Applied Sports Science newsletter – March 19, 2016

U.S. men’s national team midfielder Alejandro Bedoya and his girlfriend and professional athletic trainer Beatrice Hilland are a unique couple with unique life experiences and a strong sense of humor. Between Bedoya’s exploits on the field for the U.S., Nantes and a few prior clubs, and Hilland’s work training top athletes in Europe and Scandinavia, they each have interesting insight to share.

In an effort to lift the lid on some of their experiences–and laughs–and give a glimpse of their lives off the field, they have combined to tell some of their tales and tips with SI.com. The following is what happened when they encountered Cristiano Ronaldo on vacation in Miami–not too long after Ronaldo had some fun at Bedoya’s expense at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Many Rams fans have been wondering: what’s up with Greg Robinson?

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Why hasn't he reached his vast potential of developing into the franchise left tackle the Rams hoped he would be when they took him with the second overall pick in 2014? What happened to the next Orlando Pace, as Mike Mayock famously predicted?

There are several reasons. One, he was an inexperienced redshirt sophomore when drafted. Two, he played in a system that asked very little of him in terms of blocking assignments, other than to find his man and nuke him into oblivion. He played with pure athletic dominance in college, but clearly that isn’t enough for the NFL. And three…moving him to guard and then baptizing him by fire following injuries to Jake Long and Roger Saffold isn’t generally how you bring up a franchise left tackle…

Well now offensive line expert and former NFL center LeCharles Bentley has his hands on Robinson and is working with him down in Arizona this offseason.

Sir Dave Brailsford is fond of likening the constantly interacting instruments of Team Sky to an orchestra and, if he is undoubtedly the conductor, the man largely responsible for teaching the most brilliant symphony in British cycling history remains almost unknown.

Yet flick through the pages of the autobiographies of Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome and you will soon find words like “genius”, “guru”, “beacon” and “boffin” alongside the name Tim Kerrison. As well as coaching three of the last four Tour de France winners, Kerrison previously worked with Commonwealth, World and Olympic champions in rowing and swimming. He does few interviews and, while happy to answer questions on the subject of anti-doping and his belief that clean riders will surpass the performances of past cheats, he also hopes to “explain a bit about what we do as well as what we don’t do”.

… he went a little in-depth about NBA teams canceling shootarounds, a bandwagon Popovich said he and the Spurs hopped on “two decades” ago.

“I just think it was the modus operandi for every organization. It was habit. It was what everyone did. If you didn’t do it, you were recalcitrant or you weren’t doing your job,” Popovich said. “Some owners would look and say ‘Why aren’t you doing a shootaround?’ If you were a young coach, you have to have a shootaround because you’re doing what you have to do. And, basically, half of them are total crap – a total waste of time.

“… In general, shootarounds could be kaputskied.”

Modus operandi. Recalcitrant. Kaputskied.

Recent studies have brought new insights into the evaluation of power-force-velocity profiles in both ballistic push-offs (eg, jumps) and sprint movements. These are major physical components of performance in many sports, and the methods the authors developed and validated are based on data that are now rather simple to obtain in field conditions (eg, body mass, jump height, sprint times, or velocity). The promising aspect of these approaches is that they allow for more individualized and accurate evaluation, monitoring, and training practices, the success of which is highly dependent on the correct collection, generation, and interpretation of athletes’ mechanical outputs. The authors therefore wanted to provide a practical vade mecum to sports practitioners interested in implementing these power-force-velocity–profiling approaches. After providing a summary of theoretical and practical definitions for the main variables, the authors first detail how vertical profiling can be used to manage ballistic push-off performance, with emphasis on the concept of optimal force–velocity profile and the associated force–velocity imbalance. Furthermore, they discuss these same concepts with regard to horizontal profiling in the management of sprinting performance. These sections are illustrated by typical examples from the authors’ practice. Finally, they provide a practical and operational synthesis and outline future challenges that will help further develop these approaches.

Head Athletic Trainer Rick Burkholder discusses the Chiefs new Recovery Room powered by NormaTec.

In 2015, over 30?000 students from nearly 200 countries enrolled in the first massive open online course (MOOC) in sport and exercise medicine (SEM)—the body matters. With a relative deficiency of reputable SEM resources available to the public, and the historically high prevalence of SEM and sports science-related ‘myths’, this course was created to provide the public with a reliable source of information and exposure to experts in the field. Through the combination of a professor’s vision and digital technology, this MOOC delivered the equivalent of 200?years of academic endeavours over 3?months. In addition, utilising social media1 and the linked BJSM blogs, the course demonstrated why MOOCs are considered a promising method of education.

Lactic acid has played an important role in the traditional theory of muscle fatigue and limitation of endurance exercise performance. It has been called a waste product of anaerobic metabolism and has been believed to be responsible for the uncomfortable “burn” of intense exercise and directly responsible for the metabolic acidosis of exercise, leading to decreased muscle contractility and ultimately cessation of exercise. Although this premise has been commonly taught, it is not supported by the scientific literature and has led to a great deal of confusion among the sports medicine and exercise science communities. This review will provide the sports medicine clinician with an understanding of contemporary lactate theories, including lactate’s role in energy production, its contributions to metabolic acidosis, and its function as an energy substrate for a variety of tissues. Lactate threshold concepts will also be discussed, including a practical approach to understanding prediction of performance and monitoring of training progress based on these parameters.

The athletic season is broadly cut into three parts called the micro cycle (what you do on a daily basis), the meso cycle (what you are doing for 2 to 6 weeks depending on your athletic needs), and finally the macro cycle (the entire 52 weeks out of the year). You then can look at your macro cycle and break it down into preparation phase which would be the biggest volume of training and take up the most time, the competition phase which would be the finalizing all you have built up to, and then the transition phase would be resting/maintaining what you currently have. You may go through the preparation, competition, and transition phase a few times throughout the year.

Arkansas uses Strivr, a sports-focused VR company founded by a former assistant coach from Stanford. The system positions a camera on the field during practices, enabling players (primarily quarterbacks) and coaches to later relive the plays as many times as necessary in order to get a better grasp of what they should be observing and learning on the field.

Best of all, when you’re playing in a VR headset, the tackles hurt a lot less.

“Find a way. We slept yesterday, today we work. Today, I’m wearing Under Armour.” Kevin Plank, the CEO, chairman and founder of Under Armour is pretty damn pumped about the potential of the connected fitness chapter of his shirts and shoes story.

Speaking at SXSW Interactive, Plank’s enthusiasm for his company and for sports performance was contagious. Above all else, though, he’s really excited about data.

Five or so years ago, a couple of dudes in Zurich decided to strap smartphones to their wrists.

The size of technical components is becoming ever-smaller, and the group wanted to figure out what could theoretically be achieved with a wearable technology platform.

So they attached their phones to their wrists and wandered the halls of Google, where they worked, pretending they were watches. Among their findings was that a wrist-mounted keyboard is all but impossible to use: Information has to proactively come to you at the right time.

Now Google says it’s building on their work to try and give you superpowers.

… The past year or so I have been able to purchase some pro stock AHL sticks at a good price point which are great in quality but also happen to be 85 in flex (beggars can’t be choosers).

The difference has been incredibly noticeable to me. Taking slap shots in my post college career hasn’t been a regular occurrence for me because I’m a cheapskate and don’t feel like burning through twigs, but since the change to the 85 flex I don’t even bother from a performance standpoint. The room for error is way smaller and my accuracy isn’t quite the same. You’ve got to really catch the puck in the right spot of your blade while also striking the ice with precision behind the puck. This is what lets the stick flex do the proper work for you. If you are off even a little bit behind the puck you aren’t going to get the desired result

… [Invisage CEO Jess] Lee said that QuantumFilm has an additional advantage: that it is able to capture scenes very quickly, in periods of the order of a millisecond, and apply a “global shutter” electronically. This is not done easily in CMOS image sensors, which conventionally use a scheme of continuously rolling exposure and line-by-line read out. Although this is adequate for still images it can produce visual artifacts in images of fast moving objects.

A two-year prospective study of female heel-strike runners found that those who suffered medically diagnosed injuries had higher impact variables at baseline than those who had never had an injury.

Although other studies had linked heel-strike impacts to injuries, none had ever done so prospectively, said first author Irene Davis, PT, PhD, a professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Spaulding National Running Center, both in Boston. The study included female runners who had been free of injury for at least six months at the time of enrollment.

CONTEXT:

?The literature regarding work-life balance (WLB) is plentiful, particularly in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I collegiate setting due to its demanding nature as defined by work hours and travel. Despite the comprehensive understanding of factors contributing to WLB for athletic trainers (ATs) in this setting, the effect of time of year has yet to be investigated.
OBJECTIVE:

?To determine the influence sport season timing (ie, preseason, in-season, off-season) can have on perceptions and experiences of WLB for ATs.
DESIGN:

?Qualitative, case-study design.
SETTING:

?Division I collegiate practice setting.
PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS:

?Six ATs employed in the Division I college setting (3 women, 3 men) volunteered and completed our study over 1 year. The average age of participants was 31.0 ± 3 years, and they had 9.0 ± 3 years of experience.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS:

?We conducted semistructured one-on-one phone interviews with each participant at 4 points during the year (August, November, February, June). All interviews were transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed inductively, and we used peer review, multiple-analyst triangulation, and member checks for credibility.
RESULTS:

?Time of year (eg, competitive in-season), organizational demands (eg, hours and travel), and life stage (eg, roles assumed) were factors that influenced WLB for ATs in the collegiate setting. Having a positive and adaptable mind-set; having coworker, supervisor, and personal support; and engaging in personal or family time were factors that counterbalanced the inhibitors.
CONCLUSIONS:

?Our results indicate that a career as an AT in the collegiate setting can create WLB concerns; these concerns, however, seem to peak during the competitive in-season for the AT’s primary coverage team. Additionally, conflict that arises for ATs seems to be stimulated by time, as work roles are often less accommodating due to the athletic atmosphere.

… John Gallucci, Jr., is the Medical Coordinator for Major League Soccer (MLS) and oversees the medical care of 600 professional soccer players and shares his wisdom on this painful youth soccer issue. Gallucci is a dynamic expert in injury prevention, rehabilitation, sports medicine and athletic conditioning and the former Head Trainer of the New York Red Bulls.

GoalNation interviewed Gallucci to learn more about the MLS aspect of his profession.

… Osteoarthritis involves a gradual loss of cartilage from the ends of the bones in the knee. The cartilage gradually wears away, both from mechanical sources (your weight, or a prior injury), or the cartilage may wear away because of the hostile chemicals your knee produces when the arthritic process starts. When Osteoarthritis of the knee sets in many of you will notice swelling, clicking, grinding and you may also have pain even at rest and at night.

Unfortunately, arthritis can not be reversed or cured. But many physicians have started offering their patients injections of PRP to treat their knee arthritis pain. Over the years there has been growing evidence that PRP can help moderate the pain of knee arthritis and improve your quality of life.

Do you ever wonder how you measure up against someone who has played in the NFL? Well, there’s an app for that.

Researchers are launching a new smartphone app Thursday that will enable former National Football League players and the general public to participate together in a clinical study to assess the impact of on-the-field injuries on the long-term health of players after they leave the game.

Dubbed TeamStudy, the app will use questionnaires and smartphone capabilities such as recording steps, distance walked and heart rate to collect data relating to the physical and cognitive health of the players. As part of the study, researchers want members of the public to download the app and participate as a control group.

In case you missed it, and you almost certainly didn’t, Maria Sharapova was suspended by the World Tennis Association this week for using the banned substance meldonium. Sharapova claims that she was taking this medication for years to combat a number of health reasons, including an irregular heartbeat.

Let’s cut right to the chase. I would bet my life savings that Sharapova was taking this medication because of it’s purported performance enhancing effects. The same reason as a number of other athletes, including the 2013 World Champion over 1500m Abeba Aregawi, were taking it, and now have positive tests to their name.

Here’s the thing though – I don’t care if she was taking it for the performance enhancing effects.

How much protein is enough? What about vitamin supplements? Should endurance athletes eat carbs before they exercise? Ask 10 triathletes and you will get 10 answers. But whom should you believe?

To identify proven sports nutrition strategies, professionals from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and Dietitians of Canada (DC) evaluated the latest research. Here are just a few highlights that might help you fuel your body for higher energy and better performance.

In general I’m baffled, although no longer surprised, by the widespread belief that drugs that help people who are ill will also improve those who are healthy. … the gains often seen from pharmaceuticals are likely to be in those who need them the most. The less at risk you are, the less likely you are to see a benefit.

Sometimes we eat the same thing for breakfast, sometimes it’s different but always with the goal of getting in that protein. Ashton’s breakfast rarely changes. He always has some sort of eggs and toast combination, but Brianne switches it up often.

Both of us always start with a cup (or two) of black brewed coffee. On this morning, Ashton went with two fried eggs, ezekiel toast; one with almond butter & honey, and the other with a chorizo sausage and eggs on top. We always buy ezekiel bread because it doesn’t have any added sugar, and is made of a bunch of different sprouted grains and legumes. We make sure that the chorizo sausage we buy doesn’t have any added sugar.

… The industry blossomed in the 1980s, after the Federal Trade Commission ruled that Amway, now one of the biggest MLMs in the world, was a legitimate business. [AdvoCare founder Charlie] Ragus, who cut his teeth at an MLM called Herbalife, started his own operation, Omnitrition International, in 1989. Three years later, a group of former Omnitrition distributors would sue both Ragus and the company, alleging that it was a pyramid scheme. But by then — the case was ultimately settled — Ragus had already left. In 1993, he launched yet another MLM, AdvoCare.

Ragus decided early on that AdvoCare would focus on sports, and he enlisted coaches from nearby Southern Methodist University to work for him. One of AdvoCare’s earliest distributors, Bruce Badgett, says the company’s top salesmen made dozens of trips to NFL locker rooms, forging handshake deals with strength coaches for the Chiefs, Cowboys and Oilers. Occasionally, he says, they even set up the players’ wives with lucrative distributorships. (The company denies that this practice occurs.) AdvoCare’s sports ties “gave us credibility with every person — every mom who has a son playing football,” Badgett says.
AdvoCare responds, makes changes

Like other MLMs, AdvoCare created a ladder system for its salespeople; in order to climb the ranks — which range from “advisor” to platinum — and earn bigger bonuses, members had to recruit. Badgett, along with several other distributors who joined AdvoCare in its early years, rose to the pinnacle, earning millions.

The 2015-16 NBA season is nearing a close and the push for the postseason has begun. Injuries have played their part in determining the standings, despite the overall number of games missed continuing to be lower than in previous seasons. Through 62 games played by each NBA team, the total number of games missed due to injury is 3,182 games. The total continues this season’s trend of coming in lower than the previous two seasons’ marks, though an onslaught of injuries made this the most costly quarter of the season and narrowed the aforementioned gap.

If the injury rate were able to remain relatively constant for the remainder of the regular season, the 2015-16 campaign has a chance at finishing as the lowest total recorded in the InStreetClothes.com database.

If there is one thing that 9 seasons working in professional football taught me, it was this – the world is full of experts – and no that isn’t sarcasm either.

Everybody has their own unique skillset, their own special abilities and along with this, their very own unique way of delivering these characteristics. Most businesses have a diverse group of employees and it’s these employees that will bring innovation, progression and success to a business, so let’s not take the information they require away from them and put it solely into the hands of data analysts. Yes there is a place for analysts within all industries, but I want to focus solely on the end-users here – the wide range of experts that already exist within an organisation.

We explored implicit coordination mechanisms underlying the conceptual notion of “shared mental models” (SMM) through physiological (i.e., breathing and heart rates) and affective-cognitive (i.e., arousal, pleasantness, attention, self-efficacy, other’s efficacy) monitoring of two professional jugglers performing a real-time interactive task of increasing difficulty. There were two experimental conditions: “individual” (i.e., solo task) and “interactive” (i.e., two jugglers established a cooperative interaction by juggling sets of balls with each other). In both conditions, there were two task difficulties: “easy” and “hard.” Descriptive analyses revealed that engaging in a dyadic cooperative motor task (interactive condition) required greater physiological effort (Median Cohen’s d = 2.13) than performing a solo motor task (individual condition) of similar difficulty. Our results indicated a strong positive correlation between the jugglers’ heart rate for the easy (r = .87) and hard tasks (r = .77). The relationship between the jugglers’ breathing rate was significant for the easy task (r = .73) but non-significant for the hard task. The findings are interpreted based on research on SMM and Theory of Mind. Practitioners should advance the notion of “shared-regulation” in the context of team coordination through the use of biofeedback training.

An often discussed concept in accounting is the pay-performance relation, particularly with respect to executive compensation (known as pay-performance sensitivity, or PPS). This study explores the pay-performance relation in major league baseball teams, focusing on player payroll and its effects on teams’ performance. Moneyball (2003) exposed readers to the use of advanced analytics, or Sabermetrics, in baseball and how it improved the ‘bang for the buck’ in selecting baseball players and in managing games. It also offered the seductive idea that quantitative geeks could beat jocks in baseball personnel decisions. The study also contributes to the accounting literature on adaptive market efficiency and vanishing pricing anomalies by testing whether the use of Sabermetrics has indeed provided an unfair advantage to teams and general managers and, more importantly, whether the outing of these ideas has made the Moneyball effect go away.

For two seasons, Zebra Technologies has provided the National Football League with tracking technology that produces detailed data about players’ movement on the field during games. Thus far, the league has only shared a limited selection of that information with television networks, but now the NFL is preparing to release data to teams.

Access to that information, especially if it’s in real time during games, could lead to re-evaluation of basic accepted truths of pro football, ESPN explained. Essentially, teams will soon have precise information about how fast players actually move in games, information that’s common in other parts of the world but has been slow to catch on in the United States’ major leagues, in part because of general caution from players’ unions, which worry about that information being used against players, the report said.