Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 14, 2015

After 11 training camp practices, does San Francisco 49ers linebacker NaVorro Bowman like what he’s seen thus far on film of No. 53 in his return from the knee injury that cost him the 2014 season?

“Not yet,” Bowman said following Thursday’s helmets-and-shorts practice. “Not yet. But I’m satisfied with how much work I’ve put in, how far I’ve come. How fast I’m able to recover and cover guys. But there’s still hurdles that I need to cross, and I’m just going to keep working until I get there but it’s looking up for me.”

… In a parity-laced league, Kelly’s science program might turn out as a key advantage that propels the Eagles to a championship level after a pair of 10-6 seasons.

Then again, maybe it won’t be that much of a difference-maker considering that other NFL teams — say, the New England Patriots, Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys and Baltimore Ravens among them — have their own methods to derive max performance.

One thing is certain: The Eagles are banking on big rebounds from Mathews and two other high-profile additions, quarterback Sam Bradford and linebacker Kiko Alonso, the latter pair coming back from torn anterior cruciate ligaments.

League celebrates 70th season with early-season playoff rematches, reductions in back-to-back, four games in five nights.

Steve Jobs once said, “You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

Is that “whatever” Jobs was referring to, data?

Is intuition-based decision-making, or gut-feel now becoming less relevant for sporting coaches with the large increase in the volume and variety of data being captured across every aspects of performance?

Following on the tails of fitness trackers, there has been a push to develop personal environment monitors—a new breed of wearable tech that collects data on airborne toxins and communicates it to users. A group of researchers at RMIT University in Australia has taken a significant step in this direction, creating thin, flexible sensors that can be placed on your skin or in your clothes to track exposure to hazardous gases and UV rays.

“We were interested in making a device that could detect dangers that are generally not recognized by our senses,” says Philipp Gutruf, the lead author of a recently published study. “These dangers are often not really severe if noticed early enough, but become really dangerous when you are exposed to the hazard for too long.”

Background Abnormal gait after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) may contribute to development and/or progression of knee osteoarthritis.

…
Results Thirty-four studies were included. Meta-analysis revealed significant sagittal plane deficits in ACLR knees. We found greater knee flexion angles (standardised mean difference: 1.06; 95% CI 0.39 to 1.74) and joint moments (1.61; 0.87 to 2.35) 3?years after ACLR (vs healthy controls) (0.09; ?0.63 to 0.81). No transverse plane conclusions could be drawn.

Conclusions Sagittal plane biomechanics, rather than the knee adduction moment, appear to be more relevant post-ACLR. Better understanding of sagittal plane biomechanics is necessary for optimal post-operative recovery, and to potentially prevent early onset and progression of knee OA after ACLR.

Dr. Selena Budge is the founder and president of Stability Enhancement Systems (SES), a company that has dedicated its time and efforts to reducing the risk of injury in athletes through a ground breaking process called “targeted personalized interventions.” Part of the process is a muscle memory training involving the brain. … “What causes these injuries is bad biomechanics. No two athletes run or move exactly the same. Some make pivoting moves with less stress on their knees and some do it with more. What we do as a company is go to schools and analyze an athlete’s movement patterns and point out to them their faulty patterns and the risks that they run,” Budge said.

It is the most common injury in the Premier League and accounts for 49.3% of all muscular injuries reported in soccer yet risk management rather than prevention is the key when it comes to hamstring injuries.

Compared to most other muscular injuries, Athlete’s that suffer hamstring injuries have a very high chance of re-injury, in some cases up to a 63% likelihood.

Age and history are the two most common factors that affect the hamstrings, and while these attributes are constant according to Dr. David Opar from the Hamstring Research Group at the Australian Catholic Institute, the key to managing the hamstring injuries is modifiable factors.

It’s that time of year in soccer when youth teams are kicking into a new season. The “preseason” phase of training is one of excitement and anticipation, and well established in sports science as a time of increased risk of injury. … In order to avoid injury of an individual player it is imperative that you know a good deal about them, as ultimately you need to know how the player fits in your team not just technically and tactically, but physically as well. The goal being to address the individual within the team, accounting for their physical activity leading into the season is an absolute must if injury is to be avoided.

FIFA delivered what amounted to a rebuke to Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho on Thursday amid reports that he has banned the club’s first team doctor Eva Carneiro following her treatment of an injured player in a Premier League match.

Professor Jiri Dvorak, FIFA’s chief medical officer, said that managers had no right to tell their medical staff whether or not they should go on the pitch to treat a player and that ultimately the doctor was in charge of what happened on the pitch.

For most, it is accepted that injury in sport is a part of the game; a result of bad luck and a risk an athlete knowingly takes on by playing.

In youth athletes, it is further accepted that growth-related pain is a natural part of the transition from youth to adolescence and on to adulthood, again a normal occurrence, with not much to be done. The result is we have an “overuse injury rate” in youth athletes that accounts for between 46% and 54% of all sports injuries[1].

… Sugar not only sends our energy levels on a roller-coaster, it also affects our hormones and the messaging signals to our brain. Which means that even though we feel while we enjoy that sweet treat, we almost always eat more calories than our bodies need since sugar has the evil ability to trick our bodies’ satiety cues into thinking we need more than we do. We’ll get a rush of feel-good hormones, known as endorphins, followed by a let down, which will trigger the whole process all over again.

But there are definitely ways to resolve this cycle, maintain steady energy levels, and avoid extra, added sugar.

Estimating the Effect of Pitch Selection and Plate Discipline Using the G-Computation Algorithm — Laura Boehm Vock, St. Olaf College ; David Vock, University of Minnesota

Effects of Base Runners’ Stolen Base Attempts on Umpires’ Ball/Strike Decisions — Aaron Baggett, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor ; Grant B. Morgan, Baylor University

Bayesian Optimal Design of Fixed Knockout Tournament Brackets — Jonathan Hennessy, The Houston Rockets ; Mark Glickman, Boston University

Utilizing an ARIMA Model to Assess Gait Stability and Spectral Behavior — Kristin Denise Morgan, University of Kentucky ; Brian Noehren, University of Kentucky

A Bayesian Hierarchical Model for Estimating the Cost of Postponing the Cyclocross National Championships — James Fry, Virginia Tech ; Andrew Hoegh, Virginia Tech ; Scotland Leman, Virginia Tech

Predicting Injury Risk in College Athletes — Sameer K. Deshpande, University of Pennsylvania ; Nicholas Potter, Duke University ; Shane T. Jensen, University of Pennsylvania ; Daniel McCarthy, University of Pennsylvania ; Katherine Heller, Duke University

Missing Value Imputation for Physical Activity Data Measured by Accelerometer — JungAe Lee, Washington University in St. Louis

One of my favorite books from the last few years is David Epstein’s engaging tour through sports science using examples and stories from a wide variety of athletic endeavors. Epstein draws on examples from individual sports (including track and field, winter sports) and major U.S. team sports (baseball, basketball, and American football), and uses the latest research to explain how data and science are being used to improve athletic performance.

In a recent episode of the O’Reilly Data Show Podcast, I spoke with Epstein about his book, data science and sports, and his recent series of articles detailing suspicious practices at one of the world’s premier track and field training programs (the Oregon Project).