Applied Sports Science newsletter – April 1, 2017

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for April 1, 2017

 

Boston Red Sox: Why no David Ortiz is no problem for AL East champs

SI.com, Tom Verducci from

Life for the Red Sox without David Ortiz requires group therapy. Nearly every spring training morning, coach Brian Butterfield assembles the players to impress upon them the little virtues of team play by reviewing the previous game with a humorous touch. These sessions are designed to establish the culture of having the right culture, which is why they are known in Red Sox camp as “Culture Culture.”

“I can’t even tell you how funny they are,” second baseman Dustin Pedroia said. “You have to hear it. It’s hilarious. It’s out of control. He’s talking about things that build an environment, but he’s doing it in a way so that guys with zero attention span listen. He’s accomplishing things that are tough. It’s pretty cool. There’s a 100% buy-in. There’s nobody walking away like, ‘How about that rah-rah guy?’ No, no. That’s why he’s the best at what he does.”

 

Ichiro can’t fathom retirement: ‘I think I’ll just die’

Miami Herald, Clark Spencer from

Ichiro Suzuki doesn’t believe in vacations.

The last time he took one — 2004 or ’05, he doesn’t recall which — was a week-long trip to Milan, Italy. He worked out pretty much the entire time and said the excursion threw him out of sync for two or three weeks.

Never again, he vowed.

 

Ryan Fraser: Sports psychologist helped me banish negativity

The Scotsman, Alan Pattullo from

Ryan Fraser, the Bournemouth winger who is expected to make his Scotland debut against Canada tonight, has put his upturn in fortunes down to being cured of negative thinking by a sports 
psychologist.

Fraser, who has also spoken of the abuse he received from Aberdeen fans after leaving the Pittodrie club to join Bournemouth, believes his breakthrough in the English Premier League “vindicates” his decision to move south after just 23 first-team 
appearances.

But he credits his recent promotion to first-team regular to being sent to a sports psychologist by manager Eddie Howe, who felt the winger’s progress was being hampered by a crushing lack of self-
confidence.

 

Bastian Schweinsteiger, Trading Manchester United for M.L.S., Maintains His Drive

The New York Times, Rory Smith from

… His first season in England had been blighted by injury. A few weeks later, José Mourinho, then newly installed as the club’s coach, informed Schweinsteiger that his services would not be required for a second season.

When no suitable destination for Schweinsteiger, a 32-year-old midfielder, could be found, he was cast into an extended purgatory. He was banished from the first-team dressing room at the club’s training base south of Manchester, a sign that there would be no way back, and was left to train either alone with one of the club’s fitness coaches or in sessions with United’s youth and reserve players.

Many of his peers would find such an ordeal agonizing. And Schweinsteiger — one of the most decorated players of his generation, a winner of the World Cup and the Champions League, a serial Bundesliga champion — would be forgiven for seeing it as an unwarranted indignity, for allowing bitterness to fester and resentment to set in.

 

Why NBA Players Shouldn’t be Criticized for Resting in the Regular Season

ELITETRACK, John Grace from

… Ultimately, I attribute the resting of players to smart sport science teams (or head coaches) that the teams have hired to give their team an advantage. I won’t go into detail on why teams need to monitor and allow athletes to recover because this post on the effect of travel, minutes played, game density and sleep on performance & injury likelihood has done it already. We know how much potential injury shoots through the roof when we don’t allow an athlete to recover sufficiently. Why should NBA teams be fined or criticized for having sensible sport science teams – makes no sense to me.

It’s been thrown around that NBA sport science teams should use better monitoring tactics like the acute:chronic workload from Tim Gabbett (or other like methods). While that method is a great one, I don’t think it would work well because of the density of the schedule. The chronic workload (rolling 4-week average load) would be skewed because of how many games are on the schedule. With this method, if I’m interpreting it’s usage correctly, once the players get four weeks into the regular season, the data would be smoothed out and there would be no, or less pronounced acute:chronic spikes because the acute and chronic workloads would both be high.

Athlete monitoring doesn’t automatically reduce risk of injury. All it really does in this particular case is show that the game schedule is too compact.

 

Smarter Endurance Training with Heart Rate Variability Guidance

Firstbeat from

Predicting how athletes will react to training is a challenge, especially when the goal is to boost endurance performance. Similar training protocols and programming often produce different results. One athlete may successfully enhance their performance, while another may experience a performance decline. The ability to predict how a particular individual will react to a training protocol in advance is a critical step in getting training prescriptions right.

In this blog post, exercise physiologist Ville Vesterinen, Ph.D., summarizes his exploration of the potential of heart rate variability (HRV) to inform training decisions and as a result provide better training prescriptions. A graduate of the University of Jyväskylä, Vesterinen works in the same fields of expertise that provided the basis of Firstbeat’s HRV-based innovations in physiological analytics and their application to guide real-world training decisions.

 

The Rebirth of Baseball’s Great Communicator

The Ringer, Katie Baker from

Terry Francona has rebuilt Cleveland into a title contender and reassumed his position as a baseball legend. He’s equally revered for his managerial innovations and quirky quotes, and he’s happy to talk about it all — after he pulls his tooth out of his tobacco.

 

Motor Learning: What Coaches Should Know About the Science

SimpliFaster Blog, Carl Valle from

Coaches are the ultimate teachers and, as a profession, being called a coach is a true honor. Instruction with athletes is both an art and a science, but over the last decade resources have simply not been available or digestible for the majority of coaches. Several very abstract and extremely complex concepts are tossed around haphazardly in the field, but not much evidence exists of those principles being applied.

This article is not a how-to guide, or a list of which motor-learning principles are important to use. Instead, I make the case that much of the science isn’t as applicable as it may seem. Conversely, another point to be made is that the available science has a lot of very useful concepts that we are missing out on, and I will share the information that really helped me during frustrating periods in my own journey.

 

Comparison of Skillful vs. Less Skilled Young Soccer Players on Anthropometric, Maturation, Physical Fitness and Time of Practice

International Journal of Sports Medicine from

This study compared maturation, body composition and physical fitness between youth soccer athletes with different technical skills levels. Sixty-two young athletes (11–17 years) were categorized dichotomously in more skilled (n=31) and less skilled (n=31) groups based on 3 specific technical tests (Dribbling Speed Test [DST], Shuttle Dribble Test [SDT] and Slalom Dribble Test [SLDT]). Chronological and skeletal age, time of practice, body composition and 4 physical fitness tests were performed for comparisons. As expected, the 3 technical tests were correlated (r=0.47–0.54, P<0.05). More skilled subjects in DST and SDT showed (respectively) higher time of practice (effect size [ES]=0.72 and 0.90), and greater performance sit-ups (ES=1.23 and 0.81), squat jump (ES=1.10 and 1.08), countermovement jump (ES=1.11 and 1.10), and Yo-Yo test (ES=1.17 and 1.40) compared to the less skilled subjects (P<0.05). However, more skilled subjects in SLDT showed greater performance (P<0.05) only in the squat jump (ES=0.67) and Yo-Yo tests (ES=0.83). The results suggest that technical performance is associated with greater time of practice and some physical capabilities. Moreover, the DST and SDT tests seem to be good options to discriminate technical performance in youth soccer athletes.

 

Kidney Injury and Repair Biomarkers in Marathon Runners

American Journal of Kidney Diseases from

Background

Investigation into strenuous activity and kidney function has gained interest given increasing marathon participation.
Study Design

Prospective observational study.
Setting & Participants

Runners participating in the 2015 Hartford Marathon.
Predictor

Completing a marathon.
Outcomes

Acute kidney injury (AKI) as defined by AKI Network (AKIN) criteria. Stage 1 AKI was defined as 1.5- to 2-fold or 0.3-mg/dL increase in serum creatinine level within 48 hours of day 0 and stage 2 was defined as a more than 2- to 3-fold increase in creatinine level. Microscopy score was defined by the number of granular casts and renal tubular epithelial cells.
Measurements

Samples were collected 24 hours premarathon (day 0), immediately postmarathon (day 1), and 24 hours postmarathon (day 2). Measurements of serum creatinine, creatine kinase, and urine albumin were completed, as well as urine microscopy analysis. 6 injury urine biomarkers (IL-6, IL-8, IL-18, kidney injury molecule 1, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin, and tumor necrosis factor α) and 2 repair urine biomarkers (YKL-40 and monocyte chemoattractant protein 1) were measured.
Results

22 marathon runners were included. Mean age was 44 years and 41% were men. 82% of runners developed an increase in creatinine level equivalent to AKIN-defined AKI stages 1 and 2. 73% had microscopy diagnoses of tubular injury. Serum creatinine, urine albumin, and injury and repair biomarker levels peaked on day 1 and were significantly elevated compared to day 0 and day 2. Serum creatine kinase levels continued to significantly increase from day 0 to day 2.
Limitations

Small sample size and limited clinical data available at all time points.
Conclusions

Marathon runners developed AKI and urine sediment diagnostic of tubular injury. An increase in injury and repair biomarker levels suggests structural damage to renal tubules occurring after marathon. The results of our study should be validated in larger cohorts with longer follow-up of kidney function.

 

Sleep Recovery in sport

Sports Sleep Coach from

… We have seen a rapid increase in athletes who observe levels of insomnia, in particular prior to a competition. Electronic Insomnia is a new term for this and future generation of athletes who can be classified as gamers, social networkers, virtual communicators, creating their own routines based on the “can’t switch off or it off” principles.

They develop routines that allow them to keep going until they shut-down, excuses for and increased use of stimulants to push on through. Prescribed drugs, caffeine, energy drinks/supplements, over the counter natural remedies.

Not surprisingly in todays easy access information age, athletes like everyone else can search for solutions to their poor sleep and or postural concerns associated with sleeping. Neck vertebrae strain and lower back pain (poor rehabilitation) are the most common.

 

The biggest workout warrior on every Way-Too-Early Top 25 football team

ESPN College Football from

To earn a spot in Mark Schlabach’s 2017 Way-Too-Early Top 25, your team needs a load of on-field stars. But each of those teams also has an off-field superstar, the one who awes even his strongest, fastest teammates during workouts.

1. Alabama: QB Jalen Hurts

Granted, his passing needs to come a long way and he’s not all that tall, but Jalen Hurts is as physically stout a quarterback as you’ll find. The rising sophomore grew up in the weight room and once squatted 500 pounds in high school. Combine that with sub-4.5-second speed in the 40-yard dash and you’re looking at a scout’s dream.

 

The effects of recovery duration during high-intensity interval exercise on time spent at high rates of oxygen consumption, oxygen kinetics and blood lactate.

Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research from

The recovery duration and the work to recovery ratio are important aspects to consider when designing a high-intensity aerobic interval exercise (HIIE). This study examined the effects of recovery duration on total exercise time performed above 80, 90 and 95% of maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) and heart rate (HRmax) during a single-bout HIIE. We also evaluated the effects on VO2 and HR kinetics, blood lactate concentration and rating of perceived exertion (RPE). Eleven moderately trained males (22.1+/-1 yrs.) executed, on three separate sessions, 4×4-min runs at 90% of maximal aerobic velocity (MAV) with 2-min, 3-min and 4-min of active recovery. Recovery duration did not affect the percentage of VO2max attained and the total exercise time above 80, 90 and 95% of VO2max. Exercise time above 80 and 90% of HRmax was longer with 2 and 3 min (p<0.05) as compared with the 4-min recovery. Oxygen uptake and HR amplitude were lower, mean response time slower (p<0.05), and blood lactate and RPE higher with 2-min compared to 4-min recovery (p<0.05). In conclusion, aerobic metabolism attains its upper functional limits with either 2, or 3 or 4 min of recovery during the 4x4 min HIIE; thus, all rest durations could be used for the enhancement of aerobic capacity in sports, fitness, and clinical settings. The short (2 min) compared to longer (4 min) recovery, however, evokes greater cardiovascular and metabolic stress, and activates to a greater extent anaerobic glycolysis, and hence, could be used by athletes to induce greater overall physiological challenge.

 

Should My Child Play Up? The Do’s and Don’ts of Moving Kids to Older Age Groups

Changing the Game Project, John O'Sullivan from

… Any decision regarding a child playing up an age should be based on what is best for the child.

You don’t coach a sport, you coach a person, and thus every decision is an individual one. It always bothers me when I see organizations with blanket policies disallowing playing up. It equally bothers me when organizations have no policies at all and athletes are scattered across multiple ages for no rhyme or reason. Every youth sports organization should have well-thought out policies in place that allow for athletes to compete not simply against players their chronological age, but their developmental age.

 

Melbourne Victory partners with Victoria University

Melbourne Victory from

Melbourne Victory is pleased to announce a five-year strategic partnership agreement with Victoria University, Australia’s leading sports university.

The exciting new collaboration will see Victoria University (VU) provide sports science and performance support for Melbourne Victory Academy programs, along with a range of unique learning experiences for current and prospective VU students.

 

‘One Turf Concept’ Offers Protocol for Multi-Sport Fields

Athletic Business, Courtney Cameron from

World Rugby, FIFA and the International Hockey Federation (FIH) have joined forces in order to develop a new, universal protocol for multi-sport playing fields.

The protocol, which has been dubbed the ‘One Turf Concept,’ is the result of several years’ collaboration between the federations and much discussion with industry leaders.

The Concept is applicable to any artificial turf field not designed to meet the specifications of one sport and is formulated to balance player performance with surface playability.

 

Six Nations 2017: How Home Nations teams used sports technology, from cryogenics to GPS

City A.M., Martin Corry from

… the data gathered from GPS increasingly dictates the game plan; when it comes to substitutions, these are now as likely to be based on injury avoidance as much as peak performance.

Regions each have their own preferences, with Wales embracing cryogenic recovery – basically they freeze players as it speeds post-playing recovery – and Ireland employing a holistic player management system that spans – well, everything really.

 

Variable Accuracy of Wearable Heart Rate Monitors during Aerobic Exercise.

Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal from

Purpose: Athletes and members of the public increasingly rely upon wearable heart rate (HR) monitors to guide physical activity and training. The accuracy of newer, optically based monitors is unconfirmed. We sought to assess the accuracy of 5 optically based HR monitors during various types of aerobic exercise.

Methods: Fifty healthy adult volunteers (mean age 38+12 years, 54% female) completed exercise protocols on a treadmill, stationary bicycle and an elliptical trainer (+/- arm movement). Each participant underwent HR monitoring with an electrocardiogaphic, chest strap monitor (Polar H7), forearm monitor (Scosche Rhythm+), and two randomly assigned wrist-worn HR monitors (Apple Watch, Fitbit Blaze, Garmin Forerunner 235, TomTom Spark Cardio), one on each wrist. For each exercise type, HR was recorded at rest, light, moderate and vigorous intensity. Agreement between HR measurements was assessed using Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient (rc).

Results: Across all exercise conditions, the chest strap monitor (Polar H7) had the best agreement with ECG (rc=.996) followed by the Apple Watch (rc=.92), the TomTom Spark (rc=.83) and Garmin Forerunner (rc=.81). The Scosche Rhythm+ and Fitbit Blaze were less accurate (rc=.75 and rc=.67, respectively). On treadmill, all devices performed well (rc=.88-.93) except the Fitbit Blaze (rc=.76). While bicycling, only the Garmin, Apple Watch and Scosche Rhythm+ had acceptable agreement (rc>.80). On the elliptical trainer without arm levers, only the Apple Watch was accurate (rc=.94). None of the devices was accurate during elliptical trainer use with arm levers (all rc < .80). Conclusion: The accuracy of wearable, optically based HR monitors varies with exercise type and is greatest on the treadmill and lowest on elliptical trainer. Electrode-containing chest monitors should be used when accurate HR measurement is imperative.

 

Asics is latest footwear company vying for space in Boston – The Boston GlobeAsics is latest footwear company vying for space in Boston

The Boston Globe, Kathleen Conti from

Another premier athletic shoe company is making the trek to Boston.

The US arm of Japan-based apparel and shoemaker Asics is opening a product creation and design studio near South Station. Asics’ initial presence will run to about 50 people in a 25,000-square-foot office space.

 

Adidas To Launch 360-Degree ALL DAY Fitness App

SportTechie, Mark J. Burns from

Adidas announced Tuesday the upcoming launch of its adidas ALL DAY app, a 360-degree experience designed to help consumers achieve their fitness goals.

For adidas ALL DAY, the company partnered with EXOS (human performance company), American College of Sports Medicine (sports media and exercise science organization) and Verily (Alphabet Inc.’s healthcare and life sciences subsidiary). The app will concentrate around four key areas of performance including nutrition, movement, mindset and rest while leveraging data and behavior science to keep users engaged.

“adidas ALL DAY will initially focus on the female athlete who seeks variety and likes to try new things to challenge and inspire herself to be better every day. With an experience powered by rich scientific insight, the app makes fit living more approachable while still keeping it fun” Stacey Burr, Vice President and General Manager of adidas Digital Sports said in a statement.

 

Injury and illness surveillance in tennis: an evolving process

British Journal of Sports Medicine from

Despite the remarkable history and long-standing popularity of tennis, the sport is under-represented in medical and scientific epidemiological injury and illness research. Hence, the importance of new seminal data and analysis from the world’s highest level grass court tennis championship over a 10-year period.

Prior studies have identified the one truly conclusive finding among elite-level tennis players across surfaces, sexes and elite playing levels: upper extremity and trunk injuries result from overuse and chronic repetitive insults to the body, whereas lower body injuries are generally acute. We also know that illness is prevalent in both elite junior and professional tennis players.

 

Toradol Lawsuit: NFL Can’t Outrun Legacy of Abuse

The MMQB, Robert Klemko from

Once again the league is paying for its slow reaction to a health crisis, this time the overuse of the painkiller Toradol. Meanwhile, the union shows no interest in taking on the NFL on a perceived conflict of interest among team doctors, setting the stage for the next medical crisis

 

Path to Addiction

Training & Conditioning, David Csillan from

About 10 years ago, Cameron Burke, a freshman high school wrestler, set a goal of earning a college wrestling scholarship. During Cameron’s sophomore year, this dream faced a setback when he suffered two clavicle fractures—one of which required surgery.

Following treatment, Cameron was prescribed Percocet for the pain and continued to use the drug for a year. Eventually, he moved from Percocet to heroin. Once a stellar student enrolled in numerous AP classes, his grades dropped, and he lost his desire to wrestle. At this point, Cameron’s mother, Jennifer Weiss Burke, intervened and arranged for him to attend counseling.

Over the next two years, things seemed to be turning around for Cameron. That all changed one summer night in 2011. Cameron went out with his best friend, another former wrestler and heroin addict. They were using, and Cameron overdosed and passed away.

 

Meet Wobble, the Student-Designed Concussion Diagnosis Device

Inverse, Jack Crosbie from

It looks like a sobriety test: A girl stands on one leg, barefoot, atop a metal platform that shakes, slides, and wobbles like the kid-friendly version of a mechanical bull. But instead of measuring her ability to drive, Wobble is testing whether or not she has a concussion.

In competitive sports, concussions among the biggest risks to players’ long-term health. And if the athlete is not given enough time to heal, their condition can become drastically more severe. Concussion research is progressing slowly, but doctors and on-field medics still need better tools to diagnose concussions and monitor their effects, both on the sidelines and in the locker room. That’s where Wobble comes in.

A group of Georgia Tech students designed the device to monitor a user’s balance, one of the lingering symptoms of concussions.

 

Grind, Blend, Microwave – How Does the Way You Process Them Affect the Health-Benefits of Veggies and Fruits – SuppVersity: Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

SuppVersity: Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone from

… What I haven’t discussed in detail, though, is “whether and how different home-based food preparation methods, including blending, chopping with/without microwaving, might release different levels of beneficial bioactives from carrot and blueberry food models” (Gao 2017) – simply because the study at hand is the first to do that.

Aside from the fact that it addresses a commonly overlooked, yet practically relevant question, I like about the study that the scientists bought samples of regular carrots and blueberries at a local supermarket and used five home-use blenders, including Nutribullet 600, Nutribullet Pro 900, Nutribullet RX, Vitamix 5200 and Oster Versa 1400 that you could buy over at Amazon (or elsewhere), too.

 

Training the gut for athletes

Asker Jeukendrup, mysportscience blog from

I remember that many years ago a review paper was published with the title: Is the gut an athletic organ? It hinted to the fact that athletic performance is very dependent on fuel and fuel delivery is dependent on gut function. Could the gut therefore be a much underestimated organ for athletes? In professional cycling it is sometimes said that a stage race is as much an eating competition as it is a bike race. From marathons and triathlons in particular, we know that fuelling during a race can be problematic as it is not easy to eat and drink whilst pushing the pace in these events. It is very common that athletes report stomach problems in attempt to do so. So the options are fuel less and have a chance of running out of energy and become dehydrated or fuel more and have a chance of getting an upset stomach. The optimal approach is of course somewhere in the middle where you balance intake with stomach comfort. However, there is one other approach that may work. The gut is an extremely adaptable organ and can be “trained” in a similar way to the way we train the muscle.

In a recent review in Sports Medicine I discuss the evidence that the gut can be trained. A lot of this evidence comes from studies in animals. But the evidence is strong and the few human studies we have point in the same direction.

 

How The Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwich Became The NBA’s Go-To Comfort Food

NPR, The Salt, Scott Simon from

It’s hardly unusual for athletes, both amateur and professional, to have pregame rituals. But the NBA’s peculiar commitment to one grade-school snack goes deep: ESPN Magazine calls the PB&J sandwich the league’s “secret addiction.”

“In every NBA locker room, you’ll see a variety of different foods on the table, but PB&J — if there’s a locker room that doesn’t have it, I haven’t seen it,” ESPN reporter Baxter Holmes tells Scott Simon. [audio, 4:24]

 

A Mismatch Between Athlete Practice and Current Sports Nutrition Guidelines Among Elite Female and Male Middle- and Long-Distance Athletes. – PubMed – NCBI

International Journal of Sports Nutition and Exercise Metabolism from

Contemporary nutrition guidelines promote a variety of periodized and time-sensitive recommendations, but current information regarding the knowledge and practice of these strategies among world-class athletes is limited. The aim of this study was to investigate this theme by implementing a questionnaire on dietary periodization practices in national/international level female (n=27) and male (n=21) middle- and long-distance runners/race-walkers. The questionnaire aimed to gain information on between and within-day dietary choices, as well as timing of pre- and post-training meals and practices of training with low or high carbohydrate (CHO) availability. Data are shown as percentage (%) of all athletes, with differences in responses between sub-groups (sex or event) shown as Chi-square x2 when p<0.05. Nearly two-thirds of all athletes reported that they aim to eat more food on, or after, hard training days. Most athletes said they focus on adequate fueling (96%) and adequate CHO and protein (PRO) recovery (87%) around key sessions. Twenty-six percent of athletes (11% of middle vs 42% of long-distance athletes [x2 (1, n=46) = 4.308, p=0.038, phi=0.3])) reported to undertake training in the fasted state, while 11% said they periodically restrict CHO intake, with 30% ingesting CHO during training sessions. Our findings show that elite endurance athletes appear to execute pre- and post-key session nutrition recovery recommendations. However, very few athletes deliberately undertake some contemporary dietary periodization approaches, such as training in the fasted state or periodically restricting CHO intake. This study suggests mismatches between athlete practice and current and developing sports nutrition guidelines.

 

Glucose Plus Fructose Ingestion for Post-Exercise Recovery—Greater than the Sum of Its Parts?

Nutrients journal from

Carbohydrate availability in the form of muscle and liver glycogen is an important determinant of performance during prolonged bouts of moderate- to high-intensity exercise. Therefore, when effective endurance performance is an objective on multiple occasions within a 24-h period, the restoration of endogenous glycogen stores is the principal factor determining recovery. This review considers the role of glucose–fructose co-ingestion on liver and muscle glycogen repletion following prolonged exercise. Glucose and fructose are primarily absorbed by different intestinal transport proteins; by combining the ingestion of glucose with fructose, both transport pathways are utilised, which increases the total capacity for carbohydrate absorption. Moreover, the addition of glucose to fructose ingestion facilitates intestinal fructose absorption via a currently unidentified mechanism. The co-ingestion of glucose and fructose therefore provides faster rates of carbohydrate absorption than the sum of glucose and fructose absorption rates alone. Similar metabolic effects can be achieved via the ingestion of sucrose (a disaccharide of glucose and fructose) because intestinal absorption is unlikely to be limited by sucrose hydrolysis. Carbohydrate ingestion at a rate of ≥1.2 g carbohydrate per kg body mass per hour appears to maximise post-exercise muscle glycogen repletion rates. Providing these carbohydrates in the form of glucose–fructose (sucrose) mixtures does not further enhance muscle glycogen repletion rates over glucose (polymer) ingestion alone. In contrast, liver glycogen repletion rates are approximately doubled with ingestion of glucose–fructose (sucrose) mixtures over isocaloric ingestion of glucose (polymers) alone. Furthermore, glucose plus fructose (sucrose) ingestion alleviates gastrointestinal distress when the ingestion rate approaches or exceeds the capacity for intestinal glucose absorption (~1.2 g/min). Accordingly, when rapid recovery of endogenous glycogen stores is a priority, ingesting glucose–fructose mixtures (or sucrose) at a rate of ≥1.2 g·kg body mass−1·h−1 can enhance glycogen repletion rates whilst also minimising gastrointestinal distress.

 

How Loss of Key Player Increases Value of Recovery Data for Tottenham Hotspur

Firstbeat, Herman Bonner from

… Training load monitoring and recovery testing are among the ways that top teams like Tottenham Hotspur are leveraging science and technology to reduce injuries and create competitive advantages on the field. As a common contributor to contact and non-contact injuries alike, fatigue is a topic of special interest for top trainers.

One of the tools that Tottenham’s staff have at their disposal to assess player readiness is the Firstbeat Quick Recovery Test, which is integrated into company’s cloud-based Sports Monitor platform. “We are confident that with the right approach to recovery management a substantial number of injuries can be and are being avoided,” says Veli-Pekka Kurunmäki, who leads Firstbeat’s Sports division. “Of course, consistently taking the right approach requires putting actionable data in the hands of decision makers.”

 

Building the ultimate footballer: Ronaldo Messi Lahm and more – ESPN FC

ESPN FC, Jonathan Molyneux-Carter from

Football players typically possess a key attribute (Arjen Robben and his left foot, anyone?) around which they build their game. Which got us to thinking: What if you could mix and match the individual skills of today’s world-beaters to create the ultimate footballer, the perfect weapon in both attack and defence? We think it would look something like this:

Mind: Philipp Lahm

 

A Markov Game model for valuing actions, locations, and team performance in ice hockey | SpringerLink

Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery journal from

We apply the Markov Game formalism to develop a context-aware approach to valuing player actions, locations, and team performance in ice hockey. The Markov Game formalism uses machine learning and AI techniques to incorporate context and look-ahead. Dynamic programming is applied to learn value functions that quantify the impact of actions on goal scoring. Learning is based on a massive new dataset, from SportLogiq, that contains over 1.3M events in the National Hockey League. The SportLogiq data include the location of an action, which has previously been unavailable in hockey analytics. We give examples showing how the model assigns context and location aware values to a large set of 13 action types. Team performance can be assessed as the aggregate value of actions performed by the team’s players, or the aggregate value of states reached by the team. Model validation shows that the total team action and state value both provide a strong indicator predictor of team success, as measured by the team’s average goal ratio.

 

Evaluating erroneous offside calls in soccer

PLOS One; Stephanie Huttermann from

The ability to simultaneously attend to multiple objects declines with increases in the visual angle separating distant objects. We explored whether these laboratory-measured limits on visual attentional spread generalize to a real life context: offside calls by soccer assistant referees. We coded all offside calls from a full year of first division German soccer matches. By determining the x-y coordinates of the relevant players and assistant referee on the soccer field we were able to calculate how far assistant referees had to spread their visual attention to perform well. Counterintuitively, assistant referees made fewer errors when they were farther away from the action due to an advantageous (smaller) visual angle on the game action. The pattern held even when we accounted for individual differences in a laboratory-based attentional spread measure of ten of the assistant referees. Our finding that errors are linked to smaller visual angles may explain the complaints of fans in some situations: Those seated directly behind the assistant referee, further from the players, might actually have it easier to make the right call because the relevant players would form a smaller visual angle.

 

How the Red Sox revived their analytics department

Providence Journal, Tim Britton from

Reputations tend to last beyond their accuracy. In the public consciousness, an ace may remain one after he’s lost his stuff, a manager may be old-school after he’s adapted and a baseball franchise may be at the forefront of the game’s analytical community even after it’s actually fallen behind.

When Dave Dombrowski was hired as the president of baseball operations in August 2015, one of the first things he learned was that the Red Sox, a paragon of baseball analytics to so many, did not live up to their reputation.

“I was actually surprised when I came in, thinking that the Red Sox were No. 1 [in analytics staffing],” Dombrowski said. “They were not No. 1.” [commercial video autoplays]

 

Soccer age curves show goalkeepers and central defenders peak latest – ESPN FC

ESPN FC, Michael Caley from


As this chart shows, players generally peak between the ages of 25-28, but there are differences by position.

 

An Updated Review of the Applied Physiology of American Collegiate Football: The Physical Demands, Strength/Conditioning, Nutritional Considerations and Injury Characteristics of America’s Favourite Game

International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance from

Whilst there are various avenues for performance improvement within collegiate American football (AF), there is no comprehensive evaluation of the collective array of resources around performance, physical conditioning and injury and training/game characteristics to guide future research and inform practitioners. Accordingly, the aim of the present review was to provide a current examination of these areas within collegiate AF. Recent studies show that there is a wide range of body compositions and strength characteristics between players, which appear to be influenced by playing position, level of play, training history/programming and time of season. Collectively, game demands may require a combination of upper and lower body strength and power production, rapid acceleration (positive and negative), change of direction, high-running speed, high intensity and repetitive collisions and muscular strength endurance. These may be affected by the timing of, and between, plays and/or coaching style. AF players appear to possess limited nutrition and hydration practices, which may be disadvantageous to performance. AF injuries appear due to a multitude of factors: strength, movement quality, and previous injury whilst there is also potential for extrinsic factors such as playing surface type, travel, time of season, playing position and training load. Future proof of concept studies are required to determine the quantification of game demands with regards to game style, type of opposition and key performance indicators. Moreover, more research is required to understand the efficacy of recovery and nutrition interventions. Finally, the assessment of the relationship between external/internal load constructs and injury risk is warranted.

 

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.