Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 26, 2019

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for August 26, 2019

 

Los Angeles Rams tackle Andrew Whitworth trying to keep his career alive at nearly 8,000 feet

ESPN NFL, Lindsey Thiry from

Daddy is sweating and it’s hot, but Andrew Whitworth’s boys don’t notice. It’s time for a ride, in what’s become an annual offseason tradition, and it’s time for dad to provide the push.

Whitworth removes a couple of bags of golf clubs from the end of the golf cart in an effort to lighten the load, as sweat continuously drops from his graying goatee. The Los Angeles Rams’ 37-year-old left tackle pauses, trying to gather his breath, then leans over and finds his grip.

His 7-year-old son, Michael, yells from the passenger’s seat, “We’re ready!” and the 6-foot-7, 330-pound Whitworth begins to push. The cart inches forward, and 8-year-old son Drew hollers from the driver’s side, “What a ride!”

 

Few QBs As Good As Andrew Luck Have Left The Game So Early

FiveThirtyEight, Neil Paine from

Luck, who won’t turn 30 until September, had already compiled one of the greatest-ever starts to a quarterback career. The No. 1 overall pick from the 2012 draft picked up the reins from the recently departed Peyton Manning in Indianapolis and immediately led the Colts to the playoffs in his first three seasons, reaching the AFC Championship in the 2014 season. But injuries soon disrupted his storybook narrative. He missed more than half of the 2015 season with a string of injuries and all of 2017 after undergoing shoulder surgery. Prior to Saturday’s announcement, he had sat out all of preseason due to a lingering leg injury.

When he was on the field, though, the numbers spoke for themselves. Through his age-29 season,1 Luck already had the 84th-most yards, 68th-most touchdowns and 95th-most Approximate Value (AV)2 of any passer in NFL history.

 

Did Venus Williams Ever Get Her Due?

The New York Times, Magazine, Elizabeth Weil from

How the first Williams sister changed the course of women’s tennis.

 

Learning Is Supposed to Feel Uncomfortable

Harvard Business Review, Peter Bregman from

… while learning may not be that hard, being a learner — a beginner at something — can be very hard. Especially in a group. And especially when we see ourselves, and want to be seen by others, as skilled and confident.

In fact, being a beginner — being awkward, uncoordinated, inept — can even feel shameful. But it’s not. It’s just a stage we have to go through in order to become graceful and coordinated and competent. And our unwillingness to experience this stage can hinder our future growth. This is especially true of areas where you’re already an expert.

 

Blow to 10,000-hour rule as study finds practice doesn’t always make perfect

The Guardian, Ian Sample from

… [Brooke] Macnamara and her colleague Megha Maitra set out to repeat part of the 1993 study to see whether they reached the same conclusions. They interviewed three groups of 13 violinists rated as best, good, or less accomplished about their practice habits, before having them complete daily diaries of their activities over a week.

While the less skilful violinists clocked up an average of about 6,000 hours of practice by the age of 20, there was little to separate the good from the best musicians, with each logging an average of about 11,000 hours. In all, the number of hours spent practising accounted for about a quarter of the skills difference across the three groups, according to the study published in Royal Society Open Science.

 

Brain’s astrocytes play starring role in long-term memory

Salk Institute, Salk News from

Star-shaped cells called astrocytes help the brain establish long-lasting memories, Salk researchers have discovered. The new work adds to a growing body of evidence that astrocytes, long considered to be merely supportive cells in the brain, may have more of a leading role. The study, published in the journal GLIA on July 26, 2019, could inform therapies for disorders in which long-term memory is impaired, such as traumatic brain injury or dementia.

“This is an indication that these cells are doing a lot more than just helping neurons maintain their activity,” says Professor Terrence Sejnowski, head of Salk’s Computational Neurobiology Laboratory and senior author of the new work. “It suggests that they’re actually playing an important role in how information is transmitted and stored in the brain.”

 

Emotion recognition isn’t just about facial expressions and body language

Massive Science, Meredith Schmehl from

… We can generally guess people’s emotions based on their facial expressions and body language. Your roommate’s body language provides pretty clear clues that she’s probably feeling angry. But in some situations, physical cues could be ambiguous, like if you smile nervously or cry because you’re happy. That’s why people can’t rely on facial expressions or body language alone — they consider the context too. But can people accurately guess the emotions of someone they can’t see, based only on the setting the person is in?

In this new study by UC Berkeley scientists, they set out to figure out how context helps people identify others’ emotions. They showed videos in which one person’s face and body were masked to study participants. The researchers then asked the participants to predict the invisible person’s feelings based solely on the context of the visual scene they were in. Context clues included factors such as the spatial configuration of the people in the video, the behavior of other people in the scene, or the type of interactions other people have with the invisible character.

 

Scientists Discover the Basics of how Pressure-sensing Piezo Proteins Work

Weill Cornell Medicine, Newsroom from

A team of scientists from Weill Cornell Medicine and The Rockefeller University has illuminated the basic mechanism of Piezo proteins, which function as sensors in the body for mechanical stimuli such as touch, bladder fullness and blood pressure. The discovery is a feat of basic science that also opens up many new paths of investigation into the roles of Piezo proteins in human diseases and potential new therapeutic strategies.

In the study, published Aug. 21 in Nature, the scientists used advanced microscopy techniques to image the Piezo1 protein at rest and during the application of mechanical forces. They confirmed this complex protein’s structure and showed essentially how it can convert mechanical stimuli into an electrical signal.

“Our analysis shows that tension on the cell membrane in which Piezo1 is embedded can flatten and widen the protein’s structure,” said co-senior author Dr. Simon Scheuring.

 

The reliability and validity of the bar-mounted PUSH BandTM 2.0 during bench press with moderate and heavy loads

Journal of Sports Sciences from

The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of the bar-mounted PUSH BandTM 2.0 to determine peak and mean velocity during the bench press exercise with a moderate (60% one repetition maximum [1RM]) and heavy (90% 1RM) load. We did this by simultaneously recording peak and mean velocity using the PUSH BandTM 2.0 and three-dimensional motion capture from participants bench pressing with 60% and 90% 1RM. We used ordinary least products regression to assess within-session reliability and whether the PUSH BandTM 2.0 could accurately predict motion capture velocity. Results showed that PUSH BandTM 2.0 and motion capture peak and mean velocity reliability was acceptable with both loads. While there was a tendency for the PUSH BandTM 2.0 to slightly overestimate peak and mean velocity, there was no fixed bias. However, mean velocity with 60 and 90% 1RM demonstrated proportional bias (differences between predicted and motion capture values increase with magnitude). Therefore, PUSH BandTM 2.0 peak velocity with 60 and 90% 1RM is valid, but mean velocity is not.

 

The machine always wins: what drives our addiction to social media

The Guardian, Richard Seymour from

Social media was supposed to liberate us, but for many people it has proved addictive, punishing and toxic. What keeps us hooked?

 

A New Model for Industry-Academic Partnerships

Gary King from

The mission of the social sciences is to understand and ameliorate society’s greatest challenges. The data held by private companies, collected for different purposes, hold vast potential to further this mission. Yet, because of consumer privacy, trade secrets, proprietary content, and political sensitivities, these datasets are often inaccessible to scholars. We propose a novel organizational model to address these problems. We also report on the first partnership under this model, to study the incendiary issues surrounding the impact of social media on elections and democracy: Facebook provides (privacy-preserving) data access; eight ideologically and substantively diverse charitable foundations provide funding; an organization of academics we created, Social Science One (see SocialScience.One), leads the project; and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard and the Social Science Research Council provide logistical help.

 

IU looking to keep up with rest of Big Ten in football facilities

Herald Bulletin, CNHI Sports Indiana, Kevin Brockway from

When Indiana unveiled its new $8.5 million Terry Tallen Football Complex last week, IU football players celebrated by jumping around the new space and singing the fight song.

The 25,000-square-foot area under the west stands of Memorial Stadium includes a new locker room, training area and players’ lounge.

“We’re a work in progress,” IU sophomore running back Stevie Scott III said. “We’re just improving everything, like this new center right here and a new locker room. So I feel like we’re coming up to par with everybody else. Like I said, we’re getting there.”

 

Players at risk as clubs ignore injury link to mental health

Brunel University London from

Injury is a major cause of mental health problems in top footballers, shows a study of counsellors working with players’ union, the Professional Footballers’ Association.

The first evidence linking long-term injury with psychological distress in pro players calls for a culture change to one where clubs routinely offer injured players psychological support.

Sports psychologists from Brunel University London aimed to find out how often injury is part of the story when players go to counsellors for help with mental health issues.

In 99 to 100% of cases, it is, they found.

 

The Cleveland Browns and Paul DePodesta Brought Moneyball to the NFL

The Ringer, Michael Baumann from

Two decades ago, the strategist was an oddity with the Oakland A’s. Now, he’s an archetype, applying the lessons of baseball’s analytics revolution to football one Cleveland draft pick at a time.

 

How you can make better predictions

BBC – Future, William Park from

A few individuals have a heightened ability to forecast what will happen to companies, the economy and politics. What traits do they share?

 

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