Applied Sports Science newsletter – July 19, 2016

… The women’s team is finishing up 10 days of rest this week before reconvening in Kansas City. It’s been a long grind for the team, which hasn’t had a whole lot of off time in the past 18 months. They prepped for and then won the Women’s World Cup last summer, had a post-WWC victory tour of matches, had their Olympic qualifying tournament in February, another tournament in March against some of the top teams from Europe, their club matches in the NWSL, and then more pre-Olympic tuneups. Sauerbrunn spent the time at her home in Portland, Ore., resting up while doing what she needed to stay in game shape for the Olympics.

Whole body cryotherapy — a trendy treatment that has been used for everything from arthritis pain to Alzheimer’s — may pose serious health risks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns.

“Based on purported health benefits seen in many promotions for cryotherapy spas, consumers may incorrectly believe that the FDA has cleared or approved [these] devices as safe and effective to treat medical conditions,” Dr. Aron Yustein, a medical officer in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in an agency news release. “That is not the case.”

… How has FC Dallas built such a complete club?

It begins with a faith in youth development and is reinforced by the club’s willingness to feature younger players in the first team. The philosophy starts with the coach, Oscar Pareja, and has been fully supported by ownership and Clavijo.

American soccer supporters often call for teams to #PlayYourKids. FC Dallas actually does. That’s a credit to Pareja, without whom Clavijo said, “I don’t believe we would be where we are.”

“It’s dedication,” Clavijo said. “Ownership that knows exactly where they want to go and a coach that facilitates and compromises himself to play younger players. And in addition everyone who focuses on youth at FC Dallas from the technical director to the assistant technical director to the coaches to the trainers. The amount of work we put for youth teams are first-class right away.

If you were sat in a dark room and the lights flickered off every few seconds, you’d definitely notice. Yet when your blinks make the world go momentarily dark – and bear in mind most of us perform around 12 to 15 of these every minute – you are mostly oblivious. It certainly doesn’t feel like someone is flicking the lights on and off. How can this be?

A new study in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance has tested two possibilities – one is that after each blink your brain “backdates” the visual world by the duration of the blink (just as it does for saccadic eye movements, giving rise to the stopped clock illusion); the other is that it “fills in” the blanks created by blinks using a kind of perceptual memory of the visual scene. Neither explanation was supported by the findings, which means that the illusion of visual continuity that we experience through our blinks remains a mystery.

… “A lot of that stuff has been cut way back,” Pederson said during the Eagles’ mandatory minicamp. “I think it was introduced, and now, great, it was introduced. Now let’s pull back on it. If guys want it it’s there available to them, but at the same time we’re not going to force it down anybody’s throat, so to speak.

“The availability is there. But it’s been introduced to the team and they’ve been exposed to it for the last couple of years. At the end of the day, they’re football players. And, again, it’s that one-on-one communication. ‘How are you feeling? Are you getting enough sleep? I can tell if you haven’t slept last night.’ It shows up. Out here it’s going to show up.”

In a bit of irony, Pederson says that he first learned of sports science coaching under Andy Reid in Kansas City.

“We did GPS in Kansas City, we’re going to do GPS here,” Pederson explained. “I think it’s an accurate measure of how much a player might be running and moving around at practice. But ultimately, I’m going to come to you and go, ‘How are you feeling? How are your hamstrings today?’ ‘I feel great, coach.’ ‘Well, your numbers say this, but how are you feeling?’ ‘I’m a little nicked.’ So you still have to have a [inaudible].

The gruelling work Liverpool’s players and staff are putting in on the Melwood pitches during their pre-season training programme will provide the squad with a solid fitness base to help them try and achieve their goals in 2016-17, according to Peter Krawietz.

Before every game, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle receives a number — an estimate of every player’s capacity to perform — from the strength and training staffs. The number is part of the decision-making process. The number is not a perfect guide, rather “a talking point,” Pirates head athletic trainer Todd Tomczyk said.

Still, teams like the Pirates — and some in the NBA and NFL — are looking for a way to measure and produce more-efficient performance. They want to know who should play and who should rest. They want to know who is recovering well and who is not. They want to know who is over-training and who is under-training.

They want to reduce the duration of slumps and lengthen periods of peak performance.

“You start at green, you’re yellow, you’re red.” Tomczyk said. “We are looking for that video-game meter.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said last year that there may not be another industry being so fundamentally transformed by data and digital technology like sports. Judging by the discussion at our inaugural Sports Tech Summit last week in Seattle, this certainly appears to be the case.

But while that transformation is happening to the games we love to watch and play, there seems to be a disconnect between the technology changes and people at the core of sports: the athletes themselves.

Profusa injectable sensors are designed for the simultaneous, continuous monitoring of multiple body chemistries including metabolic and dehydration status, ion panels, blood gases, and other biomarkers. The company will initially provide real-time monitoring of soldier’s health, but its sensors can be used to manage peripheral artery disease, diabetes or COPD, or enhance sport performance.

Latest from Microsoft Research reveals state of the art developments in videogrammetry, the method of capturing realtime virtual 3D form – in this case, how their technology can even capture intricate and difficult details. [video, 5:47]

As a part of the Pac-12’s Student-Athlete Health and Well-Being Grant Program, the Conference selected seven research projects to fund this year, it announced today. The research projects will explore important student-athlete health issues including head trauma, overuse and injury prevention, cardiovascular screening, thermal management and hydration, and mental health and total $3.9 million in funding.

… The Australian Medical Headquarters team will feature seven physiotherapists, eight soft tissue therapists, three nutritionists, two psychologists, a nurse, and six doctors, including five sports medicine specialists and a general practitioner.

The team, based at the Australian Medical Headquarters in the Olympic Village, will support up to 850 athletes and officials, and add to the contingent of Aussie health professionals specifically providing care to some of the nation’s larger sports teams.

… What does this mean for player assessment? First, not to write off younger players with limited experience too early. They may improve with experience (or they may not). But until they have had a certain amount of experience at the top level it is too early to judge their final potential on performance alone.

Secondly, the performance trajectory of young players is driven by a subtle blend of age and experience. Where performance indicators are used to assess player development or to make recruitment decisions, it is important to understand which indicators depend primarily on age, and which on experience.

You’ve got to spend money to make money.

We learned Tuesday how both Michigan and Michigan State are taking in upwards of $60 million per year from their football programs. But while both programs earn significant profits each year that help prop up the rest of the athletic department, they’re still spending big money to put teams on the field.

Michigan and Michigan State both spent upwards of $25 million to operate their football programs in 2014-15, and have seen costs have grown significantly over the last five years. That’s according to five years of NCAA financial reports filed by both schools and obtained by MLive through records requests.

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Coaching salaries count as the biggest expense for any football program, as well as the fastest-rising expense. Scholarships are next, and have held steady between $3.5 and $5 million in recent years.

Before the Blue Jays went their separate ways for the all-star break, they played 17 straight games. It was the end of a grinding stretch that saw them play 36 times in 38 days in seven different cities across three different time zones.

In the midst of that slog, Jays centre fielder Kevin Pillar said something that was entirely rational, even obvious, but it still sounded controversial.

“There’s no way that fans — if it’s your first time coming to watch us play — there’s no way they’re going to get the best product.”