Sports Science: Week in Review, Jan 9-15

Every person and every organized group has its process. Technological innovations often reveal their significance in the process innovations that emerge from them. Those follow-on process innovations typically require a thorough understanding of the technology in order to materialize.

Sports science is a case of process innovation that is trailing lots of technological innovations – equipment, computing, sensors, materials, nutrition, healthcare, the list goes on. It’s a lot of technical material to cover and the expertise usually comes with university-level training in engineering, chemistry, systems, computer science, design, analysis.

In sports the know how is, in many cases, the product of trial and error, the result of someone (coach or staff) who takes on a problem to solve. Many times there is an expertise gap between the mostly untrained solver and the problem solving task.

This knowledge gap shows up in the lack of clarity in discussions of the processes of athletes and sports teams. Journalism features a range of debates, secrets, tests, balances, evolutions and reshapings.

  • Saban’s “Process” Gets Results, but Is Hard to Define (ABC News, AP, John Zenor)
  • Columbus Blue Jackets’ success renews debate over morning skates (Associated Press)
  • Australian Open – Roger Federer’s secret sauce (ESPN, Greg Garber)
  • NCAA tournament officials will meet with analytics experts to consider creating new metric (ESPN, Myron Medcalf)
  • Football is naive and must test more to catch drug cheats, says Toni Minichiello (The Guardian, Sean Ingle)
  • Cristiano Ronaldo is ‘The Best’ as he continues his evolution (SI.com, Ben Lyttleton)
  • Julian Nagelsmann and the reshaping of football management (These Football Times)
  • Thunder: How Oklahoma City determines its inactive players (News OK, Erik Horne)
  • But the technical experts are coming to sports. The knowledge is starting to arrive in the form of corporate investment and academic interest.

  • Nike’s Using Data to Help Marathon Runners Break a World Record. Can It Work For You? (WIRED, Science, Ed Caesar)
  • SSE #161: Sweat Testing Methodology in the Field: Challenges and Best Practices (Gatorade Sports Science Institute)
  • The challenges of making Smart Sports Garments (SABEL’s Sports Technology Blog)
  • Why Intel is investing in sports: Tech giant sees opportunity to help athletes, fans, leagues (GeekWire, Taylor Soper)
  • Digital Health: Tracking Physiomes and Activity Using Wearable Biosensors Reveals Useful Health-Related Information (PLOS Biology; Michael Snyder et al.)
  • Shorter or longer tennis matches: what’s the right balance? (The Conversation, Stephanie Kovalchik)
  • Intake of English Premier League soccer players (Asker Jeukendrup, mysportscience blog)
  • More Sprints in Top-Class Football Necessitates New and Individualised Training Routines (University of Gothenburg)
  • Non-expert experts are a problem when they voice an authority that exceeds their training. People who work in sports make up a community of practice. It’s a community that is gaining a deeper understanding of technology. The time is coming when technology recommendations come from technologists
    instead of from coaches, but the community is not yet at that place. (See these tech recommendations by Carl Valle.)

    Change is coming. All you need to do is look. The technical competence on display at places like Driveline Baseball (see Building Your Team’s In-Season Training Plan – Part I) and Sparta Science (see Why Sports Medicine and Strength and Conditioning Need to Align) looks solid to even hardboiled engineers. The trend is toward fewer and fewer technical lightweights in sports science.

    More things that I read and liked last week:

  • What do footballers do while recovering from long-term injuries? (January 16, The Guardian, Richard Foster)
  • Another Benefit for Musicians: Quicker Reaction Times (January 13, Medium, Tom Jacobs)
  • At the Australian Open, Tennis Joins Its Sports Brethren on a New Surface: Data Analytics (January 13, The New York Times, Christopher Clarey)
  • Graphene Temporary Tattoo Tracks Vital Signs (January 11, IEEE Spectrum, Katherine Bourzac)
  • The NFL’s Drug of Choice (January 11, Bleacher Report, Tyler Dunne)
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