Applied Sports Science newsletter – July 4, 2016

Nate Robinson is focusing his football efforts on playing wide receiver, and he enlisted help from a trainer who has worked with some of the league’s high-profile pass-catchers.

Dwayne Frampton flew into Seattle last week for three days of on-field workouts with Robinson at Rainier Beach High School, the former NBA player’s alma mater. Frampton works with several NFL wide receivers, including Odell Beckham Jr. and DeSean Jackson. Robinson learned about him via Instagram, and the pair has plans to train together before teams begin training camp later in July.

The soaring height is the first thing you notice, followed by the power. How can a 4-foot-9 sprite launch herself skyward with such amplitude and explosion, as if jet-propelled?

Then it’s the dazzling smile as she flips, twists and spins over the vault, across the balance beam, around the uneven bars and from one corner of the floor to the next.

Simone Biles’s gymnastics simply don’t look like anyone else’s.

Queen’s University biology professor Lonnie Aarssen has published a study that, for the first time, provides strong empirical support for a correlation between a motivation to seek accomplishment and an attraction to leisure.

“I’ve been interested for quite a while in two motivations that people seem to display – one I call legacy drive and one I call leisure drive,” says Dr. Aarssen.

Background

The concept of physical literacy has stimulated increased research attention in recent years—being deployed in physical education, sport participation, and the promotion of physical activity. Independent research groups currently operationalize the construct differently.
Objective

The purpose of this systematic review was to conduct a systematic review of the physical literacy construct, as reflected in contemporary research literature.
Methods

Five databases were searched using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines for systematic reviews. Inclusion criteria were English language, peer reviewed, published by March 2016, and seeking to conceptualize physical literacy. Articles that met these criteria were analyzed in relation to three core areas: properties/attributes, philosophical foundations and theoretical associations with other constructs. A total of 50 published articles met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed qualitatively using inductive thematic analysis.
Results

The thematic analysis addressed the three core areas. Under definitions, core attributes that define physical literacy were identified, as well as areas of conflict between different approaches currently being adopted. One relatively clear philosophical approach was prominent in approximately half of the papers, based on a monist/holistic ontology and phenomenological epistemology. Finally, the analysis identified a number of theoretical associations, including health, physical activity and academic performance.
Conclusions

Current literature contains different representations of the physical literacy construct. The costs and benefits of adopting an exclusive approach versus pluralism are considered. Recommendations for both researchers and practitioners focus on identifying and clearly articulating the definitions, philosophical assumptions and expected outcomes prior to evaluating the effectiveness of this emerging concept.

The majority of veteran players get it when it comes to strength and conditioning: Take some time off after the season to let the body recover and then get back into a personalized program of functional training and core development that limits injury risks.

It’s all part of the offseason plan for these veterans, guys who understand how their bodies work and what they need to do during the winter to prep for another season in the league. And that hasn’t changed in today’s players. True pros.

What has changed, however, is the schedule, the arrival time and the condensed program that impacts strength development for veterans during the offseason.

… In all honesty, I haven’t completely recovered from this race. While my time was better than I expected (throughout the last 5-6 miles, it felt like we were barely moving), it was well over the time I had trained so hard for. To have something out of your control affect your race is almost devastating.

Yet, it is through these experiences where you learn your true strength.

… When Hopcroft joined Albion from Birmingham City nine years ago the club didn’t have the elite category one academy status it currently holds.

Alongside Walsall, the Baggies were the only ‘centre of excellence’ in the Midlands and competing at that second tier was hurting the club. Hopcroft and Ashworth – who became technical director in 2007 before the FA snapped him up in 2012 ­- had to get creative.

“If you stand in the queue with Manchester United, Man City, and Arsenal, you’re going to be at the back of the queue,” said Hopcroft.

“We needed to go through the back door, at a club like West Brom you need to think of innovative ways of recruiting players.

University of Alabama Professor Tim Haskew said it’s a misconception that academics and athletics are at odds with each other.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Alabama’s new Integrative Center for Athletic and Sport Technology (I-CAST) has academics and athletics reading in the same playbook, one that could yield advances in technology that benefit athletes on the playing field and beyond.

“The beauty of the center is it actually provides that platform for getting the people together with the need and the technology, getting them on the same page,” said Haskew, director of I-CAST and head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Taysom Hill is many things, his roles are a mixed stack and he’s endured lofty expectations since his high school days and becoming the youngest in the train of athletic brothers Jordan and the late Dex Hill. Now he is taking on the role of lab rat for the biggest sports company on the planet.

Nike is using Hill’s foot to build a specific shoe to enable him to compete at the highest level following his injury, surgery and rehabilitation from a freak Lisfranc fracture suffered against Nebraska in BYU’s 2015 opener in Lincoln.

The NBA and GE Healthcare have launched a strategic partnership to collaborate with leading clinical researchers to address the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries affecting NBA players and everyday athletes. The NBA and GE Healthcare collaboration plans to release a series of calls for proposals (“CFP”) to provide funding for research that supports the mission of the collaboration.

Call 2 – Acute Myotendinous Injuries

Released June 16, 2016

Closing Sept 8, 2016

… Now, less than 20 months later, training table has been scrapped after falling short of expectations. The athletic department is working on a new approach that would better serve athletes and be more beneficial, in particular to its football program, than a training table that was not much of a draw.

“We just want to make sure we’re not wasting money and that the kids are getting what they need and what they want,” athletic director Jim Bartko said.

Most Americans have heard that they should drink eight glasses of water a day to stay hydrated, but there is surprisingly little data to support this advice.

But now, a new “beverage hydration index” provides evidence-based suggestions for how to most efficiently hydrate. The index was developed from a British study published in December that tracked how long 13 common beverages remain in the body after being consumed.

“In the last 25 years, we’ve done many studies on rehydration after exercise,” said Ronald J. Maughan, a hydration expert from Loughborough University, and lead author of the study. “We thought it was time to look at hydration in typical consumers who aren’t exercising.”

… Just as I start thinking I’ll have to find my own doughnut, a woman in her mid-­twenties jogs up to me looking equally lost. She’s dressed in a gray Adidas jacket, black leggings, and a tank top that resembles caution tape. Her wet hair is stuck to her forehead as though she’s just been dunked in the Pacific.

“Do you know where November Project meets?” she asks with a slight accent. Relieved, I tell her I’m trying to find them as well. “I’m Stine!” she says.

And then she hugs me.

Most work on predicting the outcome of basketball matches so far has focused on National College Athletics Association Basketball (NCAAB) games. Since NCAAB and professional (National Basketball Association, NBA) basketball have a number of differences, it is not clear to what degree these results can be transferred. We explore a number of different representations, training settings, and classifiers, and contrast their results on NCAAB and NBA data. We find that adjusted efficiencies work well for the NBA, the NCAAB regular season is not ideal for training to predict its post-season, the two leagues require classifiers with different bias, and Naïve Bayes predicts the outcome of NBA playoff series well.

… He said: “You think about leadership, structures, performance environment, all the things we have in common, and as managers we do talk a lot amongst ourselves.

“But you look at a situation like that and you have to remind yourself, constantly, that defeat is always closer than you think.

“It is always right next to you if you take your eye off the ball or take it for granted if you think, ‘We’ll win this one, on to the next round.’