Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 22, 2016

In order for San Francisco 49ers running back Mike Davis to let go of a disappointing rookie season, he had to part ways with something he loves: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

And it wasn’t just Cheetos. Davis said during the offseason he made a concerted effort to change his diet completely. He named chips as his primary vice, opting to cut them out altogether, along with fried foods. He switched to fresh fruit as his preferred snack and returned for training camp in much better shape than he left.

But make no mistake, it was those salty chips that were the hardest to say goodbye to.

England have been enduring fitness testing at St. George’s Park this week, and despite the aching muscles there is still only one thing on their minds – next summer’s European Championship.

Being stressed out is a 21st century trend. If you’re not stressed, you must be doing something wrong, right? If you’re sleep-deprived, over-trained, and constantly busy, then you are deemed “super(wo)man.” Right? Well, that’s wrong. When did this become the norm, and why do we think we can keep charging full speed ahead?

While we may tell ourselves that more is better, it is important to check in and see if our bodies can tolerate the way we are living. Ever been tired, but once you hit the bed you’re suddenly wired? What about having a full night’s rest and waking up exhausted? This is not normal, despite the fact that many people experience such feelings. And we shouldn’t trudge through life this way. Our stress hormone, cortisol, is a key component in these patterns, and it’s important to understand what we are looking for when it comes to stress.

The P&G House in Rio is an oasis for athletes at the Olympic Games. They can get a hair cut, grab a bite to eat, do laundry, hang out or just relax.

They can also pay a visit to St. Vincent Sports Performance, which has a clinic set up.

“It allows the athletes who visit the P&G House to not divert from their normal routine that they have in the village; all the resources they have available to them through Team USA, we’re able to supplement that as they visit with their families,” said Ralph Reiff, Executive Director of St. Vincent Sports Performance.

A marathon is not easy. The 26.2-mile race is based on the Greek messenger Pheidippides, who ran that approximate distance to deliver news of the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. According to legend, he collapsed and died at the end.

The Brazilian version was grueling in its own right. Fifteen of the 155 runners did not finish the race, including Great Britain’s Tsegai Tewelde, who had to be taken away in a wheelchair.

American Meb Keflezighi suffered stomach cramps and had to stop seven times. He threw up on a couple occasions. Nonetheless, he was able to complete the race in under 2 hours and 17 minutes to finish 33rd — and in spectacular fashion. Waving to the crowd, he slipped on the wet track and crashed to the ground about a foot or so from the finish line. He pulled himself across the line, and then did a set of pushups.

Yes, he finished his race by doing pushups.

Youth Soccer News: While many people find a sleeping kitty cute – especially one with a soccer ball — most of us fail to recognize the importance of sleep. Here is John Gallucci, Jr. on what happens if a soccer player doesn’t get enough sleep and answering that question … How important is sleep anyway?

Today’s most youth soccer players are tired. What happens if a soccer player doesn’t get enough sleep? How important is sleep anyway? John Gallucci Jr. — the Medical Coordinator for more than 600 pro soccer players at the MLS, and the former Head Trainer of the New York Red Bulls on why sleep actually matters if you play soccer … after all, you do need to be alert and in top form if you want to avoid injuries and play at your peak level of performance.

Five years ago, optical heart rate tracking seemed like an obvious successor to the popular chest straps used by many fitness buffs, but the technology has faced myriad engineering challenges on its way to market acceptance.

Unlike the venerable chest strap, optical heart monitors need to employ two power-hungry LEDs. They use a small form factor, with little room for a battery. They incorporate a DSP for number-crunching. And they face signal processing challenges caused by noise, sensor location, biomechanics, skin tone, and even the presence of tattoos.

The World Cup of Hockey had a press conference today in Toronto, announcing several things about the upcoming tournament. Among the most interesting, was the revelation that player and puck tracking will be in full effect. Players will have microchips sewed into their sweaters, with the puck also having a sensor embedded inside of it.

Data will be calculated on puck and player speed, trajectory, acceleration and spacing, and will be used during the live broadcasts. For the analytics community, this is huge news, as more data is always a good thing, and the precise movement of each player with and away from the puck will lend itself to stronger analysis. The NHL will use this as a test for a possible future league-wide roll out, though no information has been given on a possible timeline.

Player tracking data provides a platform for the creation of new basketball statistics that can dramatically improve the ability to evaluate and compare player performance. However, the increasing size of this new data source presents challenges in how to efficiently analyze the data and interpret findings. A scalable analytical framework is needed that can effectively reduce the dimensionality of the data while retaining the ability to compare player performance.

In this paper, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used to identify four components accounting for 68% of the variation in player tracking data from the 2013-2014 regular season. The most influential statistics on these new dimensions are used to construct intuitive, practical interpretations. In this high variance, low dimensional space, comparisons across any or all of the principal components are possible to evaluate characteristics that make players and teams similar or unique. A simple measure of similarity between player or team statistical profiles based on the four principal components is also constructed. The Statistical Diversity Index (SDI) allows for quick and intuitive comparisons using the entirety of the player tracking data. As new statistics emerge, this framework is scalable as it can incorporate existing and new data sources by reconstructing principal component dimensions and SDI for improved comparisons.

Using principal component scores and SDI, several use cases are presented for improved personnel management. Team principal component scores are used to quickly profile and evaluate team performance, more specifically how New York’s lack of ball movement negatively impacted success despite high average scoring efficiency as a team. SDI is used to identify players across the NBA with the most similar statistical performances to specific players. All-Star Tony Parker and shooting specialist Anthony Morrow are used as two examples and presented with in-depth comparisons to similar players using principal component scores and player tracking statistics. This approach can be used in salary negotiations, free agency acquisitions and trades, role player replacement, and more. [full text]

… Self-service data sensemaking, however, is an example of false advertising that’s producing a great deal of harm. How many bad decisions are being made based on specious analytical findings by unskilled people in organizations that accept the self-service myth? More bad decisions than good, I fear.

Describing analytics as “self service” suggests that it doesn’t require skill. Rather, it suggests that the work can be done by merely knowing how to use the software tool that supports “self-service analytics.” Data sensemaking, however, is not something that tools can do for us. Computers are not sentient; they do not possess understanding. Tools can at best assist us by augmenting our thinking skills, if they’re well designed, but most of the so-called self-service BI and analytics tools are not well designed. At best, these dysfunctional tools provide a dangerous illusion of understanding, not the basis on which good decisions can be made.

… Larry Coon, a computer scientist from Rancho Santa Margarita, is surrounded by students during his “office hours.” Between bites of $12 eggs and sips of strong coffee, they digest the basketball news that’s dominating the NBA world: Tim Duncan, 19-season fixture, 15-time All-Star and five-time NBA champion, has announced his retirement.

The sports talk shows will compare Duncan to Kobe Bryant and argue about Duncan’s place in league history. But, that’s not the primary interest of these students.

They ask the one kind of question they came all the way to Vegas to fully understand.

“What does this mean for (Duncan’s) salary cap hold?”

Cris Collinsworth sits at a long, narrow table on the 5th floor of a renovated building in Over-the-Rhine, looking at numbers and video he only half-understands. Collinsworth isn’t a stat freak or a numbers junkie or a guy who ties his self-worth to the success of his fantasy team.

He’s 57 years old, an age when tried and true often beats innovative and new. So why did he buy Pro Football Focus last year, move its headquarters to Over-the-Rhine and triple its work force?

Pro Football Focus (profootballfocus.com) is a website devoted to numbers and how to forcibly crunch them. PFF is what Spock would read, if he were a football fan. “Every Player, Every Play, Every Game” is the site’s motto.

Statistical analysis: It’s not just for baseball geeks anymore.

Do not even consider challenging this gum-chomping, knuckle-cracking number genius to a type-off. He’s the smartest guy most everybody with the program has ever met.

“It’s like Moneyball,” setter Courtney Thompson said of the baseball book based on the Oakland Athletics’ analytics-focused approach. “When Joe tells us we’re going to get three, five, seven extra points a match off of this, it’s so motivating to us because he’s so smart. When Joe says something, we all listen.”

The American women, who were chasing their first Olympic gold before Thursday’s heartbreaking five-set semifinal defeat to Serbia, beat Netherlands in the bronze medal match Saturday. Coach Karch Kiraly has embraced volleyball analytics the way baseball has turned to sabermetric measurements to evaluate players.

You may have heard the expression, “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” … The logic is this: no matter how brilliant your BIG PLAN is, you must have an environment, a culture, that supports it. Without that culture, your BIG PLAN will end up being just another stack of papers on a shelf. You may hold a lot of long meetings about the plan. You may put up posters, schedule regular meetings and develop other types of support. But unless it’s engrained in how your organization operates, it’s not going far.

Sources revealed Wednesday that Clemson’s Deshaun Watson has taken out two insurance policies against a career-ending injury: a $5 million total disability policy and a $5 million loss of value policy.

The reality is, players rarely end up receiving a payout, even after they’ve sustained an injury. And when they do get paid, it’s still unclear whether the IRS has dibs on a cut of the money.

Here’s a primer on how these policies work.