Eagles trainer Chris Peduzzi and sports science coordinator Shaun Huls should both march into Howie Roseman’s office this morning and demand raises.
Because they might be the two most important guys in the organization this year.
Chip Kelly is trying to build a championship football team comprised significantly of injured guys, and it’s going to be Huls’ job to help get them ready for the season and Peduzzi’s job to try to help them finish the season.
… Some commentators have argued that introducing a winter break would drastically help our sides chances against teams from the continent – but is this really the case?
It is certainly true that teams play crunch European ties on the back of a hectic Christmas Premier League schedule and this may mean they have additional injuries.
The stats have proven that players are most likely to pick up injuries when they play several games in quick succession and it stands to reason that they will still be feeling the effects of this in February and March.
The Warriors have clinched the Western Conference’s top seed for the playoffs and now have another important goal with nine games left in a record-setting season.
Staying healthy during games that don’t matter much in the standings becomes a priority.
But don’t look for coach Steve Kerr to rest players en masse as he did in somewhat controversial fashion at Denver earlier this month. He said he doesn’t anticipate benching Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson for entire games anymore with only one back-to-back set remaining.
Over the past 15 years, there has been an increase in youth sports participation with a concomitant increase in early year-round training in a single sport. Many factors contribute to the desire of parents and coaches to encourage early single sport specialization, including the desire to give the young athlete an edge in competition, pursuit of scholarships, and potential professional status, and the ability to label a young athlete as elite at an early age. Despite these perceived advantages, some data suggest that early sport specialization does not lead to a competitive advantage over athletes who participate in multiple sports. Although the data are limited, there is some evidence that early sport specialization may put the young athlete at risk for overuse injuries. The focus of this review is to highlight the evidence regarding early sport specialization and risk for injury; discuss the risk factors for overuse injury in high-risk sports including ice hockey, swimming, gymnastics, and baseball; and discuss future potential research that would help define the risk of injury for young athletes who participate in early sport specialization.
The performance Pathway Team provide technical frontline solutions to sports in a variety of forms, typically in an advisory capacity or in the form of short or long term secondment.
… I sit in this weird in-between zone of scientist and coach. I consider myself more on the coach side, since that’s my primary job, first love, and how I got into this sport, but still I live full time in both worlds. There are a lot of really good scientist and coaches who dip their fingers in both sides and they’re to be commended, but I think my situation is slightly unique in that I’m truly fully engaged in both sides at the same time. I have to be. So it’s these two interacting worlds that I battle.
I’d like to use this post as a learning tool. An almost “A scientists guide to how to interact with coaches.” Then in the next month or so, put up the counter point and produce a guide for how coaches should interact with scientist.
… Most everything about Curry will soon be emulated if it isn’t already. Curry’s story is implicitly one of the future: His style will beg imitation and inevitably open doors for other guards who wish to play in a similar vein. It’s fitting, then, that the tale of Curry’s rise aligns neatly with the trajectory of the basketball development industry.
“Private coaching and being able to have access to it was a big part of my development as a basketball player,” Curry said. “…There were some things I needed to work on in fundamentals and skill development as opposed to strictly going out and just playing, which is great. But to have someone that’s invested in your strengths and weaknesses individually really helped me get better every single year. I really appreciated that as I got back into AAU and from a recruiting standpoint and all that. It really helped me.”
When a very young child looks at a picture, she can identify simple elements: “cat,” “book,” “chair.” Now, computers are getting smart enough to do that too. What’s next? In a thrilling talk, computer vision expert Fei-Fei Li describes the state of the art — including the database of 15 million photos her team built to “teach” a computer to understand pictures — and the key insights yet to come.
Tendinopathy, the most prevalent tendon disorder which is considered as the clinical diagnosis of pain and dysfunction, is common in sports and its prevalence is ever-increasing. Despite the lack of clarity about risk factors, various preventive interventions for tendinopathy have been investigated. The main objective of this study is to review current preventive interventions for tendinopathy in the major regions: ankle, knee, hip, groin, shoulder and elbow.
… Results
Ten articles were included that describe a wide variety of preventive interventions. These were divided into three categories: stretch and exercise interventions, shoe adaptations and other interventions. The methodological quality of the studies was moderate to high. Three out of ten studies showed a significant beneficial result. Conclusions
There is limited evidence that a long-term intervention including balance training is effective in the prevention of patellar and Achilles tendinopathy. Shoe adaptations in the form of shock absorbing insoles could have a preventive effect on Achilles tendinopathy. Hormone replacement therapy seems to reduce the risk for structural Achilles tendon changes in active post-menopausal women. No evidence was found for a positive effect of stretching exercises. Prophylactic eccentric training and stretching can increase the risk of injury in asymptomatic players with patellar tendon abnormalities. A limited amount of studies was available and more research is needed on (multifactorial) etiology, risk factors and preventive interventions.
Endurance athletes today have more choices than ever when it comes to fueling for training and racing. But the marketing messages of all those products often leave the impression that any workout regardless of duration or type demands a readily available sports drink, gel, or bar. If you’re training or racing for long periods of time, eating on the fly certainly becomes a necessity. But if you are following a one-size-fits-all approach to how you refuel during both training and racing, you may want to consider a more context-specific approach.
The Premier League in England has come in for criticism over the lack of young home-grown players coming through the ranks from club academy level to first team football.
The issue hit the headlines again this week, with Football Association chairman Greg Dyke demanding changes in top-flight clubs’ squads to ensure young English players get more game time.
However, behind the scenes 29 clubs from across the Premier League and Championship – those which operate England’s top-rated youth academies – are looking at innovative ways to help turn the best youngsters into the stars of tomorrow.
The year was 1980. Herb Brooks led his U.S. hockey team into Lake Placid in the Olympic Winter Games. The national team stunned the Soviet Union in a 4-3 upset victory, thus known as “The Miracle on Ice.” But was it a miracle? Before the puck dropped on center ice against the USSR, Herb Brooks was asked about his roster. It featured only one returning player from the 1976 Olympic team, the other 19 were collegiate players. In fact, the average age of the U.S. team was 21 years old, the youngest team in U.S. team history. The question to Coach Brooks was if his team had the best players in the tournament? He calmly responded, “It’s not about finding the best guys, it’s about finding the right guys.”
The Nike Academy is a full time, pro level training programme based at the national football centre, St. George’s Park. Players are selected through Global Most wanted and exit trials held by the P.F.A and the Football League. Once selected, Players experience elite level coaching, conditioning, sports science, medical provision and analysis in the hope of earning a professional contract. Since the academy was established it has provided the platform for over 40 players to turn professional, the most notable being Tom Rogic (now playing for Celtic and Australia), Jorge Grant (Nottingham Forest) and the latest graduate Callum Harris (Wolverhampton Wanderers).
TCM Performance analyst, Jack Heggie outlines the Nike Academy performance analysis process before and during match day…
Anyone watching the heart-stopping final game in the Six Nations may have noticed England’s coaches paying close attention to the computer screens in front of them throughout. Watching the game in close-up? In a way. They were watching the players’ individual performance stats in close-up.
Thanks to WIRED Health speaker Geoff McGrath of McLaren Applied Technologies (MAT), Stuart Lancaster and his team can monitor player and team performance metrics throughout a game. This data indicates how hard the players are working and when they’ll reach peak performance in play.