Applied Sports Science newsletter – April 25, 2017

… This preseason, Cavs coach Tyronn Lue talked about managing James’ minutes, as LeBron’s coaches long have. The team even bragged about a cutting-edge system that sorts players into red, yellow and green categories of fatigue. But the Cavs struggled and failed to win the East, and James ultimately led the NBA in minutes per game.

Now more than ever the Cavs need James to walk on water because by every rational analysis, the team is toast — loser of 15 of its last 26 regular-season games and having entered its first-round series with only a 3.7 percent chance of taking the title, according to the Basketball Power Index Playoff Odds. So the question of the playoffs becomes: Is James too fried to be his best when it matters most? With a title hanging in the balance, I sought the answer.

… Playoff LeBron collected 33 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists. Playoff LeBron shouldered the offense by attempting 25 shots, most of them layups. Playoff LeBron affixed himself to the Pacers star Paul George like a strip of Velcro, limiting him to 15 points. And Playoff LeBron made the big shot, a 3-pointer over Pacers center Myles Turner with just over a minute left.

James, trying to create space against Turner, waited — waited for Turner to give him an opening. Once Turner dropped his hands, James had it.

“Trusted my mechanics, trusted what I’m doing,” said James, who, after the game, wore a sweatshirt with flames on the sleeves. “It went down.”

In any other year, Eliud Kipchoge would be lining up in this Sunday’s London marathon not only as a scalding-hot favourite for a third successive victory but also with a dead eye on Dennis Kimetto’s world record of two hours, two minutes and 57 seconds. Instead the Kenyan is two weeks’ away from attempting something so extraordinary, so fantastical – so ridiculous, in fact – that it hardly seems to make sense: running 26.2 miles in under two hours.

To put that in context, that would mean running each mile in an average of four minutes and 34 seconds – seven seconds a mile quicker than Kimetto managed at Berlin in 2014. It would also be a 2.5% reduction on the current world record, and the last time that big a chunk was taken in a men’s distance race was when Ron Clarke set a world-best 10,000m in 1965.

Yet on 6 May, on the Monza Formula One track in Italy, Kipchoge is convinced that with the help of his sponsor Nike and its Breaking2 project, he can permanently ink his name into history. The date, incidentally, is significant. It was also on 6 May that Sir Roger Bannister became the first man to shatter the four-minute mile barrier. And witnesses to Kichoge’s recent training sessions at altitude – some, previously confirmed sceptics – have told the Guardian they are starting to believe he might do something extraordinary too.

… But as tough as the injury itself was … where it really has hurt? It’s not where some people think. It’s not for what it means for my future: I’ve been through this before, and I came back better. And I know the player that I’ll be when I’m back on the court again. That doesn’t scare me. But the fact that I can’t be out there with my team, right now, during these playoffs — to finish what we started? Knowing the team that we’ve been growing into together … and not being able to see that through with them?

That’s what has hurt the most.

See, this year … it’s meant a lot to this team. This year, from the very beginning, was about us making a name for the Bucks — about us forcing our way into the argument of who the East’s top contenders are.

Skimping on sleep, followed by “catch-up” days with long snoozes, is tied to worse cognition — both in attention and creativity — in young adults, in particular those tackling major projects, Baylor University researchers have found.

“The more variability they showed in their night-to-night sleep, the worse their cognition declined across the week,” said study co-author Michael Scullin, Ph.D., director of Baylor’s Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory and assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences.

… With seven days off between the Eastern Conference quarterfinals and semifinals, [Mike] Sullivan will certainly get to scratch that itch.

“I do enjoy that part of our job,” Sullivan said. “We spend so much time trying to give these guys opportunities to recover from the previous games, to have an opportunity like [Sunday], where we can actually have a substantive practice and try to get better on the ice, work on certain aspects of our game. Especially at this time of year, it doesn’t happen too often. We’re trying to take advantage of that opportunity.”

LIVERPOOL’S Andy O’Boyle has been appointed as the new Head of Elite Performance at the Premier League.

The Irishman replaces James Bunce – who has become US Soccer’s Director of High Performance – in the prestigious role. O’Boyle had been at Liverpool since July 2011, first as head of elite fitness, then as first-team fitness coach since October 2015.

He acted up as head of fitness and conditioning for four months last year following the sudden departure of Ryland Morgans. However, manager Jurgen Klopp opted to bring in Andreas Kommayer from Bayern Munich to take the job on a permanent basis in July, meaning O’Boyle had to drop back down to his old position.

Identifying injury risk and implementing preventive measures can assist in reducing injury occurrence and may ultimately improve athletic performance. Improper movement patterns often contribute to musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries. The validity of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS™) as an injury prediction tool for athletes remains unclear. We designed the Basketball-Specific Mobility Test (BMT) to represent the neuromuscular demands of basketball and identify deficiencies that may be indicative of greater MSK injury risk while playing this sport. The aim of this study was to examine the association of FMS™ and BMT scores with injury occurrence in collegiate basketball players. We hypothesized that the BMT would be a better predictor of injury risk than the FMS™, and that scores from both tests would have a higher association with severe MSK injuries than minor, non-MSK injuries. One-hundred nineteen male and female collegiate basketball players from four Upper Midwest universities were assessed pre- (PRE) and post-season (POST) using the FMS™ and BMT. In-season injury records were collected from the schools’ athletic trainers and were classified by type and severity. During the season, 56 of 119 players were injured, resulting in 96 total injuries. Injured athletes’ PRE FMS™ scores demonstrated negligible effects compared to uninjured athletes’ PRE scores (d < 0.20), though some BMT scores showed potentially meaningful effects (d > 0.20). While specificity of the FMS™ and BMT to predict injury was relatively high (FMS™ 85.7-87.6; BMT 42.0-88.0), sensitivity (FMS™ 14.2-22.7; BMT 11.6-39.1), odds ratios (FMS™ 1.00-2.08; BMT 0.47-1.06), and injury prediction capacities (AUC; FMS™ 0.43-0.49; BMT 0.49-0.59) of the tests were low. Although the FMS™ and BMT may be suitable for identifying MSK deficiencies, they do not accurately determine injury risk in collegiate basketball players. Injury risk assessments may be improved by targeting specific injury mechanisms and the conditions in which they occur.

… the NFL Players Association appears to have produced an equalizer of sorts via a new agreement with the wearable tech company WHOOP, which was announced Monday morning.

This will provide players with their own data — information they own and have the right to sell and distribute as they wish — to push back against the NFL’s accumulation of its own data.

The continuous biometric monitors (CBMs) will provide unique physiological information that can demonstrate strong work habits, personal discipline and high-end conditioning, among other data sets. A handful of players have already received the WHOOP Strap 2.0 device, and distribution will continue this week in Philadelphia, the site of the 2017 NFL draft.

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Newark, CA-based activity monitoring solutions company Salutron Inc., has selected the nRF51422 multiprotocol System-on-Chip (SoC) for its LifeTrak ZoomHRV sports and fitness wearable. The device is equipped with ANT+ and Bluetooth® low energy wireless connectivity provided by the nRF51422 SoC’s multiprotocol capability.

The ZoomHRV can be worn on the wrist, upper arm, lower arm, or ankle, and integrates advanced heart rate monitoring alongside steps tracking, distance covered, calories burned, sleep monitoring, and blue light exposure data, combining to provide a detailed insight into the user’s fitness and general wellbeing.

Two years ago, career athlete Dave Grandin was still a man with an ambitious plan to provide tech-driven products to advance resistance training and rehab for average Joes and pros alike.

Aware that resistance training is a component of conditioning and rehab, the former varsity college swimmer-turned-entrepreneur focused on creating a sensor that measures force and reports data wirelessly for tracking, analysis and selection of appropriate corrective action.

But as Kiio learned first-hand, there’s far more to success than bringing an innovation to life – and market.

It has been a long and often difficult road for Grandin’s 15-employee firm. “There are few leaders and innovators when it comes to those who handle conditioning and rehab,” the CEO said. “You have to look for forward-thinking individuals willing to blaze trails with a new approach.”

Every sports injury — small or large, blown ACL or sprained ankle — comes packaged with physical therapy.

Or at least it should, if you want your body to be as strong and reliable as it was before the injury, according to orthopedic surgeons and physical therapists. Even a mellow rehab program is essential for people who ski, bike, hike and play if they want to return stronger than before — and avoid future injury.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy, and the first lesson is patience.

Background:

Returning to a healthy level of physical activity is among the most commonly discussed clinical goals for patients recovering from anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). However, physical activity has not been objectively measured in this population.
Purpose:

To investigate differences in the mean time (min/d) spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) as well as the daily step count (steps/d) between patients who underwent ACLR and matched controls. A second purpose was to investigate relationships between MVPA and objective assessments of the daily step count and Tegner and Marx activity scales.
Study Design:

Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3.
Methods:

Physical activity was assessed using ActiGraph accelerometers in 33 participants with a history of primary unilateral or bilateral ACLR (mean time from surgery, 27.8 ± 17.5 months; range, 6-67 months) as well as in 33 healthy controls (matched on age, sex, and activity level). Participants wore the accelerometer for 7 days and completed the International Knee Documentation Committee subjective form and the Tegner and Marx activity scales. Independent t tests were used to determine differences in each dependent variable per group.
Results:

Patients who underwent ACLR spent less time in MVPA (ACLR: 79.37 ± 23.95 min/d; control: 93.12 ± 23.94 min/d; P = .02) and had a lower daily step count (ACLR: 8158 ± 2780 steps/d; control: 9769 ± 2785 steps/d; P = .02) compared with healthy matched controls. However, the Marx (ACLR median: 11.0 [interquartile range (IQR), 7-14]; control median: 12.0 [IQR, 8-13]; P = .85) and Tegner (ACLR median: 6.0 [IQR, 5-8]; control median: 7.0 [IQR, 6-8]; P = .12) scores did not differ between the groups, and no relationships were observed between objectively measured physical activity and scale measures (P > .05), except for a moderate relationship between the Tegner score and daily step count in the ACLR group (r = 0.36, P = .04). Only 24% of patients who underwent ACLR met the guideline of 10,000 steps per day compared with 42% of controls.
Conclusion:

Patients who underwent ACLR spent less time in MVPA and had a lower daily step count compared with highly matched controls (age, sex, and activity level) with no history of knee injuries. This was true despite being similar in activity levels, which brings into question the utility of the Tegner and Marx activity scales.

As individuals, the amount we know about the world is miniscule. One psychologist estimated that an individual’s knowledge store is about one gigabyte, much less than fits on a typical USB thumb drive. This is why most of us struggle to name even a few foreign leaders or accurately draw a picture of a bicycle.

Even within our domains of expertise, ignorance is a fact of life. Surgeons are masters of the procedures they perform, but that doesn’t mean they can identify the appropriate anesthetic or design an effective course of follow-up physical therapy. And there are also constraints on how many different procedures they can master: That is why orthopedic practices often have a “knee-guy” and an “ankle-guy.”

That’s because individual knowledge is narrow. We retain what we need to guide our actions and forget much of the rest of what we learn. This is why teaching high-school students personal finance is almost completely ineffective at fostering positive financial behaviors later in life—if you don’t use it, you lose it.

… It can be dangerous to rely too heavily on what experts call System 1 thinking—automatic judgments that stem from associations stored in memory—instead of logically working through the information that’s available. No doubt, System 1 is critical to survival. It’s what makes you swerve to avoid a car accident. But as the psychologist Daniel Kahneman has shown, it’s also a common source of bias that can result in poor decision making, because our intuitions frequently lead us astray. Other sources of bias involve flawed System 2 thinking—essentially, deliberate reasoning gone awry. Cognitive limitations or laziness, for example, might cause people to focus intently on the wrong things or fail to seek out relevant information.

We are all susceptible to such biases, especially when we’re fatigued, stressed, or multitasking. Just think of a CEO who’s negotiating a merger while also under pressure from lawyers to decide on a plant closing and from colleagues to manage layoffs. In situations like this, we’re far from decision-ready—we’re mentally, emotionally, and physically spent. We cope by relying even more heavily on intuitive, System 1 judgments and less on careful reasoning. Decision making becomes faster and simpler, but quality often suffers.