Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 1, 2016

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for August 1, 2016

 

Rio 2016: Missy Franklin swimming workout, gym training

SI.com, Jamie Lisanti from July 27, 2016

Missy Franklin’s training for Rio 2016 includes thousands of hours and yards in the pool, plus an intense dryland routine with fitness coach Loren Landow.

 

Swimmer Simone Manuel’s training strategy for Rio pays off

USA TODAY Sports from July 31, 2016

… After a terrific freshman year at Stanford in which she won two NCAA individual titles in the 50-and 100-yard freestyles, Manuel opted to stay put, keep training with coach Greg Meehan and keep working toward her undergraduate degree. But she wouldn’t compete as a Cardinal.

She would, however, get to focus on long-course lengths and the type of competitive swimming she’d need to master to contend for a spot on the U.S. roster headed to Rio.

“Redshirting was kind of hard for me,” Manuel said at U.S. Olympic trials. “I was at all the dual meets that I could go to cheering on my teammates, and I definitely wanted to be out there with them. But they supported me as much as I’ve supported them so it kind of made the decision easier.

 

The Olympics Issue

The New York Times Magazine from July 31, 2016

The peerless swimmer Katie Ledecky; a photo essay of Olympians and their heroes; the sprinter Justin Gatlin’s comeback; how Boston’s citizens fought to reject their city’s bid; and 10 writers on their memories of Games past. [lots of content on 1 long scrolling webpage]

 

New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees, 37, thinks he can play well beyond age 40

ESPN NFL, Mike Triplett from July 28, 2016

Drew Brees’ age might be a sticking point in his contract negotiations with the New Orleans Saints. But the 37-year-old quarterback insisted Thursday that he can keep playing at a high level into his 40s, “without question.”

“I don’t see any reason why I can’t play at the highest level for the next five years. Minimum,” Brees said.

“Listen, I’m not naïve and I’m not looking five years from now. I’m really looking at each and every year understanding I gotta prove it. I gotta prove that I’m the best guy to lead this team. But, yeah,” Brees said. “I mean, it doesn’t get any easier. But I feel like with my training regimen and with the people I have around me and the things that we’re doing to put myself in the best position to succeed … I don’t see any reason why I can’t do this beyond five years from now.

 

Sleep Extension before Sleep Loss: Effects on Performance and Neuromuscular Function

Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise from August 01, 2016

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the effects of six nights of sleep extension on motor performance and associated neuromuscular function before and after one night of total sleep deprivation (TSD).

Methods: Twelve healthy men participated in two experimental conditions (randomized crossover design): extended sleep (EXT, 9.8 ± 0.1 h time in bed) and habitual sleep (HAB, 8.2 ± 0.1 h time in bed). In each condition, subjects performed six nights of either EXT or HAB at home followed by an assessment of motor performance and neuromuscular function at baseline (D0) and after one night of TSD, i.e., 34–37 h of continuous wakefulness (D1). Maximal voluntary contractions with superimposed femoral nerve electrical and transcranial magnetic stimulations and stimulations on relaxed muscles were investigated before and after submaximal isometric knee extensor exercises performed until task failure.

Results: Time to exhaustion was longer in EXT compared with HAB (+3.9% ± 7.7% and +8.1% ± 12.3% at D0 and D1, respectively). Performance at D1 decreased from D0 similarly between conditions (?7.2% ± 5.6% and ?3.7% ± 7.3% in HAB and EXT, respectively). At D1, the RPE during exercise was lower in EXT compared with HAB (?7.2% ± 7.5%) with no difference at D0. No difference was observed in voluntary activation between the two conditions.

Conclusions: Six nights of sleep extension improved sustained contraction time to exhaustion, and this result cannot be explained by smaller reductions in voluntary activation, measured by both nerve and transcranial magnetic stimulation. The beneficial effect on motor performance in the EXT condition was likely due to reduced RPE after TSD. [full text]

 

How Elite Sprinters Run So Fast

Scientific American, Dina Fine Maron from August 01, 2016

There’s a science to why Olympic-caliber sprinters leave the rest of us in the dust. The August Scientific American delves into the latest research in the field. Experts in biomechanics at Southern Methodist University are studying runners including sprinter Mike Rodgers—a relay runner for the U.S. Olympics team in the 4 X 100-meter event—to further our understanding of sprinters’ forceful strides.

 

Personalized Learning: The Conversations We’re Not Having

Data & Society Research Institute from July 26, 2016


… The story of personalized learning is a complex one in which education technology developers are applying startup logics like risk taking and testing in the field and marketing tactics like personalized content delivery and recommender systems. Their products are designed to meet the needs of states and administrators, who seek to improve efficiency and performance through formative testing and tailored learning modules, but they are often narrated differently to the public. [download pdf for full report]

 

Saints’ Payton wary of wearing players out at training camp

USA TODAY Sports, AP from July 30, 2016

Saints coach Sean Payton is ending evening meetings with players an hour earlier at training camp this summer and starting practice an hour later in the mornings.

Doing so gives players more time to enjoy the amenities at the luxury Greenbrier Resort in the mountains of West Virginia, should they choose — but that was hardly the point.

Coming off consecutive 7-9, non-playoff seasons, Payton figured there had to be ways to tweak the schedule to get better results. Decades ago, conventional wisdom might have dictated longer, more grueling practices to promote toughness, a stronger work ethic and better conditioning. But Payton, who’s gained a reputation for embracing technology and progressive philosophies about managing the modern pro athlete, didn’t see the wisdom of such old-school approaches in 2016.

 

In College Football, No Player Escapes the Eye of the Strength Coach

The New York Times from July 31, 2016

On a humid summer morning recently, Tom Herman, the University of Houston’s football coach, stopped by the team’s weight room and was surprised to find a few of his players “shooting the bull” with Yancy McKnight, the program’s strength coach. A few hours earlier, McKnight had, in Herman’s words, “pounded the players into the ground with a 6 a.m. run.”

Herman said that when Houston was attempting to lure him from his job as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, he would have considered not being able to hire McKnight a “deal-breaker.” After Houston hired Herman, McKnight was the first coach he recruited.

As an assistant coach at the time, Herman had seen McKnight take Rice’s 2008 squad — “a bunch of kids who are doctors, lawyers, engineers” — to a 10-3 record. But McKnight’s greatest value, Herman said, was not strictly as a strength coach.

“What makes Yancy so special,” said Herman — who, in his first year as head coach, led the Cougars to a 13-1 record, including a win over Florida State in the Peach Bowl — “is he is 100 percent an extension of me and my voice, and it’s very, very clear that every time he speaks to the team, it’s me talking.”

 

NCAA Football: Recommendation made to reduce contact in practices

NCAA.com from July 28, 2016

New NCAA guidelines are recommending that Division I college football programs reduce the number of live-contact practices they conduct during the upcoming season.

The Division I Football Oversight Committee on Wednesday endorsed a proposed guideline to reduce the recommended number of live-contact practices that teams conduct each week from two to one. The practice guidelines take effect six days before each team’s 2016 regular-season opening game and run through the final regular-season game or conference championship game.

 

Wearable Lactate Threshold Predicting Device is Valid and Reliable in Runners

Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research from August 01, 2016

A commercially available device claiming to be the world’s first wearable lactate threshold predicting device (WLT), using near-infrared LED technology, has entered the market. The aim of this study was to determine the levels of agreement between the WLT-derived lactate threshold workload and traditional methods of lactate threshold (LT) calculation and the interdevice and intradevice reliability of the WLT. Fourteen (7 male, 7 female; mean ± SD; age: 18–45 years, height: 169 ± 9 cm, mass: 67 ± 13 kg, V[Combining Dot Above]O2max: 53 ± 9 ml·kg?1·min?1) subjects ranging from recreationally active to highly trained athletes completed an incremental exercise test to exhaustion on a treadmill. Blood lactate samples were taken at the end of each 3-minute stage during the test to determine lactate threshold using 5 traditional methods from blood lactate analysis which were then compared against the WLT predicted value. In a subset of the population (n = 12), repeat trials were performed to determine both inter-reliability and intrareliability of the WLT device. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) found high to very high agreement between the WLT and traditional methods (ICC > 0.80), with TEMs and mean differences ranging between 3.9–10.2% and 1.3–9.4%. Both interdevice and intradevice reliability resulted in highly reproducible and comparable results (CV < 1.2%, TEM 0.97). This study suggests that the WLT is a practical, reliable, and noninvasive tool for use in predicting LT in runners.

 

Faculty Spotlight: Leia Stirling

MIT, Institute for Medical Engineering & Science from July 27, 2016

Leia Stirling wants to make wearables invaluable to clinicians.

“A patient performs a set of activities at home, comes back and improves, doesn’t improve, or gets worse. The clinician has to figure out, ‘Okay, why?’”

 

Saints staff have a ground-breaking research study into injuries published in leading journal

Southampton FC from July 29, 2016

Members of the Sports Science and Sports Medicine departments at Southampton have had a ground-breaking research study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The paper looks into the area of player loading and injury risk within elite football, with the findings providing a set of initial guidelines for helping to reduce injuries at the top level of the sport.

 

Premier League winter break talks ongoing: What are pros, cons?

ProSoccerTalk from July 26, 2016

What if the Premier League had a winter break?

That is a topic of hot discussion in the UK after new England manager Sam Allardyce called for a midseason break during his opening press conference as the new Three Lions manager on Monday.

 

Why Track And Field Stars Don’t Set World Records Like They Used To (But Swimmers Do)

BuzzFeed News, Peter Aldhous from July 30, 2016

Many world records in athletics have stood for 20 years or more. In most events, say sports scientists, top performers have already reached the limits of human biology.

 

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