Applied Sports Science newsletter – May 12, 2015

Discussing a variety of topics with Frank Kaminsky in Santa Barbara, including what he’s working on on and off the court, his time at Wisconsin, and how he’s looking forward toward the pre-draft process. [video, pre-roll + 6:28]

The Milwaukee Bucks today announced that Troy Flanagan has been added to the team’s training staff as the Director of Performance. Flanagan brings extensive experience working with world-class professional and Olympic athletes to the Bucks organization.

“Troy is one of the most innovative and respected professionals in the field, and we couldn’t be more pleased to welcome him to the Bucks family,” Bucks Co-Owner Wes Edens said. “Our amazing athletes are the centerpiece of our organization, and we are committed to being on the cutting edge of advancements in athletic performance programs and techniques. Troy is uniquely qualified to lead that charge for us.”

… What are the limitations of a traditional periodization model (base, build…) for a triathlete racing five to 10 times per season?

A major limitation of a traditional periodization model is its inability to produce multiple performance peaks over the season. Although this may not be a big problem for a long-distance triathlete taking part in two or three major events in the season, it is clearly a handicap for an elite Olympic distance triathlete needing to perform repeatedly at the World Triathlon Series. In addition, such mixed training programmes may induce excessive fatigue, conflicting training responses and stagnation of improvement rate.

The legendary Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger once said to me in a meeting “if you want an easy week (in training with the players) then expect a hard weekend (at the game) …. If you want an easy weekend then prepare for a hard week (in training with the players)”.

What Arsene is basically saying is that managing and coaching tough, difficult talent is very stressful and difficult. BUT if you can handle them, then when they are released on the competition they will be impossible to beat. The converse is when you have a calm, comfortable preparation with a group then the reality is that when the big moment comes this set of individuals will not deliver.

A team of Empa scientists has, together with industrial partners, developed a novel chest strap device for the long-term monitoring of patients with heart and circulatory problems. What is special about the new system is that it records an electrocardiogram (ECG) of the wearer. It is also self-moistening, which is essential for reliable signal monitoring. At the specialist exhibition «Techtextil» held recently in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the system won the Techtextil Innovation Award 2015.

… How do you think sports technology and data has changed football in the last 10 years?

The sports science and medical fraternity is growing massively in football. Therefore the technology being used by those people is growing as well. Since the time I was at Southampton FC, many years ago, to now, the use of technology has gone through the roof.

Some of it is good, some bad, but certainly it’s being practiced a lot more. Originally we were on things like heart rate monitors and now it’s things like GPS and motion systems where you are tracking player movement. The technology is really growing in our industry and hopefully it is being found to be a benefit in the clubs as well.

With a brand new interface to get acquainted with and a device that most couldn’t physically hold (a privileged few excepted), developers were always going to find it tricky to build the first wave of apps for the Apple Watch.

That hasn’t stopped them trying though, and several weeks after the wearable’s launch we’re seeing feedback from coders based on how their apps have fared on the new gadget.

… Mobile health devices and applications are already in the hands of consumers but much less so in the hands of providers. According to a 2014 Deloitte survey of physicians in the United States, slightly less than one quarter reported actively using mHealth technologies despite nine out of ten reporting interest in their clinical value.

So where is the disconnect? It could be the result of mHealth developers not knowing how to work with FDA, says Scheineson.

Iron deficiency is sometimes a silent assassin, a quiet problem that creeps up and can kill your season if you are not vigilant. Yet with all of the science published on athletes’ iron deficiency and the current statistics on rates of low ferritin with professional athletes, the awareness among the athletic crowd is still incredibly low. One would think that only the regular joes have problems and the world’s elite would be protected from the common and seemingly mundane nutrient deficiencies, but the truth is that athletes are human and many problems are human issues, not unique to athletes. Iron status is essential to extracting oxygen from our lungs and transporting it to the rest of the body, and a few errors in nutrition and training can render a champion crippled if one is not careful.

Professor Asker Jeukendrup chats to The42 about optimal recovery, nutrition and Lionel Messi. … You’ve described the field of sports science as being akin to the Wild West. Could you elaborate on this point?

It’s not just sports science but in sports science and nutrition as well, there’s a lot of information out there and a lot of information is good information, but a lot of the information is not good information. It’s not based on any evidence.

I try to describe the landscape that the athlete has to navigate where they’re contacted by so many people and so many people try to point them in a direction — sometimes with the best of intentions, sometimes with not so good intentions — but very often, it’s not the best direction, based on the scientific evidence that we have.

Since the 1980s it has been known that carbohydrate intake during exercise can improve exercise performance lasting two hours or longer. Soon after this discovery, it was established that not all carbohydrates are equal and carbohydrates ingested during exercise may be utilised at different rates. Recently it was also demonstrated that there is a dose response relationship between the amount of carbohydrate ingested and oxidized and performance during prolonged exercise. Therefore it is important to identify carbohydrate sources that are oxidised rapidly. The ideal carbohydrate during exercise is rapidly emptied from the stomach, does not need digestion or is digested very rapidly, is absorbed quickly and can immediately be used by the muscle. This blog is based on a large number of studies and references and the reader interested in more detail is referred to the review articles listed at the bottom of this blog, that are downloadable in their entirety free of charge.

… the Rangers are one of the most balanced great teams ever — the hockey equivalent of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs or the “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons. The second-most-balanced team was the 2003-04 Detroit Red Wings, although they were something of an unusual case, with a combination of rising stars (Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg) and waning ones (Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan).

The difference between life and death in the operating room, on the battlefield or during a police shootout often comes down to the ability to adapt to the unexpected. Sleep deprivation may make it difficult to do so, according to a Washington State University study published this month in the journal Sleep.

For the first time, WSU researchers created a laboratory experiment that simulates how sleep loss affects critical aspects of decision making in high-stakes, real-world situations. Their results provide a new understanding of how going without sleep for long periods can lead doctors, first responders, military personnel and others in a crisis situation to make catastrophic decisions.

When agent Scott Boras was selling free-agent pitcher Max Scherzer to teams this winter, he had an information edge at his disposal: a $7 million computer system and accompanying database operated by two-dozen staffers, including numerous engineers from MIT and other elite universities.