… “We’ve got a plan with our goaltenders. We’re not going to get into what it is. Nothing’s changed in my idea that both guys are going to play moving forward here,” coach Peter DeBoer said after his team’s Game 2 loss to the Canucks.
But something has changed with Fleury and the Golden Knights. That much is clear. This is the goaltender who had previously started every postseason game in the team’s history. A goaltender they signed to a lucrative three-year contract extension that began this season. On a team that has never had a captain, he’s as close to one as they’ve had. DeBoer didn’t bench a goalie; he sat the guy whose face is on the billboards, the player whose name adorns countless Golden Knights sweaters as fans filter into their home arena.
After a quiet start to his career, Eryk Williamson is finally earning playing time in Portland and he has been helping his team win. With the U.S. U-23 team looking to restart later this year, he could be a big addition to that team while also getting ready for the CONCACAF Champions League next year. ASN’s Brian Sciaretta spoke at length with the Maryland native.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences journal from
Ground contact duration and stride frequency each affect muscle metabolism and help scientists link walking and running biomechanics to metabolic energy expenditure. While these parameters are often used independently, the product of ground contact duration and stride frequency (i.e. duty factor) may affect muscle contractile mechanics. Here, we sought to separate the metabolic influence of the duration of active force production, cycle frequency and duty factor. Human participants produced cyclic contractions using their soleus (which has a relatively homogeneous fibre type composition) at prescribed cycle-average ankle moments on a fixed dynamometer. Participants produced these ankle moments over short, medium and long durations while maintaining a constant cycle frequency. Overall, decreased duty factor did not affect cycle-average fascicle force (p ≥ 0.252) but did increase net metabolic power (p ≤ 0.022). Mechanistically, smaller duty factors increased maximum muscle-tendon force (p < 0.001), further stretching in-series tendons and shifting soleus fascicles to shorter lengths and faster velocities, thereby increasing soleus total active muscle volume (p < 0.001). Participant soleus total active muscle volume well-explained net metabolic power (r = 0.845; p < 0.001). Therefore, cyclically producing the same cycle-average muscle-tendon force using a decreased duty factor increases metabolic energy expenditure by eliciting less economical muscle contractile mechanics.
Talent identification and development (TID) programs aim to identify players with the greatest potential for long-term success. Previous research suggests that the assessment of sport-specific technical skills is valuable for discriminating between more and less skilled individuals and/or for predicting future performance. Objective
This review aims to provide an overview on both the instruments used to assess sport-specific technical skills and their discriminatory, explanatory and/or predictive findings in the context of TID. Methods
Electronic searches were conducted in PubMed, Web of Knowledge, SPORTDiscus, SURF and Scopus (January 1990–October 2019). Search terms covered the areas of sport, technical skills assessment, performance, skill level and youth. In the end, 59 relevant studies were identified and evaluated. Results
The results highlight the widespread and important role of technical skills in TID; almost all studies (93%) reported discriminatory, explanatory and/or predictive benefits for the assessment of sport-specific technical skills. Analyzing and categorizing the number of assessment methods applied in the studies (n = 69) according to their method type (‘technique-related’ or ‘outcome-related’ variables) and method set-up (‘experimental’ or ‘competition’ data acquisition environment) indicated a clear tendency towards ‘outcome-related’ (73%) and ‘experimental’ (75%) assessment methods. We also found a strong overrepresentation of studies assessing cross-sectional data (75%) in soccer (53%) in male samples (74% of studies reporting subjects’ sex) from European countries (64%). Conclusions
On the one hand, our findings demonstrate the great capability of sport-specific technical skills assessments to discriminate different performance levels and predict future performance in TID activities. On the other hand, this review highlights the focus on ‘outcome-related’ and ‘experimental’ methods in specific populations and, consequently, the limited knowledge in other areas. Here, the application of ‘technique-related’ and ‘competition’ methods appears promising for adding new knowledge, especially in the light of technological advances. [full text]
Minnesota United on Wednesday announced a new approach to put young Minnesota soccer players on a pathway to reach the franchise’s first team.
The team unveiled a “Youth Development Program’ to train players as young as 8 years old and develop them through a pro U-23 reserve/second team that connect youth leagues and elite pro U-15 and U-17 teams to the club’s first team.
Chief soccer officer Manny Lagos calls it a plan meant to “broaden the net” when identifying and grooming elite players.
… Chelsea reached four UEFA Youth League finals between 2015 and 2019, winning two of them. They also won seven FA Youth Cups and last season’s Premier League 2.
And now, we are finally seeing academy stars in Chelsea’s starting 11. Indeed, last season, a club-record eight homegrown players made their professional debuts for the first team.
Obviously, Chelsea’s transfer ban played a part, with new manager Frank Lampard prevented from making any new signings when he succeeded Maurizio Sarri at the helm last summer.
However, the former Blues midfielder always intended to tap into the club’s reservoir of young talent, not least because two of his assistants, Jody Morris and Joe Edwards, had previously worked at Cobham and were fully aware of the potential of its best players.
… psychological research shows that we should start making pragmatic plans to accomplish our goals instead of simply dancing in daydreams. This means comparing those rosy visions with our current reality, identifying the obstacles and finding the best way to overcome them.
Psychologists call this process “mental contrasting”. Their research shows that most people fail to effectively engage the strategy in their daily lives – meaning that our good intentions remain wishful thinking, and we never reach our dreams. Learning how to mentally contrast effectively can improve our problem solving, motivation and self-control – all of which can bring huge benefits to our personal and professional lives.
‘Fantasy Realisation Theory’
Gabriele Oettingen, a professor of psychology at New York University, has pioneered much of the research in this field, which she calls “Fantasy Realisation Theory”. Her interest began with some studies in the 1990s that yielded counter-intuitive results: all revealed that positive thinking on its own could be surprisingly counter-productive. Studying dieters, for instance, she found that the more people fantasised about the weight loss, the less likely they were to actually drop any pounds. Students, meanwhile, who dreamt of academic success tended to get worse grades than those who didn’t.
Premier League coaches are following Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp’s lead and using new technology to counter player burnout and injury.
The Reds boss and his backroom team have been widely applauded for their scientific and analytical approach which has taken Liverpool back to the top of the domestic, European and world game.
A key component of that has been getting real-time fitness data from players to enable analysis of their conditioning.
The Mirror report that Premier League coaches will now be able to have this information sent direct to their smart watches during matches to help prevent player burnout this season.
… This year is a little different though. On top of having to manage seasonal depression, also known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), some people will also have to contend with the demands of life during a pandemic — and the stress that comes with them.
If you’ve already been having a hard time, psychologist Scott Bea, PsyD, says the upcoming months might be even tougher for those who have been experiencing SAD year after year.
Courtney Watson is done with her doctorate degree, but Dr. Watson, as the Sparks are calling their head athletic trainer now, is not done with textbooks.
On the way to a recent practice, Sparks guard Seimone Augustus noticed how Watson was thumbing through a book on human anatomy. In her 12th year with the Sparks, Watson is always learning, always adapting.
She has never needed that quality more than now.
Watson is the team’s most important asset as she helps players and coaches navigate a global pandemic and a condensed 22-game season. For a woman whose grandmother and mother were both educators, this moment seems made for Watson.
According to a recent study in the journal Nutrients, a deficiency in vitamin B12 can cause your cholesterol and triglyceride numbers to go up.
Vitamin B12 is important for maintaining energy and endurance levels. In order to make sure you’re getting enough (2.4 micrograms per day), add animal products like meat, fish, eggs, and dairy to your diet.
U.S. long jumper and sprinter Jarrion Lawson, a member of Team USA in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, is no doubt familiar with the expression, “We are what we eat.” For the 26-year-old from Texas, those words have proven infuriatingly true.
In 2016, Asics signed Lawson to its largest deal ever for a male track athlete. The former Arkansas Razorbacks star had passed every drug test and consistently dominated the competition.
But on Friday, June 1, 2018, Lawson’s life would change—all because of a Teriyaki beef bowl.
While having lunch with a friend at a Japanese restaurant in Fayetteville, Ark., Lawson ingested a small amount of epitrenbolone, a metabolite of the anabolic steroid trenbolone. The amount, estimated at .65 nanograms per millimeter, was consistent with contaminated beef. It would be undetectable to an eater.
Europe’s major club competitions enter their last phases in the coming days – both the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League will see their finals this weekend, almost three months later than the original, pre-Covid schedule. The coronavirus pandemic caused major turmoil, not only in the timeline of the top two club tournaments, but resulted in several technical and logistical modifications too, all rendered in order to be able to complete the competitions this summer, and allow a new football season to resume in the autumn in domestic leagues and in international competitions as well. On the other hand, by looking at the participants of the last stages of the two competitions, we are not seeing much change but rather the prevailing trend of the crystallization of power among the top clubs.
Kraken professional scout Cammi Granato was raised in a hockey-playing household alongside four brothers, meaning she never felt intimidated by the sport’s male-dominated environment.
But that 1980s and 1990s experience also enables the Hockey Hall of Famer a direct comparison to the “refreshing’’ environment currently experienced within the Kraken. Granato is one of three women in hockey operations for an expansion franchise where the female influence permeates the entire organization.
“I grew up in a man’s game,’’ the longtime Team USA star said via phone Monday as she prepared to scout the Dallas Stars in Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinal against Colorado from her British Columbia home. “I played organized hockey my entire life. I was kind of used to that world and I understood it. But now … it’s so refreshing to have it be so diverse. This is how it should be. There should be women. It should be diverse like this. Because it’s more powerful. Everybody has different vantage points … and that’s a recipe for success.’’