Applied Sports Science newsletter – May 28, 2015

… Djokovic could and should leave Paris with the Coupe des Mousquetaires – his professional holy grail — for only one reason. He is prepared. Uber-prepared. More prepared than perhaps any athlete roaming the planet. He leaves no rock, stone or pebble unturned.

He is fanatical about what he puts in his body and how he orders his life. He famously gave up gluten in 2011. He forgoes coffee for tea and mostly avoids his favorite indulgence, chocolate (though he likes to pass them out at press conferences). He drinks water only at certain temperatures and ingests exotic forms of honey, berries and grasses. He does yoga. He meditates. He stretches and stretches and stretches – fitting for the sport’s resident Gumby.

… The line of thinking is that Young, snagged last year at No. 17, would be a lottery pick this summer if he had stayed for his sophomore season at Kentucky. It’s impossible to know exactly how Young’s stock might have shifted with another year at college, but here’s what we do know: After Young’s injury-detoured rookie season spent largely under the cloak of the Development League, the Celtics are hopeful the 19-year-old can display the sort of progress necessary to catapult him toward a rotation-caliber player next season.

Celtics coach Brad Stevens, who hinted last summer that he had Young among his lottery-caliber players heading into the draft, recently used him as an example of the difficulty young players face while making the early jump to the NBA.

“We had our interviews in Chicago [earlier this month] at the combine and we interviewed 18 guys. A pretty consistent question is, ‘Do you understand how hard this is going to be?’” Stevens said last week during a stint as guest co-host on Mike & Mike. “It’s a hard transition — 82 games in and of itself is a monster.

As the twins Bob and Mike Bryan prepare for another run at a French Open doubles title, they’re relying more than ever on the secret to their dominance: They can scream, curse and throw rackets at each other—and then act like nothing ever happened.

The Bryans have ruled doubles for more than a decade, winning more titles and spending more weeks atop the rankings than any team in history. Along the way, a popular presumption has developed about why they are so successful—that they understand each other’s tendencies better because they are identical twins.

Yet the most important benefit to their twin bond has largely been overlooked. For the Bryans, it’s OK to be downright nasty to each other.

Spring practice is the time for college football coaches to take stock of their programs and sweat the details, whether or not they actually have anything to worry about. This year, Boston College coach Steve Addazio spent his spring worrying about bodies. More specifically, he was concerned about the big bodies required to forge a modern offensive line, and his team’s sudden lack of them.

Ideally, Addazio hopes to carry a minimum of 16 offensive linemen on scholarship, enough to field a full two-deep while leaving a handful of redshirts, scout-teamers, and injured bystanders to spare. When BC opened spring drills in February, though, Addazio counted just nine — more like seven and a half, really, with senior Harris Williams sitting out contact drills because of a lingering ankle injury and sophomore Jon Baker relegated to part-time duty by a bum knee. The few healthy bodies up front included fresh converts from both the defensive line and tight end position, plus a true freshman who weighed just 236 pounds when he enrolled early for the spring semester.

All of us wish to achieve great accomplishments, such as becoming a successful entrepreneur, mastering a foreign language, or reaching our peak level of physical fitness.

In moments of motivation, we may take the first step, like packing our gym bag the morning of an anticipated workout. While we may be inspired for short periods of time, this feeling can wane at the slightest difficulty, and we fail to follow through.

Have you ever wondered why you didn’t stick with something when you had felt so motivated? The answer may sound simple, but its realization can have a profound impact on your chances of achieving your goals. The answer is that motivation is not enough. Motivation doesn’t carry you through the time it takes to execute. For that, you need commitment.

One of the wonders of air travel is seeing with new perspective the city you’re leaving behind as you head skyward. I’m writing this on a flight from Boston where I had the considerable good fortune to spend a few days speaking with some of the best sports coaches, scientists and health practitioners in the US at the Boston Sports Medicine Performance Group Summer Seminar and Catapult Performance Directors Forum.

Over three lovely spring days in the capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts we heard cutting edge insights from a host of leading practitioners in their fields?—?Robert Sapolsky discussing his eminent work on stress; Vincent Walsh arguing with conviction that sport is the brain’s biggest challenge; Michael Boyle, Erik Helland and Michael Zarren on sustaining a winning culture in top level sport; Derek Hansen on the search for speed; and many more besides. I was lucky enough to share a series of talks on a variety of topics with a running theme that’s both close to my heart and central to the work we do at myfastestmile?—?the use of applied complexity and ecological dynamics to help people be their best.

… Whilst at the [Gill Athletics Apprentice Coach Program] it was repeatedly explained that the WAC expect their athletes to be at PhD level understanding in their sport, and that all support staff should be able to have in depth conversations – not just surface chatter – in all disciplines of support provided by the WAC. This was highly evident in speaking to the track coaches, as well as the therapists and the athletes themselves. It wasn’t just us Apprentice Coaches who were diligently scribbling notes in our notepads. Many of the athletes had their own training diaries with more detail than a PhD thesis!

Perhaps it is the nature of working in athletics or a function of the way the careers of Dan and Stuart developed, but the staff at the WAC really do have an holistic approach to athlete development, and they walk the walk when it comes to having a keen understanding of this.

Watching Eugenie Bouchard suffer at the French Open on Tuesday and watching Simona Halep and Ernests Gulbis suffer on Wednesday, it was hard not to marvel at the game’s long-running success stories.

While last year’s luminaries, Bouchard and Gulbis, take the roller coaster back down the rankings, the Novak Djokovics and the Roger Federers have managed a much steadier ride through the seasons. Yes, they are phenomenally talented and well supported with longstanding teams of trainers, physiotherapists and dual coaches.

But there is something more at work, too.

“They make sure they don’t step into all the little holes,” said Gunter Bresnik, the veteran Austrian coach who has had to live with (and without) Gulbis in recent years.

… Ray’s participation in the offseason program has been monitored closely because of a toe injury. He suffered what he called a “variation of turf toe” in his right foot in Missouri’s bowl game. Ray did not work out at the combine in February and was limited at least some in his on-campus workout in the weeks before the draft.

Broncos coach Gary Kubiak has said Ray’s pre-draft workouts affected the player’s ability to heal and that the Broncos would be careful in the coming weeks in how they pushed him before training camp.

“From my understanding, and I’m not an expert on it, but it’s my understanding as he went through everything, all the workouts and stuff, that when he got to the draft he could have rehabbed better or been on a better program,” Kubiak said recently. “Obviously, now he’s with us and I promise you he’ll be around the best. He’ll definitely benefit from it.”

Every coach and manager has to implement innovative and creative strategies in order to stay ahead of the field. Most elite teams have scores of advisers, specialists, coaches, and opinion makers; all of whom need to be focussed towards a single vision. It is no different for those responsible for the athletes’ fitness and well-being. Wayne Diesel, the Sports Performance Director for the Miami Dolphins, discusses why managing the philosophy within the medical team is vital to success on the field.

… There was still some good news on Tuesday. According to Miller, the MRI he underwent the previous day was encouraging. He expects to be out for some 10 days, keeping him out of Saturday’s away match against the Chicago Fire (8:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE).

Now, for the bad news: This is the second hamstring injury in less than a year for Miller, who was out for four weeks last season. Head coach Frank Klopas sees some bad luck with many injuries his players have suffered, but he hinted on Tuesday that the team can do better to prevent soft tissue injuries.

“I think certain guys, over a year and a half, there’s some kind of history that we need to be on top of, to know that some guys, over three games in a week where they play, they’re more high-risk,” Klopas said. “And it doesn’t matter the age or stuff like that. Their bodies are like that. It’s unfortunate.”

Older people often comment that today’s chicken, tomatoes, or other foods don’t taste as good as they once did. According to food and travel writer Mark Schatzker, those aren’t just wistful thoughts based on nostalgia or the result of aging taste buds. Instead, he argues, they point to a true failure of the food system. “Stuff doesn’t taste the way it used to and it hasn’t for a long time,” Schatzker says. In his new book, “The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor,” the Toronto-based Schatzker, 41, examines how a decades-long quest to create inexpensive, plentiful food has robbed it of both nutrition and inherent flavor which is then replaced with flavorings created in the lab.

Q. Why doesn’t food have as much natural flavor as it once had?

A. We’ve been on a mission to make food more abundant and cheaper for about 60 years. We succeeded, but we paid for it in flavor. We bred tomatoes to be incredibly productive, have a great shelf life, and be disease-resistant. But over uncountable generations, flavor has gotten lost

Carbohydrate intake during exercise is often seen as something for endurance athletes. In sports like football (soccer) it is often believed that carbohydrate intake is less important. It is true that most evidence of carbohydrate effects is obtained in endurance sports. The increased running endurance capacity may be relevant in soccer and other team sports, but the fact is that running performance is just one of many aspects that will determine the outcome of a game. Other important aspects are skills like accurate passing, shooting, dribbling, timing, heading etc. What is less known (and less researched) is that skills can also be affected by carbohydrate ingestion. Carbohydrate may do this indirectly by delaying fatigue but perhaps also directly by affecting processes in the brain.

Presentation at the 8th World Congress on Science and Football … Though international travel is a common requirement for elite team sport athletes, limited information is available on the recovery timeline for team sport performance following travel. Consequently, the present study aimed to determine the effects of long-haul transmeridian air travel on physical performance relevant to team sports. Data was collected from 19 physically active males at 09:00 (AM) and 17:00 (PM) for 4 days prior to (Baseline) and following (Post 1-4) 20 h eastward air travel across 8 time-zones. Specifically, participants performed a countermovement jump (CMJ), 20-m sprint and agility test (T-Test), followed by the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery level 1 (YYIR1) test. Analyses were performed by fitting a linear mixed model to the absolute change from baseline. CMJ mean power and force were significantly reduced at Post 1 PM, Post 2 and 3 AM and PM, and Post 4 AM (P0.90). 5-, 10- and 20-m sprint times were significantly slower at Post 1, 2 and 3 PM (P0.90), and agility times were significantly slower at Post 1 PM (P=0.01; d=1.62). Lastly, at Post 1 and 3 PM, distance covered in the YYIR1 was significantly reduced (P0.90), whilst large effect sizes indicated reduced YYIR1 performance at Post 2 PM (P=0.09; d=1.11). Results from the present study suggest team sport physical performance may be reduced up to 4 days following eastward long-haul transmeridian air travel. This has implications for the timing of arrival prior to competition and training prescription in the days following long-haul flights in team sport athletes.