Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 16, 2019

… After years of poor production in Miami, Tannehill has broken out in his first season in Nashville, catching the eye of analytics junkies and mainstream football fans alike — and his 9.8 yards per attempt leads the league. Along the way, he has brought the 8-5 Titans back into playoff contention, as they face the Houston Texans this weekend for the AFC South division lead.

Still, as well as Tannehill has performed in the CPOE metric, not every measure of success is as clear-cut on the former NFL draft first-rounder’s breakout. Let’s try to make sense of his season and figure out what Tennessee ought to do about the 2020 free agent for the future.

Eagles coach Doug Pederson called linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill’s decision to hide and play through a concussion “a selfish act” and said he was disappointed in his decision-making.

Grugier-Hill told reporters Thursday that he suffered a head injury on the first play against the Miami Dolphins in Week 13 and lied to the medical staff so he could stay in the game, saying that he had hurt his shoulder.

The last nine months were the hardest in Ellie Moser’s life.

After months of gruelling rehab that made her question at times whether she’d even skate again, Moser finally returned to the ice last Saturday for the Bemidji State women’s hockey team.

A torn ACL had sidelined Moser since last February in the Beavers’ regular-season finale against Minnesota.

“The rehab process was the hardest thing that I’ve ever done in my entire life,” the sophomore forward said. “It really challenged me the full nine months. But it made me a better person and a better hockey player.

The expectations placed on Rachel Balkovec are no different than any other Yankees coach: help the players improve.

“The whole thing is we are trying to make players better,’’ senior director of player development Kevin Reese said Tuesday at the winter meetings, where Balkovec was introduced as the team’s minor league hitting coach. “The answer to the most important question — does she make us better? — and the answer is yes.’’

As the information gap between experts and non-experts narrows, it is increasingly important that experts learn to give advice to non-experts in a way that is effective, and that respects their autonomy and agency. We surveyed 508 participants using a hypothetical medical scenario in which participants were counselled on the risks and benefits of taking antibiotics for a sore throat in circumstances in which antibiotics were inappropriate. We asked participants whether they preferred:

(1) to make their own decision based on the information or,

(2) to make their decision based on the doctor’s opinion, and then randomized participants to receive “information only”, “opinion only”, “information first, then opinion”, or “opinion first, then information.”

Participants whose stated preference was to follow the doctor’s opinion had significantly lower rates of antibiotic requests when given “information first, then opinion” compared to “opinion first, then information.” Our evidence suggests that “information first, then opinion” is the most effective approach. We hypothesize that this is because it is seen by non-experts as more trustworthy and more respectful of their autonomy.

… [Paolo] Taboga collaborated with former colleagues at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was a postdoctoral fellow, on a biomechanics model to predict how much time a runner loses on curves as compared to running in a straight line.

They used that model and others to study the Vienna road course and predict how its hills would affect a runner’s speed. Three of the researchers, although not Taboga, served as consultants to the race organizers.

“The cool part is that we analyzed the course before Kipchoge ran,” Taboga said. “We predicted that, compared to an ideal straight-line course with a net downhill, he would lose less than 5 seconds

Head football coach Nick Saban has 12 interns on his staff this year at Alabama making a combined $610,000, including three prominent former head coaches, according to records obtained by USA TODAY Sports.

Former Houston head coach Major Applewhite is on the payroll at $43,350. So is former Arizona head coach Mike Stoops ($76,500), along with former Tennessee head coach Butch Jones ($35,000).

Officially, their job title is analyst. But after Saban hired Jones last year, he added more context.

“He’s an intern, an analyst,” Saban said then.

What if instead of needing a different blood draw for each suspected health issue, doctors could order up a single blood test that would combine a hundred or more different measures to reveal a holistic portrait of your overall health – as well as your risk for a whole host of diseases? Such a test could be administered widely to inform early individualized interventions designed to keep everyone healthy longer.

This is the dream of UC San Francisco physician Peter Ganz, MD, and colleagues at Colorado-based SomaLogic Inc., who are developing what they call “liquid health check” technology – a single blood test capable of painting a detailed portrait of a person’s current health and future disease risks. The technology uses tiny fragments of DNA and RNA called aptamers that are able to identify and measure thousands of different circulating proteins from a small blood sample to reveal information about the health of organs across the body.

Wearable technology like smartwatches and health trackers have already given users a taste of how connected devices can increase productivity, promote physical fitness and boost communication.

Usually fitted to an individual’s wrist, these devices provide untethered functionality that fits active, on-the-go lifestyles—whether the task is counting steps, monitoring heart rates or checking email between sets at the gym. And while the wearables market has only recently made the leap from 3G to 4G, the next leap—one facilitated by the widespread adoption of 5G—could mean all-new features and use cases that manufacturers may have never even dreamed of.

Thanks to lightning-fast speeds and the ultra-low latency of Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, wearables can eventually be more than just integrated pieces of the Internet of Things (IoT). When wearables gain the ability to gather and process rich, heavyweight data in near-real time, their potential for more precise, connectivity-intensive tasks—ones that give wearers a better understanding of their health, wellness and world around them—can increase.

When it comes to 5G’s potential impact on wearables, it’s all in the wrist.

The traction forces generated during studded boot‐surface interactions affect player performance and injury risk. Over 20 years of empirical research into traction on third‐generation (3G) artificial turf has met with only limited success in supporting the development of safer surfaces and boots. Thus, the purpose of this perspective article is to present a conceptual framework for generating scientific understanding on 3G turf traction through a novel mechanistic approach. A three‐stage framework is proposed. Firstly, the hypothesized traction mechanisms and related analytical equations are identified, namely, friction between the boot outsole and surface; shear resistance of the performance infill layer to the outsole; and compressive resistance of the performance infill layer to horizontal stud displacement. Secondly, a Concept Map is generated to visually represent the contribution of the 39 variables identified as directly affecting the traction response. Finally, a Research Roadmap is constructed to guide the direction of future traction studies toward the development of safer surfaces and boots as well as improved mechanical tests to assess surface safety. The proposed framework represents the first attempt to deconstruct boot‐surface interactions and hypothesize the science behind the mobilization of traction forces. [full text]

The 14,000 square foot facility called HSS Brooklyn will have primary care sports medicine physicians, adult and pediatric rheumatologists, adult and pediatric orthopedic surgeons one floor —12 steps— below the basketball courts at the Nets training facility. The new facility will be located on the same floor as the Nets business offices.

If will offer immediate access to care for acute sports injuries, said the hospital. The services will be available to the Brooklyn community as well as the team.

Said a team insider, the facility will permit immediate care for Nets players who suffer an injury at the training center.

Background In randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of interventions that aim to prevent sports injuries, the intention-to-treat principle is a recommended analysis method and one emphasised in the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement that guides quality reporting of such trials. However, an important element of injury prevention trials—compliance with the intervention—is not always well-reported. The purpose of the present educational review was to describe the compliance during follow-up in eight large-scale sports injury trials and address compliance issues that surfaced. Then, we discuss how readers and researchers might consider interpreting results from intention-to-treat analyses depending on the observed compliance with the intervention.

Methods Data from seven different randomised trials and one experimental study were included in the present educational review. In the trials that used training programme as an intervention, we defined full compliance as having completed the programme within ±10% of the prescribed running distance (ProjectRun21 (PR21), RUNCLEVER, Start 2 Run) or time-spent-running in minutes (Groningen Novice Running (GRONORUN)) for each planned training session. In the trials using running shoes as the intervention, full compliance was defined as wearing the prescribed running shoe in all running sessions the participants completed during follow-up.

Results In the trials that used a running programme intervention, the number of participants who had been fully compliant was 0 of 839 (0%) at 24-week follow-up in RUNCLEVER, 0 of 612 (0%) at 14-week follow-up in PR21, 12 of 56 (21%) at 4-week follow-up in Start 2 Run and 8 of 532 (1%) at 8-week follow-up in GRONORUN. In the trials using a shoe-related intervention, the numbers of participants who had been fully compliant at the end of follow-up were 207 of 304 (68%) in the 21 week trial, and 322 of 423 (76%), 521 of 577 (90%), 753 of 874 (86%) after 24-week follow-up in the other three trials, respectively.

Conclusion The proportion of runners compliant at the end of follow-up ranged from 0% to 21% in the trials using running programme as intervention and from 68% to 90% in the trials using running shoes as intervention. We encourage sports injury researchers to carefully assess and report the compliance with intervention in their articles, use appropriate analytical approaches and take compliance into account when drawing study conclusions. In studies with low compliance, G-estimation may be a useful analytical tool provided certain assumptions are met. [full text]

… Scheiman is one of a handful of researchers investigating whether there is a link between athletic performance and the gut microbiome — the ecosystem of hundreds of types of bacteria that live in the intestines and play a key role in almost all of our body’s essential processes. The potential link makes sense. Many of the functions of microbes in the gut, including breaking down food into energy and protein, modulating our immune function, even regulating our thoughts and moods, correspond directly to elements of athleticism: endurance, strength, mental toughness and recovery.

A wave of new studies appeared in 2017. Lauren Petersen, a researcher-cyclist at the Jackson Laboratory in Connecticut, was the first author on a study published in the journal Microbiome that cataloged the species of microbes in the guts of elite cyclists. (This study, like many others about the gut microbiome, suggests a correlation between the prevalence of a microbe, in this case of the genus Prevotella, and aspects of athletic performance, in this case muscle recovery — but does not prove a direct cause-and-effect.) The same year, a team in Ireland published a similar study in the journal Gut, focusing on high-performing rugby players. And in August 2017, Scheiman presented his first study of marathon runners, in which he identified a bacteria whose high numbers seemed to correlate with athletic exertion, at the annual conference of the American Chemical Society.

One of the defining positional trends of the 2020 football recruiting cycle lies with the tight ends and linebackers. The group is unique as a whole and on an individual basis. When we look back at this cycle in a few years, it’s very possible it will be remembered as the year of the jumbo athlete.

Eight of the 19 prospects that currently hold a five-star ranking from 247Sports are tight ends and linebackers. Five tight ends are ranked in the top 72 prospects and 15 linebackers are in the top 100 – both all-time highs in 247Sports’ existence (dating to the 2011 cycle).

The four tight ends at The Opening Finals in July – Arik Gilbert, Darnell Washington, Michael Mayer and Theo Johnson – were the best we’ve ever seen at the prestigious all-star event. The four averaged 6-foot-5.75, 247.5 pounds with a 4.74 second 40-yard dash. Mayer was named MVP of the 7-on-7 tournament after hauling in four touchdowns over the two days. The linebacker group was perhaps just as impressive.

… “Our athletes have so much power to do good. I think they should be empowered and not restrained,” said [Susan] Stokowski, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, describing how athletes can help through community service and be leaders in raising awareness about social issues.

“There’s so much good that can be done from sports,” Stokowski said.

But it’s a mistake to think of students participating in college sports as all alike, said Stokowski