Seldom do you get a peek behind the hood of one of the best runner’s in history. But with the release of his training in the months leading up to his Berlin marathon victory, we get just that with a training log of Eliud Kipchoge.
As someone who believes in the sharing of training to help push coaching forward, I can do nothing but applaud Kipchoge. Far too often, we hoard our training logs, acting as if we have discovered some mythical secret that we couldn’t dare pass on to others. But, in looking at Kipchoge’s training there is one distinct lesson: there is no secret.
… There is no cheating when it comes to Parsons’ primary challenge. He’s looking to revive his career, which is at a crossroads after season-ending knee surgeries in each of the past three years. And there is no polite way to put it: Parsons was miserable last season. During the first year of the four-year, $94 million max deal in Memphis, he provided precious few glimpses of the talent the Grizzlies deemed worth the risk despite his previous knee problems. He averaged career lows virtually across the board (6.2 points per game, 2.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 33.8 field goal percentage) and played in only 34 games. Parsons heard boos at home games even before being shut down in March to undergo arthroscopic surgery to repair the torn meniscus in his left (“good”) knee.
“You get paid a certain salary, you’re judged, and you’re expected to perform at the highest level when you’re getting paid at the highest level,” Parsons says. “To put it simply, I didn’t last year. I truly believe it was 95 percent injury. I don’t think I’ve lost my game or lost a step.
… James Shields had one way of throwing. More and more often, his pitches were getting pounded. And so, early this past August, Shields lowered his arm slot on the fly. Not just once, not just twice. Permanently. Shields made a significant mechanical tweak, and he’s stuck with it ever since.
You can see how things have changed in this plot of vertical release points, from Brooks Baseball.
… Before games, Adams thinks about a checklist. “We talk about 100 to 70 moments,” he says. “Slowing yourself down, playing with an ease and being smooth when I have the ball.”
Adams felt confident before his first start against Real Salt Lake in March, but he couldn’t be entirely sure how he’d perform until the whistle blew. He didn’t need to worry. “I made one good pass within the first 10 minutes of the game and everything slowed down,” he says.
Eighteen starts and more than 1,500 minutes later, Adams is thriving primarily in his preferred position as a freelancing, box-to-box midfielder but also as a defensive midfielder or an emergency full-back. While the injury-plagued Red Bulls aren’t in position to win the Supporters’ Shield as they did last season, they came close to winning the Open Cup, losing 2-1 to Sporting Kansas City, and look destined to make the MLS playoffs. Once they get there, it’s all about getting the trophy.
From Samsung’s Gear Fit 2 Pro and Gear Sport to the Fitbit Ionic, and of course the Apple Watch Series 3, it seems like every major tech company is coming out with a new fitness tracker or smartwatch these days.
But while the use of fitness trackers is on the rise, certain characteristics—like age and income—determine how likely a person is to purchase and wear one in the first place. People who pick up fitness trackers are likely to use them for at least six months, but those people are also most likely to be young and have higher incomes, according to a new study from the University of Pennsylvania.
In other words: People who use fitness trackers often, and who continue to use them, tend to be fit already. On the other hand, people who could actually benefit the most from fitness trackers often opt not to use them at all.
… Joe Costello, a senior lecturer in exercise physiology said, “I have used FLIR Systems thermal cameras in Australia, Ireland and the UK as my measurement technology of choice to assess human skin temperature. My research group is currently using FLIR thermal imaging cameras to examine the effects of different stress factors including temperature, hypoxia, clothing and exercise on human skin temperature.”
Costello added, “The greatest advantage of thermal imaging over traditional methods of assessing skin temperature is the fact that it is non-invasive and portable. Thermal imaging does not have to be in contact with the skin, an obvious advantage for measurement, especially in a clinical context. Contact devices such as skin thermistors and thermocouples often consist of a thin metallic foil which serves as a heat spreader backed by a foam insulation pad. This has the potential of creating a layer of insulation over the area of skin being assessed and therefore significantly degrades the accuracy of the measured temperature. This artefact of testing, recording, and reporting erroneous skin temperature data is therefore troublesome. Another advantage that our FLIR thermal cameras offer over thermistors is the wealth of data that they can collect. Using our FLIR cameras, temperature variation over large areas of skin can be quantified quickly and accurately.”
Background Medical screening and load monitoring procedures are commonly used in professional football to assess factors perceived to be associated with injury.
Objectives To identify prognostic factors (PFs) and models for lower extremity and spinal musculoskeletal injuries in professional/elite football players from medical screening and training load monitoring processes.
Methods The MEDLINE, AMED, EMBASE, CINAHL Plus, SPORTDiscus and PubMed electronic bibliographic databases were searched (from inception to January 2017). Prospective and retrospective cohort studies of lower extremity and spinal musculoskeletal injury incidence in professional/elite football players aged between 16 and 40 years were included. The Quality in Prognostic Studies appraisal tool and the modified Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation synthesis approach was used to assess the quality of the evidence.
Results Fourteen studies were included. 16 specific lower extremity injury outcomes were identified. No spinal injury outcomes were identified. Meta-analysis was not possible due to heterogeneity and study quality. All evidence related to PFs and specific lower extremity injury outcomes was of very low to low quality. On the few occasions where multiple studies could be used to compare PFs and outcomes, only two factors demonstrated consensus. A history of previous hamstring injuries (HSI) and increasing age may be prognostic for future HSI in male players.
Conclusions The assumed ability of medical screening tests to predict specific musculoskeletal injuries is not supported by the current evidence. Screening procedures should currently be considered as benchmarks of function or performance only. The prognostic value of load monitoring modalities is unknown. [full text]
… a 2016 study traced noninfectious markers inoculated into a patient room floor and found the marker was rapidly transferred to hands and other high-touch surfaces both inside and outside the room. (CDI and MRSA are tracked as part of the current Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program.)
When parents of young athletes reel off their kids’ sports-related health issues, they usually think of sprains, broken bones and concussions. Infectious diseases may not even make the list.
But to pediatricians, the close contact and casual equipment give and take that are often components of team bonding can also be a breeding ground for infection. A new clinical report released Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics focuses on how to prevent and control outbreaks of infectious diseases in organized sports.
“All kinds of things travel through the teams,” said Dr. Stephen G. Rice, who is starting his 43rd season as a high school team doctor. Adolescents can often be “sort of sloppy about sharing water bottles, equipment, sometimes even helmets,” said Dr. Rice, the director of sports medicine at Jersey Shore University Medical Center and one of the authors of the report.
Managing injury risk is important for maximising athlete availability and performance. Although athletes are inherently predisposed to musculoskeletal injuries by participating in sports, etiology models have illustrated how susceptibility is influenced by repeat interactions between the athlete (i.e. intrinsic factors) and environmental stimuli (i.e. extrinsic factors). Such models also reveal that the likelihood of an injury emerging across time is related to the interconnectedness of multiple factors cumulating in a pattern of either positive (i.e. increased fitness) or negative adaptation (i.e. injury).
The process of repeatedly exposing athletes to workloads in order to promote positive adaptations whilst minimising injury risk can be difficult to manage. Etiology models have highlighted that preventing injuries in sport, as opposed to reducing injury risk, is likely impossible given our inability to appreciate the interactions of the factors at play. Given these uncertainties, practitioners need to be able to design, deliver, and monitor risk management strategies that ensure a low susceptibility to injury is maintained during pursuits to enhance performance. The current article discusses previous etiology and injury prevention models before proposing a new operational framework.
On a typical Tuesday in Berkeley, California, there are many places you can find Cal’s starting goalkeeper, Emily Boyd.
The classroom. The soccer field. Even on Instagram.
The app is a popular forum, of course, for posting photos of daily life. But Boyd has found a different use for it, through her account, @eboydsfood: To help others live a healthier lifestyle through food and fitness.
Harvard Gazette, Brigham & Women's Hospital Communications from
Sleep disorders and sleep deficiency are hidden costs that affect employers across the U.S. Seventy percent of Americans admit that they routinely get insufficient sleep, and 30 percent of U.S. workers and 44 percent of night-shift workers report sleeping less than six hours a night. In addition, an estimated 50 million–70 million people have a sleep disorder, often undiagnosed. In total, the costs attributable to sleep deficiency in the U.S. were estimated to exceed $410 billion in 2015, equivalent to 2.28 percent of the gross domestic product.
Analysis of existing data, using a new Fatigue Cost Calculator developed through the Sleep Matters Initiative at Brigham Health for the National Safety Council (NSC), reveal that a U.S. employer with 1,000 workers can lose about $1.4 million dollars each year in absenteeism, diminished productivity, health care costs, accidents, and other occupational costs associated with exhausted employees, many of whom have undiagnosed and untreated sleep disorders.
… “One of its biggest limitations is you can’t break it down. You can’t see a guy’s RPM in the third quarter of games against good opponents. You can’t do that.
“And if you want to manage a team, it’s extremely useful to have metrics that you can break down and answer questions, very specific questions that come up. RPM and all the adjusted plus-minus methods, you can’t really break down to specific segments or anything like that. That’s a very specific weakness for answering the kinds of questions you want answered.”
A team isn’t going to be able to probe RPM (or any adjusted plus-minus stats) to see how a player responds in different situations because the nature of them is to look at lineup changes, so sample sizes become too small to use.
When Philadelphia Eagles coach Doug Pederson was asked about his head-scratching decision to go for it on fourth-and-8 late in the first half against the New York Giants on Sunday, he began his explanation with a revelation.
“Yeah, it was something I discussed with the guy that’s helping me upstairs with some of the analytics,” Pederson began.
The English FA, recovering from the scandals surrounding the sacking of women’s national team coach Mark Sampson, has positive news for the women’s game with the announcement of a restructuring and expansion of the elite women’s game in the country.
From the start of the 2018-19 season the top division of the Women’s Super League (which kicked off its 2017-18 last weekend) could be increased from the current 10 teams to 14. All players required to be full time professionals.
The second tier will also be expanded, from 10 to a maximum of 12 teams, with players to be signed on a semi-professional basis.