… Toronto’s slump is personified by Siakam, whose current level of play is remarkable when viewed in the context of where he was only two seasons ago, yet disappointing considering the heights he reached mere weeks ago.
He’s been passive at times and forced looks at others. Wednesday, he was better than he’s been, but still not where he needs to be, scoring 24 points on 9-of-20 shooting. He was remarkable during that emphatic win over the Jazz, with 35 points on only 27 used possessions. But since, for both himself and his team, it’s been a struggle.
“I don’t think our energy overall has been good. Like, as a team,” Siakam said. “We’ve got to find a way. Because that’s how we play when we’re at our best — when we have energy, we’re flying around. That’s Toronto basketball. We’ve got to play that way.”
In an interview Novak Djokovic’s fitness trainer Marco Panichi spoke about doping in tennis. The Italian said that it’s very unlikely that players take banned substances without being banned. “There are crazy drug tests.
Every day players need to tell WADA where they are. If you change your schedule you have to make a phone call or send a mail telling that you are elsewhere. If you cannot be found twice, you get a two-month ban. You have to be available every day for an hour, they usually come to your house at 6:00 AM as you are sleeping there.
But if they come and you are not there, it’s tough. For a player there are 20-30 drug tests a year. One day Nadal was on a boat with his friends and the WADA officials came to his home at a non-scheduled time. He was forced to be back.”
Chris Sale recently cleared a major hurdle and resumed throwing. Manager Alex Cora can already see the noted competitor’s fire burning bright as he looks to make amends for a shockingly mediocre 2019.
“I hate to say he’s on a mission, but obviously he wasn’t happy with the way the season went last year,” Cora said. “He was trending up when he got hurt at the end. So hopefully he can bounce back, be ready for spring training, and be ready for the opening series.”
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), David Mark from
… There is no “right” way to run, says biomechanist Dr Aaron Beach from the New South Wales Institute of Sport. But there are basic things recreational runners can learn from elite athletes about running more efficiently.
And so, to examine good running technique, we’re doing an experiment.
We’re comparing an Olympic 1,500-metre runner with a recreational runner using the science of biomechanics and motion capture technology.
By slowing things down and methodically plotting joint and limb movements and the forces runners exert on the ground, we can pick up subtle differences in technique.
The data can help us all think about our movements, so we can become more efficient, avoid injuries and get more satisfaction when we pound the pavement.
New research from La Trobe University suggests there is no evidence that changing a runner’s strike pattern will help prevent injuries or give them a speed boost.
The British Psychological Society, Research Digest, David Robson from
… Igor Grossmann at the University of Waterloo has been at the forefront of this work, and his latest paper, available as a preprint at PsyArxiv, examines whether people’s level of “rejection sensitivity” might determine some of the individual differences in wisdom. Working with Anna Dorfman and Harrison Oakes, he hypothesised that the threat of rejection could lead some people to become more self-defensive as they strive to protect their own ego, potentially reducing their willingness to accept their mistakes, see others’ viewpoints, and look for compromise — their capacity for wise reasoning, in other words.
This talk will discuss Kidd’s research about how people come to know what they know. The world is a sea of information too vast for any one person to acquire entirely. How then do people navigate the information overload, and how do their decisions shape their knowledge and beliefs? In this talk, Kidd will discuss research from her lab about the core cognitive systems people use to guide their learning about the world—including attention, curiosity, and metacognition (thinking about thinking). The talk will discuss the evidence that people play an active role in their own learning, starting in infancy and continuing through adulthood. Kidd will explain why we are curious about some things but not others, and how our past experiences and existing knowledge shape our future interests. She will also discuss why people sometimes hold beliefs that are inconsistent with evidence available in the world, and how we might leverage our knowledge of human curiosity and learning to design systems that better support access to truth and reality.
Monitoring athletes’ external load during a soccer match may be useful to predict post-match acute and residual fatigue. This estimation would allow individual adjustments to training programs to minimize injury risk, improve well-being, and restore players’ physical performance and inform the recovery process. Methods
Using a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature, the aim is to determine which monitoring variables would be the strongest predictors of acute (immediately) and residual (up to 72 h) fatigue states in soccer. PubMed, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science databases were searched (until September 2018). Studies concurrently examining soccer match-related external load metrics and subjective and/or objective measures were selected to determine pooled correlations with confidence intervals (CI). The quality and strength of the findings of each study were evaluated to identify overall levels of evidence. Results
Eleven studies were included (n = 165 athletes). Acute (r= 0.67; 95% CI = [0.40, 0.94]) and residual (24 h post-match, r= 0.54; 95% CI = [0.35, 0.65]) changes in muscle damage markers and countermovement jump peak power output (CMJPPO) were, with moderate to strong evidence, largely correlated with running distance above 5.5 m s−1. No other external load metric was largely correlated with both biochemical and neuromuscular markers. For every 100-m run above 5.5 m·s−1, CK activity measured 24 h post-match increased by 30% and CMJPPO decreased by 0.5%. Conversely, the total distance covered did not present any evidence of a clear relationship with any fatigue-related marker at any time-point. Conclusions
Running distance above 5.5 m·s−1 represents the most sensitive monitoring variable characterizing biochemical and neuromuscular responses, at least when assessed during the initial 24 h (not at 48 h/72 h) post-match recovery period. In addition, total distance covered is not sensitive enough to inform decision-making during the fatigue monitoring process. [full text]
Recent advances in smart contact lenses are essential to the realization of medical applications and vision imaging for augmented reality through wireless communication systems. However, previous research on smart contact lenses has been driven by a wired system or wireless power transfer with temporal and spatial restrictions, which can limit their continuous use and require energy storage devices. Also, the rigidity, heat, and large sizes of conventional batteries are not suitable for the soft, smart contact lens. Here, we describe a human pilot trial of a soft, smart contact lens with a wirelessly rechargeable, solid-state supercapacitor for continuous operation. After printing the supercapacitor, all device components (antenna, rectifier, and light-emitting diode) are fully integrated with stretchable structures for this soft lens without obstructing vision. The good reliability against thermal and electromagnetic radiations and the results of the in vivo tests provide the substantial promise of future smart contact lenses. [full text]
Newswise, Wolters Kluwer Health: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins from
As wearable fitness trackers become ever more popular and sophisticated, they provide new opportunities for monitoring training and guiding post-injury rehabilitation in endurance runners, according to an article in the December issue of Current Sports Medicine Reports, official journal of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
“Overall, current wearable technologies accurately quantify certain running biomechanics and external training loads experienced globally by the runner,” according to the report by Isabel Moore, PhD, of Cardiff (UK) Metropolitan University and Richard W. Willy, PhD, PT, of University of Montana, Missoula. Their article provides sports medicine professionals with a snapshot of what wearables can do – and what they may soon be able to do – in monitoring runners’ training and helping them return from injury.
At 1:10 p.m. every Friday, the New York Jets’ defense holds a players-only meeting in a big, colorless room on the first floor of their facility, where they prepare for the upcoming game in a high-tech world that incorporates a hint of old school.
Jets players watch cut-ups of their opponents’ plays, but this is more than your typical football film session. This is like a trip to your neighborhood movie theater, except there’s no concession counter and the experience is interactive.
The screen is massive — 37 feet by 9 feet — stretching the length of the entire back wall and nearly connecting floor to ceiling. There are three overhead projectors hanging from the 11-foot ceiling, resembling a trio of condors flying in the same direction. There are 25 straight-back chairs along the perimeter of the room, pressed against white boards that are filled with X’s-and-O’s diagrams, scouting reports and coaching points — i.e. “Pass Rush Rules.” Sorry, no cushy reclining chairs with cup-holders.
The near-future of biomechanical analysis will be optical, not wearable. That was the promise and hype of a half-dozen companies meeting with baseball clubs at the MLB Winter Meetings this week.
The league-organized technology expo, now in its second year, nearly doubled in size with health and fitness companies meeting with team physicians, trainers and strength coaches over the weekend and more baseball-centric technologies showcasing their wares to analysts and executives on Monday.
The most heavily represented niche of the sports tech space included six markerless motion capture startups endeavoring to replicate the precision of wearable sensors in a non-intrusive manner. That day hasn’t arrived quite yet, with many of the optical tracking systems still immersed in different stages of validation studies, but the industry intention seems clear.
For now, wearable devices remain the more proven option for accuracy. The K-Motion vest is in widespread use to track hitting mechanics, and the company is releasing a four-sensor companion for pitchers in early 2020.
While biologic-based treatments have loads of promise when it comes to orthopedics, illegal actors are tarnishing the space and promoting false narratives that hurt scientific advances.
To address these narratives and correct the record, four professional societies formed The Biologics Alliance. Here, Bert Mandelbaum, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Santa Monica, Calif., and Jason Dragoo, MD, director of UCHealth Steadman Hawkins Clinic Denver, elaborated on the Alliance’s mission and addressed the future of biologics-based treatments.
Psst! Hey, are you overweight? Touchy subject, I know, but it’s OK to admit. More than two-thirds of adults are said to be clinically overweight or obese.
The National Institutes of Health has awarded a consortium of university researchers, led by The University of Alabama, a $2.5 million grant to further evaluate a wearable device designed to change eating behaviors. Developed in a UA lab, the patent-pending system uses a tiny camera to photograph food and sensors that measure how quickly you eat it.
The grant, via the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, enables the researchers to test the device in a clinical trial over four years. An initial round of funding was awarded this fall.
Major League Baseball (MLB) will remove marijuana from its list of banned substances and players who test positive for opioids, fentanyl, cocaine and synthetic THC under random drug tests will be referred for treatment before being disciplined, the league’s updated drug policy announced on Thursday.
The sweeping changes, which take effect from Spring Training in 2020, “favor a treatment-based approach to Drugs of Abuse,” according to the joint announcement from the MLB and its players’ union.
The updated policy comes months after the shock death of 27-year-old Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, whose autopsy showed oxycodone, fentanyl, and alcohol in his system.