Applied Sports Science newsletter – January 23, 2020

… Three months ago, Aliu went public with allegations that then-Flames coach Bill Peters had directed racial slurs toward him in the minors in 2009-10: “Dropped the N bomb several times towards me in the dressing room in my rookie year because he didn’t like my choice of music.” The revelation, which was quickly corroborated by former teammates, led to Peters’s resignation and thrust Aliu into the spotlight as a voice for change. Before long, he was meeting with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to discuss improving the sport’s inclusivity; speaking to minority youth hockey teams in the Toronto area; and receiving scores of messages from fellow players or parents who had similar stories to share.

Aliu has no plans to slow his advocacy while abroad. “I’m not stepping back one bit,” he says. “I don’t see anything changing because I’m six hours away.” His conversations with the NHL are continuing on a weekly basis, he says, and soon he will launch a charity to assist underprivileged kids in affording hockey equipment, registration fees, and rink time. It’ll be called the Dreamer Foundation, borrowed after the Nigerian-Ukrainian-Canadian’s longtime nickname.

1. Learn quickly.
2. Understand the message.
3. Old school work ethic.
4. When you lose, learn.

… Reyna is expected to reach the very top of the game. At Borussia Dortmund, he has the perfect springboard for success: a team that believes in giving youth prospects a chance, in a system that lets dynamic attacking talents thrive.

It’s clear that Dortmund are excited by the prospect they have on their hands, and some even expect him to exceed Pulisic’s achievements.

“I think his talent is similar to Christian Pulisic, or maybe a little bit better,” said BVB assistant coach Jorg Heinrich. “But we want to keep him grounded because we’ve seen what happens to a lot of the young players.”

Breathing is something you know how to do from a few seconds after you are born. Typically your body does this instinctively and on autopilot. But did you know that paying attention to your breathing while exercising can make a difference? Very often it is an area of training that is neglected as, not surprisingly, many of us take the issue of breathing for granted. However, many experts point out that breathing is not something we should do without thinking, and that we need to make a conscious effort to get it right.

The head fake in basketball is a deceptive action in sports, where an attacking basketball player gazes in one direction (irrelevant component), but passes the ball to the opposite direction (relevant component). A defending player, who aims to respond to the relevant information displayed by the opponent, faces a situation conceptually similar to well-known interference paradigms (e.g., Stroop task, Eriksen flanker task). Previous research has shown that responses to pass directions are slower and more error prone for head fakes than for direct passes (so called head-fake effect). The head-fake effect depends on participants’ ability to focus attention on the relevant stimulus feature. As maintaining this attentional focus conceivably bears on limited capacities, we tested if taxing these capacities by a cognitively demanding concurrent task would change the impact of task-irrelevant information and thus, the size of the head-fake effect. Moreover, we investigated the impact of such a concurrent task on post-conflict control (i.e., the congruency sequence effect). The results show that a concurrent task reduces the head-fake effect, while post-conflict control was unaffected. We discuss these findings with regard to the relationship of working memory processes and selective attention.

Exercise and training routines have many benefits: improved mood, strong muscles and bones, weight management, and reduced risk of chronic diseases, among others. But big training weeks without adequate recovery can negatively impact health and performance, and even your immune system. Here we’ll take a closer look at how training load—or the amount you exercise—can impact your immune system, and what you can do to stay healthy.

…

Adam Grant, a psychologist, author and professor at Wharton, is at Davos taking part in a session on fighting online misinformation. He took time on the sidelines of the meeting to talk to the Forum’s digital team about his insights on parenting, having sparked global debate with columns on raising a moral child and changing the way we talk to kids about work.

Asking children what they want to be when they grow up, he wrote, “forces kids to define themselves in terms of work” – problematic when, as Forum research highlights, careers today consist of constant upskilling rather than set identities.

Here’s an edited transcript of the conversation:

For almost four decades, cooperation has been studied through the lens of the prisoner’s dilemma game, with cooperation modelled as the play of a specific strategy. However, an alternative approach to cooperative behavior has recently been proposed. Known as collaboration, the new approach considers mutualistic strategic choice and can be applied to any game. Here, we bring these approaches together and study the effect of collaboration on cooperative dynamics in the standard prisoner’s dilemma setting. It turns out that, from a baseline of zero cooperation in the absence of collaboration, even relatively rare opportunities to collaborate can support material, and robust, levels of cooperation. This effect is mediated by the interaction structure, such that collaboration leads to greater levels of cooperation when each individual strategically interacts with relatively few other individuals, matching well-known characteristics of human interaction networks. Conversely, collaboratively induced cooperation vanishes from dense networks, thus placing environmental limits on collaboration’s successful role in cooperation. [full text]

EuroLeague basketball team Maccabi Tel Aviv is testing new sleep technology in the hope that it will be able to reduce players’ travel fatigue, preventing injuries and optimising recovery.

It is the first professional team in the world to trial the solution by Israeli app makers Sleeprate.

The Boost – Sleep for Performance technology uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms based on elite athletes’ sleep data. By linking heart rate and brain activity throughout the night, the product creates an individual-tailored sleep coaching programme for players.

We often talk about how traditional banks or retailers seek startups to gain innovative solutions. Well, the sports industry is another to join the pack in Latin America.

Microsoft’s Global Sports Innovation Center (GSIC), announced it’s looking for startups in Latin America that tender to various areas related to athletic activities and the fandom that comes with it.

Organizers will select three winners who shall benefit from a free, one-year membership to the GSIC. This organization hosts a global network of members and sports industry stakeholders for the world of startups and innovation.

… “There’s a high rate of success and it already feels really great,” said Backes, who finally was able to walk on her own this week after nine weeks on crutches. “I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m trying to look forward and stay positive and keep battling, but also not put a time limit on myself and make sure I get fully healthy.”

Backes has rarely been healthy since suffering a torn ACL in the middle of her junior season at Chisago Lakes High School in Lindstrom, Minnesota. At the time she was a consensus top 100 prospect, averaging 27.4 points and 11.6 rebounds per game.

… “After just 12 days of sugar intake, we could see major changes in the brain’s dopamine and opioid systems,” said lead study author Michael Winterdahl, associate professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University in Denmark. “In fact, the opioid system, which is that part of the brain’s chemistry that is associated with well-being and pleasure, was already activated after the very first intake.”

… our recent research showed that snacks after youth sports games contained more calories than the amount kids burned.

Both of us are faculty members in public health who study childhood obesity. Most of Jay’s work is in physical activity and looks at the effect of the environment on health, including parks and city design. Lori specializes in the food environment and has examined the effects of school breakfast and salad bar programs on student nutrition.

The NFL systematically has marginalized the kickoff over the past decade. And for good reason. It was, as league officials admitted, the most dangerous play in the game, with high-speed collisions leading to concussions and other injuries, sometimes serious.

Recent changes to the kickoff procedures have reduced the magnitude of the hits by limiting the ability of two players running in opposite directions to gain a full head of steam. Those changes also have made it much harder for an onside kick to succeed. Which makes it much harder for a team that is trailing by more than one score late in a game to mount a comeback.

So what can the NFL do to help the losing team? It can try a different strategy for retaining possession after a score, and in the otherwise meaningless and irrelevant Pro Bowl, the league will experiment with a new procedure.

When Charlotte Hornets center Willy Hernangomez first came to the NBA, he didn’t get it.

Where’s the structure? Where’s the conformity?

When did everyone stop wearing the same team-issued gear?