Applied Sports Science newsletter – April 22, 2016

Purpose: To determine the validity and reliability of a submaximal intermittent running (SIR) test in elite Australian rules football (ARF) players.

Methods: Validity: heart rate (HR) responses of 38 elite ARF players to both the SIR and yoyo intermittent recovery 2 (YYIR2) tests were compared over two trials. Linear regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between SIR test HR responses and YYIR2 test performance. Reliability: HR responses of 25 elite ARF players to the SIR test were monitored over three trials. Day-to-day reliability was determined using intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), typical error of measurement (TE), coefficient of variation (CV) and smallest worthwhile change (SWC).

Results: Validity: large inverse correlations were reported between two, three, and four minute HR during the SIR test and YYIR2 test distance (r = -.58 – -.61, P < 0.01). Heart rate recovery (HRR) after two and three minutes of the SIR test was moderately correlated to YYIR2 distance (r = .32 – .35, P < 0.05). Reliability: strong correlations for ICC (r = .90 – .97) and low CV (1.3 – 9.2%) were reported for all HR variables.

Conclusions: and practical applications: Monitoring HR during the SIR test is a valid and reliable indicator of YYIR2 test performance in elite ARF players. These findings support the use of the SIR test as a regular and non-fatiguing indicator of intermittent running capacity.

Imagine that you could dramatically improve your firm’s forecasting ability, but to do so you’d have to expose just how unreliable its predictions—and the people making them—really are. That’s exactly what the U.S. intelligence community did, with dramatic results. Back in October 2002, the National Intelligence Council issued its official opinion that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was actively producing more weapons of mass destruction. Of course, that judgment proved colossally wrong. Shaken by its intelligence failure, the $50 billion bureaucracy set out to determine how it could do better in the future, realizing that the process might reveal glaring organizational deficiencies.

The resulting research program included a large-scale, multiyear prediction tournament, co-led by one of us (Phil), called the Good Judgment Project. The series of contests, which pitted thousands of amateurs against seasoned intelligence analysts, generated three surprising insights: First, talented generalists often outperform specialists in making forecasts. Second, carefully crafted training can enhance predictive acumen. And third, well-run teams can outperform individuals. These findings have important implications for the way organizations and businesses forecast uncertain outcomes, such as how a competitor will respond to a new-product launch, how much revenue a promotion will generate, or whether prospective hires will perform well.

It is important to understand factors contributing to and directly causing sports injuries to improve the effectiveness and safety of sports skills. The characteristics of injury events must be evaluated and described meaningfully and reliably. However, many complex skills cannot be effectively investigated quantitatively because of ethical, technological and validity considerations. Increasingly, qualitative methods are being used to investigate human movement for research purposes, but there are concerns about reliability and measurement bias of such methods. Using the tackle in Rugby union as an example, we outline a systematic approach for developing a skill analysis protocol with a focus on improving objectivity, validity and reliability. Characteristics for analysis were selected using qualitative analysis and biomechanical theoretical models and epidemiological and coaching literature. An expert panel comprising subject matter experts provided feedback and the inter-rater reliability of the protocol was assessed using ten trained raters. The inter-rater reliability results were reviewed by the expert panel and the protocol was revised and assessed in a second inter-rater reliability study. Mean agreement in the second study improved and was comparable (52–90% agreement and ICC between 0.6 and 0.9) with other studies that have reported inter-rater reliability of qualitative analysis of human movement.

When it comes to juggling classes, practices, workouts, and sometimes a job, college athletes have a full plate (and then some). Though it’s rare, some student athletes make the decision to take on second sport at the college level as well, complicating matters even more.

Richard Carthon is one of those rare two-sport college athletes down at Tulane, playing both football and baseball for the Green Wave, so he knows a thing or two about the sometimes overwhelming time demands student athletes face. Carthon recently took the stage at TEDxTU to talk about the lessons that he has learned being a dual-sport college student athlete, and his message is something that people from all walks of life can take something from.

If you’ve ever clicked through the race photos that get sent to you after a marathon, you may have been shocked by the transformation. Little by little, the bright-eyed and bouncy-striding runner who smiled at the camera for the early photos is replaced by a grimacing ogre hobbling awkwardly toward the finish.

Or maybe that’s just me. But the question of how much your running stride changes during a race is one that researchers are increasingly interested in. Most biomechanical research has typically looked at fresh, unfatigued runners who spend a few minutes on a treadmill—but it’s pointless to say that one shoe or running style is “better” than another if its benefits disappear when your legs get tired.

Quick question: What do you think are the ingredients in a sound training program?

You might say lots of aerobic running, some strength training, long runs, hills, threshold running, etc.

All of those are good answers, yet the problem virtually all self-coached runners fall into is that they come up with a mix of various training elements, put it together and call it a training plan.

I want to share the seven ingredients (plus one) that make up the Simple Marathon Training system (SMT).

Looking for the next wave of breakthrough technology? From artificial intelligence to machine learning to the cloud, you may not see it – but it’s all around you.

In its quest to stay on the cutting edge, the Michigan football team is on the verge of a deal for wearable display technology that, essentially, would allow players to get play calls uploaded onto their arms.

GoRout.com officials, including CEO Mike Rolih, were in Ann Arbor today, meeting with coaches for a second time. The coaches sampled the product and saw specifics of how it could be used. Rolih said U-M is going through a trial period and no official agreement has been reached. One could be coming in the summer.

A Michigan official declined to comment on the visit or a possible deal.

Army scientists, working with officials from the National Football League, have developed a wearable device that helps reduce head and neck injuries.

The Rate-Activated Tether, is a flexible strap that connects a helmet to shoulder pads or body armor, said Shawn Walsh of the Weapons and Material Research Directorate at Army Research Laboratory.

“What happens is if that when head is exposed to adverse acceleration, this RAT strap will basically transition into a rigid device that will transmit the load to the body, and it has been proven to significantly reduce acceleration,” Walsh told defense reporters at a recent roundtable discussion sponsored by Program Executive Office Soldier.

… The current monitoring of NCAA basketball players is exclusively based on heart rate, GPS and number of games each athlete is participating in. While these factors are hugely importing in reducing injury risk, the monitoring of athletes biomechanical status provides more information and can allow for a reduction in injury risk for specific high risk injury areas. A study by Canavan et al., (2012) found that range of motion (ROM) should be assessed in a number of different areas for NCAA basketball players. Specifically they cited ankle dorsiflexion, left and right lower extremity ROM to identify bilateral differences and following from this there should be targeted interventions based on each individual athletes screening. The in-season screening and monitoring of athletes’ biomechanics is paramount in helping to reduce injury risk to the most at risk body parts and could help a team to optimise their performance during an intense period of competition like March madness.

Success does not happen overnight. It takes a lot for teams to get ready for game day. Several pieces need to come together in order for a team to attain the success they want. A lot is placed on the head coaches, assistants, strength and conditioning, and the players’ talent, however, there is one big piece often overlooked.

“One of the things that often goes unnoticed is our nutrition staff,” said Florida football head coach, Jim McElwain. “We’ve been able to increase awareness, and how the guys are actually using and being able to be educated in the nutrition piece.”

“Over the past five years, the sports nutrition programs have really started to develop. They are the new cutting edge,” said Director of Sports Nutrition at Florida, Stephanie Wilson. “Twenty years ago strength and conditioning was the new thing that was added, before then it was athletic training, now it’s sports nutrition. It has definitely grown. It has become the differential factor in a lot of schools.”

I love watching the NFL, but when the season ends it gets boring for a few months. Probably the biggest event of the offseason is the draft, which I think is interesting but I can’t get excited about. I don’t watch college football, so I can’t evaluate or project players.

Most of the articles you read about the NFL draft are complete garbage. It’s speculation about player quality or draft tactics based, at best, someone who’s casually watched a player in a few games. So I decided that this year I’m going to do my own “mock draft” but it’s going to be based on the best data science I can muster.

… it’s just as foolhardy to use Leicester City as proof analytics “works” as it is to use Aston Villa as a reason it doesn’t.

And yet at the same time, I don’t think reality this means everything is hunky dory then for the future of stats analysis in football.

For one, how, in an increasingly crowded and competitive field, does an analyst demonstrate they made a significant difference to an organization if luck, collective decision-making and all the other inscrutable variations that go into how a football operates essentially smooshes their contribution out of the picture?

It’s been a difficult month for Barcelona. Three consecutive league defeats and a Champions League exit mean they are football’s current crisis club. The odds of enduring such a miserable run would have been around 2,500 to 1; outlier results this extreme at any club always demand serious examination.

The first step for clubs in this situation would be to get an objective, baseline view of performance from which to start the analysis. Barcelona’s league performances would typically have returned 5.8 points based on the quality and quantity of chances created and allowed. This is slightly worse than the 6.8 points expected before the run, but by no means catastrophic. Meanwhile, their first leg performance against Atlético would have returned at least a two-goal win around 50% of the time, rather than the slender one-goal lead actually taken to the the second leg.

Therefore the crisis can be broadly put down to a crisis of finishing – at both ends.

Back in February, everybody thought Dexter Fowler was going to sign with the Baltimore Orioles on a nifty three-year, $35 million contract. But then, on Feb. 25 at Cubs training camp in Mesa, Ariz., Fowler made a surprise entrance. The presumed new Orioles center fielder instead shocked the baseball world and returned to the Cubs. … almost every player mentioned here has exited his interaction with the Orioles with a substantial reduction in contract value. Fowler was no exception; he was left to settle for a one-year, $8 million deal with the Cubs, including a $5 million buyout on a $9 million mutual option for 2017.