It’s 10 minutes before practice in the Chicago Red Stars’ training room, and midfielder Julie Ertz is curled up on a massage table, cupping the arches of her feet. She suctions her skin into a small, pressurized globe, a process that calls to mind medieval torture but allegedly relieves tightness. Her toenails are painted periwinkle blue. A small cross tattoo is tucked behind her ear like a flower.
Ertz winces as she pops the seal of skin, then hops off the table and runs the tender pockets of her feet over a golf ball. She has high arches, a foot shape better suited to ballet than soccer and one that causes her intense discomfort every time she hits the pitch.
“I was 23 in the last World Cup,” the team captain says matter-of-factly. “Now I need to listen to my body more.”
… The sight of Chavis and Devers as teammates is a familiar one, yet the form that it’s taken over their professional lives has undergone considerable change.
The pairing started in 2014 in Fort Myers, Fla. Chavis, then 18, was moved to third base shortly after being taken by the Red Sox as their 2014 first-round pick, and Devers, then 17, was placed on a fast track in his first professional season, jumping from the Dominican Summer League to the rookie-level Gulf Coast League that June.
Here’s how much everything has changed for Ja Morant in the last 12 months: He’s gone from being considered the No. 3 option at Murray State to the possible No. 2 pick in the NBA draft.
Put another way, he’s a player from a mid-major and will soon be a multimillionaire.
Even Morant doesn’t fully understand how quickly it has all come to fruition.
“It’s been crazy, honestly,” Morant said. “Coming from being under the radar to one of the most talked-about players now, obviously, it’s been rough. It’s something I’m getting used to. But I’m happy for it.”
… Figuring out how to reap the benefits of functional overreaching without tipping over the edge is one of the great challenges of training. That’s what gives a new study from researchers in Belgium its kick. There’s been a bunch of research and interest in the idea of ketone drinks as an endurance booster (as I described in the magazine last year). Ketones are a form of emergency fuel produced in your body when you’re starving or very low on carbohydrate energy, which have only become available in drink form in the past few years. The new research suggests we might have had it backwards all this time: the real magic isn’t what ketones do for you during exercise; it’s what they do afterwards.
Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour, known as a players’ coach, would never demean his players, though he embarrasses them sometimes without trying.
“When he comes into the dressing room to use the shower, we tell him to keep his shirt on because he makes us all look bad,” center Jordan Staal told USA TODAY Sports, laughing. “He’s pretty much in better shape than anyone on the team.”
Center Sebastian Aho said Brind’Amour, 48, can probably “outlift everyone in the whole league.”
It is increasingly recognised that many athletes have poor sleep quantity and/or quality despite the advances in knowledge regarding the importance of sleep for an athletic population. The majority of research in sleep assessment and treatment (within the general population) focuses on the medical disorder insomnia, and therefore may not be specifically relevant for athletes. Further, there are currently no guidelines for the standardisation of assessment, intervention, feedback and behaviour change strategies in athletes. This review outlines potential reasons for sleep disturbances in athletes, advantages and disadvantages of a range of methods to assess sleep (polysomnography, activity monitoring, consumer sleep technology, sleep diaries and questionnaires), considerations for the provision of feedback, a description of potential interventions and behaviour change challenges and strategies. The objective of this review is to provide practitioners with the latest scientific evidence in an area rapidly progressing in awareness, consumerism and athlete engagement.
Sixty-two players and one intrepid reporter got a crash course in Dan Quinn’s style of football last weekend, as Atlanta immersed its draft picks, rookie free agents and other hopefuls in the intricacies of play calls and coverages—and, most importantly, the philosophy of the hard-driving Falcons coach.
While the Memphis football team played in the annual spring game, Dr. Daniel Greenwood stood near the sideline watching a different game on a computer screen.
Greenwood, the director of Memphis’ Human Performance Center, and his team kept an eye on 12 players through data recorded by GPS sensors. It tracked their distance and velocity while measuring the impact happening in their upper bodies.
It’s something he started doing over the last half of spring practice in the latest change that Greenwood has brought to the football team and the Memphis athletics program since he arrived in September.
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Physical therapist Judy Seto is very well-respected in the sports therapy world. When I reached out to colleagues, four themes emerged regarding the returning Lakers employee.
… From my experience with current and ex-college players, players returning to school come in for a somewhat formal team meeting with the coaching staff. Usually, the new guys have to say their names and where they’re from. Coaches talk about the plan for the fall and their goals for the upcoming season. Then it’s off to the weight room where the strength coaches run the players through a baseline strength test. This often consists of pull-ups, squats, deadlift, 60 yd timed run (rare), bench press (rare), jump height, and body weight. Those tests hopefully are used to create a baseline for each athlete’s lifting program for the upcoming fall, but generally are never retested to see any physical gains.
Then, the first week of practice will start with the coaches beginning to “implement the program.” This can be extremely valuable in terms of setting expectations and having the correct attitude in a practice setting. To look at the big picture, this first week should focus on gathering information and setting expectations for the season. It’s vital, but we tend to think that some of this time gets misplaced. Much of the time is used to show who goes where on the five different bunt D packages, ball in dirt reads, running through and taking turns at 1st, what foot to lead off the base with, etc. These are all things that, even if you think should be high priority, could be taken up with other practice time.
New York’s decision to fire its general manager just weeks after the draft raises many questions. Namely: Why was the man who once picked Christian Hackenberg allowed to keep running the show until now?
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St. Louis Blues’ Alexander Steen (20) is congratulated by Robby Fabbri (15) and Robert Bortuzzo (41) after his goal against the Philadelphia Flyers during the third period of an NHL hockey game Thursday, April 4, 2019, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Bill Boyce)
Dead last in the NHL in early January, the St. Louis Blues looked like underachievers who cost their head coach his job and wouldn’t remain together for long.
Then the Blues did the improbable, winning 30 of their final 45 games to become the seventh team since the expansion era began in 1967 to go from last in the league after New Year’s Day to the playoffs.
The transformation didn’t begin Jan. 3, when the team was at the bottom of the standings. St. Louis’ roller-coaster ride started when it missed the playoffs by one point a year ago, rose with offseason additions of Ryan O’Reilly, David Perron, Tyler Bozak and Patrick Maroon, and took a steep drop with the November firing of coach Mike Yeo.
… The son of owner Joe Lacob and younger brother of Warriors assistant general manager Kirk Lacob, Kent Lacob has quieted whispers of nepotism with his talent evaluation and ability to turn far-reaching thinking into real-time action.
Lacob made three draft-day deals in 2018. He acquired a team-record 24 players in 2017-18 — four of whom earned midseason call-ups to the NBA. In his first G League season, he orchestrated five trades in helping the squad make the playoffs.
“He doesn’t treat Santa Cruz like a G League team. It’s more like the NBA’s 31st team,” Santa Cruz assistant GM Ryan Atkinson said. “He’s always thinking: ‘Why not? Why can’t we do this?’ Then, he finds ways to make it happen.”
In an era of baseball’s richest teams dominating smaller-market clubs, Tampa Bay has managed a third way: spending less and winning more through ceaseless innovation.
Professional basketball players need to be tall. And strong. And fast.
To excel at a dynamic game that requires moving the ball at high speeds, changing directions swiftly to attack and defend, and enduring 48 minutes of play per game, players undergo intense training and conditioning.
But, for some, it’s their natural gifts — larger-than-average body height, albatross-like wingspans, and monster hands — that give them a head start on the path to success.