTs) of the lower extremity in athletes.
Methods Using the PICOS method we established our research question as to whether individual PPTs of the lower extremity have any relationship to injury in competitive athletes ages 12 years to adult (no limit). A search strategy was constructed by combining the terms ‘lower extremity’ and synonyms for ‘performance test’ and names of performance tests with variants of the term ‘athlete’. After examining the knee in part 1 of this 2 part series, the current report focuses on findings in the rest of the lower extremity. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed and the Consensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) checklist was used to critique the methodological quality of each paper. A second measure was used to analyse the quality of the measurement properties of each test.
Results Thirty-one articles examined the measurement properties of 14 PPTs pertaining to the lower extremity. The terminology used to name and describe the tests and methodology by which the tests were conducted was inconsistent.
The star excursion balance test performed in three directions (anterior, posteromedial, and posterolateral) appears to be the only test to be associated with increased injury risk. There is moderate evidence that the one leg hop for distance and the hexagon hop can distinguish between normal and unstable ankles. There is also moderate evidence that the medial hop can distinguish between painful and normal hips in dancers.
Conclusions Currently, there is relatively limited research-backed information on PPTs of the lower extremity in athletes. We would suggest convening an international consortium comprised of experts in sports to standardise the descriptions and methodologies, and to set forth a research agenda to establish definitively the measurement properties of the most common PPTs.
… Personalized medicine has been one of the big, unmet promises in health care for a long time. Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford, put it this way: “It’s been the hot thing coming for almost 20 years.”
Here’s an explanation of what personalized medicine entails — and why it’s mostly still a long ways off.
The country’s appetite for the creamy versatile fruit (yes, avocados are fruit) has grown just about every year for the past 15 years, according to data from the Hass Avocado Board, invadingkitchens and menus across the country. The rise is such that sales of Hass avocados, which make up more than 95 percent of all avocados consumed in the United States, soared to a record of nearly 1.9 billion pounds (or some 4.25 billion avocados) last year, more than double the amount consumed in 2005, and nearly four times as many sold in 2000.
Suppose you’re watching a baseball game, and your favorite player, a terrific hitter with a .320 average, has struck out three times in a row. If you’re like most people, you might think, “He’s due!” — and conclude that on his fourth at-bat, he’s likely to get a hit.
Now suppose that you are working in a college admissions office. Your job is to evaluate 200 applicants, about 50 of whom will be admitted. You’ve just accepted three in a row, and now you might be inclined to think that the next two are unlikely to deserve admission. You might even evaluate their applications with that skeptical thought in mind.
A lot of people are prone to this “gambler’s fallacy” — the mistaken belief that a small sequence of events will look a lot like a bigger one. Flip a coin 1,000 times, and there’s a very high probability it will come up heads half the time. But flip a coin five times, and you’ll find some surprises.
Harvard Business Review, Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries from
We all face setbacks from time to time, and the ability to bounce back stronger than before is something we envy in others. So how can we develop that ability in ourselves?
A large body of research shows that resilient people are generally strong in three areas: challenge, control, and commitment. They accept that change, not stability, is the norm; they believe they can influence events in their lives; and they are engaged with the world around them.
This test will help you assess your strengths and weaknesses in these areas and provide feedback on ways to improve.