The North Face announced that ski mountaineer and long-time athlete Hilaree Nelson will serve as captain for the Global Athlete Team. Conrad Anker currently holds the position and will serve as co-captain with Nelson through the remainder of 2018, before Nelson fully transitions to team captain in 2019.
Nelson, who has been a The North Face athlete for almost 20 years, boasts an impressive roster of accomplishments including skiing the Himalayan summit of Cho Oyu in Tibet; double summiting Denali; bagging the first American ascent and ski descent of Papsura Peak, India; being named the 2018 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year and serving as the face of the Move Mountains initiative.
The fastest girl in the country can’t sit still. She doesn’t remember the last time she made it through a movie. She fidgets in class. Except for the few times she’s been sick, she doubts she’s gone 24 hours without exercise since she took her first steps. Even now, perched on a red bench in the hallway of North Rockland High in Thiells, N.Y., 16-year-old Katelyn Tuohy is playing with two hair elastics, threading them through each other and tying them together as she patiently explains her impatience. People are always telling her to relax, but she’s not even sure how to. “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe go for a walk or something.”
Her ideal day begins with a predawn wake-up and a 10-mile run. Then grab breakfast, go for a hike and hit the gym. End by barbecuing with friends, get to bed early and do it again the next day.
Laura Zeng doesn’t consider herself superstitious, but, as always, she had to eat some dark chocolate and take a cold shower Saturday.
Then the highly decorated rhythmic gymnast rubbed her two good luck charms — a hand-carved keychain her sister got in China and a random souvenir her father purchased at a gas station.
Once Zeng had completed her ritual, she had no trouble making history at the USA Gymnastics Championships at the Greensboro Coliseum.
… Few celebrities have performed motherhood in quite the same way Williams has. Her social-media accounts feature countless pictures of her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr., who was born in September. There are tweets about the perfection of Alexis Olympia’s eyes, the volume of her farts, and the difficulty of figuring out strollers. When Alexis Olympia was three months old and crying constantly from the pain of teething, Williams tweeted, “I’ve tried amber beads… cold towels… chew on mommies fingers… homeopathic water (lol on that one) but…” She continued, “Nothing is working. It’s breaking my heart. I almost need my mom to come and hold me to sleep cause I’m so stressed. Help? Anyone??” The two tweets have more than thirty thousand likes and four thousand comments. Last week, at a press conference during the first week of Wimbledon, she spoke extensively about her struggle to lose baby weight. Williams went vegan—and “not French-fry-eating vegan,” she said.
Williams is not merely celebrating her daughter and crowdsourcing teething relief. She has made herself an advocate for new mothers, tweeting in defense of parental leave. And her decision, a few months after her daughter was born, to describe the dangerous complications she faced in childbirth underlined the systemic biases against minority women in American health care. According to the C.D.C., black women are disproportionately likely to suffer from life-threatening pregnancy-related complications and are more than three times more likely than white women to die from them. “Doctors aren’t listening to us, just to be quite frank,” Williams told the BBC.
Melbourne Victory and Matildas goalkeeper, Casey Dumont, believes advances in technology have helped her and her teammates manage their football workloads.
A radiant Alpine sun is still rising over the snow-capped peaks of Mammoth Lakes, Calif., and Deena Kastor has already accomplished more than what most of us will do in a day. Scratch that—a week. After getting her 7-year-old daughter, Piper, off to school, Kastor, the American record holder in the marathon, crushed a 20-mile run, plowed through her inbox, walked the dogs, returned a bunch of phone calls, did a magazine interview and finished a handful of other tasks in preparation for an upcoming national tour to promote her new book, Let Your Mind Run. Later in the day, there will be craft projects with Piper, another run, a Girl Scout meeting and family dinner to prepare.
Kastor’s dizzying daily to-do list is enough to send any sane person into major meltdown mode. And yet she tackles it all with a cool aplomb—with joy, even. It’s easy to assume (especially after meeting her in person) she was just born a chirpy person, lucky to inherit an innately positive mindset. But that’s an overly simplistic view of a complex metamorphosis. The truth is she has fought like hell for her happiness, using running to shape and sharpen her mind. It is her career as a professional runner—a 34-year journey of self-discovery through the highest peaks and lowest valleys—that has yielded the mental tools that have not only allowed her to unlock her running potential but also become a happier person.
“As a culture, we’re so obsessed with gym time and how many miles we log, when so much of our power and health lies in the way that we think,” says Kastor, 45. “We need to pay more attention to training and flexing our mental capacities to strengthen any endeavor.”
Injury prevention neuromuscular training (NMT) programs reduce the risk for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. However, variation in program characteristics limits the potential to delineate the most effective practices to optimize injury risk reduction. Purpose:
To evaluate the common and effective components included in ACL NMT programs and develop an efficient, user-friendly tool to assess the quality of ACL NMT programs. Study Design:
Systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods:
Study inclusion required (1) a prospective controlled trial study design, (2) an NMT intervention aimed to reduce incidence of ACL injury, (3) a comparison group, (4) ACL injury incidence, and (5) female participants. The following data were extracted: year of publication, study design, sample size and characteristics, and NMT characteristics including exercise type and number per session, volume, duration, training time, and implementer training. Analysis entailed both univariate subgroup and meta-regression techniques using random-effects models. Results:
Eighteen studies were included in the meta-analyses, with a total of 27,231 participants, 347 sustaining an ACL injury. NMT reduced the risk for ACL injury from 1 in 54 to 1 in 111 (odds ratio [OR], 0.51; 95% CI, 0.37-0.69]). The overall mean training volume was 18.17 hours for the entire NMT (24.1 minutes per session, 2.51 times per week). Interventions targeting middle school or high school–aged athletes reduced injury risk (OR, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.24-0.60) to a greater degree than did interventions for college- or professional-aged athletes (OR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.48-0.89). All interventions included some form of implementer training. Increased landing stabilization and lower body strength exercises during each session improved prophylactic benefits. A meta-regression model and simple checklist based on the aforementioned effective components (slope = −0.15, P = .0008; intercept = 0.04, P = .51) were developed to allow practitioners to evaluate the potential efficacy of their ACL NMT and optimize injury prevention effects. Conclusion:
Considering the aggregated evidence, we recommend that ACL NMT programs target younger athletes and use trained implementers who incorporate lower body strength exercises (ie, Nordic hamstrings, lunges, and heel-calf raises) with a specific focus on landing stabilization (jump/hop and hold) throughout their sport seasons.
Female gymnasts have been evidenced to experience sport-specific growth, of which broad shoulders and narrow hips are common characteristics. In addition to being a central component of handstand performance, postural control mechanisms, including whole-body and lumbo-pelvic stability, have been identified as risk factors for overuse spinal pathology. The study aimed to develop a fundamental understanding of musculoskeletal growth and postural control responses of female artistic gymnasts in order to extend longitudinal insights into overuse spinal pathology risk. Whole-body anthropometric measures were collected for 12 competitive female gymnasts (age at recruitment: nine to 15 years) at three time points across a 12 month period. Musculoskeletal growth was partially defined as the rate of bicristal-to-biacromial breadth ratio development, and informed shoulder- and pelvis-dominant growth sub-groups. Kinematic and kinetic indicators of postural control were determined for a total of 700 handstand trials. The shoulder-dominant (gymnastics-specific) growth group was found to have significantly greater biomechanical risk for general stability (p < 0.001) than the pelvis-dominant group. Significantly greater lumbo-pelvic risk was demonstrated for the pelvis-dominant group (p < 0.001). Extended idiosyncratic examination of proportional sport-specific growth measures alongside multi-faceted risk monitoring was advocated for the effective development of future overuse pathology prevention protocols.
“Science Finds–Industry Applies–Man Conforms.” That was the motto of the Chicago 1933 International Exposition. I used it as the epigraph of my 1993 book, Things That Make Us Smart, suggesting that it be flipped to read “People Propose, Technology Conforms.” I have helped develop design principles that make technology easier to use and understand, principles that evolved into my book Design of Everyday Things, and that today are called human-centered design.
But if these principles are so powerful and useful, why do they continually have to be taught and retaught? Why does each new industry repeat the failures of earlier industries? I now realize that my approach was wrong: We were addressing the symptoms, not the core, fundamental issues. The phrase “man conforms” is technology-centered, rather than people-centered. That much is obvious, but what was not so obvious was how much this view has permeated everything we do.
We have unwittingly accepted the paradigm that technology comes first, with people relegated to doing the actions that the machines cannot do. This requires people to act like machines, ever ready to take over when things go wrong.
… High-intensity interval training (HIIT), which is sprint-based exercise for the endurance-inclined, has become a top fitness trend in the last few years. You see it all over celebrity Instagram accounts or newly sprouted boutique studios. As famed trainer Jillian Michaels once put it, “If you want to be a calorie-burning machine, HIIT is the key.”
Orangetheory puts a unique spin on the practice by combining it with technology and behavioral psychology, then adding a dash of spontaneity. To start, club members never know what to expect at each class–it can be speed-focused, endurance training, or more strength-based. There’s no detailed schedule, just the element of surprise; clubs constantly vary modalities–split between cardio and weight-lifting–to avoid the dreaded fitness plateau. (A 26,000-strong Reddit community is devoted to dissecting every day’s mystery workout.)
Galway sports data company Orreco has inked a partnership with the US national governing body for swimming to test the tech firm’s FitrWoman app.
The app provides training and nutrition advice for women based on menstrual cycle data to help improve performance.
Orreco, founded in 2010, will work with USA Swimming, which has 400,000 members, to conduct training and workshops with staff from the country’s national swimming team.
For all young athletes, having the necessary energy to participate in sports — while also supporting a growing body — is imperative to their overall health. The Female Athlete Triad is a well-known consequence of low energy availability in female athletes and can result in menstrual dysfunction and decreased bone mineral density.
Recently, the focus has turned from the Triad to a more inclusive term; Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, or “RED-S.” This syndrome also appears to be a result of low energy availability, but has health consequences other than menstrual dysfunction and bone health in females and acknowledges that relative energy deficiency can happen in males.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has developed two RED-S models, which include 10 health consequences and 10 performance consequences. To determine the viability of these models, Kathryn Ackerman, MD, MPH, director of the Female Athlete Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, has published a study examining the association between low energy availability and the health and performance consequences of RED-S in female athletes. This 1,000-patient study was a companion paper to the British Journal update on the IOC’s RED-S concept, of which Ackerman was a co-author.
EurekAlert! Science News, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago from
Recurrent injury rates were six times higher in girls’ soccer and nearly three times higher in girls’ basketball in schools without athletic trainers
Availability of a full-time certified athletic trainer in high school reduces overall and recurrent injury rates in girls who play on the soccer or basketball team, according to a study published in Injury Epidemiology. Schools with athletic trainers were also better at identifying athletes with concussion. This is the first study to compare injury rates in schools that have an athletic trainer with those that do not.
… To explain why so many of our young female athletes are enduring such a devastating season-ending injury, we break it down into four categories: Anatomy, Strength, Biomechanics, and Hormones
Before going any further, let’s be clear that males experience torn ACLs as well (all too often, in fact), and the injury is not any easier for males to recover from compared to females. In all cases, there are common variables – some modifiable, some not – that lead to this life changing knee injury, which inevitably impacts the athlete’s future.
Thousands of former athletes fall ill more often, suffer from poverty and live shorter lives. It’s due to doping in East Germany, says psychologist Harald Freyberger.
American Council on Science and Health, Josh Bloom from
… That leaves Semenya with three choices; not compete, compete against men, or take medication to lower her testosterone levels. It is the last of these that strikes me as rather strange. Should we be forcing athletes to take powerful medications to “correct” whatever advantage they were born with? And if so, there are certainly plenty of genetic advantages that determine size, strength, and endurance. Lung capacity is determined by both genetic and environmental factors and athletes with greater lung capacity will excel in sports like running and swimming. Michael Phelps has a lung capacity that is twice that of a normal man. Clearly, this gives him a competitive advantage, but is it unfair? Is the Phelps case all that different from the Semenya case? Is Semenya being required to take medicine because it is feasible while cutting out one of Phelps’ lungs is not? Where do we draw the line?
Women’s bobsledders wanted a second medal event at the Olympics, and it’s going to happen.
It just isn’t exactly what everyone wanted.
Monobob — a one-person sled — is getting added to the slate of women’s competitions for the 2022 Beijing Games, after the International Olympic Committee decided Wednesday to include that among seven new medal events for the next winter program. Some of the sport’s premier drivers, most notably Elana Meyers Taylor of the U.S. and Kaillie Humphries of Canada, were lobbying for a four-woman event to be added instead.
… So, is Shelby Turnier the “best” pitcher in America? Turnier has pitched well this year. But in 2017 she was not nearly as good as Monica Abbott, who led the NPF in FIP ERA for the Scrap Yard Dawgs. The Scrap Yard Dawgs, though, have left the NPF. If we focus on returning players in the NPF, Jolene Henderson is a good choice. Not only is Henderson second in FIP ERA this year she was second last year as well.
So, there are some choices for “best” pitcher in America. Of course, this entire approach may not be perfect. We don’t know for sure if the men who failed to hit Finch would have learned to hit her pitching if they had more experience facing Finch and other softball pitchers. We are also not entirely sure that the top pitchers today could replicate Finch’s success. In other words, we don’t know if Mike Trout could touch a pitch from Monica Abbott, Shelby Turnier, or Jolene Henderson.
But that’s not really the point. If your list of “best” athletes only includes men, you need to widen your perspective.
It’s been a fantastic start to the WNBA season, with an incredible class of scorers leading the way. The depth of elite offensive creators in the WNBA is as good as it’s ever been, with both budding young stars and legendary veterans driving their teams.
Carrying the offense for a team doesn’t just mean scoring however. Skilled facilitators help deliver the ball and shooting stretches defenses and makes sure there is space for everyone to work. Just past the halfway point of the season, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at which players are creating the most high-quality chances for their teams.
Canadians should all have the opportunities to get involved and excel in sport, regardless of gender, age, and ability. They should be able to do so in an environment free of discrimination or harassment.
In Budget 2018, the Government of Canada announced a target to achieve gender equity in sport at every level by 2035. This included an initial commitment of $30 million over three years to support data and research into innovative practices to promote women and girls’ participation in sport, and to support national sports organizations in promoting greater inclusion of women and girls in all facets of sport.
The Minister of Science and Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities has convened a Working Group on Gender Equity in Sport to gather the experiences, perspectives and insights of 12 champions for gender equity in sport and to provide a range of views and advice on strategies to better understand and serve the specific needs of women and girls in sport.
… The move of women from largely within-the-household, unpaid to largely outside-the-household, paid work catalyzed an increase in women’s material welfare and social status. As Betty Friedan wrote in the early 1960s, women could advance toward something like equal status only if they found “identity…in work… for which, usually, our society pays.” As long as women were confined to separate, domestic, occupations which the market did not reward with cash, it was easy for men to denigrate and minimize their competence and accomplishments. As the labor requirements of running a household fell, the wide separation of men’s from women’s roles became harder to maintain—and with it the belief that biology imposed a different, lower status on the female half of the human race.
Institutions and practices derived under the assumption that the overwhelming bulk of the labor force is male, attached to employment full-time over the long term, and has minimal child care and household-maintenance responsibilities held back progress toward something like full economic equality between men and women. Nothing like full equality has yet been established. Male wages and earnings still appeared higher than female wages and earnings by more than could be easily accounted for by differences in education, training, and degree of labor force attachment. There is still substantial discrimination visible, especially in the form of a “break in labor force participation” penalty. Today in Denmark—one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, mothers have a 7%-point lower chance of being employed, work an average of 7% fewer hours conditional on being employed, and receive an average of 7% less in compensation conditional on being employed and on working their hours.
Congressional committees have been looking into the issue of sexual abuse in Olympic sports, with a particular focus on gymnastics. Now stories of alleged abuse are emerging in swimming. Last month, former Olympic athlete Ariana Kukors Smith sued her former coach, Sean Hutchinson, for allegedly abusing her. She also sued USA Swimming and the U.S. Olympic Committee because she says they failed to protect her.
Today, there are more than 150 coaches on USA Swimming’s permanently banned list. Almost all are men, most of whom the organization has deemed to have violated its code of conduct, including a section that prohibits “any inappropriate sexually oriented behavior or action.”
Chris DeSantis, a swim coach in New Jersey, says the actual number is probably much higher than the public list would suggest: “I would estimate the actual number of coaches who have done something that they should be banned for is north of 1,000.” [audio, 3:40]