Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for December 27, 2016
I am planning to cut back the distribution of this newsletter by asking longtime readers (greater than 1 year) to pay for it. Details are posted at https://sports.bradstenger.com/2016-payments.
This newsletter goes out to approximately 150 people at approximately 100 different sports and technology organizations. My goal is to reduce those numbers and then re-populate the newsletter distribution with new readers/organizations, stopping once the distribution is back to its current size (fewer than 200 readers and approximately 100 organizations).
Oakland’s Khalil Mack can get into the backfield with ease. “That shit is self-explanatory,” fellow Raiders pass rusher Bruce Irvin says. Mack, the third-year outside linebacker and defensive end, is more powerful than most and faster than the rest. Those aren’t the skills that Mack wants to rely upon on every play, however. Picasso could have painted sunsets and beaches, but that wouldn’t have been the best use of his specific talents.
The other part of Mack is not self explanatory, but it’s what makes him one of the most feared players in football: He’s a defensive genius, as cerebral as he is fast and strong. His vision before and after the snap is as unrivaled as his ludicrously high vertical jump. He can overpower and outsmart the opponent, and on any given play, he can choose to do both.
Data and statistics from the Guardian’s top 100 list: which league and nation is out in front, who got the most No1 picks, plus the oldest, youngest and more
The 23-year-old right back knows he was fortunate to see so much playing time as an MLS rookie, but that doesn’t mean he has modest expectations as U.S. men’s national team camp approaches.
Last week, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced that Union manager Jim Curtin had successfully completed the governing body’s new Pro License coaching program, becoming part of the first class of coaches to reach this country’s newly-created highest standard.
The Pro License program that is overseen by Netherlands natives Nico Romeijn and Wim van Zwam. They came to America after long tenures overseeing coach licensing programs run by their native country’s soccer governing body.
Romeijn was was the Dutch federation’s head of education, and also developed the courses in UEFA’s coach licensing programs. van Zwam spent 13 years coaching a range of Netherlands youth national teams, and in the last three of those also taught the Dutch federation’s coaching courses.
Upon arriving in America late in 2015, the duo built a 12-month course designed to replicate the rigors of the UEFA Pro License, Europe’s most prestigious coaching program. UEFA mandates that managers seeking to coach teams in the continent’s top competitions must have the license before being hired.
You might wonder, at some point today, what’s going on in another person’s mind. You may compliment someone’s great mind, or say they are out of their mind. You may even try to expand or free your own mind.
But what is a mind? Defining the concept is a surprisingly slippery task. The mind is the seat of consciousness, the essence of your being. Without a mind, you cannot be considered meaningfully alive. So what exactly, and where precisely, is it?
Traditionally, scientists have tried to define the mind as the product of brain activity: The brain is the physical substance, and the mind is the conscious product of those firing neurons, according to the classic argument. But growing evidence shows that the mind goes far beyond the physical workings of your brain.
Inflammation is the body’s natural response to injury or infection. When short-lived (acute) it is a completely healthy process, helping to protect the area and promote healing through increased blood flow.
However, chronic inflammation occurs when this process becomes a systemic and ongoing condition. It is linked to several chronic conditions (e.g. diabetes, ischaemic heart disease, osteoarthritis etc).
Exercise is also a stressor on the body. Of course, a positive type of stressor but it’s well known that a heavy training load does increase inflammation within the body by increasing the production of reactive oxidant species (ROS) and other pro-inflammatory molecules. If not taken care of, your recovery will be suboptimal and you will increase your risk of injury.
The rhythm of breathing co-ordinates electrical activity across a network of brain regions associated with smell, memory, and emotions, and can enhance their functioning, according to a new study by researchers at Northwestern University. The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that breathing does not merely supply oxygen to the brain and body, but may also organise the activity of populations of cells within multiple brain regions to help orchestrate complex behaviours.
The effects that different constraints have on the exploratory behavior, measured by the variety and quantity of different responses within a game situation, is of the utmost importance for successful performance in team sports. The aim of this study was to determine how the number of teammates and opponents affects the exploratory behavior of both professional and amateur players in small-sided soccer games. Twenty-two professional (age 25.6 ± 4.9 years) and 22 amateur (age 23.1 ± 0.7 years) male soccer players played three small-sided game formats (4 vs. 3, 4 vs. 5, and 4 vs. 7). These trials were video-recorded and a systematic observation instrument was used to notate the actions, which were subsequently analyzed by means of a principal component analysis and the dynamic overlap order parameter (measure to identify the rate and breadth of exploratory behavior on different time scales). Results revealed that a higher the number of opponents required for more frequent ball controls. Moreover, with a higher number of teammates, there were more defensive actions focused on protecting the goal, with more players balancing. In relation to attack, an increase in the number of opponents produced a decrease in passing, driving and controlling actions, while an increase in the number of teammates led to more time being spent in attacking situations. A numerical advantage led to less exploratory behavior, an effect that was especially clear when playing within a team of seven players against four opponents. All teams showed strong effects of the number of teammates on the exploratory behavior when comparing 5 vs 7 or 3 vs 7 teammates. These results seem to be independent of the players’ level. [full text]
2016 was a year of looking inward for most companies making wearables. Big names like Fitbit and Garmin released a handful of totally new products, but most companies focused on making improvements to their existing products. While refinements are not as exciting as brand-new product debuts can be, they show us the direction in which fitness trackers are moving.
This time last year, the open question was if smartwatches and all-purpose devices like the Apple Watch would kill fitness-only devices like those made by Fitbit. Thanks to developments made this year, we can say that both categories will likely survive—mostly because the consumer wearable landscape has expanded to encompass a few distinct categories: the “move more” devices, the serious training devices, and the all-purpose smartwatches. Most of the second- and even third-generation products that came out this year fit into these categories, and there are obvious hits and misses.
We’re going to examine each category and where it went in 2016 and then tell you our picks for best and worst device in each—along with our predictions for 2017 and beyond. If you’ve been waiting for the holiday to pick up a fitness tracker or fancy smart watch, now might be the time!
In Mike Shula’s final season as Alabama’s coach in 2006, the Crimson Tide’s athletic department made $87.6 million. That was a lot of money in college sports back then.
Ten years later — and since Nick Saban arrived — that amount (when factoring inflation) would compare to Louisville and Washington’s revenue outside the top 20 nationally. Alabama reported making $148.9 million for 2014-15 (the most recent year available). That’s nothing compared to fellow College Football Playoff participant Ohio State, which made $167.2 million.
Ohio State and Alabama won the national championship the first two years of the CFP, and they’re in contention again. Elite coaches (Urban Meyer and Saban) helped put them in that position. The interesting question: How much is money also dictating who wins the national title?
… It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day to English soccer. It is a connection to a longstanding tradition, one that dates back more than a century. It is a core tenet of the ultramodern Premier League’s international branding, a chance to reassert its popularity when most of its peers go into hibernation.
It is a source of immense pride, a central pillar of the league’s identity as the toughest on the planet, the festive slog through three games in what can be as little as seven days, seen as proof of just how uniquely mentally and physically draining it is.
… what is Alabama’s secret? Some say it’s the defense. Others point to the offense or the toughness or the competitiveness of the Southeastern Conference or the atmosphere at overflowing Bryant-Denny Stadium.
There is one person, however, who takes a more unorthodox view, at least as it pertains to the Tide’s most recent successes. “It’s the long snapper,” said Chris Rubio, who then quickly acknowledged that, yes, he was speaking about players whose only job is to snap the ball on punts or kicking plays and that, yes, as the leading guru for long snappers in the country, he might be a little bit biased.
“Just think about it, though,” Rubio continued. “Seriously. Is it really that crazy?”
Maybe only a little. Consider this: Whatever Alabama does in the playoffs this season, it almost surely will be the early favorite to win next season’s title in part because it has, as it does nearly every year, attracted the top-rated recruiting class in the country.
For a short time earlier this month, coach Mike Sullivan decided to use two defensemen on each of his team’s power-play units.
As he scanned his roster to choose a player to pick up the extra special teams minutes, he settled on Brian Dumoulin, even though the 25-year-old defenseman lacks an overpowering slap shot from the point.
It was easy to see why that deficiency in Dumoulin’s game gave his coach no pause when parking him at the point on the power play. The long-range slap shot is effectively dead as a serious weapon in today’s NHL.
There was a lot of talk about analytics over the off-season when the Cleveland Browns re-made their front office with a page from the Harvard yearbook. It’s been downplayed for months but head coach Hue Jackson is starting to open up about how it has affected their team.
“There are a ton of things. Our staff has done a good job. I work very closely with a guy by the name of (research and strategy director) Dave Guiliani. He has been outstanding. It is just like the Tennessee game when you guys were grilling me about the two-point play. I have somebody I really trust and who does extensive research that I can tap into that has done a good job. I think we came back and said, ‘Coach Jackson made a good decision,’ when you look at it, yeah. It is not just something we do – it is really researched and studied. We try to get the best information we can. Now are we going to be perfect all the time? No, but at the same time, we trust and I trust in our department that way to help me make those decisions,” Jackson said.