The cast around Brian Cushing’s surgically repaired wrist was mostly hidden underneath the suit he wore to a charity fashion show in Houston. It’s the remnant of a very difficult season for the star Texans linebacker.
“There’s a different mindset when you go out onto the field and you know you’re 100 percent and you know you’re going to take over a game,” Cushing said. “And there’s [the mindset] where you know you’re probably going to be limited, and it’s tough. The worst feeling in the world is being on the sideline. There was a good amount of time during critical games last year I was [on the sideline]. And sometimes not even playing, missing two games. As a captain and a guy who’s been here for a while, I consider myself a big impact player.
“To get that taken away from you is kind of an empty feeling. But it’s not forever.”
… Beginning with his watershed year of 2011, Djokovic has shown that it isn’t just on the tennis court that he’s become the equal, on any given day, of Federer or Nadal. Time, success, experience, and marriage have smoothed many of the burrs in his personality. Always a man of convictions, he’s now a little less definitive and a little less aggressive about expressing them. He’s always liked to talk, but now he’s a better listener. Djokovic conquered the world four years ago, winning three Grand Slam titles and hardly losing a match, but he’s also learned from it, and become a man of it. And now that he’s a husband and father as well, he seems to have found his ultimate niche.
“As my life progresses, there are circumstances, situations, events that define these beautiful moments,” Djokovic said after winning his fifth Australian Open, trying to explain why this most recent Grand Slam triumph seems to have “deeper meaning” and more “intrinsic value.”
In the coming weeks HMMR Media will welcome Derek Evely as a new author with a series on modern periodization methods. But before we look at the current trends in periodization it is helpful to look at how we got to periodization itself. After all, knowing where you came from can be as helpful as knowing where you are.
… what follows is my attempt, in a very simple fashion, to review and compare the various traditional and modern methodologies/periodization models that exist in real-world coaching and sport science academia. Part I will look at traditional and block periodization and Part II next week will look at complex periodization and Bondarchuk’s approach. This analysis is by no means comprehensive, but it does represent the more significant approaches that for the most part, good or bad, have shaped modern planning and methodological science and dramatically influenced coaching practice. In short, it’s a place to jump in and start swimming.
A fundamental flaw in the NFL Draft Process which requires inbound rookies to go through the NFL Draft Combine is the question of, who should be paying for this specialized training ? The Athlete? His agent ? his parents? or maybe it should be the NFL, since they reap all the benefits.
Under the current system the top rated Draft Eligible athletes are invited to the NFL Combine, typically the third week in February. The purpose of the combine is to see the athletes perform various speed, agility, strength, position drills and mental tests to help measure and evaluate their talent for the upcoming Draft. All the NFL teams have scouts, position coaches, head coaches and general managers on hand to watch the best of the best athletes go through the drills.
These drills are important measurement tools for the NFL, however, are not part of the Athletes regular routine and not something they may have ever competed at in their collegiate careers.
In football, swift bursts of power help running backs break through the opposing team’s front line and wide receivers outsprint defenders to chase down their quarterback’s passes, while cornerbacks and safeties have to be every bit as fast to thwart those wide receivers. It makes perfect sense, then, that some of the greatest players in the history of football, like Bob Hayes, Rod Woodson, and Herschel Walker, also had world-class credentials in track.
Will any current collegians match the two-sport process of Hayes, Woodson, and Walker? The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association maintains a list of this indoor season’s top track and field marks by collegiate football players. Not surprisingly, the two men with the fastest 60-meter times on the list boast flashy football statistics.
Liz Stephen never has doubted her physical ability to be one of the world’s top cross-country skiers.
In recent months, however, it’s been the improvement of her mental game that’s helped the two-time Olympian propel to new heights among the sport’s elite.
… Southampton can rightly point to its recent success at developing some of the most skilled young players in England, however the model of achieving sporting success against larger clubs through the success of its youth academy does have precedence.
Dario Gradi and Crewe Alexandra Football Club have long outpunched their weight against larger clubs. The town has a population of just over 80,000 yet the football club has long been recognized as one of English football’s most flourishing player development nurseries for young talent. Crewe Alexandra is a small club that has fluctuated between the Championship and League Two — the second and fourth tier leagues — in England.
During Dario Gradi’s tenure at the club alone, Crewe banked more than £20m in transfer fees for players that they have developed, which includes well-known names such as Nick Powell (Manchester United), Dean Ashton (former West Ham/England), Danny Murphy (former Liverpool/England) and David Platt (former Arsenal/England).
… To get a better sense of the science of sleep, I spoke to Camilo Ruiz, a sleep specialist with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Here are nine surprising facts that came out of our conversation.
1) Scientists still don’t know why we need to sleep
Loren Landow and Whitney Wright from Steadman Hawkins Sport Performance talk about how dorsaVi’s ViPerform sensors help then add objectivity to movement when they work with athletes training for the upcoming NFL draft.
Femoroacetabuler impingement (FAI) is becoming increasingly recognised as a potential pathological entity for individuals with hip pain. Surgery described to correct FAI has risen exponentially in the past 10 years with the use of hip arthroscopy. Unfortunately, the strength of evidence supporting both the examination and treatment of FAI does not appear to accommodate this exponential growth. In fact, the direction currently taken for FAI is similar to previously described paths of other orthopaedic and sports medicine pathologies (eg, shoulder impingement, knee meniscus tear) for which we have learned valuable lessons. The time has come for improved terminology, study design, and focus on delineation of successful treatment variables in the interest of those individuals with clinical indications of FAI so that we can appropriately address their needs.
An athlete’s life is defined by action, so being injured and having to go through the gradual steps that lead to rehabilitation and recovery can be maddening.
The primary purpose of this study was to identify the most appropriate method for normalizing physical performance measures to body mass in American football players. Data were obtained from the population of players (n = 4,603) that completed the vertical jump, broad jump, 40-yd sprint, 20-yd shuttle, 3-cone drill, and bench press at the National Football League Scouting Combine from 1999 to 2014. Correlation coefficients were used to assess relationships between body mass and physical performance measures. For the entire group and each playing position, absolute (i.e., non-normalized) performance measures were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) correlated with body mass, indicating that normalization is warranted. Ratio scaling, however, was not appropriate for normalizing most performance measures because it merely reversed (and increased in magnitude) the significant correlations between body mass and performance. Allometric scaling with derived allometric parameters was appropriate for normalizing all performance measures because correlations between body mass and performance were near to zero and no longer statistically significant. However, the derived allometric parameters differed by playing position. Thus, when normalizing physical performance measures to body mass, strength and conditioning professionals should use allometric scaling with test- and position-specific allometric parameters. Additionally, in the current study, percentile rankings were generated to provide test- and position-specific normative reference values for the absolute measures. Until body mass normalization techniques are adopted more broadly, strength and conditioning professionals can use these normative references values to compare current players with those who have already participated in the Scouting Combine.
Most of the statistical data that is tracked in basketball is based on the end result of plays. Was it a made basket or a miss? Was it assisted? Where did the shot come from on the court? Who grabbed the rebound?
Play Type Statistics go beyond the play-by-play section of the box score and break down what happened on each play to produce the end result. Synergy Sports catalogs all of the action that takes place in each play of each game to provide a comprehensive look at how players and teams execute on offense and defense.