Applied Sports Science newsletter – July 22, 2016

… So much has been discussed and written and dissected about how coaching the Olympians, and his increased exposure to the international and NBA game, has changed the way Krzyzewski coaches (and recruits) at Duke.

Less has been said about how Krzyzewski has successfully adapted his approach to the professionals he coaches for a brief period every two years – a group of elite NBA players who did not play at Duke, other than Kyrie Irving, and in many cases never considered playing there.

“It was a learning process for him too, a college coach coming to coach some of the best players in the world,” said Carmelo Anthony, who has played on all three of Krzyzewski’s Olympic teams. “You’re dealing with egos, you’re dealing with pride, you’re dealing with individualism, you’re dealing with so much.

… “He was kind of an afterthought,” Atkinson said of Lin. “He was part of the group that didn’t play, and I was working with that group on a daily basis.”

Because they weren’t getting any in-game minutes, Atkinson pushed Lin and his other teammates who were out of the rotation hard during practices, putting them through rigorous drills, 1-on-1s and 3-on-3s that often included Atkinson himself.

Atkinson and Lin bonded in the gym, arriving early and leaving late.

Purpose

Given the important role of the brain in regulating endurance performance, this comparative study sought to determine whether professional road cyclists have superior inhibitory control and resistance to mental fatigue compared to recreational road cyclists.
Methods

After preliminary testing and familiarization, eleven professional and nine recreational road cyclists visited the lab on two occasions to complete a modified incongruent colour-word Stroop task (a cognitive task requiring inhibitory control) for 30 min (mental exertion condition), or an easy cognitive task for 10 min (control condition) in a randomized, counterbalanced cross-over order. After each cognitive task, participants completed a 20-min time trial on a cycle ergometer. During the time trial, heart rate, blood lactate concentration, and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were recorded.
Results

The professional cyclists completed more correct responses during the Stroop task than the recreational cyclists (705±68 vs 576±74, p = 0.001). During the time trial, the recreational cyclists produced a lower mean power output in the mental exertion condition compared to the control condition (216±33 vs 226±25 W, p = 0.014). There was no difference between conditions for the professional cyclists (323±42 vs 326±35 W, p = 0.502). Heart rate, blood lactate concentration, and RPE were not significantly different between the mental exertion and control conditions in both groups.
Conclusion

The professional cyclists exhibited superior performance during the Stroop task which is indicative of stronger inhibitory control than the recreational cyclists. The professional cyclists also displayed a greater resistance to the negative effects of mental fatigue as demonstrated by no significant differences in perception of effort and time trial performance between the mental exertion and control conditions. These findings suggest that inhibitory control and resistance to mental fatigue may contribute to successful road cycling performance. These psychobiological characteristics may be either genetic and/or developed through the training and lifestyle of professional road cyclists. [full text]

This study aimed to analyse the impact of high and low flexibility levels of hamstring and quadriceps muscles on physical fitness and neuromuscular properties in professional soccer players. 62 male professional soccer players participated in this study and performed 2 instrumented flexibility tests (passive straight leg raise [PSLR] and quadriceps flexibility [QF]). Anaerobic performance was assessed using countermovement jump (CMJ), Abalakov vertical jump, 20-m sprint, and Balsom agility test. A k-means cluster analysis was performed to identify a cut-off value of hamstring and quadriceps flexibility and classify players as high hamstring flexibility (HHF) and low hamstring flexibility (LHF) or high quadriceps flexibility (HQF) and low quadriceps flexibility (LQF), respectively, according to the PSLR and QF performances. The LQF players performed better than HQF on CMJ (p=0.042, ES: 0.64) and Balsom agility test (p=0.029, ES: 0.68). In addition, LQF showed higher muscular stiffness than HQF players (p=0.002, ES: 0.88). There were no significant differences between HHF and LHF groups. When pooling the HQF and LQF players’ data, the Pearson’s correlation showed significant moderate positive association between muscular stiffness and QF (r=0.516, p<0.001). These results support the rationale that baseline stiffness is likely to influence athletic performance rather than flexibility level in soccer players.

With thousands of NFL wannabes headed to training camps this week, it’s time to talk developmental league.

Because the NFL is continually looking to evaluate technology and produce more pro players, interest among owners and coaches for an in – or offseason developmental league is rising. Such an entity could provide high potential value as a tech testbed and providing grounds.

The High Performance Director will be responsible for leading the day-to-day requirements needed to support our teams with the objective of enhancing performance and improving the development of players. In addition, this role will create and oversee our strategy and programs for the Development Academy, Coaching Education and Refereeing.

Raymond Verheijen, the former Wales coach, has strongly condemned the training methods of Jürgen Klopp and Antonio Conte.

The Dutchman, who previously criticised Klopp during Liverpool’s injury crisis last season, has claimed that doing “too much too soon” during pre-season “destroys players”.

Klopp and Conte, Chelsea’s newly-appointed manager, are both known to focus on intense physical conditioning during the summer months, with the intention of regaining full fitness.

Verheijen, however, believes such methods to be outdated and outlined his reasoning in a string of critical tweets.

Lactic acid. Also know as the “burn” you feel on that last rep or final sprint, most athletes see it as a workout’s worst enemy, the cause of muscle soreness and fatigue. But what if everything you learned was wrong? Even at the highest levels of sport, misunderstandings about this natural compound occur. In the early stages of the Tour de France—after the race but before he donned the Yellow Jersey—Chris Froome was seen backstage pedaling on a trainer and cooling down. Former cyclists and stellar commentator Bob Roll explained that Froome was “getting the lactic acid” out of his legs so he would be less fatigued for the next day’s ride. Encapsulated in these comments are a whole bunch of misconceptions about lactic acid, fatigue and even recovery. It’s time we learn the truth and get to know the real lactic acid.

The U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity on behalf of the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Research (USARIEM) has a requirement for the Software Scripting Associated with Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Body Sensors. The requirement includes, but is not limited to: the provision of Body Sensor devices that must meet the minimum essential characteristics outlined within the statement of work and associated software; provision of technical training and support of the devices; scripting of software based on collected data to distinguish between multiple physical activities; and provision of software updates. Anticipated contract type of Firm Fixed Price-Level of Effort for a Base Period of 2 years and three (3) one-year Options for a total possible 5 years. Base period estimated price ranges between $150,000 and $225,000.

Pursuing a future in football, roommates Jamelle Eugene and DaJuan Morgan parted ways. But the former NC State football players crossed paths again — an idea scribbled on a cocktail napkin catalyzed a reunion in an unforeseen field.

After graduating, Eugene prepared for the NFL Draft. Acquiring a hamstring injury, he worked out for the United Football League. On a humdrum flight to one of his workouts, Eugene realized he hadn’t caught a pass in some time.

“Jamelle wore tape because he didn’t like gloves and the lack of ball security, which is a running back’s main priority — being in control of the ball and having that tactile sensation,” Morgan said.

Hunched over a plastic tray table, Eugene sketched a product that would provide him the grip of gloves without sacrificing the protection of athletic tape.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a report to Congress wherein it stated that HIPAA serves traditional healthcare well and continues to support national priorities for interoperable health information with its media-neutral privacy rule, but that the scope of HIPAA is limited.

“The health information marketplace of 2016 is filled with technology that enables individuals to be more engaged in managing their own health outside of the traditional healthcare sphere than ever before,” according to the 32-page report. “The wearable fitness trackers, social media sites where individuals share health information through specific social networks, and other technologies that are common today did not exist when Congress enacted the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.”

… In many ways, the migration of clinical scientists into technology corporations that are focused on gathering, analysing and storing information is long overdue. Because of the costs and difficulties of obtaining data about health and disease, scientists conducting clinical or population studies have rarely been able to track sufficient numbers of patients closely enough to make anything other than coarse predictions. Given such limitations, who wouldn’t want access to Internet-scale, multidimensional health data; teams of engineers who can build sensors for data collection and algorithms for analysis; and the resources to conduct projects at scales and speeds unthinkable in the public sector?

Yet there is a major downside to monoliths such as Google or smaller companies such as consumer-genetics firm 23andMe owning health data — or indeed, controlling the tools and methods used to match people’s digital health profiles to specific services

Think a medical is a foregone conclusion? Think again. As we’ve seen again this summer, a move isn’t done until a player has passed a club’s rigorous check-up with flying colours.

To find out more, FourFourTwo got the lowdown from Blackburn’s Head of Sports Medicine Dave Fevre, formerly of Manchester United and Great Britain Rugby League, and a member of the Football Medical Association.

Injury prediction is one of the most challenging issues in sports and a key component for injury prevention. Sports injuries aetiology investigations have assumed a reductionist view in which a phenomenon has been simplified into units and analysed as the sum of its basic parts and causality has been seen in a linear and unidirectional way. This reductionist approach relies on correlation and regression analyses and, despite the vast effort to predict sports injuries, it has been limited in its ability to successfully identify predictive factors. The majority of human health conditions are complex. In this sense, the multifactorial complex nature of sports injuries arises not from the linear interaction between isolated and predictive factors, but from the complex interaction among a web of determinants. Thus, the aim of this conceptual paper was to propose a complex system model for sports injuries and to demonstrate how the implementation of complex system thinking may allow us to better address the complex nature of the sports injuries aetiology. According to this model, we should identify features that are hallmarks of complex systems, such as the pattern of relationships (interactions) among determinants, the regularities (profiles) that simultaneously characterise and constrain the phenomenon and the emerging pattern that arises from the complex web of determinants. In sports practice, this emerging pattern may be related to injury occurrence or adaptation. This novel view of preventive intervention relies on the identification of regularities or risk profile, moving from risk factors to risk pattern recognition.

… TNT broadcaster Reggie Miller, one of the greatest shooters in NBA history, said: “Make your free throws. It’s disrespectful to yourself and myself who spent countless hours in the gym working on our shooting. … We worked on our craft.”

Practice more! It makes so much sense. Yet according to those who have gone to the trouble of diagnosing the actual root of the problem, it’s the exact opposite of good advice.