Applied Sports Science newsletter – July 17, 2015

The health-promoting benefits of exercise have been recognized for centuries, yet the molecular and cellular mechanisms for the acute and chronic adaptive response to a variety of physical activities remain incompletely described. This Perspective will take a forward view to highlight emerging questions and frontiers in the ever-changing landscape of exercise biology. The biology of exercise is complex, highly variable, and involves a myriad of adaptive responses in multiple organ systems. Given the multitude of changes that occur in each organ during exercise, future researchers will need to integrate tissue-specific responses with large-scale omics to resolve the integrated biology of exercise. The ultimate goal will be to understand how these system-wide, tissue-specific exercise-induced changes lead to measurable physiological outcomes at the whole-body level to improve health and well-being.

Running economy is a key indicator of long distance running performance. Running economy is defined as the rate of oxygen consumed at a given steady-state speed. If an individual consumes less oxygen than another individual at a given speed, they have a better running economy. Improving your running economy has two effects, either you can run further before reaching exhaustion or you can run faster for the same oxygen cost. A number of factors determine an individual’s running economy (see Saunders et al. [1]), one of which is running biomechanics or technique.

One of the big debates in sports science over the last few years has been the question of “too much recovery.” Is it possible that the techniques we use to recover from workouts—ice baths, antioxidant supplements, compression garments, etc.—could in some cases be counterproductive? After all, the whole point of a workout is to impose physical stress on your body, so that it will adapt and get fitter and stronger. What if, by removing some of this stress with recovery aids, you’re also removing the signals that tell your body to adapt?

While a few studies have investigated this question, the debate has mostly been theoretical so far. But now data is starting to roll in. An Australian team led by Llion Roberts of the University of Queensland and the Queensland Academy of Sport has just published the most comprehensive look yet at the link between ice baths and training adaptations in the Journal of Physiology—and the results are extremely interesting.

As runners and triathletes come hobbling into my office on a daily basis, I am increasingly adamant about one issue: If you’re an endurance athlete, you have to take care of your kinetic chain, the muscle-tendon layer that supports all your bones and ligaments.

When you land while running, the force is approximately six times the force of walking. This loading force comes up through the foot, across the knee and into the hips and the back. The kinetic chain lessens the load on the skeleton. The stronger the chain, the less the skeletal load. Several studies have shown significant reduction in joint- and bone-loading force based on kinetic chain strength.

… The school – YSC Academy – opened its doors in September of 2013 in partnership with the Philadelphia Union. It gives the team’s academy members like Carvalho, Conde and Wilson a private education across the street from the Union’s youth facility. Training sessions are worked into their daily schedule. And it was all made possible by Richie Graham, a part owner of the Union, the CEO of YSC Sports and the founder of YSC Academy. He hopes the facility will help the United States pump out elite soccer players as teams do in Europe, where this kind of sports academy model is more common.

“The idea is: Can we build an American solution to a youth academy model that produces world-class players that are good enough to some day play at PPL Park and that are good enough to some day represent the national team and help us win the World Cup?” Graham said. “It’s a big vision but that’s the idea … It takes time though.”

Seems an obvious place to start, but just how important is it for clubs both at the top and the bottom of the leagues to get it right in pre-season?

What is important for a coach in pre-season is that he has his priorities right and that he has an understanding of what objective is most important. The most important objective in pre-season is to develop your time so that your players can develop an understanding amongst themselves, to learn to communicate verbally and non-verbally.

That is the most important objective in pre-season. To reach that objective you need all of your players available on the pitch – what you don’t need is injuries as they are the biggest hindrance to developing a team; that is the last thing you want. Unfortunately what you see is a lot of coaches overtraining players with double or triple sessions daily and as a result players develop fatigue during sessions but it is impossible to recover between sessions because the next session starts while you’re still trying to recover.

Alan Clarke is the founder and chief executive of STATSports, a provider of performance monitoring and analysis systems in the elite sports industry. Clarke founded STATSports in 2007 along with his business partner, Sean O’Connor. Clarke completed a mechanical engineering degree in Dundalk Institute of Technology and worked in senior roles within the music industry before forming STATSports.

The main component of this system is STATSports Viper Pod which is worn by athletes during training and on match day to collect data about their physiological performance. The Viper system collects more than half a million numbers every minute and translates this into valuable information that is easy for coaches to act upon. STATSports has 35 employees with plans to expand this number to cope with the ever increasing demand for the Viper system. [video, 0:35]

… Pain and injury, while they often go hand in hand, are not the same thing. Just because you’re hurt doesn’t mean you’re injured, and it’s entirely possible you could have an injury that doesn’t cause you constant pain. But while minor aches and pains can frequently be resolved independently, legitimate injuries often require the attention of a medical professional.

In this article, I’m going to give you a simple way to determine if you’re just hurt or if you’re actually injured and what to do in both cases.

Researchers at Virginia Tech have developed a new scoring method for assessing beverage intake, the Healthy Beverage Index (HBI). In a report published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics they describe how this tool can be used to more accurately evaluate dietary consumption of all types of fluids. They found that higher HBI scores were associated with more favorable lipid profiles, decreased risk of hypertension; and, among men, better C-reactive protein (CRP) levels.

… There is some potential for carbohydrate ingestion to enhance performance in tests that simulate the intermittent high-intensity nature and skills of intermittent sports. Carbohydrate ingestion consistently improves intermittent high-intensity exercise capacity; however, studies have shown mixed results (some show improved and show minimal or no effect) with regards to effects on sprinting, skill and minimal effects on jumping and cognition (attention and response time).

Carbohydrate intake at a rate of 30–60 g/h has been associated with a consistent beneficial effect on skill performance in soccer. On the other hand, studies in basketball and racquet sports have found mixed results (at best) from 35–80 g/h carbohydrate ingestion on sport-specific skills.

The jury for the UEFA Research Grant Programme – which supports the work of doctoral and post-doctoral researchers studying European football – has chosen research grant proposals for the 2015/16 season.

Effizienzpotenziale im strategischen Stadionmanagement (efficiency potential in strategic stadium management)

An unprecedented civilizing process? Social evaluation of “Supporters United” fan project in Poland

Transfer of skills from futsal to football in youth players

Beyond the game: If, when and how local football clubs practice corporate social responsibility

Mental health in football

Optimising player performance and readiness to train: Fatigue and recovery of neuromuscular function following football match-play

… “Numerous factors like an imperceptible decline or slope to a field, a careless measurement of length and mistakes in setting up timing equipment can ruin the validity of times of the 40-yard dash,” said Carl Valle, a track coach, timing-technology expert and blogger who has written extensively on Jackson’s 40 time and the general abuses of 40 times across various sports.

Valle used a well-attested data point from Jackson’s track career—a 6.18-second 55-meter run at a 1983 NCAA meet—and determined it is incredibly unlikely that Jackson ran a 40-yard dash in 4.12 seconds. Splits for Usain Bolt’s 65-meter sprints, for example, show that he ran 55 meters in 5.92 seconds and would therefore run 40 yards in approximately 4.10 seconds. Jackson, in other words, would have to be as fast as one of history’s greatest sprinters for 40 yards, then slow down so much in his final few strides that he was no better than the typical very good NCAA-caliber sprinter after 55.

… Assistant coach and advance scout Clay Moser is expected to transition from the bench to the front office in a sort of liaison position, which previously did not exist within the organization. A team spokesman confirmed Monday that the move is in the works.

The responsibilities of the role have been among those heaped upon assistant coach Mark Madsen. The plan with Moser, however, is to facilitate a pipeline of ideas with a basketball person in the front office.

Recent player tracking technology provides new information about basketball game performance. The aim of this study was to (i) compare the game performances of all-star and non all-star basketball players from the National Basketball Association (NBA), and (ii) describe the different basketball game performance profiles based on the different game roles. Archival data were obtained from all 2013-2014 regular season games (n = 1230). The variables analyzed included the points per game, minutes played and the game actions recorded by the player tracking system. To accomplish the first aim, the performance per minute of play was analyzed using a descriptive discriminant analysis to identify which variables best predict the all-star and non all-star playing categories. The all-star players showed slower velocities in defense and performed better in elbow touches, defensive rebounds, close touches, close points and pull-up points, possibly due to optimized attention processes that are key for perceiving the required appropriate environmental information. The second aim was addressed using a k-means cluster analysis, with the aim of creating maximal different performance profile groupings. Afterwards, a descriptive discriminant analysis identified which variables best predict the different playing clusters. The results identified different playing profile of performers, particularly related to the game roles of scoring, passing, defensive and all-round game behavior. Coaching staffs may apply this information to different players, while accounting for individual differences and functional variability, to optimize practice planning and, consequently, the game performances of individuals and teams.