Dylan Larkin has a hard time sugar-coating it — last season sucked for him and the Detroit Red Wings.
It’s tough to finish with a minus-122 goal differential and 23 fewer points than any other team. Larkin called it “embarrassing” to be on the first Red Wings team to finish dead last in the standings in 34 years.
“As much as your support system — your parents, agent, friends, people you turn to for advice — tell you that it’s going to make you stronger, it’s going to turn quick,” Larkin says. “When you’re in the moment of losing every night, and nobody is doing well personally, you feel like it’s never going to end, and there’s no way out of it.”
Larkin kept faith that his GM, Steve Yzerman, had a plan. The offseason was brutally long, thanks to Detroit being one of seven teams not invited to the summer’s return-to-play tournament. In August, Larkin said a handful of players returned to Detroit for optional practices, and by September, there were even more.
Like Tom Brady, the Lakers star is redefining the aging curve. And after turning his biggest weakness into a strength this season, he may have extended his career even further.
The Milwaukee Brewers today announced the addition of Theresa Lau to the Major League athletic training staff as assistant athletic trainer/physical therapist. The announcement was made by President of Baseball Operations David Stearns.
Lau replaces Rafael Freitas, who was named head Major League athletic trainer with the Pittsburgh Pirates in December.
“I am thrilled to join this dynamic team and to be surrounded by experts in the game,” said Lau. “Our players’ health is extremely important, and I intend to make an impact by further building the bridge between injury prevention, rehab and on-field performance.”
Sleep must be very important to all animals because it justifies shutting down consciousness, closing off from the external world, reducing input from sensory systems, and risking death from predators. Why would any sensible creature do this? Yet across millions of years of evolution, the mechanisms of sleep were conserved among vertebrates, arthropods, and nematodes. A recent study investigated how far back in time the first sleep occurred.
The scientists studied an animal from the phylum Cnidaria that includes hydra, jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals. These animals lack a centralized nervous system; they function mostly as a thick sheet of cells embedded with a network of nerves that innervates most parts of their body. Earlier research had demonstrated that animals of the cnidarian species undergo daily periodic quiescence that displays the 24-hour activity-rest rhythms that we would expect to observe in any organism that evolved on a planet spinning every 24 hours in the presence of a sun. Surprisingly, hydra sleep is not tied to an internal clock. Apparently, internal clocks evolved later.
We investigated whether an 11-day heat acclimation programme (HA) enhanced endurance performance in a temperate environment, and the mechanisms underpinning any ergogenic effect. Twenty-four males (V̇O2max: 56.7 ± 7.5 mL·kg−1·min−1) completed either: (i) HA consisting of 11 consecutive daily exercise sessions (60–90 min·day−1; n = 16) in a hot environment (40°C, 50% RH) or; (ii) duration and exertion matched exercise in cool conditions (CON; n = 8 [11°C, 60% RH]). Before and after each programme power at lactate threshold, mechanical efficiency, VO2max, peak power output (PPO) and work done during a 30-minute cycle trial (T30) were determined under temperate conditions (22°C, 50% RH). HA reduced resting (−0.34 ± 0.30°C) and exercising (−0.43 ± 0.30°C) rectal temperature, and increased whole-body sweating (+0.37 ± 0.31 L·hr−1) (all P≤0.001), with no change in CON. Plasma volume increased in HA (10.1 ± 7.2%, P < 0.001) and CON (7.2 ± 6.3%, P = 0.015) with no between-groups difference, whereas exercise heart rate reduced in both groups, but to a greater extent in HA (−20 ± 11 b·min−1) than CON (−6 ± 4 b·min−1). VO2max, lactate threshold and mechanical efficiency were unaffected by HA. PPO increased in both groups (+14 ± 18W), but this was not related to alterations in any of the performance or thermal variables, and T30 performance was unchanged in either group (HA: Pre = 417 ± 90 vs. Post = 427 ± 83 kJ; CON: Pre = 418 ± 63 vs. Post = 423 ± 56 kJ). In conclusion, 11-days HA induces thermophysiological adaptations, but does not alter the key determinants of endurance performance. In trained males, the effect of HA on endurance performance in temperate conditions is no greater than that elicited by exertion and duration matched exercise training in cool conditions.
Around the world, people are grappling with the risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. How do our minds process that risk, and why do some of us process it so differently? This week, we talk with psychologist Paul Slovic about the disconnect between our own assessments of risk and the dangers we face in our everyday lives. [audio, 50:54]
The intrinsic muscles of the foot are key contributors to foot function and are important to evaluate in lower limb disorders. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), provides a non-invasive option to measure muscle morphology and composition, which are primary determinants of muscle function. Ultra-high-field (7-T) magnetic resonance imaging provides sufficient signal to evaluate the morphology of the intrinsic foot muscles, and, when combined with chemical-shift sequences, measures of muscle composition can be obtained. Here we aim to provide a proof-of-concept method for measuring intrinsic foot muscle morphology and composition with high-field MRI. Methods
One healthy female (age 39 years, mass 65 kg, height 1.73 m) underwent MRI. A T1-weighted VIBE – radio-frequency spoiled 3D steady state GRE – sequence of the whole foot was acquired on a Siemens 7T MAGNETOM scanner, as well as a 3T MAGNETOM Prisma scanner for comparison. A high-resolution fat/water separation image was also acquired using a 3D 2-point DIXON sequence at 7T. Coronal plane images from 3T and 7T scanners were compared. Using 3D Slicer software, regions of interest were manually contoured for each muscle on 7T images. Muscle volumes and percentage of muscle fat infiltration were calculated (muscle fat infiltration % = Fat/(Fat + Water) x100) for each muscle. Results
Compared to the 3T images, the 7T images provided superior resolution, particularly at the forefoot, to facilitate segmentation of individual muscles. Muscle volumes ranged from 1.5 cm3 and 19.8 cm3, and percentage muscle fat infiltration ranged from 9.2–15.0%. Conclusions
This proof-of-concept study demonstrates a feasible method of quantifying muscle morphology and composition for individual intrinsic foot muscles using advanced high-field MRI techniques. This method can be used in future studies to better understand intrinsic foot muscle morphology and composition in healthy individuals, as well as those with lower disorders. [full text]
This new composite measurement characterizes both foot splay and arch deformation in three-dimensions. Potentially useful for clinically managing patients with ankle-foot impairment.
The difficulty of estimating joint kinematics remains a critical barrier toward widespread use of inertial measurement units in biomechanics. Traditional sensor-fusion filters are largely reliant on magnetometer readings, which may be disturbed in uncontrolled environments. Careful sensor-to-segment alignment and calibration strategies are also necessary, which may burden users and lead to further error in uncontrolled settings. We introduce a new framework that combines deep learning and top-down optimization to accurately predict lower extremity joint angles directly from inertial data, without relying on magnetometer readings. We trained deep neural networks on a large set of synthetic inertial data derived from a clinical marker-based motion-tracking database of hundreds of subjects. We used data augmentation techniques and an automated calibration approach to reduce error due to variability in sensor placement and limb alignment. On left-out subjects, lower extremity kinematics could be predicted with a mean (±STD) root mean squared error of less than 1.27° (±0.38°) in flexion/extension, less than 2.52° (±0.98°) in ad/abduction, and less than 3.34° (±1.02°) internal/external rotation, across walking and running trials. Errors decreased exponentially with the amount of training data, confirming the need for large datasets when training deep neural networks. While this framework remains to be validated with true inertial measurement unit data, the results presented here are a promising advance toward convenient estimation of gait kinematics in natural environments. Progress in this direction could enable large-scale studies and offer new perspective into disease progression, patient recovery, and sports biomechanics.
University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering from
Our bodies send out hosts of signals – chemicals, electrical pulses, mechanical shifts – that can provide a wealth of information about our health.
But electronic sensors that can detect these signals are often made of brittle, inorganic material that prevents them from stretching and bending on our skin or within our bodies.
Recent technological advances have made stretchable sensors possible, but their changes in shape can affect the data produced, and many sensors cannot collect and process the body’s faintest signals.
A new sensor design from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago helps solve that problem. By incorporating a patterned material that optimizes strain distribution among transistors, researchers have created stretchable electronics that are less compromised by deformation. They also created several circuit elements with the design, which could lead to even more types of stretchable electronics.
Dr. Jay C. Butler and Dr. Erin K. Sauber-Schatz from @CDCgov
join NCAA CMO Dr. Hainline and @TheAndyKatz
to chat about where the pandemic currently stands. [audio, 45:43]
Leaders of all eight Cactus League cities have sent a letter to Major League Baseball saying it would be “wise” to delay the start of spring training due to the high rate of COVID-19 infections in Arizona’s Maricopa County.
“In view of the current state of the pandemic in Maricopa County — with one of the nation’s highest infection rates — we believe it is wise to delay the start of spring training to allow for the COVID-19 situation here,” reads the letter, first acquired by TV station KPNX in Phoenix. “This position is based on public data from University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which projects a sharp decline in infections in Arizona by Mid-March.”
I love my protein shaker. (I’ve even been known to mix cocktails in it.) It’s a staple in my meathead life because I find protein shakes help me achieve my muscle-building goals. But a protein shake isn’t an automatic necessity if you’re lifting weights, so let’s talk about how you know whether you actually need one.
This study aimed to describe the worst-case scenarios (WCS) of professional soccer players by playing position in different durations and analyse WCS considering different contextual variables (match half, match location and match outcome). A longitudinal study was conducted in a professional soccer team. Data were collected from different WCS durations in the total distance (TD), high-speed running distance (HSRD), and sprinting distance (SPD). A mixed analysis of variance was performed to compare different WCS durations between playing positions and contextual variables, making pairwise comparisons by Bonferroni post hoc test. Positional differences were found for TD (p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.02), HSRD (p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.01) and SPD (p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.02). There was a significant interaction when comparing WCS by match half in TD (F = 6.1, p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.07) but no significant differences in HSRD (p = 0.403, ω p 2 = 0) or SPD (p = 0.376, ω p 2 = 0). A significant interaction was identified when comparing WCS by match location in TD (F = 51.5, p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.14), HSRD (F = 19.15, p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.05) and SPD (F = 8.95, p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.01) as well as WCS by match outcome in TD (F = 36.4, p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.08), HSRD (F = 13.6, p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.04) and SPD (F = 7.4, p < 0.01, ω p 2 = 0.02). Positional differences exist in TD, HSRD, and SPD in match-play WCS, and contextual variables such as match half, match location and match outcome have a significant impact on the WCS of professional soccer players. [full text]