… Were this the end of the regular season and the Texans eliminated from the playoff race, Watt would not be on the field this weekend against the Bills.
But he recognizes these are limited opportunities — Watt hasn’t been on the field for a playoff win in seven years — and he believes in this team.
“With the talent that we have in that locker room and the guys that we have, you have to take advantage of your opportunities,” Watt said. “I think that throughout practice, throughout this week and then taking it over to game day on Saturday, that’s our mentality, and that’s our goal: Take every single day, every meeting, every practice, every rep as serious and as focused as you can, because it’s that important. It’s the playoffs.”
… The Swede with the French name has been figuring it out in both his transition to an English-speaking country and in his transition from the farm to the spotlight.
Since a rash of winger injuries prompted Engvall’s call-up, the seventh-round jewel out of Ljungby, Sweden, has looked surprisingly comfortable in the big leagues — killing penalties, not committing them, working his way up from the fourth line, and earning enough trust to be occasionally used at centre.
“He’s a heck of an athlete, a heck of a player. He can skate,” says Auston Matthews. “He’s got all the tools. You see him out there. He’s really good player. So, I think he’s fit in really well with us.”
… Look closer and you will see that Butler isn’t just Miami’s best player, he’s also the team’s biggest cheerleader. All of the sudden Butler looks like one of the most supportive teammates in the NBA.
The good vibes in Miami started with rookie Tyler Herro. Butler took the 19-year-old under his wing from the moment he entered the organization, inviting him to private workouts, praising his work ethic and character in the media, and telling anyone who will listen that he “love(s) that kid”. Shortly after, Butler started “Tyler Tuesday” on social media honoring his teammate:
… “We develop them as players and people and make sure they can go out there and perform for this club.”
The manner of those performances – a style which draws choruses of ‘playing the United way’ from their loyal fans – have earned praise from every direction.
The former Arsenal defender, who was assistant to England boss Phil Neville before leaving for United, sets her team up in a defensively disciplined way at the back that typifies how she was as a player herself.
… More than anything, the concerns about Kitchens’ ability to manage the players’ workload provided further explanation why Cleveland fired him after only one year on the job.
The Yankees have hired performance coach Eric Cressey to oversee their training and strength/conditioning departments, according to a report by The Athletic (subscription required).
The move comes amid an apparent overhaul of the Yankees’ training room after a season in which they set a Major League record with 30 players (39 stints) appearing on the injured list. The club has not announced any changes or confirmed the report.
Per the report, the club plans to transition longtime head athletic trainer Steve Donohue to an emeritus role. Donohue joined the club in 1979 and served as the assistant athletic trainer under Gene Monahan, taking over the head athletic trainer position following Monahan’s 2011 retirement.
Kristen McDonnell called her first team meeting in mid-June. With all the returning players gathered in a classroom at Norwood (Massachusetts) High School, she had one pressing question.
“How do you feel about getting some f—ing wins this year?”
The boys looked around, stunned into silence. McDonnell forgot the players knew her as director of the school’s guidance department, not an F-bomb-dropping coach. Then, she made a confession. “I swear a lot,” she said. “You guys gonna be OK with that?” The players laughed. No problem. Next topic.
“So, elephant in the room,” said McDonnell. “I’m a woman.” The players laughed again. “Yes, you are,” said some of them. There was no problem with that, either.
… “We very much stick with the basics,” [Jan Fredeno] said. “We look at pulse, running speed and the wattage values on the bike. All of the other values are fine, but not terribly important. We work on the basis of this data, which allows us to assess things quite well.”
The “we” refers to Frodeno and his coach, Dan Lorang. He also trains women’s Ironman world champion Anne Haug and professional cyclist Emmanuel Buchmann, and is regarded as one of Germany’s top endurance sports coaches.
“Without wearables, my job, the way I do it, wouldn’t be possible at all,” Lorang said, before explaining that because he sees Frodeno only a few days a year, he provides most of his coaching support based on the data provided by the smart technology the triathlete wears.
The number of official matches that every season professional footballers play, has increased. Apart from the usual league matches, the best teams have to dispute other matches in European competitions, as well as local competitions. Also, many of its players have to also compete in other international competitions with their respective national teams. During the ’70s, the number of encounters disputed by the champion team of the European Cup was 40, but in recent years that number exceeds 70 matches. For instance, in 2018/2019, Heung-Min Son (Tottenham Hotspur and South Korea) and Alysson Becker (Liverpool and Brazil) played 78 and 72 matches and travelled over 110,000 and 80,000 kilometres. Teams are forced to dispute two matches in a very short period of time and playing too many could be a risk for its players. Match overload is considered a threat to a group’s performance.1,2
A recent research3 has proven that football teams that do not have a winter break during the season have a higher incidence rate of injuries. The study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine magazine in 2018, depicted an analysis of 56 elite teams from 15 different European countries for seven consecutive seasons (2010/2011-2016/2017). A member of the technical staff of each club registered the injuries and participation in training sessions as well as matches for every player. Winter breaks are defined as the number days between the last activity of the team (training session or match) before the break and the first activity (training session or match) after the break. The average winter break was of 10 days (minimum value of 4.3 days in Scotland and the maximum value of 29.5 days in Denmark). There was no break in England.
Clenbuterol is a beta2‐adrenoceptor agonist marketed as an asthma reliever but is not approved for human use in most countries due to concerns of adverse cardiac effects. Given its demonstrated hypertrophic and lipolytic actions in rodents, clenbuterol is one of the most widely abused doping substances amongst athletes and recreational body‐builders seeking leanness. Herein, we examined the effect of clenbuterol ingestion on metabolic rate as well as skeletal muscle mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) phosphorylation and protein kinase A (PKA)‐signaling in six young men. Before and 140 min after ingestion of 80 μg clenbuterol, resting metabolic rate and maximal voluntary contraction torque (MVC) of the quadriceps muscle were measured, and blood samples as well as vastus lateralis muscle biopsies were collected. Clenbuterol increased resting energy expenditure by 21% (P<0.001), and fat oxidation by 39% (P=0.006), whereas carbohydrate oxidation was unchanged. Phosphorylation of mTORSer2448 and PKA substrates increased by 121% (P=0.004) and 35% (P=0.006), respectively, with clenbuterol. MVC decreased by 4% (P=0.026) and half‐relaxation time shortened by 9% (P=0.046), while voluntary activation, time to peak twitch, and peak twitch torque did not change significantly with clenbuterol. Glycogen content of the vastus lateralis muscle did not change with clenbuterol. Clenbuterol increased circulating levels of glucose (+30%;P<0.001), lactate (+90%;P=0.004), insulin (+130%;P=0.009), and fatty acids (+180%;P=0.001). Collectively, these findings indicate that clenbuterol is an efficient thermogenic substance that possibly also exerts muscle hypertrophic actions in humans. For these reasons, the restrictions imposed against clenbuterol in competitive sports seem warranted.
Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports from
across a wide variety of injuries. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess whether distinct subgroups with homogeneous running patterns can be identified among a large group of injured and healthy runners and whether identified subgroups are associated with specific injury location. Three-dimensional kinematic data from 291 injured and healthy runners, representing both sexes and a wide range of ages (10-66 years) was clustered using hierarchical cluster analysis. Cluster analysis revealed five distinct subgroups from the data. Kinematic differences between the subgroups were compared using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Against our hypothesis, runners with the same injury types did not cluster together, but the distribution of different injuries within subgroups was similar across the entire sample. These results suggest that homogeneous gait patterns exist independent of injury location and that it is important to consider these underlying patterns when planning injury prevention or rehabilitation strategies.
… One takeaway is that the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers have been blessed with the fewest back-to-back games on their schedules since 2000-01.
The Atlanta Hawks, however, have not been as lucky since the turn of the century. They are the only team that has averaged more than 20 back-to-back games on their schedule per season since 2000, per our research.
This season, the Hawks have a league-high 14 games with zero days rest on their schedule.
A few years ago, as I started researching my book about the science of exercise recovery, I found something curious: the methodological flaws that have roiled psychology were also lurking in sports science. The problems were hiding in plain sight. As I plowed through the published studies in the sports and exercise science literature, I saw many studies with small sample sizes,1 a journal system that appeared to be biased toward publishing studies showing that a treatment or regimen improves performance (versus those that find no effect) and studies that collected multiple measures in a way that could make it tempting for researchers to fish around for a favorable result. What I wasn’t seeing though was much open discussion of these issues. Until now.
Today at SportsRxiv, a place where researchers can share their unpublished studies (so-called preprints) to get feedback before peer review, 36 researchers have released an editorial urging the field to adopt practices that have been gaining traction in the social sciences to combat “questionable research practices” such as p-hacking.
… The University of Michigan was the first major college brand to consent to collecting private performance data from their athletes as part of their apparel contract. The Wolverines signed with Jumpman, Nike’s Michael Jordan branded apparel division. As part of that agreement, the $170 million deal may “allow Nike to harvest personal data from Michigan athletes through the use of wearable technology like heart-rate monitors, GPS trackers and other devices that log myriad biological activities,” according to a story in the New York Times.
We’re not talking about social media, web browser or credit card data—there are plenty of folks who have written about the importance of leveraging or protecting their “brand”. Biologic data is the physical performance data being collected during practices and games. Take, for example, the above-mentioned Nike deal with the University of Michigan. According to Sports Business Journal, this “appears to allow for more comprehensive data collection than is typical.” As of 2016, Nike claimed they have yet to harvest the data, but they would be contractually permitted to do so.