… “That doesn’t add up at all,” Tim DiFrancesco, the co-founder of TD Athletes Edge who served as the Los Angeles Lakers’ head strength and conditioning coach for six seasons, told B/R. “Lots of players at the NBA level have scapular imbalance or a lack of appropriately conditioned muscles that attach to the shoulder blades, therefore leading to poor scapular mechanics.”
The scapula is the anatomical term for shoulder blade. These bones attach the upper arm to the collarbone on either side of the body. Three muscles control upward rotation and retraction of the shoulder blades. If these muscles are imbalanced, it can lead to poor mechanics as the arms move through flexion and extension—the way they do when a player shoots a basketball. Repetition of these poor mechanics, ultimately, can lead to pain and injury.
But scapular imbalance, by itself, does not cause pain, DiFrancesco said. So while that may have been the cause of whatever injury Fultz has, it is not an injury.
… “First of all, I want to be healthy,” Rodgers said. “That’s the most important thing. But if we’re healthy in eight weeks and it would make sense to come back, then I’m going to come back.”
Rodgers was placed on injured reserve Oct. 20. He must sit out at least eight weeks, which means the earliest he could possibly play would be Week 15 at Carolina — if his surgically repaired right clavicle is healed.
There will be no weekly will-he-play sessions like there were in 2013, when Rodgers broke his left clavicle. He did not have surgery for that injury and returned after missing seven games. He returned to practice several weeks earlier but wasn’t cleared until right before the regular-season finale.
… “I hate cliches about being four years older and more experienced,” said Yarnold, 29, who is aiming to become the first athlete to retain an Olympic skeleton title.
“But I understand myself a lot more now.
“Physically I’m a bit faster and stronger than before Sochi.
The haunting comes when it’s dark and quiet and Sebastian Lletget has nothing more than his imagination to keep him company.
More than seven months after the surgery that ended his season but may have preserved his career, Lletget still wakes in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat and doubt, wondering if he’ll ever again be as good as he was when he went down with an uncommon injury 15 minutes into his first competitive game with the U.S. national team in March.
A small study published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association found that people who took group exercise classes reported less stress and more physical, emotional and mental health benefits than those who exercised alone or did not hit the gym at all, suggesting that a social atmosphere may compound the already numerous benefits of physical activity.
At the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, 69 people in their first or second year of medical school—typically a very stressful time—were recruited for the study. One group of students did at least one 30-minute core training class together each week; another exercised alone or with one or two other people at least twice a week; and a third didn’t engage in any physical activity beyond walking or biking for transportation. Students were allowed to choose their own group.
The first Young Athletes Forum Convention (YAF) recently took place in Montreux, Switzerland. World leading experts from sports science and sports medicine met with other stakeholders to discuss the hottest topics in relation to young athletes. In this blog we share some of the key messages, which may be of special interest to early career scientists and doctors.
How does one select and manage young athletes to senior levels with maximum efficiency and effectiveness?
Manuel Coelho-E-Silva, from the University of Coimbra (Portugal), highlighted that the biological maturation varies inter-individually in rate and timing. He suggests that trainers should take this into account for young athletes training and selection.
In analyzing more than 8,200 games from Grand Slam tennis matches, Alex Krumer of the University of St. Gallen and his colleagues found that the male players’ performance showed a larger drop in high-stakes games (relative to low-stakes games) than the female players’ performance did. Their conclusion: Women respond better than men to competitive pressure.
International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching from
Traditional coaching views the coach as an informed resource and the athlete as a reflection of expert knowledge. Recent approaches have criticised a strictly coach driven model of expertise, and in doing so have acknowledged the unique and developing knowledge of athletes, which emerges from extended practice. The growth of the athlete’s contribution in the coach–athlete dyad invites interesting questions about the usefulness of athlete knowledge and the changing role of the coach. Athlete–coach agreement was assessed via a triangulation of quantitative boat speed data from a single sculler and matched to phases of successful rowing that rowers and coaches both agreed on. Coach and rower were able to identify when the boat was travelling its fastest or slowest. However, when the performance was marginally faster or slower, they disagreed, and generally the rowers were more accurate about the performance than their coach. Implications for contemporary coaching practices are considered.
Researchers at EPFL have developed a new device and analysis method that let doctors measure the neurochemicals in a patient’s brain. The Microsystems Laboratory 4 (LMIS4)’s system involves collecting microdroplets of cerebral fluid and analyzing them to obtain chemical data that can help doctors diagnose and treat neurodegenerative diseases.
The Apple Watch, Fitbit and other popular wearable trackers today can monitor steps, heart rate, and even sleep.
But what will they be able to do in five years?
These technology companies are in a race to develop new biosensors that can track a whole lot more about the human body.The hope is that a new wave of technologies would open up more opportunities to detect medical problems like abnormal heart rhythms, using consumer-friendly devices that people will be comfortable wearing everyday.
Here’s what’s coming next, according to 3 biomedical experts interviewed by CNBC.
The dusty road through central Eldoret is peppered with pharmacies, incongruous modernity in a landscape of urban African low rise. It is an indication that perhaps not all is as it seems in this mecca for athletes from around the world.
A few miles from the hubbub, in what is at best a shack in a field, the athlete sitting in front of me breaks down in tears when I ask him about doping and what he knows. He is frightened — and with good reason.
He has trained with world-class runners from his own country and overseas, although initially he claims never to have done so. He then admits he has — but can’t talk about it. He won’t go near the subject of drugs because he remains traumatised after being arrested and interrogated after being caught buying doping products. He fears prison.
They offer players a putrid punch in the nose but likely little actual performance boost. So how exactly did smelling salts become an essential part of NFL game days?