Applied Sports Science newsletter – May 26, 2020

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for May 26, 2020

 

Cleveland Cavaliers’ Kevin Love says coronavirus pandemic another reminder of importance of mental wellness

ESPN NBA, Jackie MacMullan from

Kevin Love is fretting about COVID-19.

He’s not spending a lot of energy worrying whether he’ll get it, or grieving the death of someone close to him who contracted the coronavirus. He frets because he knows what can happen if people experience the loss of a loved one, become consumed with the loneliness of isolation, experience job insecurity and financial difficulty, and then internalize that stress instead of getting help by reaching out and talking to a health professional.

“Listen, I don’t have all the answers — and likely never will,” the Cleveland Cavaliers power forward said. “But speaking from experience, I can tell you there are resources out there that can help you.


Scorching 40 Time Gives Albert Okwuegbunam Momentum Heading Into The NFL

STACK, Eric Barnes from

… The 6-5, 258-pound Okwuegbunam had electrified at the 2020 NFL Combine in February with that 4.49-second performance in the 40-Yard Dash. According to NFL Research, his was the second-fastest 40 time clocked by a player who is at least 6-5 and 250 pounds since 2003; only Montez Sweat’s 2019 effort of 4.41 was quicker.

No one doubts Albert O’s ability to catch passes and score TDs, but some question his skills as a true blocker at the next level, and injuries nagged him throughout his time at Mizzou. His final season was cut short by a shoulder injury, but he still managed to play in nine of the Tigers’ 11 games in 2019.


Coronavirus: NWSL with USWNT stars plans to be first U.S. league back

Yahoo Sports, Caitlin Murray from

… Under the proposed plan, teams would take charter flights from their home markets to Utah and players would be tested for COVID-19 upon arrival, multiple sources said. A few days later, they would be tested again, and continue to be tested twice per week throughout the competition. Antibody tests to identify which players have had COVID-19 already are also being evaluated, sources said.

While questions still remain, like what would happen if a player gets COVID-19 during the tournament, the league and stakeholders have been working at a furious pace over the last several days to provide satisfactory answers. Even just a week ago, sources were skeptical this plan was feasible, but now they say this tournament is expected to happen.


Bucs see positive offseason gains despite relying on virtual workouts

ESPN NFL, Jenna Laine from

t’s just before noon on a May weekday, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Jordan Whitehead, cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting and offensive tackle Donovan Smith are all headed to work — inside their garage gyms, which have become makeshift home offices during the coronavirus pandemic.

Per league and NFLPA rules, teams are allowed to conduct their offseason programs — classroom instruction and workouts — only virtually. Facilities remain closed to players and coaches. The league did, however, begin allowing a small number of operations-level employees and injured players needing medical treatment to enter facilities this week.

The virtual offseason program was originally intended to last three weeks, ending no later than May 15, but the league recently extended it by another two weeks to May 29 because of ongoing concerns about the coronavirus.


How Rachel Balkovec Made Baseball History

WBUR, Only a Game, Alex Schroeder from

… It’s no surprise, then — to Balkovec, to her former teammates, to her high school coaches, to her family members — that she’s become the first woman to be hired as a hitting coach for a Major League organization.

But for the rest of the world, especially a lot of the sports world, it’s been a different story. It took them a little more time to come around. It’s something Balkovec had to get used to.

“It was a hard realization of, like, ‘OK, if somebody doesn’t want to hire me because of my gender, that’s probably just not a human being that I want to be around anyway,’ ” Balkovec says.


IU football: Offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan on remote coaching

Indianapolis Star, Zach Osterman from

“Madagascar 2” plays in the background as Nick Sheridan sits down for one of the more unconventional film sessions of an unconventional time.

Appointed IU’s new offensive coordinator in January, Sheridan is doing what most of his profession has for the last two-plus months — working from home, pouring over what spring practice film IU banked and trying to coach remotely the players he used to see every day.

That was before COVID-19 forced college sports to go virtual, before every coach’s office relocated to his dining room table and his players became faces on a screen.

“We have XOS, which is a video system. We’re able to upload videos just like any other cloud-based system,” he says, speaking with IndyStar over Zoom to explain how he’s learned to coach through COVID-19. “Have had some team meetings, some unit meetings where you’re getting everybody together on a Zoom. But it’s a fine line, right? As you know, we’re dealing with a very serious issue, and different kids have different situations at home. You’re really monitoring their overall well-being first and foremost.”


Excerpt: The Coach’s Guide to Teaching

Doug Lemov, Teach Like a Champion blog from

I’m closing in on my manuscript deadline on my new book, The Coach’s Guide to Teaching. The sense of urgency–some might call it desperation–is palpable. But I’ve just finished Chapter 4, which is about Checking for Understanding. Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite. Hope you enjoy

John Wooden was among the greatest coaches of the 20th century. No doubt he was among the winningest, but he remains among the most admired and most quoted, too. Wooden’s stories, aphorisms and principles are often afforded nearly canonical status and retold like parables from the gospel:

  • The story of how he began the UCLA season by instructing his players in how to put on their socks reveals that we should begin at the beginning- and perhaps that the beginning starts earlier than we think.
  • The tale of his response to Bill Walton’s announcement that he didn’t want to cut his hair in accordance with team rules–Wooden praised Walton for standing up for his convictions before adding, “and we’re sure going to miss you around here, Bill”—reminds us that the test of our principles is whether we apply them to our best players and when they result in our losing games.

  • Brain-Reading Temporary Tattoos Are The Future of Wearables

    Digital Trends, Luke Dormehl from

    Outside of Soundcloud rappers and professional wrestlers like the late Bam Bam Bigelow, head tattoos aren’t something most of us encounter on a regular basis. If researchers at Austria’s Graz University of Technology and a couple of other European research labs have their way, that could all be about to change. Head tattoos may become the norm — mind-reading, electrode-sporting head tattoos. And, like the old joke about the waiter and the fly in the man’s soup, we’re all going to want them.

    Before we get any further, no, the tattoos aren’t permanent. “We use temporary tattoos like the ones for kids; essentially the same that you would use to transfer a cartoon or a drawing for creative purposes onto your skin,” Francesco Greco, assistant professor at the university’s Institute of Solid State Physics, told Digital Trends. “We use the [standard tattoo] paper as a substrate and then print on top of it circuits made out of conductive polymer, using an inkjet printer.”


    New wearable sensor tracks Vitamin C levels in sweat

    University of California-San Diego, UC San Diego UC San Diego News Center from

    A team at the University of California San Diego has developed a wearable, non invasive Vitamin C sensor that could provide a new, highly personalized option for users to track their daily nutritional intake and dietary adherence. The study was published in the May 18, 2020 issue of ACS Sensors.

    “Wearable sensors have traditionally been focused on their use in tracking physical activity, or for monitoring disease pathologies, like in diabetes,” said first-author Juliane Sempionatto, a PhD Candidate in nanoengineering in Joseph Wang’s lab at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. “This is the first demonstration of using an enzyme-based approach to track changes in the level of a necessary vitamin, and opens a new frontier in the wearable device arena.”


    How Jurgen Klopp created a new role at Melwood – with every player catered for – Liverpool FC

    This Is Anfield blog, Jack Lusby from

    Liverpool’s head of nutrition Mona Nemmer has revealed how Jurgen Klopp created a new role at the club for her, and detailed her job in consulting with every player.


    Regulation of vitamin D system in skeletal muscle and resident myogenic stem cell during development, maturation, and ageing | Scientific ReportsClose bannerClose banner

    Scientific Reports; Ratchakrit Srikuea, Muthita Hirunsai & Narattaphol Charoenphandhu from

    Skeletal muscle exhibits enormous plasticity throughout life, however, less is known regarding how the stages of growth regulate its local vitamin D system. Herein, we investigated serum 25(OH)D3 and Ca2+ levels along with the vitamin D system in skeletal muscle and resident myogenic stem cells of male C57BL/6 mice during development, maturation, and ageing. Compared with development, significant increases in vitamin D receptor (VDR) protein expression in mature and aged muscles were associated with increased serum 25(OH)D3 and centronucleated fibres, respectively. The substantial increase in VDR protein expression in aged muscle was also related to reduced downstream mTOR signalling protein expression which was more pronounced in fast-glycolytic compared to slow-oxidative muscles. Intriguingly, serum Ca2+ and vitamin D-metabolising enzyme (CYP27B1 and CYP24A1) levels in skeletal muscle were not different across age. In primary cell culture, nuclear VDR protein was expressed in undifferentiated skeletal muscle stem cells (SMSC) after 1α,25(OH)2D3 treatment. Additionally, a diminished response to 1α,25(OH)2D3 was observed with age as there was a rapid commitment of SMSC towards differentiation under growth-stimulating conditions. Collectively, understanding the local vitamin D system in skeletal muscle could help develop effective interventions for vitamin D supplementation to improve skeletal muscle mass and function during ageing. [full text]


    Where have all the top lefty pitchers gone?

    MLB.com, Mike Petriello from

    … Were there really fewer great lefty starters in baseball, or is this just a fluke? If there are, then why? Is it just one of those cyclical things, or something more meaningful?

    The first thing we did to try to answer that question was to simply look at the 2019 season through the lens of Wins Above Replacement. In WAR terms, a 2-WAR season is considered “average,” so we thought an easy thing to do would be to look and see how many lefty pitchers had a 3-WAR season (i.e., above-average) or better last year, and if it was noticeably lower than the rest of history.


    Why do clubs need to embrace analytics to stay competitive?

    YouTube, Barca Innovation Hub from

    We will explore what football analytics is and how it serves a great variety of departments within a club. We will cover specific examples of competitive advantages provided by analytics in top football clubs, and explore the technical and social challenges that analytics faces within a club, including discussing insights with players and coaches. [video, 1:34:52]


    Lessons Learned: Attending a Football Analytics Conference as a Newbie

    Medium, Can Ülker from

    … The content of speakers were super rich and I got some interesting insights from every single talk. When I check my very unstructured notes though, I can see some highlights from my learnings and I tried to condense these for each day of the conference, here you go.


    This anonymous armchair analyst is teaching world-class football players something even the biggest clubs can’t

    The Correspondent, Michiel de Hoog from

    How do footballers achieve excellence? For one of the best defenders in the world, Stefan de Vrij, and his video analyst, every hundredth of a second counts.

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