Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 15, 2015

… when asked by Balague how he would describe a Neville-managed club, the Valencia head coach said: “A front-foot team, one that pressurizes and wins the ball as high up the pitch as possible.

“One that plays quickly, with a high tempo. One that goes forward, but with a little bit more sense than we did against Lyon!

“But I’d prefer that be that way than with a group of older players that drop towards their own box. I can work with that, the intent is there to attack, to do the positives things. We can always come back, rather than thinking we’ve got to push them up the pitch, which is the hardest thing to do. [video, pre-roll + 27:25]

… the point that women’s national team players want to drive home is that the men have a choice. Even after such vehement public protest of artificial turf at the Women’s World Cup, U.S. Soccer scheduled eight of 10 – now nine after the match in Hawaii was abandoned – victory tour matches on turf. And the Aloha Stadium turf wasn’t even inspected by U.S. Soccer before the venue was booked.

“This decision wasn’t about ‘turf vs. grass.’ This was about field conditions and player safety,” the team wrote in its Players’ Tribune letter.

“It’s as simple as that. Soccer is our job. Our bodies are our jobs. And nothing should ever be put in competition with our protection and safety as players.”

… There are five simple steps you can take to ensure that you are well hydrated for your daily training session.

1. Show up well hydrated

As many indoor training sessions are short and intense, it’s important to make sure you start well hydrated in the first place.

Strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran is staying with Nick Saban rather than going to Georgia with Kirby Smart, Alabama announced on Monday.

This is a big deal because Cochran was considered arguably the best at his job in all of college football and losing him to an in-conference rival would have been perceived a big blow to Alabama, his close relationship with Smart notwithstanding.

But the more interesting part of this will come later when Alabama announces the financial aspects of what it took to keep Cochran.

The aim of this review is to investigate methodological concerns associated with sprint performance monitoring, more specifically the influence and magnitude of varying external conditions, technology and monitoring methodologies not directly related to human physiology. The combination of different starting procedures and triggering devices can cause up to very large time differences, which may be many times greater than performance changes caused by years of conditioning. Wind, altitude, temperature, barometric pressure and humidity can all combine to yield moderate time differences over short sprints. Sprint performance can also be affected by the athlete’s clothing, principally by its weight rather than its aerodynamic properties. On level surfaces, the track compliance must change dramatically before performance changes larger than typical variation can be detected. An optimal shoe bending stiffness can enhance performance by a small margin. Fully automatic timing systems, dual-beamed photocells, laser guns and high-speed video are the most accurate tools for sprint performance monitoring. Manual timing and single-beamed photocells should be avoided over short sprint distances (10–20 m) because of large absolute errors. The validity of today’s global positioning systems (GPS) technology is satisfactory for long distances (>30 m) and maximal velocity in team sports, but multiple observations are still needed as reliability is questionable. Based on different approaches used to estimate the smallest worthwhile performance change and the typical error of sprint measures, we have provided an assessment of the usefulness of speed evaluation from 5 to 40 m. Finally, we provide statistical guidelines to accurately assess changes in individual performance; i.e. considering both the smallest worthwhile change in performance and the typical error of measurement, which can be reduced while repeating the number of trials.

Big breakthroughs grab the headlines, but health research progresses slowly and incrementally. As a corrective, here’s a progress report on five topics that have seen notable developments this year.

By taking into account psychological drivers, the health-care industry can create products and services that will help individuals improve the way they manage their health and well-being.

Hendrik Jan Ankersmit’s research group at the Clinical Department of Thoracic Surgery of MedUni Vienna has successfully shown that irradiated white blood cells release substances that reduce the severity of the damage caused by a heart attack or stroke and in spinal injuries and have a positive effect upon tissue repair. However, up until now it wasn’t known exactly which particular substances were responsible for these beneficial effects. This has now been discovered.

Infosys, the India-headquartered consulting and IT firm, is getting into sports and wearables after it announced a $3 million strategic investment in Whoop, a Boston-based company that provides performance data to professional athletes and sports teams.

Whoop was spun out of the Harvard Innovation Lab and raised $12 million back in September, when it also announced the availability of its data evaluation system for athletes. Its core product, which is currently being trialed “across major professional sports leagues and college conferences” in the U.S., consists of a wrist-based wearable that tracks performance, strain and recovery levels, and a data processing system that takes this information and provides meaningful and actionable feedback.

The Trillion Sensor Summit 2015 (here, Dec. 9-10) celebrated the dominance that sensors are enjoying in a world being flooded with sensor-studded smartphones and other smart devices—not just micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) sensors anymore—but a whole array of semiconductor sensors that have spun-off from MEMS. The Trillion Sensor (TSensor) Summit, founded by serial entrepreneur Janusz Bryzek, was organized for the first time this year by the newly renamed MEMS & Sensor Industry Group (formerly MIG).

“For decades, sensors were on sidelines of the semiconductor industry,” Bryzek said in his opening remarks to the Trillion Sensor Summit. “Apple’s iPhone changed all that, triggering a sensor tornado of 10 million MEMS sensors in 2007—the year of the iPhone’s introduction—that has grown to 15 billion sensors in 2015.”

Two years ago, Bryzek promised a roadmap document that would accurately plot the path that the explosive growth of sensors would make on the way to one trillion by 2025. However, his methodology proved ineffective, prompting him and his collaborators to split the project into two parts, both under Bryzek’s supervision.

BACKGROUND:

As part of a risk-management approach, sound epidemiological data are needed to develop prevention programs. A recent review on soccer injuries of players younger than 19 years concluded that prospective data concerning children are lacking.
PURPOSE:

To analyze the incidence and characteristics of soccer injuries in children aged 7 to 12 years.
STUDY DESIGN:

Descriptive epidemiological study.
METHODS:

The present survey was a prospective descriptive epidemiological study on soccer injuries over 2 seasons in the Czech Republic and Switzerland. Exposure of players during training and match play (in hours) and injury data were reported by coaches via an Internet-based registration system. Location, type, and severity of injuries were classified according to an established consensus. Injury characteristics are presented as absolute numbers and injury incidence rates (injuries per 1000 hours of soccer exposure). An injury was defined as any physical complaint sustained during a scheduled training session or match play resulting in at least 1 of the following: (1) inability to complete the current match or training session, (2) absence from subsequent training sessions or matches, and (3) injury requiring medical attention.
RESULTS:

In total, 6038 player-seasons with 395,295 hours of soccer exposure were recorded. The mean (±SD) age of the players was 9.5 ± 2.0 years, and 3.9% of the participants were girls. A total of 417 injuries were reported. Most (76.3%) injuries were located in the lower limbs, with 15.6% located in the upper limbs. Joint and ligament injuries comprised 30.5%, contusions 22.5%, muscle and tendon injuries 18.5%, and fractures and bone injuries 15.4% of all injuries; 23.7% of injuries led to more than 28 days of absence from sport participation. The overall injury incidence was 0.61 (95% CI, 0.53-0.69) injuries per 1000 hours of soccer exposure during training sessions and 4.57 (95% CI, 4.00-5.23) during match play. Injury incidence rates increased with increasing age.
CONCLUSION:

The observed injury incidences were lower compared with studies in youth players. Children showed a relatively high proportion of fractures and bone stress and of injuries to the upper limbs.
CLINICAL RELEVANCE:

The study provides an evidence base for injury incidence rates and injury characteristics in children’s soccer. These data are the basis to develop an age-specific injury-prevention program.

Before every practice, Alex Ovechkin is handed a “Tropical Creamsicle” smoothie, loaded with mango, pineapple, orange and coconut milk to make it tasty. But the most important ingredients are the ones Ovechkin doesn’t taste.

The Capitals’ team chef, Robert Wood, adds ginger and turmeric, both anti-inflammatories that are good for digestion and keep swelling down in joints. He makes sure to mix in Brazil nuts, a good source of selenium, which has antioxidant properties.

Ovechkin’s smoothie is tailored just for him based on the results of a blood analysis he and his teammates did before the season. Each blood sample went through a micro-nutrient test, a hormonal test and then an adrenal test, which allowed the Capitals to compile individualized supplement packs and make adjustments to diets.

… despite their easy to watch style of play, Everton isn’t a top team waiting to happen, they’re a midtable team that just happens to be fun to watch.

Yesterday Claudio Ranieri scooped the English Premier League’s manager of the month award, and few would dispute that he deserved it. In fact, here at NYA we’d give him a manager of the season award for the matches played so far. NYA’s experimental manager ratings put him well ahead of the pack.

This means that Ranieri has apparently achieved much more than the ability of his squad suggested was possible. Taking luck out of the picture – and he’s had some of that, too – Leicester has overachieved relative to their quality in a way that may indeed be sustainable.

There are many ways to look at the effectiveness and reliability of a team but when you find a metric related to scoring goals that places them on the edges of historical parameters or beyond it pays to take notice. Both Man Utd and Arsenal sit perilously close to the positive edge of measures that surround the levels of good chances they have been creating and allowing as we shall soon see.