Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 19, 2021

… Now the goal is to turn that athletic ability into football production, with KU’s new coaching staff moving him to a different role than he’s had in the past.

Johnson had been shuffled around constantly during his first four seasons in Lawrence, rotating often from outside to inside linebacker. He estimates, at this point, he’s changed spots “a good seven, eight times now.”

This year, Johnson has been transitioned to full-time defensive end in KU’s 4-3 scheme, meaning he’ll be used primarily as an edge rusher whose job will be to get into the backfield.

Many individual and team sport events require extended periods of exercise above the speed or power associated with maximal oxygen uptake (i.e., maximal aerobic speed/power, MAS/MAP). In absence of valid and reliable measures of anaerobic metabolism, the anaerobic speed/power reserve (ASR/APR) concept, defined as the difference between an athlete’s MAS/MAP and their maximal sprinting speed (MSS)/peak power (MPP), advances our understanding of athlete tolerance to high speed/power efforts in this range. When exercising at speeds above MAS/MAP, what likely matters most, irrespective of athlete profile or locomotor mode, is the proportion of the ASR/APR used, rather than the more commonly used reference to percent MAS/MAP. The locomotor construct of ASR/APR offers numerous underexplored opportunities. In particular, how differences in underlying athlete profiles (e.g. fiber typology) impact the training response for different ‘speed’, ‘endurance’ or ‘hybrid’ profiles is now emerging. Such an individualized approach to athlete training may be necessary to avoid ‘maladaptive’ or ‘non-responses’. As a starting point for coaches and practitioners, we recommend upfront locomotor profiling to guide training content at both the macro (understanding athlete profile variability and training model selection, e.g annual periodization) and micro levels (weekly daily planning of individual workouts, e.g short vs long intervals vs repeated sprint training and recovery time between workouts). More specifically, we argue that high-intensity interval training formats should be tailored to the locomotor profile accordingly. New focus and appreciation for the ASR/APR is required to individualise training appropriately so as to maximise athlete preparation for elite competition.

Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin announced on Monday that the team has agreed to terms on a new contract with Adam Douglas to appoint him as the team’s new Director, Sports Science and Performance.

Douglas previously served as the Manager, Sports Performance for Hockey Canada Men’s High Performance Teams and as IST Lead, Strength and Conditioning for Hockey Canada Women’s High Performance Teams. Alongside his work with Hockey Canada, Douglas also served as an Applied Sport Scientist with the Catapult Sports agency. He worked with their hockey clients to ensure that they maximized the usage of wearable technology as well as further driving research and innovation of wearables in the sport.

… So should clubs be placing more of a premium on technical skills, with dedicated coaches? At some clubs this is already happening.

Gareth Cook will be focusing on technical skills coaching at Liverpool’s Academy this season, while Rangers are on the look-out for a similar position.

Two decades ago, Rene Meulensteen became Skills Development Coach at Manchester United, going on to work with established stars like Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo in the first team. The appointment was a big success but didn’t catch on in the wider game in England.

We’re working to reduce preseason injuries through a multi-faceted strategy, including innovative preseason practice design to help players avoid unnecessary risk.

Small electronics, including smartwatches and fitness trackers, aren’t easily dismantled and recycled. So when a new model comes out, most users send the old devices into hazardous waste streams. To simplify small electronics recycling, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed a two-metal nanocomposite for circuits that disintegrates when submerged in water. They demonstrated the circuits in a prototype transient device — a functional smartwatch that dissolved within 40 hours.

The University of Georgia Athletic Association has spent $175 million on more than 350,000 square feet of football facilities projects since Kirby Smart was hired as head coach in December 2015. Here’s a breakdown of what the Bulldogs have gotten for all of that money

The COVID-19 pandemic incited unprecedented restrictions on the behavior of society. The aims of this study were to quantify changes to sleep/wake behavior and exercise behavior, as well as changes in physiological markers of health during COVID-19 physical distancing. A retrospective analysis of 5,436 US-based subscribers to the WHOOP platform (mean age = 40.25 ± 11.33; 1,536 females, 3,900 males) was conducted covering the period from January 1st, 2020 through May 15th, 2020. This time period was separated into a 68-day baseline period and a 67-day physical distancing period. To provide context and allow for potential confounders (e.g., change of season), data were also extracted from the corresponding time periods in 2019. As compared to baseline, during physical distancing, all subjects fell asleep earlier (-0.15 hours), woke up later (0.29 hours), obtained more sleep (+0.21 hours) and reduced social jet lag (-0.13 hours). Contrasting sleep behavior was seen in 2019, with subjects falling asleep and waking up at a similar time (-0.01 hours; -0.03 hours), obtaining less sleep (-0.14 hours) and maintaining social jet lag (+0.06 hours) in corresponding periods. Individuals exercised more intensely during physical distancing by increasing the time spent in high heart rate zones. In 2020, resting heart rate decreased (-0.90 beats per minute) and heart rate variability increased (+0.98 milliseconds) during physical distancing when compared to baseline. However, similar changes were seen in 2019 for RHR (-0.51 beats per minute) and HRV (+2.97 milliseconds), suggesting the variation may not be related to the introduction of physical distancing mandates. The findings suggest that individuals improved health related behavior (i.e., increased exercise intensity and longer sleep duration) during physical distancing restrictions. While positive changes were seen to cardiovascular indicators of health, it is unclear whether these changes were a direct consequence of behavior change.

Get more detailed and accurate metabolic information than ever before with the Calibre real-time fitness tracker. This wearable gadget monitors your calories and respiratory performance with medical-grade precision each time you take a breath. Using truly groundbreaking technology, this tracker comes in at an impressively low price point. While only professionals could use breath measurement technology before, Calibre lets anyone track real-time metabolic and respiratory data anywhere, anytime. What’s more, it compares each workout to your previous workout sessions, letting you see changes in your performance. So, if you’re training for a competition, you can recognize what conditions you do best in. Through breath measurement, you’ll get accurate, personalized data on your calorie burn rate, O2 uptake rate, anaerobic threshold, and more. Finally, you can even track your percentages of carbs and fat, respiratory volume, and ketosis indication. Improve your health and workouts with this gadget.

… The committee recognised the fragmented approach to concussion in sport and advocated a more coherent approach to the education, management and research into this area. We note that It was not overly supportive of the Consensus Statement from the Concussion in Sport Group – feeling it to be overly conservative in its interpretation of the scientific data.

The report repeatedly advocates taking the ‘Precautionary Principle’, such as reducing the amount of heading in football. Such an approach may be effective, although with the nature of the conditions we are examining the evidence for the effectiveness of these interventions may take a long time to obtain. All doctors would wish to reduce the risks to which their players are exposed but taking precautions for exposures where the evidence is limited must not delay us determining other – potentially more important – risk factors. The report is clear that the potential adverse neurological effects of sport are not purely related to concussion. The precautionary principle is not without risk itself.

In our last article, we discussed how an effective season-long team strategy needs to come from a positive difference of three independent factors against your opponents: Goal Conversion Rate, total shots, and total possessions. And elite teams are always positive in at least two of them. In this article, we are going to look at the ways we can evaluate Goal Conversion Rate, including discussion of Expected Goals (xG).

You may have very strong opinions one way or the other about Expected Goals, but we are going to use them in a unique way here that will allow us to make xG actionable for front offices, coaching staffs, and even players on the pitch in future articles. We will also introduce other measurements that can be used for audiences that are not yet educated on the xG topic.

This article is intended for those with no- or low-familiarity with xG, or maybe see it as a negative thing that is encroaching on the sport. We aren’t here to present it as a panacea, but we do want to objectively discuss its utility for a club.

If you have been paying attention to track and field this year, you’ve probably noticed something pretty strange happening in the mid- and long-distance events. Across the whole set of these events, there have been some unbelievable times run this year. These performances have been highlighted by a slew of world records, some even falling within the same week for a single event. But, world records happen; what has really made these events feel special this year is the unbelievable times being run behind the top performances.

This begs the question:

Why are the times are getting faster?

On the one hand, one could argue that the extended time away from racing imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has been beneficial. Athletes have been able to focus on their training, especially the mid- and long-distance runners who benefit so much from being able to build up their aerobic fitness by running high levels of mileage.1 But, if this is the whole story, we should be seeing the same types of across-the-board gains in the other event groups.

QPR have formally launched a B Team for the 2021/22 season in an effort to increase the number of players making the transition from their Academy to first team.

The B team will play at Wealdstone’s Grosvenor Vale stadium and take part in a bespoke games programme against a range of EFL, non-league & European clubs, as well as other B teams.

The initiative is an attempt to “expedite the pathway of Academy players to the first team and to provide competitive experiences for first-team players who are in need of match minutes,” QPR said.

Scarlet Fu and Mike Lynch sit down with Boston Celtics Assistant General Manager Mike Zarren and Hudl COO Matt Mueller to find out why 29 of 30 NBA teams rely on Sportscode for performance analytics. We learn what kind of data Hudl collects, why it’s so popular and the ways teams are using it to gain an edge on the court. [audio, 19:36]

Gatorade Endurance released results from a survey* designed to identify and understand the barriers minority athletes (specifically People of Color, Black, LGBTQ+ and Disabled) face when considering participation in endurance sports, and how to overcome these barriers. Among the key findings, safety concerns – i.e., getting injured, hate crimes, not wanting to train alone and having a safe training location – were the top barriers within all four groups who are interested but do not participate in endurance sports. Gatorade Endurance launched a new page on its website with resources to help athletes overcome the barriers uncovered in the survey.