Applied Sports Science newsletter – January 11, 2016

Have you ever been cornered and asked, “So, what do you do?” Or maybe, “What’s your major?” Sometimes, it can be tough be explain. Everyone thinks they know what a pro athlete does. But do we really know? We asked Detroit Lions safety Glover Quin to explain his job without any cliches.

Chris Ash’s last three hires for the Rutgers football program have been a director of high school relations, a director of recruiting and a director of player development.

Two of his first moves were head and assistant strength and conditioning coaches.

While those may not be as attention-grabbing as the coordinators and the position coaches – he still needs one more of those, likely with NFL ties – Ash’s meticulously thought-out plan for building a program always included solidifying the foundation.

“I’m going to put more investment into our recruiting staff to recruit the type of players we want,” Ash told Gannett New Jersey last month.

When I was at the Canadian Endurance Coaches Convention, someone (apologies I forget who!) made a comment about looking back at the likes of coaches like Franz Stampfl and Igloi and how good and creative their workouts were. In particular, the rest periods were manipulated to a much larger degree than they are now, where instead of worrying about the rest, we’ve defaulted to using some defined preset amount for each workout type.

And what happened since the hey days of intervals was, we lost all creativity. It’s become too dogmatic, too scientific, too calculated. When we venture down this route, we get so sucked into the details, that we lose the ability to innovate. If we see 400m repeats, it gets automatically processed as “special endurance 2” or “Anaerobic tolerance” or whatever it is in your own particular classification system. In the words of Economists Daniel Kahnemann, we default to our fast system 1 thinking, never allowing system 2 to even have a check. In other words, there’s little actual thinking about what the workout actually does.

The idea of the workout had shifted. It’s become, not what does this workout bring to the table, but instead, in what classification zone does this workout fall. Once we have that answer, then we have an automatic answer for what it develops.

… Apathy is without question a huge problem within the football profession. So many players I’ve played with regard personal development as an afterthought. Plenty have the enthusiasm to gain qualifications but lack the application to see the process through. An initial interest will fizzle out, plans will be shelved and I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard a player claim “I’ll do it next year.” More often than not nothing happens, their career flashes by in an instant and the same individual arrives at the trapdoor of retirement with no clue where their next step will take them.

The more worrying trend of my fellow professionals is the fear of committing themselves to something other than playing football. I don’t just mean what is involved in the process of a person taking themselves out of their comfort zone and acquiring a new skill. Because that feeling of vulnerability and risk of failure will no doubt stop some individuals go beyond the imagination stage. What I’m talking about is players that I’ve spoken to who feel that if they were to explore their options outside of the game then they will be viewed very differently by those within it.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine if exercise time trials (TT) of different durations would cause different levels of peripheral and central fatigue during exercise.

Methods: Twelve trained subjects (11 men, 1 woman) performed TTs lasting 3, 10 and 40 min with repetitive self-paced concentric right knee extension at 60 deg[BULLET OPERATOR]s-1 on an isokinetic dynamometer. Neuromuscular function was assessed prior to, during, and immediately after the TTs using voluntary and electrically evoked forces.

Results: Maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) force, evoked peak force for single stimulus (SS), and rating of perceived exertion reached similar levels at termination of all TTs. Evoked peak force for paired stimuli of 100 Hz (PS100) decreased more for the 40-min compared to the 3-min TT (-42 +/- 15% vs -37 +/- 13%, P < 0.05) and central fatigue was significant for the 40-min and 10-min but not for the 3-min TT. SS and PS100 decreased while voluntary electromyography normalized to M-wave for self-paced contractions increased during the end-spurt in all TTs.

Conclusion: These data demonstrate that the extent of peripheral and central fatigue that contribute to reductions in force of single limb dynamic contractions depend on the duration and intensity of self-paced exercise. There was no evidence for a critical threshold in peripheral fatigue that was common to all time trials.

High-end athletes are constantly measured – it’s largely how we determine if a player is a star or not – at least most of the time. Game performance is the most basic and most common measure of a player, and the science of performance has moved well beyond simple stats into the “advanced metrics” area – see WAR or other new-age stats. This is a good thing. More information is rarely bad, unless of course it’s bad information. Putting that aside for a second I want to touch on a simple but often forgotten concept – the efficiency of how coaches and other performance professionals obtain measurements matters. A lot! Any coach will know what I mean by this – and any coach or trainer that has invested in technology will definitely understand.

Stats and other passive-measurements are easy – there is little to no requirement on the part of the athlete to comply with the testing protocol – as stats compiling is purely the quantification of play – the input is the game itself. So as long as a player is involved in the game, his play can be quanitified. What about other measurements? How are we quantifying practice? Health? Injury recovery? As this is our field, of course, this is where we want to focus. This is precisely where the problem with athletic measurements – especially relating to professional sports, resides. When you need active participation as part of a monitoring program, for example, athlete compliance is a major piece of the puzzle.

One way to avoid potential issues with ANY measurement system – whether you are doing simple weigh-ins or something more complex, is to ensure that your workflow is as quick and efficient as possible. This, in my opinion, is the key. How quickly you can obtain data from your athletes, and valid data, will have a huge impact on what type of monitoring program you can employ, and how valuable your datasets will be. There are many private facilities that offer testing and training in combination – this makes total sense, as the testing is part of the training, and the athletes are usually paying for the services. But what about during practice on a Tuesday after a late game on Monday night? Is the actual process of collecting data overly complex? Does it work every single time you use it?

… the athletic wear maker unveiled its first-ever collection of fitness devices, a suite of products dubbed UA HealthBox that included a wristband, a heart-rate monitor and a Wi-Fi-enabled scale — plus a separate “smart shoe” and Bluetooth headphones. It also upgraded the UA Record application that powers those devices.

But it saved the most intriguing news for later when it announced plans to partner with IBM and use its Watson artificial intelligence technology to bring virtual coaching to fitness tracking — tapping all that data from its virtual community of 160 million users.

“It’s fascinating, what’s happening, and very exciting,” said Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins computer science professor and technical director of the university’s Information Security Institute.

… Often, however, we’re so focused on these impressive, shiny new gadgets that we overlook the blood, sweat and tears that go into their creation: The people behind the products.

We spoke to five individuals working on products for innovative companies that run the gamut of the fitness technology spectrum. Below, we ask what makes them tick, how they got involved in the world of fitness tech and their thoughts on the future of the industry.

The company’s branding won’t be noticeable to fans, but Seattle Seahawks and Minnesota Vikings players will have some hidden help for Sunday’s NFC wild-card game in what is forecast to be one of the coldest in NFL history.

Both teams will be outfitted with cold-weather gear supplied by Minnesota-based WSI Sports that is specifically designed for football players forced to perform in frigid conditions. No WSI logos will be visible during the game because of the league’s sponsorship deal with Nike.

“This has been a big break for us,” WSI Sports owner and founder Joel Wiens told USA TODAY Sports. “I’ve spent most of my life pounding away, and we’ve been successful. But over the last few years, we’ve gotten noticed by designing better and better cold-weather gear.”

What did we learn in 2015? This article is to summarize the major news, advances, and new medical research that made changes & a impact within the global sport medical industry in 2015. And help bridge the gap between research & practices for clinicians, coaches and the industry. … 2015 was a year that sports medicine became ‘cool’ with new heights of media attention. Thanks a lot to rapid expansion of new high-tech wearables & micro-technologies (And potentially these new companies good PR departments). Also due to the NBA’s Lakers bad season & Kobe’s shoulder, the MLB’s Moneyball 2.0, the NFL’s ACL epidemic, the high injury costs in the UEFA clubs, the Chelsea FC’s Mourinho & Dr Carneiro incident, Manny Pacquaio’s shoulder, Tiger Woods back and let’s not forget a doping scandal (or two). Medical research also made big leaps forward in providing us with a better understanding in the management of hamstring injuries & tendon pain, and the management of a few other injuries took a few small steps forward in 2015.

Background Tibial stress fractures (TSFs) cause a significant burden to Royal Marines recruits. No prospective running gait analyses have previously been performed in military settings.

Aim We aimed to identify biomechanical gait factors and anthropometric variables associated with increased risk of TSF.

Methods 1065 Royal Marines recruits were assessed in week 2 of training. Bilateral plantar pressure and three-dimensional lower limb kinematics were obtained for barefoot running at 3.6?m/s, providing dynamic arch index, peak heel pressure and lower limb joint angles. Age, bimalleolar breadth, calf girth, passive hip internal/external range of motion and body mass index (BMI) were also recorded. 10 recruits who sustained a TSF during training were compared with 120 recruits who completed training injury-free using a binary logistic regression model to identify injury risk factors.

Results 4 variables significantly (p<0.05) predicted increased risk of TSF (ORs and 95% CI): smaller bimalleolar width (0.73, 0.58 to 0.93), lower BMI (0.56, 0.33 to 0.95), greater peak heel pressure (1.25, 1.07 to 1.46) and lower range of tibial rotation (0.78, 0.63 to 0.96).

Summary Reduced impact attenuation and ability to withstand load were implicated in tibial stress fracture risk.

Background There are limited data on hamstring injury rates over time in football.

Aim To analyse time trends in hamstring injury rates in male professional footballers over 13 consecutive seasons and to distinguish the relative contribution of training and match injuries.

Methods 36 clubs from 12 European countries were followed between 2001 and 2014. Team medical staff recorded individual player exposure and time-loss injuries. Injuries per 1000?h were compared as a rate ratio (RR) with 95% CI. Injury burden was the number of lay off days per 1000?h. Seasonal trend for injury was analysed using linear regression.

Results A total of 1614 hamstring injuries were recorded; 22% of players sustained at least one hamstring injury during a season. The overall hamstring injury rate over the 13-year period was 1.20 injuries per 1000?h; the match injury rate (4.77) being 9 times higher than the training injury rate (0.51; RR 9.4; 95% CI 8.5 to 10.4). The time-trend analysis showed an annual average 2.3% year on year increase in the total hamstring injury rate over the 13-year period (R2=0.431, b=0.023, 95% CI 0.006 to 0.041, p=0.015). This increase over time was most pronounced for training injuries—these increased by 4.0% per year (R2=0.450, b=0.040, 95% CI 0.011 to 0.070, p=0.012). The average hamstring injury burden was 19.7?days per 1000?h (annual average increase 4.1%) (R2=0.437, b=0.041, 95% CI 0.010 to 0.072, p=0.014).

Conclusions Training-related hamstring injury rates have increased substantially since 2001 but match-related injury rates have remained stable. The challenge is for clubs to reduce training-related hamstring injury rates without impairing match performance.

Every day, I get emails from moms asking about NonGMOs, gluten, sugar, peanuts. At face value, they are asking “What should I feed my family tonight?,” but they also mean, “What’s the short or long term impact of this food on my child’s health?” A parent’s concern whether to feed their children organic or NonGMO reflects the underlying anxiety that our modern food system is increasing our risk of cancer, and other diseases, ranging from autism to alzheimer’s.

There is a prevalent food fear in our culture that has become a proxy to express our underlying anxiety about other issues: disease, cultural judgement, environmental decay, and political breakdown.

A new breed of “automated food scanner” apps, devices and methods is emerging which aim at identifying the exact nature of food and drinks in our diet.

Methods include: barcode scanning, weighing with portable electronic scales, vision-based measurement of volume/weight/portion size by smartphone camera photos, remote food and drink recognition by crowdsourced volunteers or dieticians using smartphone photos of meals sent over the Internet and/or Near Infrared spectroscopy (using a handheld sensor/scanner communicating wirelessly with a specialised smartphone app).

However, these methods are of limited value if we cannot further reason with the identified food and drink items in the context of a user’s health conditions and preferences.

After Manchester United’s goalless draw with West Ham in December, Louis van Gaal professed himself baffled by the Old Trafford crowd’s demands for his side to be more attacking. “I don’t understand that they are shouting ‘attack, attack’ because we are the attacking team and not West Ham United,” he said. In doing so, he raised a question that seems fundamental to football and yet is surprisingly hard to answer: what is attacking?