Applied Sports Science newsletter – September 29, 2016

Drew Morcos was watching football at home with his family in Southern California Sunday when he saw Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson go down awkwardly in the third quarter against the San Francisco 49ers.

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“I saw it and played it in slow motion with the TV and extra slow motion just so I could see exactly what was going on,” he said. “Kind of had a good idea of what it was going to be, just a matter of the severity of it. Right after I saw it, I got contacted by his people, and I started packing up.”

Morcos is Wilson’s personal physical therapist. He’s worked with the quarterback for the past two years and has spent a lot of time in Seattle this season. When Wilson suffered a high ankle sprain in Week 1, Morcos flew in.

The challenge for Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue in his first full season at the helm isn’t just how to direct LeBron James when he’s on the court but also figuring out a way to keep the 14-year veteran off it.

As Cavs training camp opens this week, Lue said maintaining James, 31, for the long haul is a priority.

“I’ve looked at the schedule,” Lue said Wednesday. “Just seeing what makes sense and what’s smart when playing four-in-five type of nights. Can’t run our guys into the ground. We have to be smart, understand we have to take care of our bodies and take care of our key guys. Make sure that when we get to the playoffs we’re ready to go.”

Studies examining resistance training are of importance given that increasing or maintaining muscle mass aids in the prevention or attenuation of chronic disease. Within the literature, it is common practice to administer a set number of target repetitions to be completed by all individuals (i.e. 3 sets of 10) while setting the load relative to each individual’s predetermined strength level (usually a one-repetition maximum). This is done under the assumption that all individuals are receiving a similar stimulus upon completing the protocol, but this does not take into account individual variability with regard to how fatiguing the protocol actually is. Another limitation that exists within the current literature is the reporting of exercise volume in absolute or relative terms that are not truly replicable as they are both load-dependent and will differ based on the number of repetitions individuals can complete at a given relative load. Given that the level of fatigue caused by an exercise protocol is a good indicator of its hypertrophic potential, the most appropriate way to ensure all individuals are given a common stimulus is to prescribe exercise to volitional fatigue. While some authors commonly employ this practice, others still prescribe an arbitrary number of repetitions, which may lead to unfair comparisons between exercise protocols. The purpose of this opinion piece is to provide evidence for the need to standardize studies examining muscle hypertrophy. In our opinion, one way in which this can be accomplished is by prescribing all sets to volitional fatigue.

There is a wealth of research on impact force characteristics when landing from a jump. However, there are no data on impact forces during landing from a jump with an airborne rotation about the vertical axis. We examined impact force parameters in the vertical and horizontal axes during vertical jump (VJ) landings and vertical jump landings with a 180-degree rotation (VJR). Twenty-four Division 1 male soccer players performed three VJ and VJR landings on a dual-force platform system. Paired-samples t-tests (?=0.05) compared differences in the first (F1) and second (F2) peak vertical ground reaction forces, times to F1 (tF1), F2 (tF2), and the end of the impact phase, vertical impulse, and anterior-posterior and medial-lateral force couples. Effect sizes (ES; large >0.8) were computed to determine the magnitude of the differences. Lower jump height (41.60±4.03 cm, VJ landings; 39.40±4.05 cm, VJR landings; p=0.002; ES=0.39), greater F2 (55.71±11.95 N•kg-1, VJ; 68.16±14.82 N•kg-1; p<0.001; ES=0.94), faster tF2 (0.057±0.012 sec, VJ; 0.047±0.011 sec, VJR; p=0.001; ES=0.89), greater anterior-posterior (0.06±0.03 N•s•kg-1, VJ; 0.56±0.15 N•s•kg-1, VJR; p<0.001; ES=1.83) and medial-lateral force couples (0.29±0.11 N•s•kg-1, VJ; 0.56±0.14 N•s•kg-1, VJR; p<0.001; ES=1.46) occurred during VJR landings. No other differences were identified. This kinetic analysis determined that landing from a jump with 180-degree airborne rotation is different than landing from a jump without an airborne rotation. Male Division 1 soccer players could benefit from increasing the volume of VJR landings during training to address the differences in jump height and force parameters compared to VJ landings.

Physical skill transcends sport and can be recognized in its absolute form—speed, power, coordination—across a variety of athletic endeavors. But less visible, and perhaps less considered, is the power of the elite athlete’s mind. In fact, what often differentiates the greatest athletes has more to do with mental strength than physical.

It’s because sport not only demands a lot of the body, but the brain as well.

“With the exception of military combat, it has been suggested that team sports such as football [soccer] place more stress on the brain than any other activity,” writes Dr. Andrew Coutts in recent Journal of Sports Sciences article. “Indeed, football players are required to remain vigilant for long periods before and during matches, adhering to tactical strategies, constantly adjusting to changes in the opposition and their teammates.”

Those demanding game situations—in combination with factors like training, sleep and stress—challenge an athlete physically and mentally and lead to the development of fatigue. But while physical fatigue has long been considered a factor in performance, diminishing an athlete’s capacity to react, run faster and jump higher, researchers are beginning to understand that a tired brain can negatively affect performance as much as a tired muscle.

Every action we take involves a cost to us in physical energy, yet studies about decision-making have tended to look at how we weight up external costs like risks or time. However, being unwilling to exert effort is a symptom for a range of mental disorders, so understanding how the brain processes decisions about effort versus reward could provide insights into these conditions.

In a study supported by the Wellcome Trust and European Research Council, the research team therefore decided to see if there was a distinct brain system involved in weighing up physical costs.

Researcher Dr Miriam Klein-Flügge said: ‘We asked volunteers to make choices involving different levels of monetary reward and physical effort, while they were placed in a MRI scanner.

‘We found that the decisions they made were influenced by both reward size and effort required, with – unsurprisingly – higher reward, lower effort options being particularly favoured. We then looked for particular brain regions involved in the decision-making.’

Magicians, dictators, advertisers and scientists all know it. It is possible to influence people without them even realising it. The technique, known as “priming”, involves introducing a stimulus – a word, an image or a sound – that has an effect on a person’s later behaviour, even if they cannot remember the stimulus in the first place. … But now cognitive neuroscientists from institutions including the University of East London have finally shown that images of objects can even prime us when we are paying attention to something else – by measuring brain activity.

How blood glucose responds to exercise depends on the timing of the physical activity with respect to the proximate meal. Although study after study has confirmed this, many researchers still report results without specifying exercise timing. This laxity could be the source of some of the uncertainties and inconsistencies found in the field. In place of the current practice of using the binary categorization of the feeding cycle into pre-meal and post-meal periods, we look at it as consisting of four time intervals: the pre-meal period plus the early, mid- and late postprandial periods. Two of these intervals stand out. Pre-meal exercise uses endogenous glucose and muscle glycogen as the main fuels offering varying effects on glycemia. Exercise during the mid-postprandial period uses exogenous glucose as the main fuel. Exogenous glucose is abundant in the blood during the 30 to 90 min post-meal period, rendering this interval a unique opportunity to use up the excess glucose as fuel for moderate aerobic exercise, thereby blunting the glucose surge. Hypoglycemia risk is minimal during this exercise window. The continuing arrival of glucose from the gut in copious amounts minimizes the risk for hypoglycemia. The role of different modes of exercise and combinations during the mid-postprandial period on metabolic markers remains to be explored.

By 2020, it’s estimated that 20 percent of all apparel will be electronically enabled. Given the fact that deadline is less than four years away and next to nothing people wear today could be considered “connected,” it seems impossible.

PVH Corp., the USA’s second largest importer of apparel, is doing its part to make that dream a reality.

The company, whose brands include Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Izod and Speedo, recently formed Innovation Next, a division that’s committed to inciting advances at PVH. Barry McGeough, group vice president at Innovation Next, discussed connected apparel and wearable technology earlier this month during an episode of the podcast, 2 Babes Talk Supply Chain.

“Innovation departments can typically be think tanks or, worst case scenario, they’re where good ideas go to die,” McGeough explained. “We’re looking to be the most productive innovation department in the industry. We’re directly tied to the businesses. There are short-term goals and also long-term desires which makes us very topical, very connected to revenue, profit and driving ideas into the brands that give them their brand differentiation.”

… Scores of health-care experts hired by Apple in recent years are building improved electronic health record software that can better analyze and understand the implications of patient data, according to people familiar with the team’s plans.

The iPhone maker is also working on new apps for the Apple Watch. One helps users track sleep patterns, one of the people said. Another app gauges fitness levels by measuring the time taken for the heart rate to fall from its peak to resting level, according to one of the other people. Apple already has an app that measures heart rate, but doesn’t interpret that data.

The ultimate goal of Apple’s medical technology team is to turn HealthKit into a tool that improves diagnoses, the people said. The system could chip away at two problems that plague the industry and have stumped other specialist firms in the field: interoperability — allowing data to be transferred from hospital to hospital across different databases; and analysis — making it quick and easy for physicians to extrapolate salient information from mountains of data.

JOHAN Sports develops a performance monitoring system for field sports. By accurately tracking the motion of sports players, insight is gained in the intensity of a match or training session. This information is used by the coach to optimize the training program for each player. By doing so, injuries are prevented and all players are top fit on match day.

The graduation project of Matthijs Roobeek focuses on tracking player motion using a GPS receiver, an Inertial Measurement Unit and a magnetometer. In his studies (Systems & Control) this principle is called state estimation; from a motion model and sensor readings, the state of the system (e.g. a robot) is estimated. Since the tracking devices have to be affordable and wearable, relatively cheap MEMS sensors are used. Furthermore, sports players tend to move dynamically and unpredictable. And since no two sports players have the same body, it isn’t straightforward to define an accurate motion model. This makes for a challenging graduation project!

… Startup accelerators have emerged to help small companies and entrepreneurs that are often resource challenged connect with industry experts and potential investors who can help them succeed in the business world. Accelerators have spread from other industries into sports here and abroad.

The L.A. Dodgers teamed with New York Ad Agency R/GA to launch in last year. The NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers announced the entity is teaming with Indiana-based furniture manufacturer Kimball Office to create the Sixers Innovation Laboratory last spring.

Kansas City is a sports town, and it’s also chock-full of businesses that make the sports world tick.

Some of those companies are recognized instantly for their expertise and excellence in the sports world. Architectural firms such as Populous, HOK and HNTB build facilities, and companies like Garmin and Bushnell provide products.

But there are many names that are not at the forefront, though some of their creations are highly recognizable, such as the Hy-Vee Fan Zone at Arrowhead Stadium. Other companies aren’t well-known locally, but their work appears on the national and international sports stage including the revamped Bowl Championship Series for NCAA Division I football and the Olympics.

“It’s not about the data. That’s not what the innovation is here.” So began Gary King, the director of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, in a talk he made this summer on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to an audience filled with policymakers and fellow academics. The event was hosted by SAGE Publishing with co-sponsors the American Political Science Association and the American Statistical Association.

In a series of 10 videos from that event, titled “The big deal about big data,” King hammers home two themes: First, it’s not the data itself that’s revolutionary, but the analysis of it. “The value is not the data,” he says. “It’s not the big, it’s the analytics.” And second, the data revolution’s outputs are genuinely, well, revolutionary, as his examples demonstrate.

The second of those videos, featuring King’s framing remarks about data and analysis, appears below. In it he explains how data itself is increasingly easy to come by, so much so that if an institution “pays any attention at all” by the end of the year it will have more. The secret to unlocking value from this commodity, he continues, is “learning how to make the data actionable.”

Now that Statcast has begun making data from its system publicly available, baseball fans and analysts alike have a treasure trove of information to look at when analyzing players. The inherent problem that comes from this, of course, is that we don’t know what we don’t know. In order to better understand what exactly this new data is telling us we need to take a look at what we do and don’t know about it.

We’re going to do just that for spin rate, with the goal of clarifying what we know for sure, what we think we know, and what we don’t know or might want explore next.