Braden Bishop knew his body would physically recover. He has regained weight he lost, has been fully participating in daily workouts with the Seattle Mariners, and is scheduled to begin a rehab assignment with one of Seattle’s minor-league affiliates this week.
But, beyond just being physically ready to play in games again after being sidelined for more than two months with a lacerated spleen, the rookie outfielder said he’s also had to work to return to a good mental space after enduring an injury as rare and unsettling as this.
“It’s obviously been one heck of a journey,” Bishop said. “But, I feel good physically. I think the biggest part was the mental piece. I knew my body would respond because medical tests say, ‘Hey, you’re healed.’ I knew that part.
It’s almost always the first thing anyone wants to ask the rookie.
“You get some people here and there they’ll just ask you about it, ‘Yo, like how was it not going to college?'” Bazley told ESPN recently. “I know when I was going through the whole pre-draft process traveling from team to team before we’d go out and work out, [the other players would] all be talking about college. And someone would pop up and say, ‘Well, how was it, just sitting out?'”
T.J. Oshie is healthy and eagerly awaiting the start of Washington Capitals training camp next month after recovering from a fractured right clavicle that cut short his Stanley Cup Playoffs last season.
The forward was at MedStar Capitals Iceplex on Monday for a Skate and Skills clinic with players ages 15-19 sponsored by AAA to promote its Don’t Drive Intexticated campaign against texting while driving.
After the Capitals’ bid to repeat as Stanley Cup champions last season ended with a seven-game loss the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference First Round, Oshie has spent most of the offseason in the Washington area healing and training to get ready for this season.
“I was cleared kind of (in) June, but definitely cleared in July,” Oshie said. “So we were right on pace, I think, to being close (to playing) if we would have made it to the [Stanley Cup] Final. But I’m good. Now it’s just all getting those muscles built back up as best as I can before the season and I’m ready to roll. I can’t wait for it to get here.”
The heir apparent to Christine Sinclair as the engine driving Team Canada’s offence, 18-year-old striker Jordyn Huitema is preparing to take over from the GOAT by creating a path all her own
Takeaways:
1. Excellence means doing the little things right repeatedly
2. Innate talent does not exist
3. Improvement requires doing different things, not more of the same
Athletes say learning mental fortitude and resilience is key to success. Coaches, trainers, and sports psychologists say it’s time to get better at teaching these skills.
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal from
INTRODUCTION:
This study aimed to simplify and optimize the distinction between non – functional overreaching (NFO) and overtraining syndrome (OTS) by developing a multivariate approach (discriminant analysis, DA) including hormonal and psychological changes measured during the Training Optimization (TOP) test. METHODS:
Sensitivity of previously defined cut-off values for hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) hormonal changes were recalculated on a larger database (n=100). DA including hormonal and psychological variables measured during the TOP test was used to discriminate between NFO and OTS and predict the diagnosis of new cases. RESULTS:
Adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and prolactin (PRL) responses to the 2 exercise test were most sensitive to NFO and OTS. Cut-off values for ACTH and PRL response to the 2 test (NFO > cut-off value (200 %) > OTS), showed a sensitivity of 67% for ACTH and 93% for PRL in case of OTS and 74% for both ACTH and PRL in case of NFO. A DA including hormonal and psychological changes measured during the TOP test, resulted in the accurate diagnosis of NFO and OTS with 98% sensitivity. ACTH and PRL responses to the 1 and 2 exercise test and feeling of fatigue were the most discriminating variables. CONCLUSION:
ACTH and PRL responses during the TOP test are the most sensitive markers to discriminate between NFO and OTS. DA including hormonal and psychological responses during the TOP test, can be used to optimize the diagnosis of NFO and OTS.
Objective: To examine training and match loads undertaken by soccer players competing in the English Premier League.
Methods: Using a retrospective design, external (GPS) and internal training loads (sessions ratings of perceived exertion [sRPE-TL]) were examined in 26 players across the competition phase of the 2012–2013 English Premier League season. Within-subject linear mixed-models estimated the mean effects (95% confidence interval [CI]) for load data across 6-week mesocycles and 1-week microcycles.
Results: Daily sRPE-TL (95% CI range, 15 to 111 AU) and total distance (95% CI range, 179 to 949 AU) were higher during the early stages (mesocycle 1 and 2) of the competition period. Overall, high-speed activity was similar between mesocycles. Across the training week, load was greater on match day and lower pre match-day (G-1) vs. all other days, respectively (p < 0.001). sRPE-TL (~70–90 AU per day) and total distance (~700–800 m per day) progressively declined over the 3 days before a match (p < 0.001). High-speed distance was greater 3 days (G-3) before a game vs. G-1 (95% CI, 140 to 336 m) while very high-speed distance was greater on G-3 and G-2 than G-1 (95% CI range, 8 to 62 m; p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Periodisation of in-season training load is mainly evident across the weekly microcycle reflecting the recovery and preparation for matches.
Stanford engineers have developed a way to detect physiological signals emanating from the skin with sensors that stick like band-aids and beam wireless readings to a receiver clipped onto clothing.
To demonstrate this wearable technology, the researchers stuck sensors to the wrist and abdomen of one test subject to monitor the person’s pulse and respiration by detecting how their skin stretched and contracted with each heartbeat or breath. Likewise, stickers on the person’s elbows and knees tracked arm and leg motions by gauging the minute tightening or relaxation of the skin each time the corresponding muscle flexed.
Zhenan Bao, the chemical engineering professor whose lab described the system in an Aug. 15 article in Nature Electronics, thinks this wearable technology, which they call BodyNet, will first be used in medical settings such as monitoring patients with sleep disorders or heart conditions
Football clubs are being “deficient, neglectful and possibly negligent” because of inadequate psychological support for injured players, a study has found.
Dr Misia Gervis, post graduate courses director at Brunel University and a consultant sports psychologist at QPR, led the research, which was backed by the Professional Footballers’ Association.
Medical heads from 75 clubs were interviewed, including 14 from Premier League sides. Of these, only 37% said they employed staff who were trained in the psychology of injury, and less than 25% had a full-time sports psychologist.
… “100 percent. 100 percent,” Beasley told SBI last week when asked if he thinks MLS would benefit from having promotion/relegation. “I’m not the money guy and (the one who will figure out) how it’s going to work and who loses money if a USL team comes up, how can they stay afloat. I don’t care. If we can do it, they need to figure it out.
“That would put more pressure on the league, that would put more pressure on players to perform, that would put more pressure on — even if we still keep the (Designated Players) — the DPs to perform every game. Everybody. Everyone. Everything is heightened. Everything is heightened from a pressure situation, even if it’s a young player in that environment. When you’re fighting relegation, you have to be mentally tough.”
The NBA has positioned itself as perhaps the country’s lone major professional sports league in which players wield as much power and influence as owners and officials. While most recent headlines indicative of that reality fall under the umbrella of players using their public platforms to effect change in social justice, the league office has also made a concerted effort in recent years to protect the health of its players, a goal its addressing in far more ways than one.
In the wake of the NBA implementing new rules regarding mental health, the league unveiled the regular-season schedule on Monday, a slate that includes fewer back-to-backs and five-game weeks than ever before. According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, games being played on consecutive nights reached a new low for the fifth consecutive season, the biggest highlight of a schedule that places increasing emphasis on player health.
Japan continues to face concerns about torrid weather at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics next summer, with officials cutting short a test event and looking for new ways to beat the heat.
On Thursday, the International Triathlon Union had to abbreviate the running portion of a women’s test event in the capital city as conditions reached an “extreme level.”
“There was full consensus on all parties for the decision of the ITU medical delegate and the ITU technical delegates to shorten the run distance to 5 km, considering the athletes’ health,” the federation said in a statement.
What began as a hobby for a few football-obsessed math whizzes eventually changed not only how we talk about football, but how the game is played. This is the story of how advanced statistics went mainstream.
Talent identification research in soccer comprises the prediction of elite soccer performance. While many studies in this field have aimed to empirically relate performance characteristics to subsequent soccer success, a critical evaluation of the methodology of these studies has mostly been absent in the literature. In this position paper, we discuss advantages and limitations of the design, validity, and utility of current soccer talent identification research. Specifically, we draw on principles from selection psychology that can contribute to best practices in the context of making selection decisions across domains. Based on an extensive search of the soccer literature, we identify four methodological issues from this framework that are relevant for talent identification research, i.e. (1) the operationalization of criterion variables (the performance to be predicted) as performance levels; (2) the focus on isolated performance indicators as predictors of soccer performance; (3) the effects of range restriction on the predictive validity of predictors used in talent identification; and (4) the effect of the base rate on the utility of talent identification procedures. Based on these four issues, we highlight opportunities and challenges for future soccer talent identification studies that may contribute to developing evidence-based selection procedures. We suggest for future research to consider the use of individual soccer criterion measures, to adopt representative, high-fidelity predictors of soccer performance, and to take restriction of range and the base rate into account. [full text]