Behind every NFL player is a supporting cast that includes trainers, coaches, advisers, family and friends. The Super Bowl, then, isn’t just a culmination for players. People behind the scenes also are fully invested.
As former Bears wide receiver Alshon Jeffery prepares to help the Eagles offense Sunday against the Patriots in Super Bowl LII, he continues to benefit from a connection that formed in Chicago during his five seasons here.
West Loop physical therapist David Reavy has traveled to Philadelphia each week this season to help Jeffery stay healthy, perform well and get the big contract Jeffery so unabashedly coveted.
Over the past seven months Kenny Saief has been to hell and back. But now after changes in both his club and national team as well a frightening stay in the hospital, he has returned and is playing outstanding soccer. Next he wants to be part of rebuilding the United States national team.
… if you sit down with Amanda Kessel, as ESPN did over coffee last week, three days before she jetted off to Pyeongchang for the 2018 Olympics, it’s clear that she’s actually a pretty regular 26-year-old. She’s addicted to coffee and drinks several cups a day. She also loves to shop — perhaps too much, as her mother often reminds her — and has been contemplating her Olympic packing list for weeks.
She has regular 26-year-old problems, too. For example: “I’m kind of stressing because I really need to find a job,” she says, “and figure out what I’m going to do with my life.”
It’s a sobering reminder that as far as women’s hockey has come in this country, it still has a ways to go. And also that the root of Team USA is humility — even as its players absorb a brighter spotlight than ever before, they are fiercely focused on reaching the gold medal game again and getting revenge on rival Canada. After that, Kessel says, she’ll figure out what comes next.
Sometimes when Lizzy Yarnold is hurtling down a skeleton track at 85mph her mind wanders ever so slightly and she notices the smells wafting from the stands or a flag in her peripheral vision, even as the corners loom and then whoosh past at frightening speeds. Almost always, something else happens, too: her jaw locks with tension.
“My mouth becomes fixed and open almost like in a scare mask,” she says, laughing. “It’s really weird. And then I have to tell myself after about three corners: ‘OK, Lizzy, you can relax, it’s fine … it’s OK.’ There’s a lot of self-talk going on.”
Years ago Yarnold would try to eat a protein chocolate bar at the end of each run, only to find herself unable to chew it properly because her jaw was so sore. “I couldn’t work out why for ages,” she says. “Then suddenly I understood. I guess it is because I’m so focused, looking through my eyebrows with my eyes right down.”
… Here’s the deal: there is more than one way to train, more than one path to running injury free and race fast. I’ve had the chance to listen to nine different coaches talk about training – on everything from 800m training for high school athletes to training a Boston Marathon champion – over three different Boulder Running Clinics events. Here are some takeaways.
Hills
Short hills are part of the recipe for John O’Malley’s athletes. He’s not only the first person to coach two Footlocker champions, in outdoor track he consistently has some of the fastest 4x800m relay teams in the country. He uses short hills and his kids run them fast.
AJC.com, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Ken Segiura from
In his endeavor to shape Georgia Tech basketball players into their strongest, most explosive and best conditioned selves, Dan Taylor has sought to profit from his colleagues who conduct groundbreaking research in science and technology.
“A lot of schools don’t have the ability to say, ‘Well, let’s just go to the biomechanics lab,’” said Taylor, the Yellow Jackets’ strength-and-conditioning coach for men’s basketball.
That’s why last fall, Taylor did in fact venture over to said lab, known formally as the Comparative Neuromechanics Laboratory. At the same time, when he was hired by coach Josh Pastner in May 2016, among Taylor’s inherited charges was an ideal guinea pig.
Center Ben Lammers is finishing his Tech career, a reality that Taylor laments not only for the productive play that Lammers has given the Jackets but also because, as a mechanical engineering major, Lammers is fluent in the language of Tech and tech.
The aim of this study was to investigate potential moderators (i.e. lower body strength, repeated-sprint ability [RSA] and maximal velocity) of injury risk within a team-sport cohort. Design
Observational Cohort Study. Methods
Forty male amateur hurling players (age: 26.2 ± 4.4 yr, height: 184.2 ± 7.1 cm, mass: 82.6 ± 4.7 kg) were recruited. During a two-year period, workload (session RPE x duration), injury and physical qualities were assessed. Specific physical qualities assessed were a three-repetition maximum Trapbar deadlift, 6 × 35-m repeated-sprint (RSA) and 5-, 10- and 20-m sprint time. All derived workload and physical quality measures were modelled against injury data using regression analysis. Odds ratios (OR) were reported against a reference group. Results
Moderate weekly loads between ≥ 1400 AU and ≤ 1900 AU were protective against injury during both the pre-season (OR: 0.44, 95%CI: 0.18–0.66) and in-season periods (OR: 0.59, 95% CI: 0.37–0.82) compared to a low load reference group (≤ 1200 AU). When strength was considered as a moderator of injury risk, stronger athletes were better able to tolerate the given workload at a reduced risk. Stronger athletes were also better able to tolerate larger week-to-week changes ( > 550 AU to 1000 AU) in workload than weaker athletes (OR = 2.54–4.52). Athletes who were slower over 5-m (OR: 3.11, 95% CI: 2.33–3.87), 10-m (OR: 3.45, 95% CI: 2.11–4.13) and 20-m (OR: 3.12, 95% CI: 2.11–4.13) were at increased risk of injury compared to faster athletes. When repeated-sprint total time (RSAt) was considered as a moderator of injury risk at a given workload (≥ 1750 AU), athletes with better RSAt were at reduced risk compared to those with poor RSAt (OR: 5.55, 95%: 3.98–7.94). Conclusions
These findings demonstrate that well-developed lower-body strength, RSA and speed are associated with better tolerance to higher workloads and reduced risk of injury in team-sport athletes.
Inadequate sleep (e.g., an insufficient duration of sleep per night) can reduce physical performance and has been linked to adverse metabolic health outcomes. Resistance exercise is an effective means to maintain and improve physical capacity and metabolic health, however, the outcomes for populations who may perform resistance exercise during periods of inadequate sleep are unknown. The primary aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the effect of sleep deprivation (i.e. no sleep) and sleep restriction (i.e. a reduced sleep duration) on resistance exercise performance. A secondary aim was to explore the effects on hormonal indicators or markers of muscle protein metabolism. Methods
A systematic search of five electronic databases was conducted with terms related to three combined concepts: inadequate sleep; resistance exercise; performance and physiological outcomes. Study quality and biases were assessed using the Effective Public Health Practice Project quality assessment tool. Results
Seventeen studies met the inclusion criteria and were rated as ‘moderate’ or ‘weak’ for global quality. Sleep deprivation had little effect on muscle strength during resistance exercise. In contrast, consecutive nights of sleep restriction could reduce the force output of multi-joint, but not single-joint movements. Results were conflicting regarding hormonal responses to resistance training. Conclusion
Inadequate sleep impairs maximal muscle strength in compound movements when performed without specific interventions designed to increase motivation. Strategies to assist groups facing inadequate sleep to effectively perform resistance training may include supplementing their motivation by training in groups or ingesting caffeine; or training prior to prolonged periods of wakefulness.
… “There really isn’t anywhere in this gym that you can’t see or get to,” said Lisa Sparrow, Achieve’s program manager and a winner of multiple state championships as the head gymnastics coach at Overland High School.
Why the need for so much transparency? “We can’t afford not to,” said Alan Herron, Achieve’s operations manager.
The dark reality of youth sports is the potential for an adult to take advantage of their position of trust with an athlete and cause irreparable harm.
Amazon Web Services’ combination of cloud, data science, and machine learning has provided a whole new lens to understand football. Here’s the inside story of the NFL’s big data experiment.
… “If you can find out what a student is passionate about, then you never have to worry about them again,” Stansbury said.
Stansbury gave this personal story and several other bits of advice during a Create-X Deep Startup information session discussing sports innovation. The session, which was held on Thursday, Jan. 25, allowed attendees to ask questions and learn first hand the challenges of running an athletic program at a large public university and of opportunities to solve problems within the larger sports landscape.
Stansbury offered his personal thoughts on which sectors will offer the most room for newcomers to enter and innovate.
“As far as the what?” Stansbury said. “It’s so big. It’s so big because there’s performance, there’s wearables, there’s analytics, there’s a better way to train, there’s the next Gatorade, there’s fan experience and how do we make a better fan experience? How do we sell more tickets?”
… “Our number one priority is player health and safety,” Goodell said. “And Russell is one of the most active players, not in just health and safety, but also in every aspect of our business. We talk all the time about different ideas that he has on the business. That makes us better. We appreciate that. These guys are on the field, they give us a perspective, they give these technologies an opportunity to be put on the biggest stage. And all of that is our number one priority, to make this game safer for those players. We’ve invested over $200 million. We are the largest research funder for concussion research. … And I think that’s because we believe we are in a leadership position. We have to do that for our players, but also to a point Russell made, we share that data. We share that with every level of football, we share it with every sport, we share it with our military because all of this is about learning. All of this is about getting a better understanding of the brain, traumatic injuries, and frankly all injuries. This is not exclusive to concussions, this is really about injuries to every part of the body. And we can all learn together and make every sport, frankly life, better for everybody.”
On Saturday, the NFL and its partners awarded $50,000 prizes and Super Bowl tickets to three winners in the categories of Advancements in Protective Equipment, New Therapies to Speed Recovery, and Technology to Improve Athletic Performance, in a “Shark Tank” style pitch contest.
Competition in Europe’s biggest leagues is being “destroyed” by clubs who have “huge financial power”, says Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger.
Frenchman Wenger pointed to examples in France, Germany, England and Spain.
Paris St-Germain are 11 points clear in Ligue 1, Bayern Munich have a 16-point advantage in the Bundesliga and Manchester City are 15 points ahead at the top of the Premier League.
Wenger said it was clear that “unpredictability has gone down”.
He added: “When you look at the five big leagues in Europe, in December we already knew four champions.
The best game of an otherwise mostly uninspiring, listless NFL regular season was a thrilling, back-and-forth battle on Dec. 10, 2017 between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Los Angeles Rams.
Two of the NFC’s best teams and most exciting offenses took turns electrifying the LA Coliseum crowd, with Rams running back Todd Gurley rushing for two touchdowns and Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz matching him play for play before eventually leading the Eagles to a game-winning touchdown. It was a crowning achievement for Wentz, a second-year player leading a beloved NFL franchise to a critical road win. In the process, the young quarterback established his team as a Super Bowl contender and cemented his own status as a league MVP candidate.
Then, even as Eagles fans were celebrating their victory, the news broke: Wentz had torn his ACL and would miss the rest of the season. It was a sickening — if familiar — announcement for fans this year. In Texas, Houston’s rookie phenom DeShaun Watson, shortly after electrifying the league with a 402-yard, four-touchdown performance against the stout Seahawks defense, tore his ACL in practice and was also out for the rest of his season.
Soccer coaches are always looking to discover the next star player, without investing the necessary resources, time, and effort into a player’s development. In the modern era, talent identification in soccer seems to be a comparative process rather than a developmental process. This article will look at the physiological profiles of soccer players in the modern era and how testing and talent identification processes should coincide with this data. Design
An extensive literature search identifying the physiological attributes of soccer players that are required to compete at an elite level was conducted. An examination of the methods to test these attributes was also conducted. Methods
Studies were assigned into three areas to understand the physiological aspect of soccer: physiological testing methods, benchmark values, and correlations between different tests. Results
A testing battery was established to test the key physiological attributes of prospective youth soccer players. Benchmark levels were also identified to allow coaches to understand areas of improvement. Conclusions
Using a physiological testing battery will allow teams to track their players’ progress throughout their developmental years. This allows coaches to consistently identify a player’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as allow players who may experience late maturation to still be identified.