The Clippers star has been at the center of the NBA’s conversation surrounding rest and health this season. But Leonard is doing more than just sitting out on back-to-backs—he’s finding ways to maximize his output on the floor, too.
Seattle’s Russell Wilson leads the NFL in touchdown passes. He’s the only quarterback in league history with a winning record in each of his first eight seasons. He’s squarely in the thick of the most-valuable-player conversation.
Basically, he’s cruising through life in neutral.
That’s the way he and his mental coach like to think of it, at least. The Seahawks quarterback isn’t motivated by positive or negative thinking, but by clinical and unbiased neutral thinking, as if he’s watching his career unfold from a Skycam perspective.
“Let’s say you throw an interception and your natural instinct is to linger in the frustration in terms of, ‘`I threw an interception. Now we just lost a possession. I’m frustrated,’ ” said Trevor Moawad, Wilson’s personal mental coach throughout his career. “The positive thinking is, ‘Hey, forget about it. Doesn’t really matter.’ But mentally you know it does matter, and you know it’s a mistake.
A few months ago, one of Chase Winovich’s family members sent him an article about male loneliness.
Winovich, a rookie defensive end who has played in all 14 of New England’s games this season, found the piece fascinating. As he navigates his first year in the NFL, he can relate to the crux of the argument: Men are sometimes hesitant to admit they’re lonely.
“There’s a lot of things in terms of mental health that are very taboo in society,’’ Winovich said after practice Thursday afternoon. “There’s such a large stigma that’s still around it. It’s just one of those things — ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ ’’
US soccer has a problem: The pay-to-play system is limiting access to low-income kids, restricting the size of the talent pool in the country. This is the reason for the international struggles.
University of Alberta (Canada), Faculty of Science from
New research from University of Alberta neuroscientists shows that the brains of adolescents struggling with mental-health issues may be wired differently from those of their healthy peers.
This collaborative research, led by Anthony Singhal, professor and chair in the Department of Psychology, involved adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17 who had a history of mental-health problems, including depression, anxiety, and ADHD. This group of teens received magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans designed to examine the white matter of their brains and were compared to scans from a second set of adolescents in the same age range who did not have a history of mental-health issues.
The results of the study show clear differences in connective neural pathways, as a function of cognitive control, between the healthy adolescents and those struggling with mental-health issues.
… Andy Murray has appeared in 11 grand slam finals throughout his career with only three of them ending in victory.
In an interview, Murray said “failing is not terrible,” as he described how each of his defeats against Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer had contributed to his success and “learning from my losses is something I’ve done throughout most of my career.”
It is through the process of struggling with adversity that changes may occur that propel an individual to a higher level of functioning (physical, mental and personal). How an athlete grows following adversity has been investigated extensively and research has suggested there are three main areas of growth.
A recent National Strength and Conditioning Association position statement suggests that many youth are not prepared for the physical demands of sport. The purpose of this study was to compare health-related fitness (HRF) of youth athletes with normative findings from the general population. We recruited 136 athletes (63 male and 73 female athletes) aged 11–19 (16.01 ± 1.35) years and collected HRF (body composition, cardiorespiratory endurance, musculoskeletal strength and endurance). Results were categorized based on FITNESSGRAM® standards and compared with Canadian youth general population normative data. Most male athletes were classified as “needs improvement” for cardiorespiratory and muscular endurance, and body mass index (BMI). Conversely, most female athletes were at or above the “healthy fitness zone” for all measures. Male athletes at both age groups (11–14, 15–19; p < 0.001) and female athletes aged 11–14 (p < 0.05) demonstrated lower cardiorespiratory endurance compared with Canadian general population. Female athletes (both age groups) demonstrated greater muscular strength, and male athletes (age, 15–19 years) demonstrated lower BMI than the Canadian general population. The results are concerning as male athletes demonstrated poorer HRF compared with the general population. Although most female athletes were within healthy ranges, a portion of them were still at risk. Considering the demands sport places on the body, evaluating HRF is paramount for performance and injury prevention but more importantly for overall health. Youth sport and strength coaches should evaluate and aim to enhance HRF, as participation in sport does not guarantee adequate HRF. Promoting long-term athletic development and life-long health should be a priority in youth.
Limb symmetry strength measures are used for clinical decision-making considering when an athlete is ready to return to sport after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. However, changes in bilateral muscle strength occur after ACL injury resulting in potentially altered limb symmetry calculations. Adolescent female soccer players are at increased risk of sustaining ACL injuries. Published age and sex-matched strength values in this population may be of benefit to clinicians to improve clinical decision-making. The purpose of this study was to establish normative hip and knee strength data of both the dominant and nondominant limbs in adolescent female soccer players. Sixty-four female soccer players (ages 10–18) were enrolled in this study. Subjects were divided by age into 2 groups (group 1: 10–14 years; group 2: 15–18 years). Subjects underwent Biodex isokinetic strength testing at 60°·s−1 and 180°·s−1 to assess quadriceps and hamstring strength. Isometric hip strength (abduction and external rotation) was measured using a hand-held dynamometer. No significant differences were found between groups on either limb in regards to quadriceps or hamstring strength. No significant differences were found between groups on either limb for hip external rotation strength. Significant differences in hip abduction strength were found between groups on the dominant (group 1: 0.21 ± 0.04; group 2: 0.18 ± 0.04; p = 0.014) and nondominant (group 1: 0.21 ± 0.05; group 2: 0.18 ± 0.05; p = 0.019) limbs. The results of this study shed light on normative strength values for a high-risk injury population.
The study of heat adaptation in military personnel offers generalizable insights into a variety of sporting, recreational and occupational populations. Conversely, certain characteristics of military employment have few parallels in civilian life, such as the imperative to achieve mission objectives during deployed operations, the opportunity to undergo training and selection for elite units or the requirement to fulfill essential duties under prolonged thermal stress. In such settings, achieving peak individual performance can be critical to organizational success. Short-notice deployment to a hot operational or training environment, exposure to high intensity exercise and undertaking ceremonial duties during extreme weather may challenge the ability to protect personnel from excessive thermal strain, especially where heat adaptation is incomplete. Graded and progressive acclimatization can reduce morbidity substantially and impact on mortality rates, yet individual variation in adaptation has the potential to undermine empirical approaches. Incapacity under heat stress can present the military with medical, occupational and logistic challenges requiring dynamic risk stratification during initial and subsequent heat stress. Using data from large studies of military personnel observing traditional and more contemporary acclimatization practices, this review article (1) characterizes the physical challenges that military training and deployed operations present (2) considers how heat adaptation has been used to augment military performance under thermal stress and (3) identifies potential solutions to optimize the risk-performance paradigm, including those with broader relevance to other populations exposed to heat stress. [full text]
Cell journal; Jennifer E. Rood, Tim Stuart, Shila Ghazanfar, Tommaso Biancalani, Eyal Fisher, Andrew Butler, Anna Hupalowska, Leslie Gaffney, William Mauck, Gökçen Eraslan, John C. Marioni, Aviv Regev, Rahul Satija from
Understanding the genetic and molecular drivers of phenotypic heterogeneity across individuals is central to biology. As new technologies enable fine-grained and spatially resolved molecular profiling, we need new computational approaches to integrate data from the same organ across different individuals into a consistent reference and to construct maps of molecular and cellular organization at histological and anatomical scales. Here, we review previous efforts and discuss challenges involved in establishing such a common coordinate framework, the underlying map of tissues and organs. We focus on strategies to handle anatomical variation across individuals and highlight the need for new technologies and analytical methods spanning multiple hierarchical scales of spatial resolution. [full text]
… In reality, innovation is much bigger than R&D. It involves three distinct capabilities: Discovery, Incubation, and Acceleration (DIA). R&D is just one part of the Discovery capability – invention. Corporate leaders need to recognize that developing business applications, revenue models, and markets for new products often requires as much time and resources and deserves as much emphasis, as inventing the technologies themselves.
Without a strategic innovation function that includes a comprehensive Discovery process and the capacity to Incubate and Accelerate new technologies, companies end up stockpiling undeveloped inventions in their R&D departments and, according to our research, don’t see a strong return on investment from their exploratory R&D. They fall into the trap of having “breakthrough ideas that are incrementally executed,” as the CTO of a well-known Fortune 500 company put it during our research.
Athletes should pay more attention to their bone health, whether this relates to their longer-term bone health (e.g. risk of osteopenia and osteoporosis) or their shorter-term risk of bony injuries. Perhaps the easiest way to do this would be to modify their training loads, although this advice rarely seems popular with coaches and athletes for obvious reasons. As such, other possibilities to support the athletes’ bone health need to be explored. Given that bone is a nutritionally modified tissue and diet has a significant influence on bone health across the lifespan, diet and nutritional composition seem like obvious candidates for manipulation. The nutritional requirements to support the skeleton during growth and development and during ageing are unlikely to be notably different between athletes and the general population, although there are some considerations of specific relevance, including energy availability, low carbohydrate availability, protein intake, vitamin D intake and dermal calcium and sodium losses. Energy availability is important for optimising bone health in the athlete, although normative energy balance targets are highly unrealistic for many athletes. The level of energy availability beyond which there is no negative effect for the bone needs to be established. On the balance of the available evidence it would seem unlikely that higher animal protein intakes, in the amounts recommended to athletes, are harmful to bone health, particularly with adequate calcium intake. Dermal calcium losses might be an important consideration for endurance athletes, particularly during long training sessions or events. In these situations, some consideration should be given to pre-exercise calcium feeding. The avoidance of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency is important for the athlete to protect their bone health. There remains a lack of information relating to the longer-term effects of different dietary and nutritional practices on bone health in athletes, something that needs to be addressed before specific guidance can be provided. [full text]
… With the help of Tagovailoa, coach Nick Saban is trying to hold together the core of about a dozen draft-eligible juniors. The list includes linebacker Dylan Moses, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the last week of the preseason. Moses is arguably the nation’s best defensive player.
Wide receiver Jerry Jeudy has committed to the Citrus Bowl, though not to a senior season just yet. Throw in WRs Henry Ruggs III and DeVonta Smith, as well as safety Xavier McKinney and offensive lineman Alex Leatherwood, and Alabama could challenge Miami’s record for most first-round NFL Draft selections, six in 2004.
Saban is known for his ability to guide draft-eligible juniors to the right decision. in an era when 30-40 percent of juniors who declare are left undrafted.
… Lending to more of a transitional in-between calendar, 2020 will be the first year without a window in January – the week at the start of the year usually used for a warm-weather camp. The first window of the new year will in fact be in March [four months since the last in November], and in a tournament year will ask serious questions of how well teams can prepare. (This is, of course, only an issue for the small number who will be taking part in the Olympics).
The window, usually reserved for friendly tournaments like the Algarve and Cyprus Cups (and in recent years, the She Believes and Cup of Nations) has been cut down too. Only three non-competitive matches can be played during the window. There is, however, dispensation for those playing qualifying tournaments, just as there is a bloc earlier in the year for the CONCACAF and CAF qualifiers.
… Why does the NBA start its season in October? For other sports, the answer to that question comes down to a very real and obvious thing: the weather. The NBA doesn’t have this problem. Unlike the NFL, MLB, tennis or the PGA Tour, the NBA is exclusively played indoors, making it seasonally agnostic.
Starting the NBA season in October is therefore a choice. And I’m not sure it’s the best one.
There’s a reason why the NBA keeps all of its national broadcasts on cable networks until Dec. 25. The NFL hogs the national sports conscious for the entirety of the fall season. On top of that, the MLB playoffs are in full swing. The NBA regular season tipped off on October 22 this year, the same night as Game 1 of the World Series. According to Sports Media Watch tracking, Astros-Nationals drew 12 million viewers as compared to the 3 million who watched Lakers-Clippers. And that was the NBA’s juiciest matchup, by far.