Applied Sports Science newsletter – March 30, 2018

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for March 30, 2018

 

The man rebuilding Porzingis: ‘He’s going to be phenomenal’

New York Post, Marc Berman from

Dr. Carlon Colker is bubbling with muscles and with optimism regarding his difficult task in resculpting Kristaps Porzingis for next season.

“Despite the talk, ‘The sky is falling, he’ll never be the same,’ that’s a bunch of horse s–t,’’ Colker told The Post. “He’ll be better than ever. He’s going to be blow people away. If you’re around people who know what they’re doing, it’s not the end of the world. It’s the end of the world if you have the wrong people around you.”

With a doctorate specializing in sports performance, Colker’s job is strengthening Porzingis’ frame — everything but his damaged left knee. Hence, he must make adjustments.

 

SOMETHING TO PROVE

Sportsnet.ca, Ben Nicholson-Smith from

With his team’s success and millions of dollars riding on a return to form, Aaron Sanchez is ready to show all of baseball he’s still an all-star.

 

How US women’s soccer is trying to make this revolution last

New York Post, Hannah Withiam from

… “It’s now three years longer than any other league has lasted, but there is no divine right to exist,” former United States Soccer president Sunil Gulati told The Post recently. “It needs support, it needs strong owners, it needs players who are committed. And we’re not at the level we want to be in terms of player compensation, in terms of standards, any of those things.

“But it’s gotten better every year, and many people would say it’s already the best league in the world.”

A watershed deal last year between US Soccer and the women’s national team strengthened that foundation. Ending a public dispute that took off in March 2016, when a group of players filed a wage discrimination complaint, the two sides struck a collective bargaining agreement the following April that, among other terms, committed more dollars to national team players’ salaries and more resources to improving playing and living standards. It runs through 2021.

 

Tsunami of young stars ready to change tennis landscape as we know it

ESPN Tennis, Peter Bodo from

… “It does seem like something special is happening,” Tiafoe said Tuesday, after losing to No. 6 seed Kevin Anderson. (Tiafoe had to bounce back to play after finishing off a rain-interrupted match with Tomas Berdych.) “It seems that each and every week someone is breaking through. It’s coming in a massive wave.”

Call it a tsunami that threatens to wash away the established ATP pecking order.

Thirteen players between the ages of 18 (Denis Shapovalov) and 23 (Kyle Edmund) and won at least one match at this Miami Open. This is a generation that has already spawned two certified stars in 20-year-old world No. 5 Alexander Zverev and Nick Kyrgios, 22. They have a lot of backup, too, as others in the cohort are capturing the imagination and allegiance of legions of fans mourning the tribulations of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka.

 

‘Each person has an equation’: Mariners’ high-performance expert is carving her own path

Q13 FOX News, Michelle Ludtka from

The Mariners’ 2018 season gets underway Thursday against the Indians at Safeco Field. For several years, the squad has been plagued with injuries and have failed to reach their promised potential. This year, the team has a new member who could change that.

Her name is Dr. Lorena Martin, and she’s the club’s first director of high performance. In that role, Martin will oversee all of the Mariners’ physical and mental training, creating a more holistic approach to managing the players in hopes of better results on the field. While she’s never played baseball herself, Martin is beyond qualified to take it on. She’s got a masters in Psychology, a PhD in Exercise Physiology and three post doctorates. But her personal journey might just be her biggest asset.

Martin has been with the Mariners for nearly five months now and said she has never felt like an outsider.

“There is sense of a good relationship and I think it comes from we see eye to eye. They know that I can relate,” Martin said.

 

How Prior Experience Influences Working Memory

Simons Foundation, Global Brain, Alla Katsnelson from

The posterior parietal cortex plays a role in a process called contraction bias, which controls how our sensory history shapes perception.

 

The downside of year-round hockey: Ottawa Senators strength coach warns of declining athleticism among youth

National Post, Wayne Scanlan from

Chris Schwarz has a dream job.

As the strength and conditioning coach of the Ottawa Senators, Schwarz helps keep world-class athletes such as Erik Karlsson, Kyle Turris and Mark Stone finely tuned.

Schwarz isn’t referring to those star players, nor is he citing recent flu virus issues in the NHL when he says: “I can’t tell you how we’re in trouble. It’s an epidemic.”

Schwarz is talking about the lack of athleticism among our youth, even including some elite hockey players who didn’t play other sports or freelance in the playgrounds as children. He offers this simple test for parents: “Ask your kid if he or she can somersault. See if they can play catch with both hands. Can they run backwards? Do those three things. I think most parents would be astonished that their kids can’t do it.”

 

U.S. Soccer Partners with STATSports as Official On-Field Performance Monitoring Device

U.S. Soccer from

In a milestone agreement, the world’s largest GPS partnership will provide performance monitoring units to players across the U.S. Men’s, Women’s, Youth, Paralympic, Futsal and Beach National Teams, Development Academy clubs and NWSL.

The systematic approach between U.S. Soccer and STATSports will align data, information and support within the elite player pathway as U.S. Soccer continues its primary mission to develop world class players, coaches and referees. The partnership will result in the world’s largest player data monitoring program and is seen as a platform to identify future stars of the game. It is also the first step towards giving coaches and players across the U.S. access to the performance technology used by the top professionals and teams around the world.

A highlight of the partnership is the servicing of the technology to U.S. Soccer Development Academy teams.

 

Carl Gunnarsson’s ACL Injury: Prevention, prevalence, and treatment

SB Nation, St. Louis Game Time, Dan Buffa from

… The 21 year old center hurt it during the 2016-17 season and missed the majority of the season. Then, in late September, Fabbri re-injured the same surgically repaired left knee. You’d have to look long and hard for a hockey player tearing the same ACL twice in one calendar year.

Gunnarsson was having a fine season (5 goals, 4 assists, +15) before the injury, and for a team who has dealt with numerous setbacks throughout the season, it was bad timing for the Blues and their playoff hopes.

So, how do these lower-body injuries happen and how common are they?

After infusing my body with a couple cups of coffee this morning, I spoke with Dr. Riley Williams III, a sports medicine surgeon from the Hospital for Special Surgery, about the ACL injury and the preventative measures as well as the treatment that goes into it. HSS is a world leader in sports medicine and rehabilitation.

 

‘The future is in the data’ — How wearable technology will beat Tommy John

Becker's Spine Review, Eric Oliver from

Ulnar collateral ligament tears continue to devastate the ranks of both Major League and Little League Baseball, with the total number of UCL reconstructions climbing almost every year for the last two decades, according to research published in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine.

Sports medicine stakeholders are hopeful the implementation of workload management and the active dissuasion against single-sport specialization at a young age will mitigate the UCL problem in the future, and wearable technology promises to yield a greater amount of data than ever before. These and other advances seek to make the Tommy John epidemic a thing of the past.

Becker’s Spine Review spoke with Neal ElAttrache, MD, of Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute; Steve Jordan, MD, of Gulf Breeze, Fla.-based Andrews Institute for Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine; and Will Carroll of Motus Global — a wearable technology company that caters to athletes — about the prevalence of UCL tears in baseball and the emergence of wearable technology.

 

Why the heck can’t scientists agree on what is good to eat?

BJSM blog, Dr. Scott Lear from

… It’s not that scientists (like me) are trying to pull the wool over everybody’s heads (although studying something in which it is hard to ever come to a definitive conclusion is a great way for a scientist to continue to have work). It’s just that studying nutrition is extremely difficult.

A number of things make it difficult to understand what ideal nutrition is. Probably the number one complexity that we can’t change is that we need food to live. It’s not like smoking in which the ideal number of cigarettes smoked is zero. So we can’t just tell people what not to eat (which unfortunately happens). In addition, we need a variety of foods to live and thrive. We can’t survive for very long on one type of food.

Another issue is trying to find out what a person eats. Of course we can ask people what they eat, and people are usually pretty good but

 

Tenorio: Inside the ongoing roster build at LAFC with GM John Thorrington

MLSsoccer.com, Paul Tenorio from

… Ahead of the club’s first crosstown clash with the LA Galaxy on Saturday (3 pm ET | FOX; MLS LIVE on DAZN and TVAS2 in Canada), LAFC put the final big piece of its expansion roster in place this week.

Portuguese midfielder Andre Horta was signed as the team’s third Designated Player on a transfer from Benfica for a reported $7 million fee. The transfer was not an easy one to get over the finish line; there were several hoops to jump through to get it finalized. Even now, the player’s loan to SC Braga complicates the deal, with LAFC unsure when their newest signing will actually join the club.

But LAFC leaders knew Horta fit every quality they sought in that final DP spot, and so they stayed patient to complete the roster in the way that decision-making filter determined was best.

 

A new launching point

The Boston Globe, Alex Spier from

The Red Sox signed the poster boy for baseball’s launch angle revolution, and hope embracing the hitting philosophy leads to powerful results.

 

Can Liverpool handle a crucial stretch with four games in 11 days?

ESPN FC, Dave Usher from

As Liverpool prepare for a potentially season-defining four games in 11 days, the last thing they really needed was an international break. Rarely do they emerge from them with a clean bill of health and this one has been no different, with Joe Gomez and Emre Can reporting back early after suffering injuries while with their national sides.

There was also a minor scare surrounding Andrew Robertson, who was forced off midway through the second half of Scotland’s 1-0 win in Hungary on Tuesday. Fortunately Robertson appears to be fine but with such an intense schedule to manage, Jurgen Klopp is going to have to think long and hard about how to best use his squad.

 

Now at the tipping point, football analytics offer new view of the game

SiliconANGLE, Mark Albertson from

Walk into any National Football League stadium on game day and the scene is similar in many ways. There are cheerleaders, music, a very large scoreboard, vendors hawking food and drink in the aisles, and two helmet-clad teams doing battle on the field.

Yet, what many people may not realize is that the game taking place in front of them has actually become a massive data-generating machine, where everything from the players and referees to the first-down markers, end-zone pylons and even the ball itself have embedded chips generating reams of real-time data from start to finish. Welcome to the sports enterprise at the edge.

“We can track minute types of information, like players moving around a football field, and translate it into usable information,” said John Pollard (pictured), vice president of sports business development at Zebra Technologies Corp. “We’ve kind of hit that tipping point where there’s general acceptance and a lot of excitement about the data.”

 

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