Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 1, 2016

Brandon Pettigrew is getting antsy.

Nearly 12 months after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee for the second time in his career, Pettigrew is close to returning to game action.

The eight-year veteran started practicing last week, and he could come off the physically unable to perform list as soon as Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints.

… His kitchen counter is speckled with the foodstuffs of a 38-year-old bachelor — cans of vegetable soup, a half-eaten loaf of old bread, a bag of dried mango — and those who know [Terence] Newman well credit his longevity in part to his having never been married.

By 38, most N.F.L. cornerbacks have retired or, in far fewer cases, switched to the less physically demanding position of safety, no longer as capable of chasing bigger, stronger and faster receivers around the field. Newman is the oldest cornerback in the league by nearly five years, and by at least some measures, he is also one of the best. According to the analytics website Pro Football Focus, which rates him sixth over all, he has allowed the fewest yards (0.64) per coverage snap.

As Newman acknowledged, his freedom to do what he wants when he wants has prolonged his career. It has enabled him to obey what he called an intuitive understanding of his body, nurturing it with as much sleep, exercise and sustenance as he feels it needs.

He keeps himself in such good shape that Minnesota’s strength and conditioning coach, Brent Salazar, said Newman would be ready to play a game in June

… “It was anxious getting out there before the game because I haven’t played in a while,” the 2015 No. 2 draft pick said.

It was a solid first step for Eichel and the Sabres. He was rusty, but that’s understandable given the injury. He worked hard to get back and wanted to have an immediate impact — which he did — but his full recovery will be a slow process.

… NBA teams understand they need to continue to improve their travel processes. Teams have started using brand partnerships and new technology to help the recovery process for players. The Mavericks are a good example, as they recently partnered with the popular bedding company, Bedgear. The company provides custom-made pillows, sheets and pillow cases with temperature regulation, which helps players with sleep performance.

“You can say ‘go get a good night’s rest’ to these players, but we’re leaving the player to determine what that is,” CEO of Bedgear Eugene Alletto told Basketball Insiders. “They may have a curfew, but the teams aren’t checking to see if that player is actually getting enough sleep, or if the beds actually work for a seven-foot player. We found that on the road, it’s not the conditioning with most players [that affects play], it’s fatigue. Elite athletes are fitted for their shoes and apparel, but arguably the most important thing needed – sleep – is left out. That’s where we come in. Our slogan ‘sleep fuels everything’ is there for a reason.”

Background

Information on sleep quality and insomnia symptomatology among elite athletes remains poorly systematised in the sports science and medicine literature. The extent to which performance in elite sport represents a risk for chronic insomnia is unknown.
Objectives

The purpose of this systematic review was to profile the objective and experienced characteristics of sleep among elite athletes, and to consider relationships between elite sport and insomnia symptomatology.
Methods

Studies relating to sleep involving participants described on a pre-defined continuum of ‘eliteness’ were located through a systematic search of four research databases: SPORTDiscus, PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar, up to April 2016. Once extracted, studies were categorised as (1) those mainly describing sleep structure/patterns, (2) those mainly describing sleep quality and insomnia symptomatology and (3) those exploring associations between aspects of elite sport and sleep outcomes.
Results

The search returned 1676 records. Following screening against set criteria, a total of 37 studies were identified. The quality of evidence reviewed was generally low. Pooled sleep quality data revealed high levels of sleep complaints in elite athletes. Three risk factors for sleep disturbance were broadly identified: (1) training, (2) travel and (3) competition.
Conclusion

While acknowledging the limited number of high-quality evidence reviewed, athletes show a high overall prevalence of insomnia symptoms characterised by longer sleep latencies, greater sleep fragmentation, non-restorative sleep, and excessive daytime fatigue. These symptoms show marked inter-sport differences. Two underlying mechanisms are implicated in the mediation of sport-related insomnia symptoms: pre-sleep cognitive arousal and sleep restriction.

Future generations of Apple Watches, Fitbits, or Android Wear gadgets may be able to detect and mitigate health problems rather than simply relay health data, thanks to a federally funded project that is applying big-data tools to mobile sensors.

The project, called MD2K, won $10.8 million from the National Institutes of Health to develop hardware and software that compiles and analyzes health data generated by wearable sensors. MD2K’s ultimate goal is to use these sensors and data to anticipate and prevent “adverse health events,” such as addiction relapse. Though the project is aimed at researchers and clinicians, its tools are freely available, so these innovations could turn up in consumer wearables.

Commercial wearable devices aren’t suitable for research because they only gather a few types of health data about a user, such as number of steps taken and heart rate, and they typically display specific results rather than raw sensor data. In addition, their batteries can’t support a full day’s worth of high-frequency data collection and they don’t quantify the degree of uncertainty associated with their data.

The Air Force Research Laboratory, 711th Human Performance Wing, has signed a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the Ohio State University.

Special operations units in the Defense Department are physically and mentally elite due to the training they endure. Since special operations personnel are not readily accessible at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, unique hands-on insight was required for rapid acceleration of human performance monitoring research, technology and tools for the battlefield.

This collaboration will provide the 711th HPW access to immediate, continuous data so appropriate procedures can be developed using Division 1 college athletes that exhibit similar strength, power and mentality as special operations warfighters.

A new study by researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute is evaluating the use of a virtual physical therapy program for people recovering from total knee replacement surgery. The study, entitled Virtual Exercise Rehabilitation In-Home Therapy: A Research Study (VERITAS), is using an in-home, on demand virtual rehabilitative therapy program called Vera from San Diego-based digital healthcare company Reflexion Health.

The study, which is now enrolling patients and will be carried out at six different sites in the US with about 300 participants, will look at how Vera compares to traditional in-home or clinic-based physical therapy. Vera, which is FDA-cleared, acts as a virtual assistant: it guides users through their prescribed physical therapy exercises and uses 3D monitors to measure and record each patient’s performance. It gives patients feedback in real-time, and the session is recorded, analyzed and presented on a dashboard the physician can review. This way, patients who need additional, in-person services can be quickly identified

Thrombosis, the occlusion of vasculature by blood clots, is a precursor to debilitating conditions including stroke, pulmonary embolism, and heart attack. Blood thinners such as heparin or Coumadin are used to treat thrombosis, but necessitate ongoing blood tests for precise drug dosing. Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University have developed and tested a self-regulating drug eluting patch that monitors the level of thrombin (a clot initiating enzyme) in the blood, and releases appropriate amounts of heparin in response.

The microneedle patch is meant to stick to the skin and its polymer tips are impregnated with heparin molecules attached to hyaluronic acid via amino acid chains. Thrombin eats at the amino acid connections between the hyaluronic acid and heparin, releasing the drug. The amount of heparin released is proportional to the quantity of thrombin that passes by the microneedles, allowing the patch to be automatically responsive to any developing clots. Because the amount of heparin can be adjusted on the patch to the needs of each patient, the patch can also be personalized during manufacturing.

Most of the school’s 500-plus student-athletes receive cardiac testing to diagnose or prevent future problems before beginning competition with their respective teams

… With chronic hamstring soreness, athletes tend to complain more of stiffness and soreness that persists long after exercise and is especially prevalent when warming up. They note that the pain often goes away after warming up and can often compete or train well, but the soreness gets worse the following few days. This process continues for a while until it suddenly seems to get worse and more persistent. This also tends to lead them towards more massage therapy and more stretching. Unfortunately, if these measures are aimed at the wrong things, such as attempts to break up scar tissue, adhesions, or trigger points they may perpetuate the issue, increasing anxiety and frustration.

This article will discuss the causes and implications of chronic hamstring soreness and dysfunction and what the best management approach would be.

For runners, food is more than simple nutrition — food is fuel. What and when should you eat before, during and after your runs? What should you drink and how much? When you are training for a long race — 10K or more — you are going to have to change how you eat; we’ll show you how to make those changes.

Nutrition is one method to counter the negative impact of an exercise-induced injury. Deficiencies of energy, protein and other nutrients should be avoided.

A study from Sports Medicine [Tipton, K.D. Sports Med (2015) 45: 93. doi:10.1007/s40279-015-0398-4] has examined and updated the evidence for nutritional strategies to support the enhancement of recovery and return to training and competition.

Below are the main issues to consider.

Eight months after he resigned from the 76ers, the team’s former architect is in Silicon Valley, hanging with quants and start-up visionaries as he prepares for his next act.

… Some might look at Thibodeau’s decision to ride his young horses in the early going — Wiggins, Towns and LaVine are all 21 years old and each ranks among the league’s top 12 in first-half minutes per game. Others might suggest that Thibodeau is one of the NBA’s best game planners, and that his teams get out of the gate well as a result, but that he’s slow to adjust over the course of a contest.

There’s also an argument to be made that Minnesota, the youngest team in the NBA, doesn’t know how to pace itself, or how to put its foot on an opponent’s throat just yet. It’s not all that uncommon for young teams to play two or three good quarters, then fail to finish against a more experienced unit. After a recent meltdown, Wiggins told reporters he believes the Wolves relax and “get too cool” after building sizable leads that later evaporate.