There is an oft-told story about Jurgen Klopp that reveals plenty about him as a person and his approach to management. New signing Andy Robertson was due to become a father for the first time and the Liverpool manager was baffled that a fellow member of staff was not aware of it. “How can you not know that? That is the biggest thing in his life now.”
It is an anecdote that cuts to the core of Klopp’s ethos. His stated aim to always “leave a room and try to make sure that people don’t feel worse from the moment you came in” is at the heart of his success. Only now is football starting to appreciate why it matters so much.
… Matt Rhea was quoted in a Stack article, How a Unique Speed Training Program Flipped the Fortunes of Indiana Football, saying what makes him revolutionary: “The old adage you can’t teach speed or you can’t develop speed in guys at this level is just highly inaccurate.” Also from the same Stack article: Rhea, along with IU Director of Football Performance Dave Ballou, arrived in Bloomington in January of 2018. Over the course of the next year, Indiana players saw their top running speed increase by an average of over 3 miles per hour.
For those of you new to the miles per hour game, DK Metcalf ran 1.37 mph faster than Budda Baker in the famous rundown back in October 2020.
College teams recruit fast athletes. I can’t imagine what an average speed increase of over 3 miles per hour would look like.
When Rhea and Ballou went to Alabama, I told people that Alabama may never lose another game. Especially given the Neanderthal state of affairs in many S&C programs.
… Applications, open to all not just students, will be accepted from Jan. 15-March 1. Entries will be evaluated and cut to a top 10-15 with those candidates making a pitch in April to a panel of Sun Devil athletics judges in April during ASU Demo Day.
“The desire would be to look at anything that could benefit Sun Devil athletics as a whole,” said Jeff Kunowski, ASU Associate Director of Innovation Programs. “That could be player performance, venue technology, safety-related items in the COVID era thinking through different solutions that could help with disinfection. It could be getting fans back into the stadium or arena.
Smart contact lenses could soon become mainstream thanks to a new manufacturing process that has allowed the University of Surrey to develop a multifunctional ultra-thin sensor layer.
Valencell, a leader in transforming the science of wearable biometrics to enable impactful health outcomes, today announced the availability of the Valencell Library which enables device makers to embed Valencell’s patented biometric sensor software available on their ARM Cortex M4F microcontroller unit (MCU) of choice. This allows device makers to upgrade existing device designs and enhance future products without changing fundamental elements of their hardware designs. The Valencell Library is available starting today for evaluation.
In addition, Valencell today announced the next generation of its Benchmark® Sensor Systems designed for wrist devices and other wearables – BW1.5, BW5.0 and BW6.0. All three are library-ready, biometric sensor systems including the hardware (emitters, detectors, optical lensing) and software (firmware and algorithms) in flexible integration configurations.
We’ve covered the benefits of our Human Performance Platform and EMR (Electronic Medical Records) in separate blog posts in the past. But here, we’ll fully uncover the big picture that is combining your EMR and medical data with what your performance team is collecting, and why you and your organization can find value from such a pairing.
Form filling and other user input on mobile devices such as smartphones can be awkward and error prone, but by taking advantage of the strengths of the phone, designers can improve the usability of these tasks substantially. [video, 3:23]
Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy from
Objective
To estimate the incidence and recurrence rates of acute hamstring injuries in all levels of soccer. Design
Epidemiology systematic review. Literature Search
We searched the PubMed (including MEDLINE), CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, Embase, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials electronic databases. Study Selection Criteria
We included prospective studies of all levels of adult soccer players that registered acute hamstring injuries and provided a description of incidence of acute hamstring injuries per 1000 playing hours (or available data to calculate this). Data Synthesis
Due to heterogeneity, we synthesized the data descriptively. Results
Thirteen studies including 3868 players met the inclusion criteria. Two of 13 included studies reported on hamstring injuries in women, and all reported the same in men. The incidence of acute hamstring injury ranged from 0.3 to 0.5 per 1000 exposure hours in women and 0.3 to 1.9 per 1000 exposure hours in men. Hamstring injuries accounted for 5% to 15% of all soccer-related injuries. Hamstring injury recurrence rates ranged from 4% to 68%, depending on the injury definition. Certainty of evidence ranged from moderate to very low. Conclusion
The incidence of acute hamstring injury in soccer was 0.3 to 1.9 per 1000 exposure hours. The recurrence rate was 4% to 68%. The strength of the evidence was limited by a lack of methodological rigor, the use of varying definitions for acute hamstring injury, and heterogeneous methods of reporting on acute hamstring injuries.
“I am angry because it is not right. It is wrong. That is why I am so angry.” That is Fulham manager Scott Parker, talking about the Premier League rescheduling his side’s postponed match with Tottenham for Wednesday, with only two days’ notice. The original fixture had been scheduled for December 30, but was postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak in Fulham’s camp. A different outbreak, at Aston Villa, forced the Premier League’s hand; the Lions were originally set to play Tottenham on Wednesday but do not have enough first-team players cleared in order for the match to go on.
Welcome to the Premier League’s scheduling nightmare, a scenario that was easily predictable at the start of this jam-packed season, and one that the league now must maneuver through on the fly in order to finish out its 38-game campaign alongside two domestic cup tournaments and the top clubs’ European commitments. That last bit is why Fulham now has two days to prepare for a match against fourth-place Tottenham, as Spurs have to schedule around their Europa League matches. There simply isn’t enough time in the weeks to come for Spurs to have a match day fall idle, and since Villa is in no shape to play on Wednesday, the league threw Fulham in at the last minute.
Dan Ross hasn’t been on the pool deck for a competition since March.
Needless to say, the Purdue men’s swimming coach is officially excited.
His program, along with cross country, volleyball, wrestling and women’s swimming and diving, is among the sports that are getting a late start to a season that will feature altered schedules.
It’s been a challenge, but there’s little complaining on Ross’ end.
“The biggest thing is there no such thing as fair,” Ross said. “That is one thing you can’t judge right now. All you can take care of is what you can control.
As the NBA continues to deal with the reality of attempting to play the 2020-21 regular season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the league sent a memo to teams Wednesday night detailing plans to try to supplement the testing already in place for players and referees with localized game-day testing in all 28 NBA cities.
The memo, a copy of which was obtained by ESPN, asks each team to spend the next two days attempting to find local testing providers; the league plans to discuss those findings with the teams over the weekend with the goal of beginning to implement the extra tests sometime next week. The intent is to find a local provider of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests that can turn around at least 40 tests — enough to handle players on both teams, as well as that night’s referees — that could be collected the morning of a game and returned at least one hour before tipoff.
With the start of 2021, anticipation continues to mount for the Tampa Bay Lightning’s opportunity to defend their Stanley Cup title. Among the other challenges the Lightning will face this season are the COVID-19 virus and the task of maintaining the same standards for player safety that were present in last season’s bubble environment.
For the benefit of the team and the Tampa area at-large, team leaders have been working in partnership with AdventHealth to implement new safety measures to maximize safety.
“We continue to monitor the COVID-19 virus and are focused on leading edge research, diagnosis and treatment in our communities,” Dr. Robert Rosequist, chief medical officer, AdventHealth Wesley Chapel and general practitioner for the Lightning, recently told Front Office Sports.
U.S. Soccer is no longer managing the National Women’s Soccer League, although some aspects of the partnership remain, NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird said Tuesday.
Baird spoke on a wide-ranging conference call with reporters ahead of the league’s draft Wednesday night. She also announced that a franchise in Sacramento would join the NWSL in 2022.
U.S. Soccer’s management of the NWSL was supposed to come to an end at the close of 2019 but was extended through 2020. The change gives team owners more control over the league.
U.S. Soccer, which has managed the league since its launch in 2013, will continue to invest in the NWSL, Baird said. She characterized the relationship as a “new chapter” with both sides committed to the ongoing success of the league.
AJC.com, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, D. Orlando Ledbetter from
Upon completion of the NFL’s regular season Sunday, the Falcons and at least two other teams will seek permission to interview head coaching candidates.
In addition to openings already with the Falcons, Detroit and Houston, other firings are expected Monday. The NFL is looking to improve its hiring record for Black coaches and executives.
The Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University recently completed an NFL field study that examined the hiring and firing tends at the highest sport levels. The academic report looked at the NFL hiring patterns over the past 10 years.
“If Black coaches are the last hired and first fired, right, then the point is can you get them into a higher place on the queue,” said Scott N. Brooks, the director of research at the Global Sport Institute (GSI). “We know that’s about attitudes, institutionalized and systematic forms of racism that kind of block those things.”
Making Sense Of: Translational Science, Technology Transfer
John Bartholomew, in a recent American College of Sports Medicine blog, admired the impact social media has had on translational science in sports. Specifically he pointed to a 2019 finding on the best recovery posture following high intensity exercise. It turns out that “hands on knees” is superior to “hands on head.” 1500+ social media mentions agreed, including the Houston Texans’ lineman J.J. Watt.
Put information directly in athletes’ hands. See them change what had been the standard professional practice of less-informed coaches. It’s progress, undeniably, but the ease of obtaining the progress is deceptive. And in absolute terms the gain is minimal.
Consider the alternative. Recent reports (ESPN, The Ringer) about Buffalo Bills’ quarterback Josh Allen, document his process to improve throwing accuracy through work with quarterbacking consultant Jordan Palmer. Allen and Palmer used a sophisticated high-resolution multi-angle camera system to monitor and refine technique.
Some might say that this is an example of a disruptive technology, an out of the blue advance that changes and improves a process for something that was already thought to be figured out. After all, football consensus was that quarterback throwing accuracy wasn’t something that ever improved at the NFL level. But video analysis in skill development coaching goes back decades in Olympic sports — swimming, gymnastics, track — where stakes are high, practice time is lengthy and intrinsic motivation is a crucial differentiator.
Video analysis might not be a disruptor, but it is a coaching force multiplier. Coaches work with more athletes in the same amount of time, while athletes (aided by coaches, not on their own) learn to self-identify and self-correct patterns that lead to improved habits and skill techniques. Higher resolution and fidelity, enabled by better camera and sensing technologies, increase the multiplier effect. Unlike social media and recovery postures, the work to implement these methods in practice is highly technical, and not at all easy. The collaboration between coach and athlete is essential to maintain positive progress and to avoid negative habits.
Skill acquisition feedback technology is a growing area for sports science tech investment. ShotTracker and BlastMotion are training technology companies that just announced major investments and partnerships. These technologies are examples where sports skill feedback comes with more difficulty than a social media post, but not so much challenge as 360-degree quarterback throwing motion capture.
Degree of difficulty speaks to the “how badly do you want to improve” nature of skill improvement. Skill development, like technology transfer, often comes down to “want-to” rather than “need-to.” What’s difficult is what’s most worthwhile. There’s a reason why J.J. Watt’s season is over and Josh Allen continues to advance in the NFL playoffs.
Thanks for reading. I hope that 2021 is off to a good start.
-Brad
