Applied Sports Science newsletter – February 10, 2016

… [Lance] McCullers had never thrown more than 104 2/3 innings in a pro season, so Houston kept him off a game mound for a fortnight to lessen the increase of his workload as a proactive way of keeping him healthy. He threw three minor-league innings over a 20-day period.

“Knowing he’d be looking at a big jump up in innings, we were looking for an opportunity to give him a break,” said Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, who added that his organization does not use firm limits for its pitchers. “I think the most important thing to remember is that there is no silver bullet. Every pitcher is unique. We don’t have any specific rule of thumb. Really what we want is constant discussion and dialog between the player, the trainers, the coaches, the doctors, the medical professionals and the front office. That’s our only rule.

It’s a growing trend since we saw ‘Skins’ hit the market many years ago. Many have formed their own opinion as to whether this trend is medically backed or just a great fashion statement, especially as ‘active-wear’ becomes a local day to day outfit for many going for a local coffee catch up. So, here at the Basketball Physio we have looked further into the evidence supporting the use of compression garments (CG) and critically appraised it for it’s application into basketball.

… One thing I’ve learned from Bondarchuk’s system of training, is that there are degrees of specificity. I have adopted his exercise classification scheme in all of my writing and methodology because it is such a logical and simple way to classify all of the types of work a coach would give an athlete. It is composed of four exercise classifications, or taxonomies arranged in a hierarchy that goes from specific to general.

The first is the Competitive Exercise. It is the most specific and is made up of loads that mimic precisely the competitive movement and train the same biological systems (e.g. neuro-muscular / energy systems or both). If you are a sprinter, this is the highest intensity sprinting at distances within your realm of transfer. If you are a powerlifter, this is squatting, bench pressing or deadlifting loads in the highest ends of the intensity zones. If you are an endurance athlete, it is runs (or walks) at close to the competitive distance at an intensity that reflects the demands of competition.

Slightly less specific but still very important to the development process is the second classification, Specific Development Exercises. These are loads that honor said intensity zones but resemble the competition movement to a lesser degree (i.e. only in part), or vice-versa. They may include loads that exceed the competition demands. Good examples are high-intensity jumping drills for jumpers or hill sprints / tow sprints for sprinters.

… the pooled results were impressive: a “large, beneficial effect” of strength training on running economy, corresponding to an average improvement of 2.32 mL/kg/min in running economy. After strength training, in other words, the runners could maintain the same pace while using 3-4 percent less oxygen.

The life of an NFL player from July until January is a structured matrix of meetings, practices, massages, meals and weightlifting. There are reminders at every corner — calendars in locker rooms, phone alarms buzzing and digital clocks strategically placed throughout the facility.

When the season comes to an abrupt end, the schedules come down and the alarms are turned off. But the internal clock doesn’t stop.

For the first couple of weeks after the Arizona Cardinals’ season ended, the internal clock was tackle Eric Winston’s worst enemy. It kept him on the schedule he was committed to in the regular season.

BACKGROUND:

Between-match recovery time, and acute and chronic workloads likely affect subsequent match-injury risk in elite rugby league players.
METHODS:

Workloads of 28 players throughout two seasons were calculated during short (<7?days), and long (?7?days) between-match recovery times. 'Acute' workloads (1?week) greater than 'chronic' workloads (4-week rolling average acute workload) resulted in acute:chronic workload ratios above 1.
RESULTS:

No difference was found between the match-injury risk of short and long between-match recovery periods (7.5±2.5% vs 6.8±2.5%). When players had a short recovery between matches, high chronic workloads (18.9-22.0?km) were associated with a smaller risk of match injury than chronic workloads <18.9?km (relative risk (RR) range 0.27-0.32 (CI 0.08 to 0.92); likelihood range 90-95%, likely). Players who had shorter recovery and acute:chronic workload ratios ?1.6, were 3.4-5.8 times likely to sustain a match injury than players with lower acute:chronic workload ratios (RR range 3.41-5.80 (CI 1.17 to 19.2); likelihood range 96-99%, very likely). Acute:chronic workload ratios between 1.2 and 1.6 during short between-match recovery times demonstrated a greater risk of match injury than ratios between 1.0 and 1.2 (RR=2.88 (CI 0.97 to 8.55); likelihood=92%, likely).
CONCLUSIONS:

Contrary to the philosophy that high workloads and shorter recovery equate to increased injury risk, our data suggest that high and very-high chronic workloads may protect against match injury following shorter between-match recovery periods. Acute:chronic workload ratios ?1.5 are associated with a greater risk of match injury than lower acute:chonic workload ratios. Importantly, workloads can be manipulated to decrease the match-injury risk associated with shorter recovery time between matches.

The measurement of relative physiological stress during training is important because this is the stimulus for the long-term adaptive response. Measurements of perceived exertion (RPE) have been reported to correlate with the heart rate during field-based training sessions. Nevertheless, there are few studies on how well RPE tracks with the heart rate over repeated training sessions in elite soccer players. Therefore, we aimed to quantify the within-participant correlations between variability in session-RPE (sRPE) and the heart rate in elite male soccer players, and to determine whether the playing position moderated these correlations. The field-based training of four central defenders, four wide defenders, six central midfielders, two wide midfielders and three attackers from an elite English Premier League squad were monitored over an entire in-season competitive period, giving a total of 1010 individual training sessions for study. Correlations between session-RPE and heart rates were quantified using a within-participant model. The correlation between changes in sRPE and heart rates was r = 0.75 (95% CI: 0.71-0.78). This correlation remained high across the various player positions (wide-defender, r = 0.81; central-defender, r = 0.74; wide midfielder, r = 0.70; central midfielder, r = 0.70; attacker, r = 0.84; P < 0.001). The correlation between changes in RPE and heart rates, measured during a season-long period of field-based training, is high in a sample of elite soccer players.

Heart rate monitoring has been integral to professional athlete and gym rat training regimens for years. Now heart rate is widely accepted as a must-have metric for anyone trying to maintain health and wellness or improve overall fitness. Heart rate can give you real time insight into workout intensity as well as post-workout info such as calories burned and much more.

We’ve received many inquiries regarding the accuracy of the heart rate monitor (HRM) built into the Atlas Wristband. The short answer is that it is extremely accurate. We are going to go into detail about just how accurate in this article. However, it must be noted that HRM accuracy is dependent on many external factors such as body-type, density of hair on the wrist, skin tone, tattoos, and things such as high motion, contraction of your forearm muscle, and improper wear.

… The NordBord Hamstring Testing System tells me the athlete’s hamstring strength. Unfortunately, I know very little if anything, about where your athlete sits in regards to the other risk factors.

For example: perhaps your athlete has a great NordScore, but has short hamstring muscle fascicle lengths (this cannot be determined by eye), the athlete may still be at risk of an injury despite their amazing hamstring strength.

What the NordBord Hamstring Testing System represents is purely a marker, but a marker that was not available to you before.

Background: Despite the strong implications for rehabilitation design, the capability of individuals with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) to adapt and store novel gait patterns have not been well studied.

Purpose: To investigate how reconstructive surgery may affect the ability to adapt and store novel gait patterns in persons with ACLR while walking on a split-belt treadmill.

Study Design: Controlled laboratory study.

Methods: Gait adaptation was compared between 20 participants with ACLR and 20 healthy controls during split-belt treadmill walking. Gait adaptation was assessed in slow- and fast-adapting parameters by (1) the magnitude of symmetry during late adaptation and (2) the amount of the asymmetry during de-adaptation.

Results: Healthy individuals adapted a new walking pattern and stored the new walking pattern equally in both the dominant and nondominant limbs. Conversely, individuals with ACLR displayed impairments in both slow-adapting and fast-adapting derived gait adaptation and significant differences in behavior between the reconstructed and uninjured limb.

Conclusion: While surgical reconstruction and physical therapy are aimed at improving mechanical stability to the knee, the study data suggest that fundamental features of motor control remain altered. After ACLR, participants display an altered ability to learn and store functional gait patterns.

As an orthopaedic physiotherapist, I am intrigued by the puzzle of musculoskeletal overuse injuries. Unlike an acute injury, which is associated with a defined injury event, the progression of an overuse injury is often unpredictable and challenging to rehabilitate, let alone prevent. As you may have experienced when faced with an overuse injury, pain is not a reliable measure of the degree to which your overused tendon or muscle has healed. And, indeed, studies exploring the root causes of painful versus non-painful tendon overuse injuries have demonstrated that an overuse injury is often well-developed before the onset of pain.

Mechanical loading of a muscle, tendon or bone is central to the health of these tissues as it promotes a process of tissue breakdown and repair. When you load your body through aerobic or strength training, a series of inflammatory events occur within the tissue under stress which, under “optimal” conditions and loading, are part of the healthy balance between tissue breakdown and repair. Alternatively, in conditions when the amount of loading is no longer “optimal”, excessive tissue breakdown occurs, setting off an abnormal biological response which can result in degenerative changes of the tissue. We don’t know why this system shifts from one of healthy breakdown and repair to that of unhealthy degeneration but, we are slowly uncovering how the autonomic nervous system (ANS) may contribute to this scene.

You’ve heard about it. The motorcycle. The crash that destroyed my basketball dreams and almost killed me at the age of 21.

But you probably haven’t heard about my addiction to prescription pain medication, which started soon after my accident. That addiction nearly killed me a second time.

Mountain biker Serena Bishop Gordon credits sticking to her nutrition plan—including during the race—for big wins, “As I’ve gotten to become a better athlete, planning my diet has gotten more and more important.” … Many products purport to boost athletic performance beyond what can be achieved through genes, training, and diet. But, as is the case for nutritional supplements more broadly, clinical evidence supporting those benefits is often slim. In addition, what works well for one athlete may not work at all for another.

Protein powders are a quick way to help ensure that your body is nourished and satisfied. People use them for a variety of reasons — to lose weight, to improve sports performance and build muscle mass, and for overall wellness.

How do you know which protein powder is best to meet your personal health goals? It’s important to know the difference between available protein powders as well as how they stack up against whole food protein sources.

… A while back I started looking at defence in terms of how a defender prevents their opponents operating in their territory. This included a metric called PATCH (“Possession Adjusted Territorial Control Held”… yeah), which underwent several changes without me really writing it up, despite publishing all sorts of cryptic charts on Twitter. So, my plan today is to go through the whole methodology as it stands today. There’s still work to do, and it’s by no means a hard and fast measure of good and bad defending, but it’s interesting enough to share and hope for some feedback. … PATCH is all about defensive territory – where on the pitch a player is responsible for stopping their opponent. We don’t measure this in an idealised way based on formations or anything like that, all we do is look at where a player is actually defending.