… “A 7-2 Magic Johnson,” Knicks coach David Fizdale said as he over-inflated Jokic’s height in comparing him to the Los Angeles Lakers Hall of Famer. “He’s as good of a passer as any guard in the league. He can shoot 3s. But his ball handling is something I admire.”
Jokic (pronounced yo-kitch) sees the floor with a point guard’s vision, knocks down long-range jumpers with a shooting guard’s poise and drives with a big man’s mentality. He’s earned the respect of San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich, who’s spent some time chatting with Jokic. Popovich appreciates the various levels to the game of the 23-year-old from Serbia — enough to even rib him.
“He’s kind of pudgy,” Popovich cracked. “He doesn’t jump out of the gym. He doesn’t run that fast, but he might be one of the smartest players in the league. And he’s got skills and he knows how to use them and he enjoys the hell out of himself out there. He’s been very important for them, obviously.”
With the help of a custom tape-job and his own scribblings, Ottawa Sentors veteran Matt Duchene centers himself before each game by looking at his deeply personal stick.
… A study that appeared in the European Journal of Applied Physiology last year supports the idea that a little bit of strength training can go a long way for runners. Thirty-seven male runners between the ages of 21 and 45 participated in the study, which was conducted at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. All of the subjects ran three to four times a week throughout the study, which lasted eight weeks. Eleven of the subjects also did maximal strength-building workouts once or twice a week. Ten others did explosive power-building workouts instead. Another nine subjects did a mix of maximal strength-building and explosive power workouts. The remaining seven subjects did lighter circuit training.
The researchers in charge of the study put all of the subjects through a number of tests to determine the effects of the different types of strength training on both strength parameters and running performance parameters. Of course, the latter are all that matter to runners, but knowing the effects of each type of strength training on strength itself would help the researchers understand how it benefited running performance if it did.
The results? Maximal strength-building workouts, explosive strength training and a mix of the two produced equal improvements in dynamic strength, jump height, and maximal muscle activation. None of these protocols improved isometric strength (yoga would have been better for that) or rate of force development (or how quickly the muscles respond to the brain’s commands).
When we perceive the world around us, certain objects appear to be more noticeable than others, depending on what we do. For example, when we view a forest-covered mountain from a distance, the forest looks like a large green carpet. But as we get closer, we start noticing the individual trees, and the forest fades to the background. What happens in the brain as our experience changes so drastically?
For decades, scientists studying the visual system thought that individual brain cells, called neurons, operate as filters. Some neurons would prefer coarse details of the visual scene and ignore fine details, while others would do the opposite. Every neuron was thought to do its own filtering.
A new study led by Salk Institute researchers challenges this view. The study revealed that the same neurons that prefer coarse details could change to prefer finer details under different conditions. The work, which appeared in the journal Neuron on December 31, 2018, could help to better understand neural mechanisms that shape our perceptions of the world.
To investigate the construct and discriminant validity of a video-based decision-making assessment for talent identification in youth soccer. DESIGN:
Observational study. METHOD:
A total of 328 academy youth soccer players (tier one, tier two, and tier three) from three developmental stages (late childhood, early adolescence, and mid-adolescence) participated in this study. The control group consisted of 59 youth athletes with no soccer experience in the last five years. Players completed a video-based decision-making assessment on an iPad, with response accuracy and response time recorded for various attacking situations (2 vs. 1, 3 vs. 1, 3 vs. 2, 4 vs. 3, and 5 vs. 3). RESULTS:
The video-based decision-making assessment showed some construct validity. Response times were significantly faster in early and mid-adolescent players when compared to those in the late childhood group. Furthermore, an overall decline in decision-making performance (i.e. decrease in response accuracy and increase in response time) was observed from the 2 vs. 1 to the 4 vs. 3 situations. The video-based decision-making assessment lacked discriminant validity as minimal differences between academies were evident for response accuracy and response time. Only response accuracy was able to discriminate youth academy soccer players from the control group to some extent. CONCLUSIONS:
Coaches and sporting professionals should apply caution when interpreting data from practical, video-based decision-making assessments. There is currently limited conclusive evidence supporting the effectiveness of these assessments for talent identification.
PLOS One; Fabian Pels, Jens Kleinert, Florian Mennigen from
The purpose of this article is to provide a scoping review of the current literature on group flow. Based on the PRISMA-guidelines for systematic reviews, 26 publications were identified that met the inclusion criteria. Publication analyses comprised an individual consideration of each publication and a systematic, integrative synthesis of all publications. Analyses identified heterogeneous group flow definitions across publications, supporting the need for an integrative definition. Further heterogeneity existed in the theoretical approaches and measures used, highlighting the need for a comprehensive theory and a measurement standard. Components (e.g., synchronization), antecedents (e.g., trust), and outcomes (e.g., well-being) of group flow were identified in publications that presented empirical studies, some of which that showed similarities between characteristics of group flow and individual flow and others that showed aspects unique to group flow. Overall, this scoping review reveals the need for a systematic research program on group flow. [full text]
Human beings, like other animals, possess an enormous learning capacity that allows for the apprehension of new sensory information to master new skills or to adapt to an ever-changing environment. However, many of the mechanisms that enable us to learn remain poorly understood. One of the greatest challenges of systems neuroscience is to explain how synaptic connections change to support adaptive behaviours. Neuroscientists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, previously showed that synaptic learning mechanisms in the brain’s cortex are dependent on feedback from deeper brain regions. They have now precisely deciphered how this feedback gates synaptic strengthening by switching on and off particular inhibitory neurons. This study, which can be read in Neuron, not only constitutes an important milestone in our understanding of the mechanisms for perceptual learning but may also offer insight into computerized learning systems and artificial intelligence.
Just in time for those New Year’s resolutions, Lifesum, a Swedish health tracking app, will now be available to Google Assistant users. This integration will allow users to keep a record of their meals, water consumption and weight by talking to their Google Assistant.
Users can access the system by saying “Hey Google, talk to Lifesum,” according to a press release. Once opened the user can tell Google Assistant about their water consumption and meals, including size. All of that information will then be entered into the app automatically.
University of Colorado-Boulder, CU Boulder Today from
… “Sometimes he would just stop walking and I’d have to carry him home,” recalls Sargent, who has epilepsy and relies on her walks with Shane to help keep her seizures under control. “It was a struggle to see him in that much pain.”
Today, 10-year-old Shane’s pain and reliance on medication have been dramatically reduced and he’s bounding around like a puppy again, 18 months after receiving a single shot of an experimental gene therapy invented by CU Boulder neuroscientist Linda Watkins
Thus far, the opioid-free, long-lasting immune modulator known as XT-150 has been tested in more than 40 Colorado dogs with impressive results and no adverse effects. With human clinical trials now underway in Australia and California, Watkins is hopeful the treatment could someday play a role in addressing the nation’s chronic pain epidemic.
“I’m hoping the impact on pets, their guardians and people with chronic pain could be significant,” said Watkins, who has worked more than 30 years to bring her idea to fruition. “It’s been a long time coming.”
… When comparing the control and the intervention groups, the researchers found that pain tolerance increased, as did mindful awareness, in the group that added the mindfulness sessions. Both groups saw their moods improve as treatment went on. Stress levels decreased among participants.
The study utilized a specific, common meditation technique based on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), as an intervention for injured athletes, the first study to do so.
“Injured athletes can benefit from using mindfulness as part of the sport rehabilitation process to increase their pain tolerance and awareness. Further research is required to assess whether increasing pain tolerance could help in the therapeutic process,” the authors concluded.
The Conversation, Susan H Evans and Peter Clarke from
… Eating more fruits and vegetables has many health benefits. It helps reduce the risk of prevalent and chronic illnesses like diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Food banks began to distribute fresh produce in the mid 1990s marking a change from years of just giving shelf-stable items. They now offer hundreds of millions of pounds of produce through tens of thousands of food pantries every year.
But it often goes to waste because low-income people, like many Americans across the economic spectrum, are not eating a nutritious diet. When they don’t know what to do with free vegetables, they throw them out.
We are communications scholars who have researched and advised food banks and pantries, and their low-income clients for decades. We designed VeggieBook to help people like Paula and Jess prepare vegetables in a greater variety of appealing ways and to plan healthier family meals. We wrote recipes for it and tested and re-tested all of its content and interactive features. Only after such experimentation did we give our software programmer instructions to move forward.
… with his work with TFC seemingly completed, Bezbatchenko, 37, will soon be gone, set to take over as president of the Columbus Crew, Sportsnet has learned through sources. A native of nearby Westerville, Ohio, Bezbatchenko’s departure from Toronto and pending move to his hometown club was first reported by the Columbus Dispatch newspaper.
“Who is this guy, exactly? And how do you pronounce his name?” were just two of the questions routinely asked when Bezbatchenko took over as GM in 2013, the latest man charged with the Herculean task of turning a perennially floundering club into a winner.
Times were tough for TFC when Bezbatchenko arrived on the scene, the chances of a remarkable remodel into a successful franchise looking pretty remote.
Within 24 hours of the 2018 regular season ending, eight teams had vacancies at the head coach position. The number of general manager openings this year? One.
Every situation is different, but the fact that blame was unequally assigned to coaches over personnel executives for failed seasons raised eyebrows around the league.
In Arizona, Steve Wilks was one-and-done after a season with a rookie quarterback and a flawed roster, while GM Steve Keim will hire his third head coach. Vance Joseph was dismissed after two seasons with Trevor Siemian, Brock Osweiler, Paxton Lynch and Case Keenum as his quarterbacks—each brought in by John Elway. In Tampa Bay, Jason Licht will search for a replacement for Dirk Koetter, who was let go because he couldn’t win enough games with Jameis Winston, the quarterback that Licht picked No. 1 overall in 2015.
… the culture is changing. Leading the way is Brett Greenberg, the team’s director of basketball analytics who was promoted to his current position before the 2013-14 season. In four years on the job, Greenberg has helped close the gap in the amount of analytics information that the Wizards basketball operations staff is using. He has also improved the lines of communication between his analytics department and the coaching staff and players.
“The Wizards have greatly improved their shot profile this season, as they are getting more field goal attempts at the rim and from three point range,” says NBA analytics expert Kevin Broom of SB Nation.