Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 17, 2015

Through two weeks of training camp, it’s clear Colin Kaepernick has changed three key aspects of his game. Here’s what’s good and not so good about each change so far.

After a stellar rookie season which included winning the Rookie of the Year award, Andrew Wiggins is poised to lead the Minnesota Timberwolves next season. The 20-year-old Wiggins could become a perennial All-Star and he is well aware that to reach his true potential, it will take hard work.

Hard work is exactly what Wiggins is doing this summer as he has been regularly working out with Toronto based trainer Seon Holmes. Here’s a glimpse of the offseason workout Holmes has been putting Wiggins through.

The New Orleans Pelicans have decided to hold part of training camp at the Greenbrier resort, which this summer is hosting its second straight New Orleans Saints training camp.

Chicago Bears rookie wide receiver Kevin White needs to have surgery on a stress fracture in his left shin, general manager Ryan Pace said Saturday.

The first-round draft pick will start the season on the physically unable to perform list, meaning he will be sidelined for at least the first six games. After six games, the Bears have until after their 11th game to activate him or shut him down for the year. Pace said it’s possible that White could miss the entire season.

… The Director of the K-lab will participate, oversee and coordinate research within the K-Lab, a core facility at Duke University. The director will be responsible for improving the core’s capacity for new or expanded usage, including the oversight of present and future staffing, purchasing and maintenance of new instrumentation needed within the core, and participating in institutional or federal program grants. The director will also assist in the design and programming of research studies and will create processes for facilitating subject recruitment and testing to maximize efficacies within the laboratory.

… María Ruiz de Oña has been a psychologist and coach developer at Athletic Bilbao for almost 20 years, with a primary focus on helping coaches create the best environment for the development of talented young players. She happened to attend my session on “managing players learning in practice” and I think some of my ideas resonated with her based on our discussions immediately after.

I was really looking forward to her session in the afternoon on “developing world class potential” and she did not disappoint with a captivating and unique style. I made a few reflective notes that I wanted to share with you…

María used a very interesting activity to begin her session. She had the front of the room cleared of tables to create a “space” that might represent an academy. She then invited people into the space to represent different agents that act in the space (ie players, coaches, administrators, parents, other clubs) and also events (matches, training sessions etc). By having people move around the space and responding to other people movements, María created a very effective visual example of how an academy is actually a complex system?—?many interconnected parts (people) influencing each other.

In elite soccer, players are frequently exposed to various situations and conditions that can interfere with sleep (e.g., playing night matches interspersed with 3 days; performing activities demanding high levels of concentration close to bedtime; use of products containing caffeine or alcohol in the period preceding bedtime; regular daytime napping throughout the week; variable wake-up times or bedtime), potentially leading to sleep deprivation. We outline simple, practical, and pharmaceutical-free sleep strategies that are coordinated to the constraints of elite soccer in order to promote sleep. Sleep deprivation is best alleviated by sleep extension; however, sleep hygiene strategies (i.e., consistent sleep pattern, appropriate napping, and active daytime behaviors) can be utilized to promote restorative sleep. Light has a profound impact on sleep, and sleep hygiene strategies that support the natural environmental light–dark cycle (i.e., red-light treatment prior to sleep, dawn-simulation therapy prior to waking) and prevent cycle disruption (i.e., filtering short wavelengths prior to sleep) may be beneficial to elite soccer players. Under conditions of inordinate stress, techniques such as brainwave entrainment and meditation are promising sleep-promoting strategies, but future studies are required to ascertain the applicability of these techniques to elite soccer players. Consuming high-electrolyte fluids such as milk, high-glycemic index carbohydrates, some forms of protein immediately prior to sleep, as well as tart cherry juice concentrate and tryptophan may promote rehydration, substrate stores replenishment, muscle-damage repair and/or restorative sleep. The influence of cold water immersion performed close to bedtime on subsequent sleep is still debated. Conversely, the potential detrimental effects of sleeping medication must be recognized. Sleep initiation is influenced by numerous factors, reinforcing the need for future research to identify such factors. Efficient and individualized sleep hygiene strategies may consequently be proposed.

Who really calls the shots in team sports? The players? The coach? Maybe it could be a computer.

A detailed analysis of the passing strategies of 20 teams in the Spanish football league during the 2013-14 season has given a unique insight into how they play. It’s one of a raft of tools that are using artificial intelligence to give coaches and managers a deeper understanding of the game.

Athletes require sufficient nutrition knowledge and skills to enable appropriate selection and consumption of food and fluids to meet their health, body composition and performance needs. This paper reports the nutrition knowledge and dietary habits of male football (soccer) players in Australia. Players aged 18 years of age and older were recruited from one A-League club (professional) and four National Premier League clubs (semi-professional). No significant difference in general nutrition knowledge (GNK) (54.1 ± 13.4%; 56.8 ± 11.7%; t(71)=-0.91, p=0.37) or sports nutrition knowledge (SNK) (56.9 ± 15.5%; 61.3 ± 15.9%; t(71)=-1.16, p=0.25) were noted between professional (n=29) and semi-professional (n=44) players. In general, players lacked knowledge in regards to food sources and types of fat. While nutrition knowledge varied widely among players (24.6-82.8% correct responses), those who had recently studied nutrition answered significantly more items correctly than those who reported no recent formal nutrition education (62.6 ± 11.9%; 54.0 ± 11.4%; t(67)=2.88, p=0.005). Analysis of three-day estimated food diaries revealed both professionals (n=10) and semi-professionals (n=31) consumed on average less carbohydrate (3.5 ± 0.8gC/kg; 3.9 ± 1.8gC/kg) per day than football specific recommendations (F-MARC: 5-10gC/kg). There was a moderate, positive correlation between SNK and carbohydrate intake (n=41, rho=0.32, p=0.04), indicating that players who exhibited greater SNK had higher carbohydrate intakes. Based on these findings male football players in Australia would benefit from nutrition education targeting carbohydrate and fat in an attempt to improve nutrition knowledge and dietary practices.

The Reference Module in Food Science advances as science does!

The Reference Module provides a one-stop authoritative resource for all entering new specialties or updating their knowledge in food science. Covering the multidisciplinary and fast paced fields of Food Science, articles are continuously reviewed, updated and commissioned by the editorial board to ensure you are always aware of the latest developments.

… Recruitment is not an exact science, but it needn’t be a crapshoot. Defining a recruitment philosophy and holding ourselves to account can help us outsmart the opposition in the transfer market.

Whether occurring by natural selection or by genetic mutation, evolution does not predict. Evolutionary biology consists of a large body of inferences about the past extracted from a large body of observations of nature. It is essentially a post-dictive science. Yet, by nothing short of a biological miracle, in the last 250,000 years evolution has created in the human brain a uniquely predictive structure: the prefrontal cortex of the frontal lobes. We can say with impunity that the prefrontal cortex opened the human brain to the future. Curiously, therefore, evolution has incremented the spatial “pre” of the term “prefrontal” with a temporal “pre.” Consequently, whereas evolutionary change is adaptive for the population, the prefrontal cortex makes the human brain a truly predictive and pre-adaptive organ for the individual. With the prefrontal cortex, that individual not only can predict events in its environment but also predict itself adapting to them. Thus, for the first time in evolution, the organism can pre-adapt to the changes it can predict.

In this manner, from the ability to predict the self and the environment, and the relations between the two, derives the unique role of the prefrontal cortex in planning and creativity. The human prefrontal cortex expands by a quantum leap—literally forward–the rudimentary capacity for future planning that we attribute to the chimpanzee. In sum, the prefrontal cortex, the vanguard of evolution, has enabled us to fill our future with purpose. All of that has occurred not so much by the evolutionary increase in volume and cells of the prefrontal cortex as by the exponential increase of fiber connections with itself and with other structures of the brain.

The present study examined the influence of momentum sequence (positive vs. negative) and environmental climate (hot–wet vs. neutral) on supporters’ (i.e. virtual observers’) reported levels of perceived psychological momentum (PM) during a simulated cycling competition. Participants supported one of two competing cyclists involved in a race that was displayed on a screen in a lecture hall. The race scenario was manipulated so that the supported cyclist appeared to undergo either a positive or negative momentum sequence. In addition, participants were either exposed to a hot–wet environmental climate or to a neutral environmental climate while observing the race scenario. According to the results, reported levels of PM were higher in the positive momentum sequence condition than in the negative momentum sequence condition, consistent with the notion that supporters’ PM is influenced by a positivity bias, and reported levels of PM were also found to be higher in the hot–wet climate condition than in the neutral climate condition, consistent with the notion that environmental climate is a contextual factor that influences PM through the operation of a causal augmenting mechanism.