Applied Sports Science newsletter – October 18, 2016

It’s a scenario that has played out countless times the world over. A foreign player arrives in a new league, underperforms and moves on to somewhere else. On his way out, some version of “He never settled” is offered up as the reason.

The above makes it sound as though success and failure is down to luck, factors beyond a team’s control or that the player himself was to blame. While that can be the case, discussions with several MLS organizations reveal that there is both art and science to how teams recruit foreign players and then how they help those performers adapt once they arrive.

Arguably the acquisition of the 2016 season has been Seattle Sounders midfielder Nicolas Lodeiro, with his creativity sparking a late season revival that recently saw the team move into the playoff positions for the first time all season. But the targeting of Lodeiro went well beyond his ability on the field. He fit a profile designed to increase the odds of success for both club and player.

This weekend, Serena Williams confirmed what many in tennis had suspected for the last month: She won’t be playing the season-ending WTA Finals in Singapore, which begin this coming weekend. What gave it away? The reasons were almost too numerous to count. She had been hampered by a shoulder problem since the summer. She played just eight tournaments all season, and only three of those were WTA events. She missed Singapore last year, and has played the Finals only nine times in her nearly two-decade career. And last week Serena was spotted not on a tennis court, but in Disneyland.

“My doctor insists that I stay home and heal [my shoulder],” Serena said on Monday, “…so I have a chance to play next year.”

… It is important to remember that sports themselves are an accumulation of multiple motor skills and most ground-based power sports are testing these skills at high rates of speed and variable forces. Young athletes are just developing the motor skills needed to move correctly let alone learn how to apply those movements to sport specific skills and perform them in open practice.

We have observed that in professional sporting organisations the staff responsible for physical preparation and medical care typically practice in relative isolation and display tension in regards their attitudes toward training load prescription (much more, and much less training respectively). Recent evidence shows that relatively high chronic training loads, when they are appropriately reached, are associated with reduced injury risk and better performance. Understanding this link between performance and training loads removes this tension, but requires a better understanding of the relationship between the acute:chronic workload ratio (ACWR), and it’s association with performance and injury. However there remain many questions to be answered in the area of ACWR, and we are likely at an early stage of our understanding of these parameters and their inter-relationships. This opinion paper explores these themes and makes recommendations for improving performance through better synergies within support staff approaches. Further, aspects of the ACWR which remain to be clarified, the role of shared decision-making, risk:benefit estimation, and clearer accountability are discussed.

amstrings muscle fiber composition may be predominantly fast-twitch and could explain the high incidence of hamstrings strain injuries. However, hamstrings muscle composition in vivo, and its influence on knee flexor muscle function, remains unknown. We investigated biceps femoris long head (BFlh) myosin heavy chain (MHC) composition from biopsy samples, and the association of hamstrings composition and hamstrings muscle volume (using MRI) with knee flexor maximal and explosive strength. Thirty-one young men performed maximal (concentric, eccentric, isometric) and explosive (isometric) contractions. BFlh exhibited a balanced MHC distribution [mean ± SD (min-max); 47.1 ± 9.1% (32.6–71.0%) MHC-I, 35.5 ± 8.5% (21.5–60.0%) MHC-IIA, 17.4 ± 9.1% (0.0–30.9%) MHC-IIX]. Muscle volume was correlated with knee flexor maximal strength at all velocities and contraction modes (r = 0.62–0.76, P < 0.01), but only associated with late phase explosive strength (time to 90 Nm; r = ?0.53, P < 0.05). In contrast, BFlh muscle composition was not related to any maximal or explosive strength measure. BFlh MHC composition was not found to be “fast”, and therefore composition does not appear to explain the high incidence of hamstrings strain injury. Hamstrings muscle volume explained 38–58% of the inter-individual differences in knee flexor maximum strength at a range of velocities and contraction modes, while BFlh muscle composition was not associated with maximal or explosive strength.

… The Southern California youth soccer players’ technical ability and individual creativity on the ball is far more advanced than it was ten years ago — however, are these youth players making better decisions on the ball?

Do players have a greater understanding of movement off the ball? Lately I have been part of many discussions related to the decision making process of the game. For the most part, the common consensus is the American youth soccer player is behind compared to the rest of the world. Agree or disagree? My personal opinion is while there have been improvements, there is still significant room for development in this area.

Good coaches are always exploring ways to improve and develop their knowledge and
philosophy with a view to supporting the players by creating better environments where they can excel. This article provokes some thought and discussion concerning the environment we create as coaches through our field sessions with talented young players. For the sake of this discussion, lets use ages 9-12 yrs as a reference.

An evolutionary psycho-biological perspective on competitiveness dynamics is presented, focusing on continuous behavioral co-adaptations to constraints that arise in performance environments. We suggest that an athlete’s behavioral dynamics are constrained by circumstances of competing for the availability of resources, which once obtained offer possibilities for performance success. This defines the influence of the athlete-environment relationship on competitiveness. Constraining factors in performance include proximity to target areas in team sports and the number of other competitors in a location. By pushing the athlete beyond existing limits, competitiveness enhances opportunities for co-adaptation, innovation and creativity, which can lead individuals toward different performance solutions to achieve the same performance goal. Underpinned by an ecological dynamics framework we examine whether competitiveness is a crucial feature to succeed in team sports. Our focus is on intra-team competitiveness, concerning the capacity of individuals within a team to become perceptually attuned to affordances in a given performance context which can increase their likelihood of success. This conceptualization implies a re-consideration of the concept of competitiveness, not as an inherited trait or entity to be acquired, but rather theorizing it as a functional performer-environment relationship that needs to be explored, developed, enhanced and maintained in team games training programs. [full text]

Professor Irene Davis, PhD, PT, FAPTA, FACSM, FASB is a world renowned biomechanics researcher and the Director of the Spaulding National Running Center, Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School.

Athlete tracking devices that include global positioning system (GPS) and micro electrical mechanical system (MEMS) components are now commonplace in sport research and practice. These devices provide large amounts of data that are used to inform decision-making on athlete training and performance. However, the data obtained from these devices are often provided without clear explanation of how these metrics are obtained. At present, there is no clear consensus regarding how these data should be handled and reported in a sport context. Therefore, the aim of this review was to examine the factors that affect the data produced by these athlete tracking devices to provide guidelines for collecting, processing, and reporting of data. Many factors including device sampling rate, positioning and fitting of devices, satellite signal and data filtering methods can affect the measures obtained from GPS and MEMS devices. Therefore researchers are encouraged to report device brand/model, sampling frequency, number of satellites, horizontal dilution of precision (HDOP) and software/firmware versions in any published research. Additionally, details of data inclusion/exclusion criteria for data obtained from these devices are also recommended. Considerations for the application of speed zones to evaluate the magnitude and distribution of different locomotor activities recorded by GPS are also presented, alongside recommendations for both industry practice and future research directions. Through a standard approach to data collection and procedure reporting, researchers and practitioners will be able to make more confident comparisons from their data, which will improve the understanding and impact these devices can have on athlete performance.

The technology of tomorrow will be powered by what’s on hand today if the smart stickers developed by researchers at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology are any indicator.


The researchers combined established semiconductor processing techniques with inkjet and three-dimensional printing to create inexpensive digital decals bearing sensors and data storage electronics (Adv. Mater. Technol. 2016, DOI: 10.1002/admt.201600175). Any object bearing one of these stickers could become an instant, ad hoc environmental monitor or data collector.

For instance, a pressure-sensitive sticker stuck to a mattress could help restless sleepers document their tossing and turning, explains Muhammad M. Hussain, who led the team that developed the smart decals. But the possibilities are vast for the stickers in the emerging frontier known as the internet of things, he adds.

The internet of things refers to the growing collection of everyday items elevated to “smart” status with circuitry to collect and transmit data, including dolls, flower pots, air-handling systems, and more.

GraphWear Technologies is piloting its sweat assessment wearable patch with a professional football team. The pilot involves tracking glucose and electrolyte levels by analyzing users’ sweat. The greater goal is to keep users hydrated and provide a way of alerting athletes when they need to replenish their liquids.

The wearables business is part of the Philadelphia-based University City Science Center’s Digital Health Accelerator and previously took part in Dreamit Ventures’ program. GraphWear Technologies CEO Rajatesh Gudibande said the pilot would use the hydration patch as part of athletic performance.

In May next year, GraphWear plans to launch a beta test of the wearable targeted at athletes and hopes to go to market in 2018. Also on GraphWear’s to-do list is the development of a wearable to track glucose levels through sweat. This wearable geared to diabetes patients would be considered a Class 2 medical device. Gudibande said the long-term goal is for the product to be ready for market in the third quarter of 2019.

Dr. Jordi Mones has either one of the best or one ofthe worst jobs in sport. Sometimes, it can be both within the same 10-second period. As FC Barcelona head of sport science, he’s responsible for the health and well-being of international superstars like Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez. It’s a fun gig – he spends his daily life fighting blindness and calls his work at FCB his “hobby” – until one of the players goes down with an injury. But even then, the good doctor takes it all in stride. Injuries, of course, are an inevitable part of the game, even when it comes to the world’s best.

“This could happen anytime,” Mones told ESPNFC during an interview at FC Barcelona’s New York headquarters on Thursday afternoon. “Messi is like anyone. He has no magic shield to protect him. We have to be grateful that he hasn’t been injured more seriously but it could happen any game. We need to be ready. We need to accept it. We can’t get mad.”

Instead of getting angry, Mones and his team get to helping the player recover as quickly as possible. But sport science today is as much about injury prevention as it is about getting better from those random muscle strains, tweaks, and pulls. It’s a world of data, everything from a player’s GPS positioning in training and the load on his body to his diet and daily weight.

FCB tracks it all, and informs the player of his metrics through a personalized app. The app, which has been in use for about a year, includes things like a calendar, a training schedule, the player’s agenda, any press conferences he has to attend, along with information on what they should eat and how much they should sleep. It has data from past training sessions so they can see if they are improving as well as some gamification elements so the players can compete against each other.

UEFA is helping top European clubs measure the injury rate of their players in a renowned medical study that is entering its 16th year.

Each season, the UEFA Elite Club Injury Study provides clubs, associations and the scientific community with crucial data that helps them in their own work in treating and preventing player injuries. The study, launched in 2001, is coordinated by former UEFA Medical Committee vice-chairman, Professor Jan Ekstrand.

The study is heralded as an unrivalled historical archive of football injury data. The data provided represents a comprehensive information source about injury patterns, risks, the likely prevalence of certain injury types, and for diagnoses on when a player will be fit to return to action after injury.

Data includes, among other things, exposure, general injury patterns, training injuries, match injuries, severe injuries, muscle injuries, ligament injuries, recurring injuries, and squad attendance/availability and absences.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, students gather in a plush new classroom on the Syracuse University campus to analyze sports.

They listen to Dr. Rodney Paul use words like “heteroscedasticity,” “regression diagnostics,” “weighted least squares” and “multicollinearity” to analyze the information they will consider to determine, say, what influences a minor league baseball team’s attendance or why one NFL offensive line performs better than another. There are dizzying charts and equations and graphics to absorb, a software program to help sort out the raw data and a room full of curious young people who are attempting to master this brave new world.

Since Billy Beane built his Oakland Athletics Moneyball empire based on discovering statistical diamonds in the baseball rough to compete with the game’s big spenders, emphasis on analytics has surged in sports. Web sites like kenpom.com and hoop-math.com have revolutionized the way sportswriters and fans analyze athletics. Last year, Rotoviz.com ran a list of more than 200 twitter feeds with analytical bents.

“Analytics in sports is a revolution that is happening right now,” said Patrick Winton, a student in SU’s Sport Data Analysis class and the president of SU’s baseball sabermetrics club. “People are looking at the game from a completely different point of view.”

The 18th Monthly Report of the CIES Football Observatory analyses the recruitment strategies followed by clubs from the five major European championships. The study investigates the transfer modalities of players present in squads in October 2016, fielded in domestic league games during the current season or having played in adult championships during each of the two preceding ones.

The Report shows that the most competitive teams pursue a transfer strategy based on quality. They focus on the fee paying transfer of young players with high potential and hold on to those who perform best over the long term. In addition, the wealthiest teams tend to recruit more internationally than those with lesser means at their disposal.