Applied Sports Science newsletter – July 27, 2015

Early in the 2014 college football season, Nebraska defensive end Randy Gregory was receiving favorable comparisons from scouts to Jadeveon Clowney and was being tossed around as a potential top-10 draft pick.

Instead, between his admission of excessive marijuana use and questions about his ability to gain weight and hold up against the run, Gregory was picked apart more than a roasted chicken during the draft process. His stunning plummet ended when the Cowboys finally selected him at No. 60 overall.

Last week, Gregory talked to Bleacher Report about the draft process, his family and his expectations as he took part in a youth football clinic during the NFL Rookie Symposium.

… “I believe the key going forward for Troy is going to be as much as anything about his physical development,” Clifford said. “I’ve wanted to see him add weight and gain strength, which I think will help him at both ends of the floor. He can shoot the ball from long range. He has a good feel of how to play. Right now, in order to take advantage of the skills he has worked on, he has to get stronger.”

That has meant plenty of time this summer in the weight room.

Jabari Parker’s been working diligently to get back on the court.

Parker accompanied the team to Las Vegas for Summer League to continue his rehab with members of the Bucks Performance Team. During the course of 11 days in Las Vegas, Jabari, Tyler Ennis and Johnny O’Bryant worked daily with Senior Strength and Rehabilitation Specialist Suki Hobson as they work their way back to the court (from various ailments).

One of the highlights of their workouts was a day trip to Calico Tanks Trail in Red Rock Canyon. Jabari and Tyler hiked the sandstone to take in the geology and beautiful scenery of Red Rock.

Fighting for his football life, the former Heisman Trophy winner has turned to two retired baseball pitchers and their new-wave teaching methods.

A recurrent theme running through a lot of Rafa Benitez’ interviews has been the emphasis that the new Real Madrid coach places on his training philosophy. Rafa believes that the most efficient breakdown of training time is to spend 80% of the session working with the ball and the remaining 20% concentrating on fitness.

It’s a not new idea he’s had since coming to Madrid either; Rafa used this method at various clubs including Valencia, Liverpool, Inter and Napoli, and his approach to training has been quite methodical in this respect over the years. He feels the 80 – 20 approach is a formula that works for him; and he’s been content therefore to employ this system in the clubs he’s managed. He obviously believes in it’s success.

Underpinning this approach is the need for footballers to have a strong capacity for aerobic endurance; since research has shown that it is the aerobic metabolism that supplies most of the energy used in football. (Coutts & Grant, 2005; Bordon 2006). Aerobic training implies that the training programme is designed to improve the oxygen transport system in the body (Reilly et al, 2008) and the reason for this is that during match-play and training there is a requirement to have a good supply of oxygen delivered to the working muscles in order to minimise the risk of fatigue and improve a player’s actual running capability.

… it’s an atmosphere that has been carefully constructed by Kelly and, in many ways, reflects the mile-a-minute coach. Everything is structured in the interest of maximizing time and technological and scientific advances – some that have been documented, many that have not.

The requirements can be difficult for some players to embrace. But that’s where the culture part enters. It is why Kelly places so much emphasis on character and having players who develop into leaders and can integrate new pieces into the program.

“There’s been a changeover, but it’s almost been fresh having new guys here and kind of teaching them the ways,” center Jason Kelce said. “I think now I’m in a much different position than I was two, three years ago, even just one year ago. Right now, I think we have a very solid locker room that is eager to learn and get better.”

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Struggling with knee pain? For relief, consider aiming higher. Rehab routines that incorporate the hip—as opposed to the knee alone—appear to work better for combating runner’s knee, according to a new research review published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

British and Australian scientists analyzed 14 previous studies of people with patellofemoral pain, the official name for the ache in the front of the knee that strikes many runners. Participants whose programs included moves to build strength, endurance, and activation in the muscles around the hip had less knee pain and improved joint function when compared with those whose therapy focused on the quadriceps muscles alone.

… As the 32 NFL teams convene for annual training camps beginning Sunday, some players have had a training camp before training camp: Glazer’s exhaustive workouts here in the shadow of fortune and privilege in southern California. In the past month, Glazer says he has had 30 players in-house for workouts. Some, such as Eagles tackle Lane Johnson, are trying go from starter to Pro Bowler. Some, such as veteran 49ers running back Reggie Bush, are trying to prove they still have it. Some, such as burgeoning Giants star Odell Beckham Jr., are working on very specific skills. All say the workouts in the 5,000 square foot gym are unlike anything they’ve done.

In elite soccer, players are frequently exposed to various situations and conditions that can interfere with sleep, potentially leading to sleep deprivation. This article provides a comprehensive and critical review of the current available literature regarding the potential acute and chronic stressors (i.e. psychological, sociological and physiological stressors) placed on elite soccer players that may result in compromised sleep quantity and/or quality. Sleep is an essential part of the recovery process as it provides a number of important psychological and physiological functions. The effects of sleep disturbance on post-soccer match fatigue mechanisms and recovery time course are also described. Physiological and cognitive changes that occur when competing at night are often not conducive to sleep induction. Although the influence of high-intensity exercise performed during the night on subsequent sleep is still debated, environmental conditions (e.g. bright light in the stadium, light emanated from the screens) and behaviours related to evening soccer matches (e.g. napping, caffeine consumption, alcohol consumption) as well as engagement and arousal induced by the match may all potentially affect subsequent sleep. Apart from night soccer matches, soccer players are subjected to inconsistency in match schedules, unique team schedules and travel fatigue that may also contribute to the sleep debt. Sleep deprivation may be detrimental to the outcome of the recovery process after a match, resulting in impaired muscle glycogen repletion, impaired muscle damage repair, alterations in cognitive function and an increase in mental fatigue. The role of sleep in recovery is a complex issue, reinforcing the need for future research to estimate the quantitative and qualitative importance of sleep and to identify influencing factors. Efficient and individualised solutions are likely needed.

Fitbit says its devices shouldn’t be used for medical or scientific reasons. Thanks to their low cost and high ease of use, researchers are thinking about doing so anyway. There’s just one problem: The results probably can’t be trusted.

There is far more to the Stanford football program than Xs and Os.

Not only does it provide the opportunity to play against top-notch Division I competition and earn a world-class education, it also opens doors to future success off the field.

The latest examples are recent graduates Jordan Williamson and John Flacco. They have joined forces with former Cardinal football player Matt Kasner and Stanford classmate Josh Dubin to start a company called SomaSole, which has created an exercise product that attaches to your foot and enables users to utilize resistance bands to stretch in 360 degrees of motion in any plane, strengthening your lower body and core. SomaSole was launched on a crowd-funding platform and already has more than 700 pre-orders.

Almost by accident, Chicago has become a dominant player in the field of sports analytics.

Three local sports technology companies—Stats, Zebra Technologies and Sportvision—collectively have motion-tracking agreements with the top professional sports leagues: the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and Nascar.

None of the three started off tracking athletes on the field. But all have responded to professional sports’ appetite for big data to steer their businesses toward analyzing every move of every player on the field, ice, court or track. The result is a burgeoning ecosystem of sports technology expertise that has made Chicago ground zero for some of the latest innovations…

… This day is the first of summer workouts for the Baylor football team. Already this morning, the players jogged around the athletics facilities as the sun rose; grunted through rounds of pushups, high knees and sit-ups; and ran timed repeats across the length of the football field, fresh dew spraying in their wake. Now, minutes later, they are gathered for the introductory team meeting, where they review everything from alcohol to class attendance to social media.

But first, the snacks. Knowing players need to refuel immediately, Heitmeyer prepared the snack bags to hold them over until their breakfast an hour later.

If you’ve ever tried to use one of those dieting apps, you probably know the pitfalls of the government survey that most researchers use to evaluate Americans’ eating habits. It’s really hard to keep track of what you’ve eaten.

Our goal in this article is to explain the data that we used in our story about the recent decline in Americans’ calorie consumption. As that article said, none of the calorie-measuring studies we examined are perfect. But findings from all three have areas substantial overlap, giving researchers confidence that the changes are real.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey is the one that most researchers use — and that has something in common with those dieting apps. It asks a nationally representative sample of Americans to record everything they ate in two previous days. Based on those food diaries, researchers can obtain a detailed picture of just what — and how much — we are eating. (It’s sort of the food equivalent of the time-use diaries that my colleague Josh Katz used to visualize how Americans without jobs spend their days.)