Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 20, 2016

… The Argentinian had stewed all summer on his team’s 5-1 defeat at Newcastle United on the final day of last season, which set the seal on a desperately disappointing four-game sequence, when they went from potential Premier League champions to third-placed finishers. … “Maybe, yes, I am the first manager to start pre-season with a rollicking,” Pochettino said. “But it’s important to take something from every experience. You always need to find the positives. When we came back from Australia, we talked a little bit [about Newcastle].

… After the signing was complete, Mourinho spoke of Pogba looking like a “kid that is back to his old school.” Here, we take a look at how the prodigal son has returned a changed man as he prepares to make his return debut against Southampton on Friday night.

Here are five things that Pogba improved upon during his time at Juventus:

1. More of a team player

… Ciarán McInerney, a gymnastics coach and PhD researcher at the Sheffield Hallam University’s Center for Sports Engineering Research, says Biles is accomplishing the near-impossible. Imagine, he says, what it would be like to lie down on the floor and have a friend lift you feet-first and then shake you, while you try not to bend any part of your body in any direction.

At this month’s summer’s Olympic Games in Rio, the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt—a six-foot-five Jamaican with six gold medals and the sinewy stride of a gazelle—will try to beat his own world record of 9.58 seconds in the 100-meter dash.

If he does, some scientists believe he may close the record books for good.

Whereas myriad training techniques and technologies continue to push the boundaries of athletics, and although strength, speed and other physical traits have steadily improved since humans began cataloguing such things, the slowing pace at which sporting records are now broken has researchers speculating that perhaps we’re approaching our collective physiological limit—that athletic achievement is hitting a biological brick wall.

… In this blog entry, I’d like to put my finger on what diversity brings us – both the challenges and opportunities, the psychological and social aspects in our programme and also touch a bit on ability grouping, mindsets, pampering and values, and highlight some areas where tradition and/or the market conflicts with the way we want to do things.

Let’s run through a little elementary algebra. Try to do it in your head: What’s 1,506,789 x 9,809 x 5.56 x 0?

Hopefully you didn’t have to whip out the old TI-84 to solve that one. It’s a zero.

This leads us to a mental model called Multiplicative Systems, and understanding it can get to the heart of a lot of issues.

In today’s video I take a few minutes to look at Mo Farah’s running technique. Having won his third Olympic Gold medal in the 10000m at the Rio Olympics, Mo Farah is a great athlete to study when it comes to understanding the running form of elite distance runners.

I found some great footage from the Diamond League 5000m race in London from earlier in 2016, and wanted to share my observations on Mo’s running form with you. [video, 9:44]

… “I think the biggest hire that [Durkin] made was our strength coach, Coach Court,” senior offensive lineman Michael Dunn said. “He is absolutely incredible with what he’s done with our team, just since February. … He’s really been a huge part in changing that culture and bringing that competitive atmosphere to this team.”

The role of the strength coach in college football takes on greater importance during the summer months when plans can be fully implemented during offseason workouts. Court serves as the coach in the weight room, so like an offensive coordinator leading an offense or a defensive coordinator coaching the defense, he needs to be in sync with Durkin.

The Brazilian Football Association (CBF) has partnered with its association of football doctors (CNMF) to organise a workshop covering the “FIFA 11+” – FIFA’s warm-up programme meant to prevent injuries. FIFA’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Jiri Dvorak and F-MARC (FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre) member Dr Mario Bizzini visited the CBF headquarters, took part in a workshop and met with over 100 youth coaches to introduce them to the “FIFA 11+ Kids” programme and to launch the new initiative.

Under the guidance of operational coordinator Diogo Netto, CNMF has organised a total 44 “FIFA 11+” courses throughout the whole country over the last couple of years, having reached a total of 1917 participants. “We have seen the effects of the ‘FIFA 11+’ warm-up programme to protect high-level players from injuries, and the same results have been identified within amateur football. If we manage to implement ‘FIFA 11+’ all across Brazil, sooner or later the incidence of training and match injuries will be reduced by up to 50 per cent,” said Professor Dvorak.

On Sunday night, in what we can confidently say was the most remarkable track race of the Olympics so far, South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk won gold in the men’s 400-meters in 43.03 seconds—breaking Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old record by .15 seconds. Such was the enormity of the 24-year-old’s achievement that even Usain Bolt was overcome with awe.

For track savvy fans, van Niekerk’s blistering race was doubly impressive for one reason in particular: he ran in lane eight.

When it comes to unlocking peak performance, more and more evidence is pointing to the power of psychology. Cultivating mental fitness ensures that an athlete’s physical fitness can be fully expressed today, and it also promotes long-term progression and fulfillment tomorrow.

Against that backdrop, the keynote panel at this year’s TrainingPeaks Endurance Coaching Summit focused on the psychology of high performance. As the panel’s moderator, I was honored to share the stage with former triathlon World Champion and current coach of world champions Siri Lindley, mental skills coach Carrie Cheadle, multiple-time US Olympic Committee Coach of the Year Jim Miller, and legally blind elite triathlete and coach Michael Stone. To say the discussion was rich is an understatement. Here is a quick summary of the topics discussed and what I feel are the key insights.

… Leicester City suffered the least number of injuries of all Premier League teams last season, at 20. Ever since the Nigel Pearson era, the club has been developing an innovative sports science department with the autonomy to really affect on-field incidents. The man behind all this is Matt Reeves, Leicester’s head of fitness and conditioning.

Along with Paul Balsom, who’s in charge of sports science procedure, Reeves makes sure that the players are at their peak, physically and help the players’ overall performance.

When Pearson became Leicester’s manager in 2008, he decided to set up a sports science department at Leicester, which would help a player’s overall development by collecting data on them. After the process worked well initially, and the Foxes’ owners ambition grew, they decided to invest more in this area.

This is what Reeves had to say about the process, “Although our department has grown over time, it hasn’t just happened for the sake of it. It’s because we’ve seen an area that we need to develop or we’ve seen an aspect that we could improve on, so we’ve looked to bring someone in who fits that need.”

In June 2015, the NBA and GE Healthcare launched the NBA & GE Healthcare Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Collaboration, a strategic partnership aimed at engaging leading clinical researchers who have demonstrated excellence in orthopedics, sports medicine, radiology, and related disciplines. The NBA, GE Healthcare, and additional partners will provide funding for research that supports the mission of the collaboration.

The mission is to address high-priority clinical questions regarding the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of acute and overuse injuries among NBA athletes, and to apply such findings to basketball players and the general population

The sporting world enforces strict regulations surrounding the use of drugs, but Professor Roger Pielke Junior says there is little regulation around athletes physically altering their bodies in order to gain an edge.

Professor Roger Pielke Junior, director of the Sports Governance Centre at the University of Colorado, said the future could be one with “super athletes”, who have fused their bodies with technology in a “Terminator fashion”.

He said one of the more common procedures athletes were undergoing was eye surgery.

Katie Ledecky’s dominance in the pool this summer at the Rio Olympics has left many wondering, “What’s her secret?” Over the years, athletes in almost every sport have been getting faster and stronger, blowing away world records and setting new standards for what the human body can do. Competing more strategically gives an edge: Jumping backward, for example, has allowed high jumpers to reach new heights. Equipment helps too: Swimmers wearing Speedo’s full-body swimsuit broke so many world records at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing that the suit was banned the next year. Some of these advancements, like high jumping’s back-first approach, come from the athletes, but many others emerge from the work of sports scientists. It’s a world that offers a behind-the-scenes look at humans performing nearly superhuman feats, with accompanying rewards—and pressure. Here are the experiences of three scientists in that world.

… The $55 million complex is more than 140,000 square feet and is highlighted by a players’ lounge that includes a barber shop, arcade, bowling alley and laser tag.

The facility will also include a 24-seat HD theater, an indoor golf simulator and an indoor replica of The Hill and Howard’s Rock.

“This complex will be one of the best in the nation and will allow us to continue our pursuit to be among the best programs in the country,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. “We look forward to it being the home of Clemson football for a very long time.”

Other amenities include an outdoor village with basketball, putt putt and seating areas, as well as a training/rehab facility with five pools, a 20,000-square foot weight room, a nutrition center and a nap room.

… SportTechie: Please discuss the evolution of AI within the sports world and how it evolved to the levels that you see in today’s Olympic competition.

Barbara Kendall: Artificial intelligence is disrupting the very way we view sports and athletes play the game- and automation is playing a huge role in this. For example, sports teams are putting robotic sensors in athletic clothing and equipment, gathering data when athletes are wearing or using them, and then leveraging the data in all sorts of ways: from providing sports fans with real time stats and coaches with data to help them inform and coach performance.

ST: How is the data being gathered as the athletes wear the sensors during competition?

BK: As the rest of the world, the sports industry is being inundated with data- almost always available in real time and from an overwhelming number of sources. As discussed in the above, sensors athletes wear during events is one of the main resources for collecting data- and can absorb and regurgitate performance and results: from speed to distances to strength; or scores to percentages of possession, passes assist goals and the list goes on. Data from a live event can even be combined with existing data from past performance.

… Last October, MIT alumnus Ben Harvatine ’12 — who suffered several head injuries as a longtime wrestler — started selling a wearable sensor for athletes, called the Jolt Sensor, that detects and gathers data on head impacts in real-time. Commercialized through Harvatine’s startup Jolt Athletics, the sensor is now being used nationwide by teams from grade-school to college levels, and is being trialed by professional teams.

“We’re trying to give parents and coaches another tool to make sure they don’t miss big hits, or maybe catch a hit that doesn’t look that big but measures off the charts,” Harvatine says.

BACKGROUND:

Sports-related concussions (SRCs) have gained increased societal interest in the past decade. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has implemented legislation and rule changes to decrease the incidence and risk of head injury impacts. The “targeting” rule forbids initiating contact with the crown of a helmet and targeting defenseless players in the head and neck area; however, there are concerns that this rule change has unintentionally led to an increased incidence of lower extremity injuries.
PURPOSE/HYPOTHESIS:

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the change in lower extremity injury rates in NCAA football during the 2009-2010 to 2014-2015 seasons. We hypothesized that the lower extremity injury rate has increased across the time period.
STUDY DESIGN:

Descriptive epidemiology study.
METHODS:

Sixty-eight NCAA football programs provided 153 team-seasons of data to the NCAA Injury Surveillance Program. Lower extremity injuries (ie, hip/groin, upper leg/thigh, knee, lower leg/Achilles, foot/toes) and SRCs sustained during NCAA football games were examined. We calculated injury rates per 1000 athlete-exposures (AEs) for lower extremity injuries and SRCs. Rate ratios (RRs) compared injury rates between the 2009-2010 to 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 to 2014-2015 seasons.
RESULTS:

Overall, 2400 lower extremity injuries were reported during the 2009-2010 to 2014-2015 seasons; most were to the knee (33.6%) and ankle (28.5%) and caused by player contact (59.2%). The lower extremity injury rate increased in 2012-2013 to 2014-2015 compared with 2009-2010 to 2011-2012 (23.55 vs 20.45/1000 AEs, respectively; RR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.06-1.25). This finding was retained when restricted to injuries due to player contact (RR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.07-1.32) but not for injuries due to noncontact/overuse (RR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.80-1.14). When examining player contact injury rates by anatomic site, only ankle injuries had an increase (RR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.13-1.64). The SRC rate also increased in 2012-2013 to 2014-2015 compared with 2009-2010 to 2011-2012 (3.52 vs 2.63/1000 AEs, respectively; RR, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.08-1.66).
CONCLUSION:

The lower extremity injury rate has increased in NCAA football athletes. Similarly, SRC rates have increased, although this may be caused by concurrent policies related to better education, identification, and management. Targeting rule changes may be contributing to increased rates of player contact-related ankle injuries. Alongside continued surveillance research to examine longitudinal time trends, more in-depth individual-level examinations of how targeting rule changes influence coaching and player behaviors are warranted.

After the Olympics, both winners and losers are prone to emotional crashes.

Concussions are known to cause clinical symptoms, which are especially concerning for youth and high school athletes. However, the effects of repeated head impacts that do not cause a diagnosed concussion, known as subconcussive head impacts, are currently unknown. Recent research has identified similar changes in the brain following repeated nonconcussive impacts to the head, once thought to be caused only by the occurrence of concussion with the presence of clinical symptoms. Similarly, many reports suggest that a higher exposure to head impacts is associated with a greater amount of structural and/or functional changes in the brain. Given the similar effects on the brain, with or without symptoms, more work is needed to determine the long-term effects of subconcussive head impacts on individual athletes, particularly in the youth and high school age population.

… Ali Patterson, accredited practising dietitian and spokesperson for Sports Dietitians Australia, says that by forgetting proper nutrition around a workout, many people are shooting themselves in the foot before they even start.

“Getting your nutrition plans wrong before a training session or event usually means that you don’t optimise your potential during exercise,” Patterson tells Coach.

“This can lead to earlier fatigue, reduced speed and endurance, skill errors, poor concentration and gut upset.”

One evening in the fall of 2006 forever altered the way I view nutrition in the strength and conditioning world. While driving to fill-up my car with gas—not more than a mile from my home—I began to experience what felt like two claws seeping their talons into the center of my sternum, followed by a resting heart rate that soared to more than 150 beats per minute. My body was uncontrollably fighting to control an inevitable internal tailspin. But it was losing.

Minutes later, after being evaluated by a medically savvy friend, I was rushed to a local New York hospital for evaluation. I clearly remember the question asked to me by one of the medical professionals: “Are you taking any supplements for working out?”

I admitted to ingesting the recommended loading doses of pure creatine monohydrate—what’s sometimes thought to be one of the safest workout supplements—in the days prior to my medical condition.

… Decker wanted soldiers who weren’t satisfied just to become Green Berets but who wanted to be great Green Berets. He set out to find data-driven models for identifying those soldiers. Decker wanted to focus on intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, motivation. He read books about emotional intelligence and talent measurement and studied the characteristics of introverts versus extroverts, and of fluid IQ, the ability to recognize and adjust to patterns on the fly. He changed the training courses to more closely resemble modern warfare. He began to approach Special Forces candidates as if he were a therapist, not an officer. “Brian was the first one to open our eyes and question the way we’d done things for 20 years,” says Col. Glenn Thomas, Decker’s boss. “We had never asked, ‘Why is this class better than that class?'”

After three years, Decker had devised a program that collected 1,200 data points on each candidate, from peak physical performance to psychometrics, the science of measuring mental processes. He could effectively predict the profile of a Green Beret: college-educated with an IQ around 122, in his early 30s, probably from a suburb of a major city, someone who responded to trauma in his life with increased self-motivation. As a result, the washout rate of Special Forces was 30 percent lower than when he took over. “We can train a guy to do a few extra pullups, but we can’t make someone adaptable and able to work as part of a team if the traits aren’t there,” says Thomas, sounding not just like a decorated colonel but like, well, a football coach.

Want a professional athlete to grind through an interminable regular-season schedule, then embark on an even more grueling postseason march? No problem. But when players start participating in events outside of that familiar cycle — such as when NBA stars head to the Olympics — concern starts to build about wear and tear. Even putting aside injuries that happen during extracurricular play, it’s not unreasonable to expect that tired stars would be predisposed toward injury and underperformance upon rejoining their teams for the ensuing season.

According to the numbers, however, there’s not really any reason to worry about Dream Teamers coming home from Rio in a weakened state. If anything, playing for Team USA at a big international tournament seems to be associated with a boost in performance the next season.

My colleague Jim Pagels came to that conclusion in 2014 when comparing Team USA members’ per-minute production with what would be predicted by Basketball-Reference’s Simple Projection System, finding that players produced better NBA Player Efficiency Ratings and Win Shares per 48 minutes than expected after donning the Stars and Stripes. My own research backs this up.

The peak age for professional soccer players is of significant interest to coaches, managers and executives alike. The evidence so far is predominantly anecdotal and subjective. This paper formally analyzes the peak or optimal age in professional men’s soccer using performance ratings of players in the four major top flight leagues of Europe. WhoScored.com ratings from 2010/11 to 2014/15 are used. The analysis is done for all outfield players, separately by field position. In addition to simple age distribution and bivariate approaches, a player fixed effects model that accounts for potential selection bias is estimated. The results show that the average professional soccer player peaks between the ages of 25 and 27. In the preferred models, the average forward peaks at 25, whereas the typical defender peaks at 27. For midfielders, the estimated peak age varies by model but still occurs in the 25–27 age band. Defenders experience relatively minimal curvature in the age-performance relationship. Further results show that peak age may vary directly with ability. [full text]

… TSZ has decided to explore the historical data of medal takers throughout the Summer Olympics. We want to figure out what the peak age is for medallists and how this compares between women and men. Furthermore, we want to drill into the data to compare the average age of medal winners across different Olympic sports. Finally, we would like to see if certain countries have a propensity to produce young or old medal winners.

Before we get started, we would like to point out a few considerations. The data has been provided by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and includes every medallist in the Summer Olympics between 1992 and 2012. All athletes that have participated have been taken into account in this study. This means that in the case of team sports, we have taken into account the whole team. In the instance where an athlete has won more than one medal, we have used the age at the time of each medal when calculating averages. We acknowledge that this might have an effect on average measures but still believe that it will be sufficient to draw conclusions.

With less than two weeks until the transfer window closes, boardrooms are increasingly required to make quick decisions under pressure.

In this environment, we often try to evaluate complex choices by relying on small pieces of simple information. In some cases, this can be useful – last year we encouraged clubs to ‘make three rules’ as a handy way to help mitigate risk in player acquisition – but often such information is misunderstood.

Take, for example, ‘having experience’. In the English Championship, received wisdom will have us believe that having a squad full of experience in the division must be a good thing. The reasoning is simple – the season is long and physical, and it can be a rude shock to the uninitiated.

We propose a multitask, regression-based approach for predicting future performances of soccer players. The multitask approach allows us to simultaneously learn individual player models as offsets to a general model. We devise multitask variants of ridge regression and ?-support vector regression. Together with a hashed joint feature space, the generalized models can be optimized using standard techniques. Relevant features for the prediction are identified by a modified recursive feature elimination strategy. We report on extensive empirical results using real data from the German Bundesliga.

Mauricio Pochettino says the return of Premier League football so soon after the summer internationals has left club managers in an “impossible” position, and the players overworked and at risk of burnout.