Yahoo Sports, NBC Sports Boston, Justin Leger from
… On Wednesday, Bucs head coach Bruce Arians was asked whether QBs playing well into their 40s could become a trend as a result of the examples Brady and New Orleans Saints signal-caller Drew Brees have set.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt,” Arians told reporters. “Barring major injury, I think these guys can play until they’re 45, as long as their arm holds up. With sports science and all the stuff that these guys are doing to stay in shape and keeping their arms strong, I don’t see – unless their legs go – why they couldn’t play until they’re 45.”
The US Women’s National Team released its latest roster, and some big names were not included for October training camp.
US Soccer opted not to bring the stars currently playing abroad — including Alex Morgan, Christen Press, Tobin Heath, Rose Lavelle, Sam Mewis, and Emily Sonnett — back to the states amid the pandemic.
Morgan told Insider that it was “the right decision” and that head coach Vlatko Andonovski called each player to assure them that the move was “not performance-driven in any way.”
This article, the third in a four-part series that is part of the conversation about development in U.S. ski racing initiated by Dan Leever and Ski Racing Media, will focus on how, based on my 35+ years of specializing in the psychology of ski racing, our sport can best leverage mental training as part of a broader reconsideration of Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) in U.S. ski racing. My goal is to ensure that mental training is included in the conversation aimed at helping prepare our athletes to be the “Best in the World” as part of a more comprehensive reimagining of what it takes to develop world-class ski racers in America.
The way in which we perform over the course of a day is affected by our biological clock. Scientists from the University of Groningen compared times from swimmers in the heats, semi-finals and finals of four Olympic Games. After removing factors that were unrelated to the biological clock, they observed that these swimmers performed best in late afternoon. Their performance in the morning and late evening was sub-optimal. The difference caused by the biological clock could be a deciding factor between winning gold and silver, or between winning and not winning a medal. Since individuals’ biological clocks may differ, it could pay off to shift the time of peak performance towards the most important race by changing the athletes’ light exposure during specific times of the day.
UConn women’s basketball kicked off its first official practice of the 2020-21 season Wednesday. But in reality, the official start of practice is closer to a formality than anything new the team is doing.
The Huskies have been conducting workouts since returning to campus in July and as of Sep. 21, they could practice up to 12 hours per week and spend eight hours of that on skill work. Coaches were also required to give players at least two days off every week.
Now, they can practice 20 hours a week — a maximum of four hours per day — and players get one day off per week. In
Stats Perform, a global firm that sells sports data to media companies and betting operators, is experiencing a service disruption that’s led to confusion across the daily fantasy industry, and in at least one case, refunds being issued.
The data provider, which is owned by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners, has experienced data outages dating back to Saturday’s college football games, according to multiple people familiar with the problem. They continued through Sunday’s NFL games—typically the most import day of the week for both gambling and daily fantasy—and at least two cases still have not been resolved, the people said.
Whether it’s because of an injury, or they’re not having fun anymore, the journey of playing sports for most kids comes to an end at the age of 14.
That’s where the sports technology app Mustard comes in. It uses artificial intelligence to simply analyze what an athlete is doing and offers tips on how it can be corrected, so kids can stay healthy and have more fun on the field.
New England Patriots cornerback Jason McCourty questioned Saturday whether COVID-19 protocols put into place by the NFL make player safety a top priority.
McCourty cited the Patriots’ trip to Kansas City on Monday as one example, as it came three days after quarterback Cam Newton had tested positive. McCourty, 33, said he was involved in conversations over the past week with the NFL Players Association, “trying to figure out who has our best interest in mind.
Aim To assess the value of including validated screening tools for allergies, anxiety, depression, sleep apnoea and sleep quality into an electronic patient health history questionnaire.
Methods In this descriptive study, we reviewed electronic medical records of Olympic and Paralympic athletes who completed health screenings, which included validated screens for allergies (Allergy Questionnaire for Athletes), anxiety (General Anxiety Disorder-2), depression (Patient Health Questionaire-2), sleep apnoea (Berlin Questionnaire) and sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), using established criteria for a positive screen. We report the prevalence of positive tests and the associations between positive screening tools.
Results A total of 683 Olympic and 257 Paralympic athletes (462 male, 478 female) completed the health history between May and September of 2019. At least one positive screen was reported by 37% of athletes training for the Olympics and 48% of athletes training for the Paralympics. More than 20% of all athletes screened positive for allergies and poor sleep quality. Athletes training for the Paralympics had a significantly higher percentage of positive screens for anxiety, depression, poor sleep quality and sleep apnoea risk. Females had significantly more positive screens for allergy and poor sleep quality.
Conclusions The addition of standardised screening tools to an electronic health history resulted in the identification of potential mental health, sleep and allergy problems in both Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Strong associations between mental health and sleep disorders suggest these problems should be considered together in health screening programmes.
Elite athletes suffer many mental health symptoms and disorders at rates equivalent to or exceeding those of the general population. COVID-19 has created new strains on elite athletes, thus potentially increasing their vulnerability to mental health symptoms. This manuscript serves as a narrative review of the impact of the pandemic on management of those symptoms in elite athletes and ensuing recommendations to guide that management. It specifically addresses psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy and higher levels of care. Within the realm of psychotherapy, crisis counselling might be indicated. Individual, couple/family and group psychotherapy modalities all may be helpful during the pandemic, with novel content and means of delivery. Regarding pharmacotherapy for mental health symptoms and disorders, some important aspects of management have changed during the pandemic, particularly for certain classes of medication including stimulants, medications for bipolar and psychotic disorders, antidepressants and medications for substance use disorders. Providers must consider when in-person management (eg, for physical examination, laboratory testing) or higher levels of care (eg, for crisis stabilisation) is necessary, despite potential risk of viral exposure during the pandemic. Management ultimately should continue to follow general principles of quality health care with some flexibility. Finally, the current pandemic provides an important opportunity for research on new methods of providing mental health care for athletes, and consideration for whether these new methods should extend beyond the pandemic. [full text]
Ithaca College, The Ithacan student newspaper, Emily Adams from
… At Ithaca College, the vast majority of mental health support for athletes centers on performance in competition. The college’s sport psychology graduate program includes opportunities for students to work with individual athletes and sports teams at the college on their mental training. Teams that participate in sports psychology sessions cover topics like effective goal setting, resilience and stress management during competition.
Mental illness is notably absent from the curriculum. Instead, athletes are taught in spaces like the Sports Leadership Academy that they are only committed to their teams if they are constantly putting in extra work. They are taught that a real leader never has two bad days in a row. They are taught that the pandemic is a time to accelerate, not a time to coast. While these messages can be encouraging and inspirational for some, they can also be incredibly damaging, especially to athletes who are struggling the most with their mental health.
In her book, “What Made Maddy Run,” journalist Kate Fagan dissects the prevalence of mental health problems among college athletes. She also writes about the toxic environment that seemingly motivational statements can create for athletes.
… As outlined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and the NBPA, the players receive a “Playoff Pool in the amount of $20 million for the 2017-18 Season, changing by a percentage in each Season thereafter” based on year-over-year percentage change in league-wide basketball related income. This season, a total of more than $23 million (a number that is unaffected by the irregular circumstances of a postseason without fans) will be distributed among the 16 playoff teams based on their regular season and playoff success.
For teams that lose early in the postseason, this sum of money is relatively minuscule, but if the Los Angeles Lakers win the title tonight, they would secure more than $6 million dollars to split among their players.
Being appointed manager at one of the world’s biggest clubs with little to no prior coaching experience is an inconceivable feat, unless your name carries the same weight as Andrea Pirlo’s. The 41-year-old Italian replaced Maurizio Sarri after his aggregate defeat to Lyon in the UEFA Champions League. There has been a lot of intrigue about how the young manager will implement his coaching philosophy at a club with extremely high standards and an immediate demand for success.
We can get a good indication of Pirlo’s tactical philosophy by analysing his FIGC thesis which he wrote in 2019 for his UEFA Pro License. In the thesis, he outlines the way in which he would like his teams to play. It is quite apparent Pirlo wants his team to be the protagonist. He cites his footballing influences, which are Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona, Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, Louis Van Gaal’s Ajax, Carlo Ancelotti’s Milan, and Antonio Conte’s Juventus.
… Getting to game day each week has been a challenge for almost every team as the entire aesthetic of NFL games has changed during a season unlike any other. From the number of buses teams take to the stadium to maintain social distancing to the way quarterbacks call plays in the huddle, the coronavirus has forced teams to adapt and adjust the way they operate.
Travel has changed. Schedules have changed. Competitive advantages/disadvantages have cropped up for many teams. The look and feel of game day is totally different in 2020, but the NFL has marched on, aided by an understanding of the need for flexibility.
We asked players and coaches to describe the differences they’ve experienced on game day — from travel all the way into the huddle — as the NFL continues to forge ahead with the 2020 season.