Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 5, 2015

… It is a quick turnaround when suffering a minor hamstring issue in the week to recover and play in a Premier League match a few days later.

But both the manager and player would have known the risks.

It’s easy to be critical in hindsight.

… The process that made Favors what he is today was a steady churn. Nowhere in his body of work will you find the kind of single-season breakout that draws attention and accolades. He entered the league raw and reliant on physical advantage. He left every ensuing season with more savvy and skill than before. It’s the kind of career topography that’s best appreciated from a distance. Favors has been climbing for five straight seasons. Even now there’s no plateau in sight.

Some of that is a function of innate potential; it pays, after all, to be a naturally coordinated athlete with a 36″ vertical and 7’4″ wingspan. Most of what Favors has become, however, is the result of his constant push for newfound viability. Favors has met every threshold of his career to date with hard, focused work in response—first to play full-time minutes, then to become a starter, and ever since to keep ahead of the curve of competition.

“Every summer I kept figuring out what I needed to work on to be productive the next season,” Favors said. “Right now it’s paying off for me.”

Since the Lance Armstrong scandal, double Tour de France winner Chris Froome has been dogged by doping allegations. Esquire accompanies the British rider into the laboratory to observe the tests he hopes will silence the doubters forever.

Danny Ings laughs, put his head in his hand and rolls his eyes.

He’s joking again about the man who he owes more to than anybody else: his dad, Shane Ings.

Along the way there are many coaches, advisors and other people in the soccer world who have helped Ings on his way to the top as a star striker for Liverpool. However, his father’s presence remains the one constant as their close relationship is both warming and indicative of the commitment and guidance needed to make it to the Premier League.

The training lair of Stephen Curry can be found at a virtually nondescript warehouse off a one-lane road in an unincorporated area of South Carolina called Indian Land. Inside, there is one hoop, some uncommon pieces of workout equipment and traces of the Warriors superstar.

Commemorative banners of Curry hang on opposite sides of the half-court gym. His brother-in-law happens to be working out hours before the Warriors game against the Charlotte Hornets. A Warriors schedule is posted on the wall in the office of the personal trainer who Curry said Friday has played a “huge part” in his career and development this offseason.

Brandon Payne, the founder of Accelerate Basketball Training, lets out a long sigh when asked where Curry made his biggest improvement after a championship season to lead the Warriors to a record-setting 20-0 start.

Over the past decade, the University of Florida baseball program has established itself as one of the country’s elite. Since I started working with the team in 2010, the squad has won three Southeastern Conference championships and made the NCAA tournament six consecutive years, including trips to the College World Series (CWS) in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2015.

One of the reasons for the team’s success is an offseason strength and conditioning regimen that holds players to the highest standards and demands excellence from them each and every day. As the Florida baseball strength coach, I have three main priorities for the offseason: 1) making the athletes mentally tough, 2) helping them become more injury resilient, and 3) building athletes’ strength. Combined, these goals form the backbone of our work in and out of the weightroom.

You are so sore you can barely get out of bed, sit on the toilet and function as a human being – but science suggests you should get up and move anyway.

The process is known as “active recovery” and involves participating in low-intensity exercise to facilitate blood flow to your damaged muscles.

We would be naive to think that stress does not exists in most of our daily lives as well as in our athletes’ lives. The naive part of this aspect is that we throw our athletes into highly pressurized situations without the tools to develop their coping and resiliency. We spend countless hours on technical, tactical, and conditioning aspects but not as much on the mental development. More so, we would be naive to think that our volunteer coaches are equipped to deal with the stressors of sport – it is new to them as well and they are the models our athletes will look to when our proverbial “back is against the wall”. Today’s sporting world (right or wrong) is full of stress from amateur sport to professional. The stress aspects are there and there is a need to start developing the models/theories for our athletes to cope and work through these areas? Stress is ok, because humans have the potential to cope with it contrary to thoughts that it is a bad thing – it is part of development and performance.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER IS TO DISCUSS THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF VELOCITY-BASED TRAINING (VBT) AND HOW IT CAN BE USED TO TRAIN VARIOUS PERFORMANCE FACTORS SPECIFIC TO AMERICAN FOOTBALL. THE ADVANTAGES OF VBT ARE ITS ABILITY TO IDENTIFY PROPER TRAINING LOADS WHEN DAY-TO-DAY FLUCTUATIONS IN MUSCLE PERFORMANCE OCCUR, THE ABILITY TO ENHANCE SPECIFICITY OF TRAINING, AND THE ABILITY TO PROVIDE IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK TO IMPROVE MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE. USING VBT HAS RESULTED IN TANGIBLE IMPROVEMENTS IN COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL PLAYERS’ POWER PRODUCTION, WHICH IS A KEY TO IMPROVING ON-FIELD PERFORMANCE.

This study examined changes in muscle temperature, electrically evoked muscle contractile properties, and voluntary power before and after a soccer specific active warm?up and subsequent rest period. Ten amateur soccer players performed two experimental sessions that involved performance of a modified FIFA 11+ soccer specific warm?up, followed by a 12.5?min rest period where participants were required to wear either normal clothing or a passive electrical heating garment was applied to the upper thigh muscles. Assessments around the warm?up and cool?down included measures of maximal torque, rate of torque development, muscle temperature (Tm), and electrically evoked measures of quadriceps contractile function. Tm was increased after the warm?up by 3.2 ± 0.7°C (P < 0.001). Voluntary and evoked rates of torque development increased after the warm?up between 20% and 30% (P < 0.05), despite declines in both maximal voluntary torque and voluntary activation (P < 0.05). Application of a passive heating garment in the cool?down period after the warm?up did not effect variables measured. While Tm was reduced by 1.4 ± 0.4°C after the rest period (P < 0.001), this value was still higher than pre warm?up levels. Voluntary and evoked rate of torque development remained elevated from pre warm?up levels at the end of the cool?down (P < 0.05). The soccer specific warm?up elevated muscle temperature by 3.2°C and was associated with concomitant increases of between 20% and 30% in voluntary rate of torque development, which seems explained by elevations in rate?dependent measures of intrinsic muscle contractile function. Application of a passive heating garment did not attenuate declines in muscle temperature during a 12.5?min rest period.

… Longtime NHL strength and conditioning coach, Doug McKenney recently joined the CoachMePlus team as a sports performance specialist/founding coach. His experience spans more than three decades and he is always poised for a teachable moment. As one of the original advisory board members for CoachMePlus, he has seen the company grow and evolve with the demands of the industry.

Doug McKenney recalls when he first started 30 years ago, the heart monitor was the size of a cell phone. “Players couldn’t wear the monitors on the ice during practices or games because of the size and discomfort,” discussed McKenney. “We used the monitors in the weight room and on the cardio machines because the technology back then wasn’t where it needed to be.”

Jabil Circuit Inc. wants to make your clothes as smart as your doctor.

Jabil (NYSE: JBL), a St. Petersburg-based electronics services firm, and Clothing+, a Jabil subsidiary, took the wraps off Peak+, a smart garment reference design that integrates electronics measuring heart rates and other biometrics into the fabric of clothing such as shirts and sports bras.

The University of Canberra has received $300,000 from the ACT government to develop new sports technology and collect data to tackle major health issues.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr used a pop-up cabinet in Belconnen on Thursday to detour past UC and announce two $150,000 grants from the government’s CBR Innovation Fund.

The first project will see the establishment of the CBR SportsTek Lab in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Sport. The lab will focus on developing sports technology with potential commercial applications.

Laboratory and epidemiological research in Australian football, rugby league and rugby union has demonstrated that commercially available soft-shell padded headgear is currently ineffective in reducing the risk of concussion. However, modified headgear studies have demonstrated that significant improvements in impact energy attenuation performance are possible with small design changes, such as increases in foam density and thickness. A literature review of the design, performance and use of headgear in Australian football, rugby league and rugby union was conducted. A total of 23 articles were identified using primary and secondary search strategies, which included epidemiological field studies, laboratory impact test studies and studies investigating the behaviours and attitudes of players. The results of the review were synthesised and used to identify injury reduction objectives and appropriate design criteria. The need for a headgear standard was identified and performance requirements were discussed, which drew upon human tolerance and sports-specific head impact exposure data. Usability and behavioural issues, which require consideration during the design process, were also assessed.

Pacers Sports & Entertainment has outgrown their space at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, which opened in late 1999. Most of the offices will be moved over to this new facility, which will feature two basketball courts, a weight room four times the size of their current one, state-of-the-art equipment for the support staff, and more.

“This is a state-of-the-art facility that helps a small-market team compete for top talent in a very competitive business,” said Pacers President Larry Bird in August.

NORTH Queensland star Matt Scott has slammed the NRL’s approach to player welfare, claiming it is not taking the issue of player burnout seriously.

Both Manly and Sydney Roosters have angrily questioned aspects of the 2016 season draw released on Friday, which NRL head of football Todd Greenberg conceded contains the same number of five-day turnarounds — 43 — as in 2015.

On Monday, Scott became the first high profile player to criticise the NRL’s 2016 scheduling as premiers North Queensland returned to preseason training.

Concussions, according to official medical nomenclature, are “mild traumatic brain injuries.”

“But there’s nothing mild about them,” says Dr. David L. Brody, associate professor of neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “We really object to this term. It does a disservice. It’s not accurate.”

Brody should know: He’s one of the world’s foremost experts on the treatment of severe concussions. I also witnessed it myself.

Two of the NFL’s top tight ends were injured Sunday and one is lost for the year. It’s bad enough that Jimmy Graham’s inaugural Seahawks campaign is done; however the injury may affect his 2016 season as well. Although both are season ending and require surgery, patella tendon tear is often worse than even an ACL tear.

Football players at all Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools received care and treatment from on-site certified athletic trainers for a second straight year thanks to a grant provided by the NFL Foundation and the Vikings in partnership with TRIA Orthopaedic Center.

Vikings Director of Sports Medicine/Head Athletic Trainer Eric Sugarman, who is in his 10th season with the team, has been instrumental in implementing the program.

The NFL’s concussion issue is again under the spotlight.

Last Sunday, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger voluntarily removed himself from the fourth quarter of a crucial game against the Seattle Seahawks in order to enter the concussion protocol.

One week earlier, St. Louis Rams quarterback Case Keenum remained in a game against the Baltimore Ravens despite slamming his head to the turf and appearing dazed.

The NFL is turning to technology, in part, to prevent such incidents, officials say. With that in mind, the league on Thursday announced the winners of its second “Head Health Challenge,” an open contest for devices or ideas that can make the game safer. The program, a joint effort among the NFL, Under Armour and General Electric, produced three winners.

Their job was simple: Define a healthy diet.

But when 21 of the top nutrition scientists in the world gathered in Boston last week to agree upon universal principles for sound eating, more than one described their final dinner together as a cage fight.

The red pill or the blue pill.

The choice seemed innocuous enough. I’d been taking Adderall under the NFL’s therapeutic use exemption (“TUE”) during the entirety of my career?—?yeah, we’ll get to that?—?so it didn’t really occur to me that another, similar drug prescribed to treat ADD/ADHD, Ritalin, might put me in any danger with the powers that be.

Guess I should’ve been paying more attention.

The nutritional status of elite soccer players across match, post-match, training and rest days has not been defined. Recent evidence suggests the pattern of dietary protein intake impacts the daytime turnover of muscle proteins and, as such, influences muscle recovery. We assessed the nutritional status and daytime pattern of protein intake in senior professional and elite youth soccer players and compared findings against published recommendations. Fourteen senior professional (SP) and fifteen youth elite (YP)soccer players fromtheDutch premier division completed nutritional assessments using a 24-h web-based recall method. Recall days consisted of a match, post-match, rest and training day. Daily energy intake over the 4-day period was similar between SP (2988±583 kcal/day) and YP (2938±465 kcal/day; p=0.800). Carbohydrate intake over the combined 4-day period was lower in SP (4.7±0.7 g·kg-1 BM·day-1) vs. YP(6.0±1.5 g·kg-1 BM·day-1, p=0.006) and SP failed to meet recommended carbohydrate intakes on match and training days. Conversely, recommended protein intakes were met for SP (1.9±0.3 g·kg-1 BM·day-1) and YP (1.7±0.4 g·kg-1 BM·day-1), with no differences between groups (p=0.286). Accordingly, both groups met or exceeded recommended daily protein intakes on individual match, post-match, rest and training days. A similar ‘balanced’ daytime pattern of protein intake was observed in SP and YP. To conclude, SP increased protein intake on match and training days to a greater extent than YP, however at the expense of carbohydrate intake. The daytime distribution of protein intake for YP and SP aligned with current recommendations of a balanced protein meal pattern.

Watch race walkers Inaki Gomez, Jared Tallent and Evan Dunfee take part in a unique nutrition study during their training camp at the AIS.

AIS Head Nutritionist Louise Burke said the study – with one athlete having a high carbohydrate diet, another low carb/high fat food, and the final one having a periodised carb diet – could be adapted across a lot of endurance sports.

The human body is awash with microbes, inside and out. And scientists are now discovering just how important that is for athletes.

Talent transfer initiatives seek to transfer talented, mature individuals from one sport to another. Unfortunately talent transfer initiatives seem to lack an evidence-based direction and a rigorous exploration of the mechanisms underpinning the approach. The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify the factors which successfully transferring athletes cite as facilitative of talent transfer. In contrast to the anthropometric and performance variables that underpin current talent transfer initiatives, participants identified a range of psycho-behavioral and environmental factors as key to successful transfer. We argue that further research into the mechanisms of talent transfer is needed in order to provide a strong evidence base for the methodologies employed in these initiatives.

A year ago in the build-up to the MLS Cup final, buying Designated Players was the most obvious way to achieve success in Major League Soccer. The LA Galaxy ended up winning with Robbie Keane, Landon Donovan and Omar Gonzalez on the field, while the Seattle Sounders won the Supporters’ Shield and U.S. Open Cup with Obafemi Martins and Clint Dempsey as the first names on the team sheet.

In 2015, the teams that will contest Sunday’s final, the Columbus Crew and Portland Timbers, scarcely paid over $1 million this season for a player, according to the MLS Players Union’s oft-disputed but standardizing figures. The conference finalists abided by the same measures, by and large. The New York Red Bulls lost Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill and avoided replacing them with expensive signings in favor of sporting director Ali Curtis and manager Jesse Marsch’s new strategy en route to winning the Supporters’ Shield. FC Dallas and its copious number of homegrown players matched the Red Bulls on 60 points.

A highly positive team atmosphere can be beneficial, but only if the members have the skills to manage that emotion productively, according to new research.

And whether a positive group mood is good for productivity or not may be influenced by what type of task a team has to carry out, said organisational psychologist Associate Professor Ashlea Troth of the Griffith Business School.

There is a quiet revolution taking place on the training field as sports coaches turn to broadcast technology to enrich player development and scouting through the power of video graphics. “Football analysis has really progressed in the last few years, but what hadn’t moved on so much is how that data was being presented during training or coaching sessions. Even now, you still see coaches using magnetic boards and talking around a video clip, and it’s all pretty abstract.” That’s the opinion of David Burke, head of technical analysis at Derby County Football Club, one of the first professional sports teams to recognise the potential of using broadcast analysis tool Viz Libero for player development.

This year, Harden’s minutes are up, and while his scoring average remains high, his defensive ratings are poor. Harden’s team started the season 0-3, fired its coach and continues to play under .500.

Harden, who is second in the NBA at 29.8 points per game, is asking for his playing minutes to be reduced. He’s currently at a league-high 39.7 per game.

The burden on Harden will eventually catch up to him unless somebody, Dwight Howard or Trevor Ariza perhaps, takes the load off him.

“I mean, 40 a night is pretty tough, especially if you want to be efficient on both ends of the floor,” Harden said before the Rockets’ game against the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday night. “We got to figure out how to get guys more minutes and be more effective on the court so as a team we can get better.”