ne couldn’t be blamed for thinking U.S. women’s softball is trying to rebuild its identity at the 2019 Pan American Games, 11 years after the squad fell short of gold, the last year the sport formed part of an Olympic lineup.
“As tradition, I feel like USA softball tries to put all the pieces together and try to be a whole team and not just dominant in one place,” said Cat Osterman, one of the team’s two seasoned aces.
Resting a few of its big bats, Team USA was tested in Thursday’s preliminary-round finale against Peru. Starter Keilani Ricketts fought her way out of trouble often against a winless but determined host team before delivering the walk-off, run-rule RBI in a 7-0 six-inning win.
The Atlantic, Patrick Collison and Tyler Cown from
Progress itself is understudied. By “progress,” we mean the combination of economic, technological, scientific, cultural, and organizational advancement that has transformed our lives and raised standards of living over the past couple of centuries. For a number of reasons, there is no broad-based intellectual movement focused on understanding the dynamics of progress, or targeting the deeper goal of speeding it up. We believe that it deserves a dedicated field of study. We suggest inaugurating the discipline of “Progress Studies.”
Before digging into what Progress Studies would entail, it’s worth noting that we still need a lot of progress. We haven’t yet cured all diseases; we don’t yet know how to solve climate change; we’re still a very long way from enabling most of the world’s population to live as comfortably as the wealthiest people do today; we don’t yet understand how best to predict or mitigate all kinds of natural disasters; we aren’t yet able to travel as cheaply and quickly as we’d like; we could be far better than we are at educating young people. The list of opportunities for improvement is still extremely long.
… While the management of HSR may essentially protect hamstring integrity, the importance of so-called mechanical work (MW, accelerations, decelerations and changes of direction) cannot be overlooked in the context of protecting other important muscles groups (i.e., quads, gluts and adductors). All this is, of course, easier said than done, with the actual programming of these specific locomotor loads requiring particular attention to typical soccer training content, match demands and timing.
In this short opinion piece (2), I discuss some programming consideration of HSR and MW in relation to the technical sequence on the same training session (i.e., the within-session puzzle piece).
… The “active” component of active recovery is important. What I’ve noticed over the years is that if athletes take an entire day off after a hard training session, they tend to come back sore, lethargic, or less than optimal. Integrating some element of movement into a dedicated training session, however, often leaves athletes feeling fresh and loose. If you attach a mental component to the session as well, which we’ll discuss in this article, the benefits increase exponentially.
… The brains of people with excellent general knowledge are particularly efficiently wired. This was shown by neuroscientists at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin using magnetic resonance imaging. “Although we can precisely measure the general knowledge of people and this wealth of knowledge is very important for an individual’s journey through life, we currently know little about the links between general knowledge and the characteristics of the brain,” says Dr. Erhan Genç from the Department of Biopsychology in Bochum.
Amid the confusing torrent of advice about the best ways to build strength, I’ve taken comfort from a series of reassuringly simple studies from McMaster University over the past decade. Researcher Stuart Phillips and his colleagues have repeatedly demonstrated that if you do a series of lifts to failure—that is, until you can’t do another rep—then it doesn’t much matter how heavy the weight is or how many reps you do. As long as you’re maxing out, you’ll gain similar amounts of strength with light or heavy weights.
But there’s an interesting caveat to this advice, according to a new study from a team at East Tennessee State University led by Kevin Carroll, published in Sports: just because you can lift to failure doesn’t mean you always should.
If you want to define a “super kid,” look no further than Marcy Barnett’s 7-year-old son, Malachi.
During the summer in Washington, D.C., he participates in just about every recreational sport: basketball, soccer, flag football, sailing, tennis, swimming and golf. He also has tried ice hockey, pingpong and pole vaulting. Anyone else tired after just reading that list?
Barnett wants her son to have fun and burn off his ample energy. But there’s more to it. She spends time researching what she calls “quality programs” — activities that display tangible evidence that he is learning valuable life lessons such as respect, teamwork and even basic social skills.
The problem is, she can’t put him in just any program she finds and is interested in. Because of her financial situation, she picks only those that are free or subsidized or through the military, as Malachi’s father is in the armed forces. And because she doesn’t have a car, she relies on convenience, selecting programs that are easily accessible by public transportation from her house in Maryland.
BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation journal from
Background
Physical activity (PA) is a component of cardiac rehabilitation (CR). However, life-long engagement in PA is required to maintain benefits gained. Wearable PA monitoring devices (WPAM) are thought to increase PA. There appear to be no reviews which investigate the effect of WPAM in cardiac populations. We firstly aimed to systematically review randomised controlled trials within the cardiac population that investigated the effect WPAM had through the maintenance phase of CR. We specifically examined the effect on cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), amount and intensity of daily PA, and sedentary time. Secondly, we aimed to collate outcome measures reported, reasons for drop out, adverse events, and psychological impact from utilising a WPAM. Methods
A systematic search (up to January 2019) of relevant databases was completed, followed by a narrative synthesis, meta-analysis and qualitative analysis. Results
Nine studies involving 1,352 participants were included. CRF was improved to a greater extent in participants using WPAM with exercise prescription or advice compared with controls (MD 1.65 mL/kg/min;95% confidence interval [CI; 0.64–2.66]; p = 0.001; I2 = 0%). There was no significant between group difference in six-minute walk test distance. In 70% of studies, step count was greater in participants using a WPAM with exercise prescription or advice, however the overall effect was not significant (SMD 0.45;95% [CI; − 0.17-1.07] p = 0.15; I2 = 81%). A sensitivity analysis resulted in significantly greater step counts in participants using a WPAM with exercise prescription or advice and reduced the heterogeneity from 81 to 0% (SMD 0.78;95% [CI;0.54–1.02]; p < 0.001; I2 = 0%). Three out of four studies reporting on intensity, found significantly increased time spent in moderate and moderate-vigorous intensity PA. No difference between groups was found for sedentary time. Three of six studies reported improved psychological benefits.
No cardiac adverse events related to physical activity were reported and 62% of non-cardiac adverse events were primarily musculoskeletal injuries. Reasons for dropping out included medical conditions, lack of motivation, loss of interest, and technical difficulties.
Conclusions
Our meta-analysis showed WPAM with exercise prescription or advice are superior to no device in improving CRF in the maintenance phase of CR and no cardiac adverse events were reported with WPAM use. Our qualitative analysis showed evidence in favour of WPAM with exercise prescription or advice for both CRF and step count. WPAM with exercise prescription or advice did not change sedentary time. Psychological health and exercise intensity may potentially be enhanced by WPAM with exercise prescription or advice, however further research would strengthen this conclusion.
… Today’s watches and fitness trackers have only scratched the surface of the market. Higher-end devices will continue to add more functionality, while specialized ones will get better at performing their more limited jobs.
The growth of the wearable market will come from an increasing demand for existing devices and new form factors offering as-yet-unknown functionality. You may have a wearable at work that enhances your vision while offering a data overlay, and use another one to enhance your entertainment experience at a theme park. Both are plausible – maybe even likely – and that should help fuel the predicted growth.
Purdue University researchers have developed a new fabric innovation that allows wearers to control electronic devices through clothing.
“It is the first time there is a technique capable to transform any existing cloth item or textile into a self-powered e-textile containing sensors, music players or simple illumination displays using simple embroidery without the need for expensive fabrication processes requiring complex steps or expensive equipment,” said Ramses Martinez.
Like it or not, each of us is colonized by untold numbers of bacteria, viruses and other microbes. Collectively these creatures are known as the human microbiome, and there’s a growing awareness that they play important roles in many aspects of human health from nutrition and digestion to premature birth. Exactly how they do so, however, is in many cases unclear.
Now geneticist Ami Bhatt, MD, PhD, and postdoctoral scholar Hila Sberro, PhD, have discovered that our tiny passengers are churning out even tinier proteins likely to make a big impact on neighboring bacteria and human cells. The proteins, which are fewer than 50 amino acids in length, have gone unnoticed in previous studies because their minuscule size has allowed them to slip through the nets cast by previous studies of the microbiome. They published their research today in Cell.
… When speaking with Spokane-based newspaper The Spokesman Review, Washington State football coach Mike Leach was adamant in his displeasure of the potential time shift. According to Leach, given the strict rules surrounding players’ practice times, 9 a.m. kickoffs would rollback the NCAA’s concerns about player safety.
“If you do anything, you first ask yourself, ‘is it good for the players?,’” said Leach. “And it’s not good for the players because they have to get up at 4 or 4:30 in the morning, I don’t think there’s anything good about that.”
… According to Cap Friendly, there have been 161 buyouts since the 2005 collective bargaining agreement created that mechanism. But there’s a funny thing about buyouts: One team’s trash is another team’s treasure. Players who are flush with buyout money go off and, somewhat ironically, sign short-term, cap-friendly deals with other teams.
This happens for a variety of reasons, but frequently it’s an attempt to mend their reputations after being cast aside as damaged goods. Hence, there’s a bit of a risk in it for the signing teams, but not an enormous one for, say, a one-year deal.
It’s a bit like buying a lottery ticket: Minimal investment, the potential for big upside, and if it doesn’t work, you’re only out a few bucks.
So do these “lottery ticket contracts” work in the NHL?
… International teams simply don’t have the time to prepare properly for every aspect of the game, and defending corners – of which around only three per cent lead to goals in the Premier League – is justifiably not a priority. Southgate and England took their chance.
At Premier League level, however, where the game’s finer details are now analysed, re-analysed and analysed again, teams are far more organised and well drilled, so it is increasingly difficult to forge scoring opportunities at set-pieces.