Applied Sports Science newsletter – June 6, 2016

… In my private study, just off the Oval Office, I keep a pair of his gloves on display, just under that iconic photograph of him – the young champ, just 22 years old, roaring like a lion over a fallen Sonny Liston. I was too young when it was taken to understand who he was – still Cassius Clay, already an Olympic Gold Medal winner, yet to set out on a spiritual journey that would lead him to his Muslim faith, exile him at the peak of his power, and set the stage for his return to greatness with a name as familiar to the downtrodden in the slums of Southeast Asia and the villages of Africa as it was to cheering crowds in Madison Square Garden.

“I am America,” he once declared. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me – black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used to me.”

That’s the Ali I came to know as I came of age – not just as skilled a poet on the mic as he was a fighter in the ring, but a man who fought for what was right.

Life for Marcus Rashford, the young Manchester United striker who has gate-crashed England’s squad for the European Championship, has always had football at its core.

Northern Moor, in Wythenshawe, six miles south of Old Trafford, was Rashford’s playground growing up. It is where he endlessly leathered balls against walls on the estate and on a grassy area outside his front door, until called in by his mother, Mel.

It was the same in Withington before then, where the family lived next door to a Manchester City supporter who feared his windows would be put in. He was described as happy while growing up in a loving environment, although he has had little contact with his father, Robert, whose name is not on his birth certificate. [commercial video autoplays]

… Researchers have found that we can rewire our brains to be more positive, creative, resilient, and productive, to see more possibilities wherever we look. One study found that optimism is strongly related to preparedness, such as readiness to deal with setbacks and take advantage of opportunities. Mindset really is everything!

Just like your mindset about work affects your performance, so too does your mindset about your own ability. That is, the more you believe in your own ability to succeed, the more likely it is that you will. Beliefs are so powerful because they dictate our efforts and actions.

Health and dropped passes were two of the biggest issues with the Green Bay Packers’ wide receiver group a year ago. With Jordy Nelson on the shelf for the entire season, Davante Adams and Randall Cobb were forced to step up and take over as the top wideouts. They did a decent job, but they had far too many drops, too.

According to ESPN, they each had six dropped passes, which was tied for the ninth-most in the NFL. So to combat those deficiencies, the Packers are using circus acts … sort of. Wide receivers are going through juggling drills in OTAs to help with hand-eye coordination, and it’s impressive.

Every week in the top leagues in the world, you’ll see fantastic displays of skill – players trying things in the middle of games, taking calculated risk and using their great abilities. Recently, I watched Marcelo of Real Madrid put on a confidence clinic – trying things in the game that other players may not think about. And, it often pays off as Marcelo looks after his third of the pitch but can dominate the game from the back and bring fans out of their seats. On one play, Marcelo pushed forward with a burst of speed from the back, created a 1-2 with a winger to gain more space for himself and then set-up Cristiano Ronaldo for a great scoring chance. It was an impressive display of talent and the belief in the talent to dominate the ball and use his abilities to help his team create scoring opportunities.

One of the key areas I work on with any athlete including soccer players at all levels – is confidence. Understanding it and building it. Confidence is a player’s bullet-proof vest. It is for Marcelo and it can be for you.

… Emotional granularity isn’t just about having a rich vocabulary; it’s about experiencing the world, and yourself, more precisely. This can make a difference in your life. In fact, there is growing scientific evidence that precisely tailored emotional experiences are good for you, even if those experiences are negative.

According to a collection of studies, finely grained, unpleasant feelings allow people to be more agile at regulating their emotions, less likely to drink excessively when stressed and less likely to retaliate aggressively against someone who has hurt them.

The gap between expert analysis and public opinion seems to be widening by the day. In the US, there is significant popular support for the policies of Donald Trump which the vast majority of experts regards as questionable, to say the least. In the UK we have seen a broad consensus of economics experts warning that a vote to leave Europe will be disastrous, but many members of the public still intend to vote to leave. The global scientific community continues to warn about the catastrophic dangers of climate change, yet many members of public see human-created climate change as a hoax.

These are just three examples of an increasingly wide-spread phenomenon: well-informed experts put forward a view on a topic based on the best evidence available and public opinion jumps the other way. Why does this happen?

“A couple of days off running,” the doctor says. Then days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. Not just running but now you have to take time off of cycling too. However it plays out, being injured is a challenging time. The majority of us have been there, and if not, chances are you will if your aim is to better your best.

Ever since my victory at IRONMAN 70.3 Texas back in April of 2015, I’ve been sidelined from racing due to a complicated, and persistent, right-sided knee injury. It’s been horrendous and the most challenging 12 months of my career, but we’ve learned a lot. As I write this, I am edging my closer to a start line. My body is close to full health and as my fitness builds, soon it will be race time again. Nothing excites me more than the thought of battling with the best in the world. But how did I get here? How did I, and so many others, get through such a long period of injury?

You’ve injured your knee. A doctor straps a listening device to it, and the noises you hear coming out of it are cringe-worthy. “Crackle! Krglkrglkrgl! Snap!”

Your knee isn’t breaking; it’s only bending, and in the future, those sounds could help doctors determine whether the convalescing joint is healthy yet, or if it needs more therapy.

Research engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are developing a knee band with microphones and vibration sensors to listen to and measure the sounds inside the joint.

It could lead to a future device to help orthopedic specialists assess damage after an injury and track the progress of recovery.

… The success of the Warriors, who beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 104-89 last night in the first game of the finals, can partly be attributed to a five-year bet on technology. The wager has helped transform a perennial cellar dweller into an annual contender.

The team, which plays at Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, was among the first in the league to install cameras that track when players touch or shoot the ball during a game. During practice, players sport wearable monitors (a labor deal prohibits their use in games) that gauge their heart rates, movement and stamina. And the team is constantly trying out new technology — including “smart” sleep masks — for potential use.

One of the most important conversations in the field of machine learning is the debate surrounding the use of predictive methods to influence or inform human decisions. Broadly speaking, the field of machine learning is the practice of programming computers to be more self-sufficient, and to create systems that can operate on their own, with minimal human guidance. This can extend itself to anything from data collection, to data analytics, to creating decision trees. Machine learning processes and predictive methods can, hypothetically, make decisions for humans, but should they? And if we allow machine learning techniques to begin informing our decisions, or making decisions for us, where should we draw the line? In a recent lecture cohosted by the Center for Data Science—as a part of the ongoing NYC Data Science Seminar Series (DS3)—Jon Kleinberg, a Computer Science Professor at Cornell University, gave a talk titled, “Human Decisions and Machine Predictions.” He spoke about the possibilities and limits of allowing machines to facilitate decision making processes in a number of fields—from neural networks, to chess, to criminal justice.

Running related overuse injury (RROI) affects a significant proportion of runners annually. To date, only running mileage has been considered when quantifying the amount of loading that may elicit tissue micro-damage and injury, while the loading that occurs from activities of daily living and non-running physical activity has been ignored. By ignoring non-running physical activity (PA), we may be severely underestimating the amount of loading that leads to RROI.

Mathematician Lydia Bourouiba uses high-speed video to break down the anatomy of sneezes and coughs — and to understand infectious disease.

A new book assessing the links between football and mathematics has recently been published.

Soccermatics: Mathematical Adventures in the Beautiful Game by David Sumpter is a detailed look at mathematical side of the beautiful game, illustrating how it impacts on everything from shot statistics and league tables to the geometry of passing and managerial strategy.

The42 recently caught up with Sumpter, who is Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, to chat about his new book…

Coaches are critical to elite sport achievements because they represent the link between sport policies and athletes. Yet, labor migration of elite sport coaches challenges the competitiveness of the sport system of the sending country and brain drain is a concern for policy-makers. Previous research on labor migration in sport has focused on athletes in professional team sports. Based on the push–pull framework, this study seeks to explore the factors affecting labor migration of elite sport coaches in less commercialized sports. Semi-structured interviews with nine elite sport coaches employed in Germany were conducted. The following migration factors emerged from the analysis: job-related factors (salary, workload, financial planning security, pressure, politics within the sport federation, and recognition of the coaching job in society); social factors (family support, and children’s education); competitive factors (training environment, and sport equipment); and seeking new experiences (new culture/language, and challenging task). Networks were found to be critical to the reception of job offers. A combination of various push and pull factors from several levels (i.e., individual, household, organizational, and national level) is at work when examining potential coach migration. Policy- makers should consider these factors when they strive to create a more attractive working environment for coaches.