Applied Sports Science newsletter – September 4, 2015

That’s the duality of the American immigrant experience in a nutshell, I think: the insider’s feeling of opportunity but the outsider’s understanding of privilege.

Chino represents both of those feelings at once.

I’m comfortable with duality. That’s how I found myself as an athlete.

… The fact that Fabregas’ first wobble at Chelsea, which came just after Christmas last season, also coincided with his team sailing into choppy waters lends weight to the suspicion that he is at his best when those around him are playing cohesively – and that his form suffers inordinately when they aren’t. As a player whose towering technical gifts are almost equalled by his complete lack of physical ones, Cesc isn’t able to revert to a messier, muckier Plan B if the preferred modus operandi is failing.

… What happened to the so-called youth movement in men’s tennis?

The ATP Top 20 includes 13 players aged 28 or older. Six of them are in their 30s. Dominic Thiem, 21, is the youngest.

We’re not even into the third round of the 2015 U.S. Open, and already the anticipated generational shift seems on hold.

BACKGROUND:

Several physical assessment protocols to identify intrinsic risk factors for injury aetiology related to movement quality have been described. The Functional Movement Screen (FMS) is a standardised, field-expedient test battery intended to assess movement quality and has been used clinically in preparticipation screening and in sports injury research.
AIM:

To critically appraise and summarise research investigating the reliability of scores obtained using the FMS battery. …
RESULTS:

12 studies were appraised. Overall, there was a ‘moderate’ level of evidence in favour of ‘acceptable’ (intraclass correlation coefficient ?0.6) inter-rater and intra-rater reliability for composite scores derived from live scoring. For inter-rater reliability of composite scores derived from video recordings there was ‘conflicting’ evidence, and ‘limited’ evidence for intra-rater reliability. For inter-rater reliability based on live scoring of individual subtests there was ‘moderate’ evidence of ‘acceptable’ reliability (??0.4) for 4 subtests (Deep Squat, Shoulder Mobility, Active Straight-leg Raise, Trunk Stability Push-up) and ‘conflicting’ evidence for the remaining 3 (Hurdle Step, In-line Lunge, Rotary Stability).
CONCLUSIONS:

This review found ‘moderate’ evidence that raters can achieve acceptable levels of inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of composite FMS scores when using live ratings. Overall, there were few high-quality studies, and the quality of several studies was impacted by poor study reporting particularly in relation to rater blinding.

PhD candidate Marco Altini is clearly a man with impeccable timing!… I’d literally just finished perusing some research on the use of heart rate variability in training when his email, on this very topic, arrived in my inbox! Marco has created an app utilising technology most of us have in our phones to help guide athletes with their training. He’s kindly agreed to tell us about his app and how it works…

Heart rate variability (HRV) is an important marker providing insights into an individual’s physiological stress level, helping athletes and sport enthusiasts monitoring training load and optimizing performance. With apps like HRV4Training, HRV can be computed accurately without the need for any external sensor or device, making it very easy for everyone to benefit from this technique.

In this excerpt from his book “The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine Is in Your Hands” cardiologist Eric Topol, chief academic officer for Scripps Health in San Diego and an acclaimed research scientist, describes how technological breakthroughs will enable patients to take a leading role in overseeing their care and accelerate a dramatic rethinking of hospitals’ role in society. This will result, he says, in greater empowerment of patients and an overall improvement in their quality of care and outcomes.

Sports medicine physicians and experts at the Cleveland Clinic have developed an iPhone/iPad app called Sideline Guidelines that’s designed to help medical professionals address athletic injuries quickly.

The free app includes “a summary of medical information to provide medical professionals guidelines in diagnosing injuries, assessing an individual athlete’s post-injury ability, making return-to-play decisions, and planning training schedules,” the Clinic said in a news release.

… Let’s take the case of Molly Huddle in the recently concluded athletic meet in Beijing. She was a shoo in for the bronze in the 10,000 metres but an early celebration and a slowing down in the last few yards allowed her team-mate Emily Infield to squeeze past.

Will Molly ever get over it? That medal was hers for the asking. Now, after the heartbreaking episode can she ever get her confidence back, especially after the modern day blitz of publicity and the ubiquitous YouTube with its ability to go viral? Wherever she turns, there is a smirk and a flinty finger pointing at her.

Most people who follow my work know my stance on barefoot and minimalist training. If you don’t know me or my work, know that I’m a huge advocate. Today, I want to get a bit more into the science side of what happens when our heel strikes the ground during gait. We’re going to talk about forces, and more specifically, impact forces – how important they are and how crucial it is that we are prepared to handle them.

Because this is a topic I could talk about for days, I’m going to break it down into two parts so I don’t get going on an epic journey and lose you halfway through. So, for now, grab a coffee and enjoy part one of Impact Forces, Shoes, and Lower Leg Injuries. And don’t worry – part two will go into specific injuries and what you can do about them.

When it comes to knocking service members out of the fight, nothing hits harder than injuries affecting the body’s movement. Damaged muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves and even blood vessels can stop warfighters in their tracks.

“Musculoskeletal injuries are the number one medical issue for the Department of Defense when it comes to encounters and evacuations from [the battlefield],” said Richard Shoge with the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command’s Military Operational Medicine Research Program at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

That’s why he and other researchers are talking about how to prevent these types of injuries at the Military Health System Research Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

In professional soccer, and many other professional sports, there has been a recent boom in the use of sports science strategies in order to monitor performance and recovery to gain an advantage over your opponents.

There are many different innovative technologies on the market; so, it can be difficult to decide which methods are most relevant to elicit a performance benefit in soccer.

The Sports Science and Medical department must conduct a cost-benefit analysis before implementing any new method as part of their monitoring system. [video, 0:30]

Less than a month into the new season and some people are already asking if the season is settled. In France PSG have won their first four games, scored 7 and conceded none. In England Manchester City has won its first four, scored 10 and conceded none. This is all the more striking given that these are the two European clubs that have elevated themselves from also-rans to major powers with the brute force of player investment. But in Germany the traditional power, Bayern Munich has won three out of three, scored ten and conceded one and is behind the resurgent Dortmund only on goal difference. While neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid top the Spanish league at the moment they have between played four, won three and drawn one, scored seven and conceded none- it seems likely that one or the other will be on top soon.

So just how much can we infer after only a few games?

The University of Colorado Department of Athletics is embarking on an ambitious new initiative between academics and athletics – the proposed creation of a Sports Governance Center (SGC), which would be among the first of its kind in the nation.

If approved, the SGC would be an innovative academic unit within Athletics, with a mission that would focus on teaching, research and service. The goal is to conduct leading research, education and outreach related to the governance of sport, including college athletics and professional sports.

A lack of standards and best practices can hold back businesses from becoming more data-driven, says Nate Silver, founder and editor in chief for FiveThirtyEight. But they can overcome challenges.

… So far this year, the Swans rank third in shots on target for, second in shots on target against, and third for the difference. The team is simply performing at a different level. A big reason is the presence of André Ayew, signed a few days after my fateful tweet from Olympique de Marseille. He’s been directly involved in every single one of Swansea’s six goals from open play: three goals, one assist, and two “hockey assists” (passes before the assist).

The Swans have also benefited from the services of Jefferson Montero, one of my Premier League hidden gems, in three of their four matches to date. He’s prone to injury, though, having played fewer than 1,700 minutes last term. The big injury worry, of course, is Ayew – he’s had a couple of long layoffs in the past several years, and losing him for a few months would put a big dent in Swansea’s hopes for the season.