Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 9, 2019

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for December 9, 2019

 

Which original NWHL player will play the longest?

SB Nation, The Ice Garden blog, Leighannstrollo from

The NWHL is currently in its fifth season and recently on Twitter, NWHLPA head Anya Packer asked in a fun Twitter poll of four major players who have been around since the NWHL’s founding, who would stick around the longest?

Obviously this is all in good fun, with her wife Madison Packer being a clear favorite. Some of the answers are pretty fun, like a write in of Corinne Buie to represent the Beauts who are left out of the original poll. Anya Packer might have some insider knowledge as she is married to one of the four options too. Either way, I took a look at the careers of all four players, and Buie too to represent all founding four teams, and made my prediction for who will stay in the league the longest.

 

Wizards rookie Rui Hachimura growing with each game in NBA

Associated Press, Howard Fendrich from

… “He’s like a seven- or eight-year vet. He just chips away at the game, every time. He’s a winner. He just plays the right way. He plays hard. He plays for his team. He’s not searching for stats. He just competes,” Wizards coach Scott Brooks said. “And he wants to get better. He knows he has a lot to learn and he’s a sponge out there. He wants to improve.”

The first-round draft pick out of Gonzaga played 42 1/2 minutes against Philadelphia, making 11 of 18 field-goal attempts and adding seven rebounds.

“I love when he plays with joy. I think that’s the most important thing, especially when you’re young. I’m guilty of that sometimes, too — you kind of get caught up in the emotion. It’s a hard season, man, for a young guy, who isn’t used to that … including me,” said 22-year-old teammate Moe Wagner, a second-year pro himself.

 

ASN article: The long and winding road leads Gorden to the USWNT

American Soccer Now, John Halloran from

Sarah Gorden was far from a highly-rated prospect growing up. But through hard work, her unconventional path has led her to the U.S. Women’s National Team. ASN’s John Halloran is here with her story.

 

Olympian Julie Culley Wants to Be a Positive Presence for Change in Running

Washington City Paper, Kelyn Soong from

… Prior to working at Georgetown, Culley earned All-American honors in cross-country at Rutgers. Shortly after, she spent three years as the head women’s track and field and assistant cross-country coach at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, and later coached at American University under then-head coach Matt Centrowitz, while running professionally.

In 2012, she won the women’s 5,000-meter race at the U.S. Olympic Trials and reached the finals in the event at the London Olympics that year.

According to a 2018 racial and gender report card for collegiate sports, only 180 out of 969 cross-country and track and field head coaches listed under Division I women’s teams are women. Georgetown has a combined men’s and women’s running program. Culley estimates there are about 20 female Division I track and field and cross-country directors in the country.

 

How to conquer work paralysis like Ernest Hemingway

BBC Worklife, Zaria Gorvett from

… According to a 1935 article Hemingway penned for Esquire magazine, when asked “How much should you write in a day?” by a young writer, he replied: “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel, you will never be stuck.” He urged the nascent writer to remember this – and even went so far as to say that it was the most valuable advice he could give.

But does it actually work?

 

The practical application of a method of analysing the variability of within-step accelerations collected via athlete tracking devices

Journal of Sports Sciences from

Resolving intra-stride accelerations from training and game data routinely collected by athlete tracking devices is rarely attempted, even though these data can provide important insights into the physical condition of athletes. This study describes in detail a novel analysis tool which uses accelerometer-based measures of step variability to assess longitudinal consistency of stride technique. The performance of the analysis tool was examined by combining results from the analysis of data collected over the course of an Australian Football League season with instances of missed or modified training. Results demonstrated increased gait-related trunk acceleration variability when training was modified due to load or accumulated game and training activity (p = 0.02) and reduced trunk acceleration variability in the week following a training modification due to any injury described as “ankle”, “heel”, or any other description that would loosely refer to a joint or bone in the leg (p = 0.01). These results support the findings of recent research which used a slightly modified version of the same analysis tool to demonstrate an increase in gait-related trunk acceleration variability with the increased acute physical load.

 

Scientists discover ​“ripple” in flexible material that could improve electronic properties

Argonne National Laboratory, Press Release from

Two-dimensional materials — those either only an atom or layer thick — display a number of interesting properties and could form the foundation for a range of new devices. One of these materials, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), has shown an unusual flexibility that could make it attractive as a semiconducting component of bendable electronics.

In a new study from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Temple University, scientists have discovered an intriguing new behavior in MoS2 at the atomic level as it is stretched and strained, like it would be in an actual flexible device.

After straining a film of the material grown on graphite, the researchers noticed that the formerly two-dimensional sheet of MoS2 would slip, relaxing the strain. This, in turn, formed a rippled pattern at a larger scale that translated into an altered electronic structure within the individual atoms.

 

FDA clearance positions Sight Diagnostics to deliver on two-drop blood testing promise

Mass Device, Tom Salemi from

Today’s news that Sight Diagnostics secured 510(k) clearance for its Olo analyzer certainly will reduce the flow of future patient tears and fears as the system requires just two drops of blood to conduct a range of tests.

However, the clearance — which confirms the Olo works just as well as gold-standard lab-grade systems in completing the Complete Blood Count analysis — also positions the Tel Aviv, Israel–based company to disrupt the collection, analysis and, ultimately, the storage of healthcare data found in blood, creating opportunities for unique partnerships.

 

Real-time feedback by wearables in running: Current approaches, challenges and suggestions for improvements

Journal of Sports Sciences from

Injuries and lack of motivation are common reasons for discontinuation of running. Real-time feedback from wearables can reduce discontinuation by reducing injury risk and improving performance and motivation. There are however several limitations and challenges with current real-time feedback approaches. We discuss these limitations and challenges and provide a framework to optimise real-time feedback for reducing injury risk and improving performance and motivation. We first discuss the reasons why individuals run and propose that feedback targeted to these reasons can improve motivation and compliance. Secondly, we review the association of running technique and running workload with injuries and performance and we elaborate how real-time feedback on running technique and workload can be applied to reduce injury risk and improve performance and motivation. We also review different feedback modalities and motor learning feedback strategies and their application to real-time feedback. Briefly, the most effective feedback modality and frequency differ between variables and individuals, but a combination of modalities and mixture of real-time and delayed feedback is most effective. Moreover, feedback promoting perceived competence, autonomy and an external focus can improve motivation, learning and performance. Although the focus is on wearables, the challenges and practical applications are also relevant for laboratory-based gait retraining. [full text]

 

Foot injury? For hundreds of NFL players, that means a trip to Green Bay

ESPN NFL, Rob Demovsky from

… Look for the tubing hill — even go down it if you’re like Saints defensive end Marcus Davenport — across from Lambeau Field, and you’ll find the sports world’s most famous foot and ankle specialist, Dr. Robert Anderson, at Bellin Health Titletown Sports Medicine and Orthopedics.

If Bellin Health built it, they believed Anderson would come. And because of him, 403 VIP clients, including 269 NFL players and a head coach, have come through the doors at the state-of-the-art facility since it opened in August 2017 in the NFL’s smallest city.

For years, professional athletes from all walks of sports visited Anderson at his practice in Charlotte, North Carolina, and they’ve followed him to Green Bay.

 

AHA News: NFL Coaches’ Drive for Success Can Be Hard on Their Hearts

U.S. News, American Heart Association from

You’re not likely to find any studies linking heart disease and NFL coaches – just a long list of familiar names.

Among them: Mike Ditka of the Chicago Bears, who had heart attacks in 1988 and 2018. Bill Parcells of the New York Giants and other teams, who needed bypass surgery in 1992. Dennis Green of the Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals, who died of complications of cardiac arrest in 2016. Tony Sparano of the Miami Dolphins and Oakland Raiders, who died of heart disease in 2018.

 

Extra protein probably doesn’t benefit everybody

Futurity, Purdue University from

Eating more protein than daily recommendations suggest may only benefit people who are cutting calories to lose weight or strength training to build more lean muscle mass, according to a new study.

The study also affirms that the recommended dietary allowance, of 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day—or 0.36 grams per pound—is adequate for most people. For example, an adult who weighs 150 pounds should eat 54 grams of protein a day, which could be three ounces of lean meat, three cups of dairy, and one ounce of seeds or nuts within a day.

“But here is the hard part for consumers: These findings support that most adults who are consuming adequate amounts of protein may only benefit from moderately higher protein intake when they are purposefully trying to change their body composition such as when dieting or strength training. The results are not meant to encourage everyone to increase their protein intake in general,” says Wayne Campbell, a professor of nutrition science, whose research integrates exercise physiology, geriatrics, and nutrition, especially protein.

 

New Austin FC sporting director Claudio Reyna jumps at another chance to build a roster from scratch

MLSsoccer.com, Phil West from

It’s not Claudio Reyna’s first rodeo when it comes to building an expansion team from the ground up. Reyna, of course, was instrumental in launching New York City FC and preparing the franchise for their 2015 MLS debut.

But even as he was announced as Austin FC’s new sporting director last month, and expressed his excitement about the new project before him, he noted just how much MLS has changed in recent years.

“It’s just this challenge again; I’m really energized by it,” Reyna said in a conference call. “When you look at the possibilities, and how the league’s changed from when [NYCFC] came in. It’s hard to compare from 2015 to 2021, when [Austin FC] comes in. The league has completely changed in terms of the different mechanisms of bringing players in, the competition in general, the profile of players that are coming in.”

 

Can Karl-Anthony Towns and Joel Embiid handle life as a guard?

NBC Sports, Tom Haberstroh from

… In the eyes of Dr. Marcus Elliott, the load management conversation has skipped over this critical piece of the puzzle. The founder of P3 Peak Performance labs in Santa Barbara, Calif., Elliot and his sports science team are at the core of a global movement trying to keep professional athletes healthy. What Elliott sees from his vantage point is a fundamental shift in how NBA players are moving.

“The game has just gotten so much faster and more athletic,” Elliott says. “You can’t do apples to apples to the NBA 20 years ago.”

Elliott isn’t basing his opinion on anecdotal evidence. Over the past decade, the P3 staff has assessed the biomechanics of hundreds of NBA players — 58 percent of the players on opening-night rosters, P3 says — and one trend keeps popping up.

“All of the athletes are improving their athleticism, but the rate that our bigs are improving is much faster than the guards and perimeter players,” Elliott says.

 

What is the MLS salary cap & how much are U.S. soccer players paid?

Goal.com from

The payment approach in football in the United States is markedly different to that which occurs in the Premier League

Major League Soccer does things differently when it comes to paying players and there is a particular set of regulations when it comes to the process.

One of the most notable aspects of MLS, which sets it apart from its European counterparts, is the fact that a salary cap is in place.

Players are paid centrally by the league and as such certain rules apply. However, there are some exceptions too, which facilitate the acquisition of the more expensive talents.

 

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