Applied Sports Science newsletter – May 25, 2015

… the lesson of Keys’s rise, for players, fans and especially for parents, is that patience works. Keys just has to do what she has done so well so far in her career: Ignore all the expectations.

“I’d love to win this year,” Keys said in Newport Beach, Calif., near where she was practicing last month. “My people around me are the ones that are thinking, ‘If you don’t win it for another five years, that’s completely OK.’ There’s no time limit.”

Rafael Nadal, the greatest men’s clay-court tennis player of all time, is struggling on clay. He’d be the first to tell you. He told me, at least, when I asked him about his level of play at a news conference in Paris on Friday, two days before the start of the French Open, the season’s biggest clay-court tournament. “It’s not terrible, but if we compare with other years, obviously looks bad, no?” he said, adding, “Obviously when you lose more than other years it’s obvious the confidence is a little bit less.”

Nadal has, indeed, been far from terrible on clay this year. He is 17-5, meaning he has won an excellent 77 percent of his matches on the surface. Tomas Berdych, the fourth-ranked player in the world, has won 78 percent of his matches on all surfaces this year. Win more than three-quarters of the time in tennis, and you’re one of the very best in the world.

Recovering after a tennis match can be difficult, but many of us need to do so in a hurry. What do the pros do to quickly get back to their physical best after a tough contest?

Genetic factors, lifestyles, plannings and fate can definetly make a difference, but in general the guidelines are the same for all human beings. STMS, The Society for Tennis Medicine and Science was established in 1991 and has been dedicated to answering the above question, among much else, since that time. Their objective is to share and disseminate medical and scientific information regarding tennis and the human body with physicians, physical therapists and coaches. They aim to improve the health and performance of athletes all around the world.

I’m not big on pushing single training exercises, as too many athletes tend to search for the “magic pill” that will transform their athleticism. If one exercise might be close to an enchanted pharmaceutical for the vertical jump and explosive power, however, it would be the depth jump.

Joe Friel wrote a great blog last week addressing the question of CTL (Chronic Training Load) ramp rates, i.e. just how steep can we ramp an athlete’s training load before the proverbial engine stalls and the athlete comes plummeting back to earth?

I agree 100% with Joe’s statement that the ‘right’ answer to this is incredibly individual. Some athletes are simply more robust than others and can handle a more aggressive ramp. As luck would have it, this type of athlete also typically needs an aggressive ramp to keep up with the more ‘talented’ (but also more fragile) ‘natural’ athlete who is easily broken with an overly aggressive approach.

… The Crusaders of Canterbury are the world’s most successful rugby team. In 18 years of Super Rugby the Crusaders have won seven titles, been finalists 11 times and semi-finalists in 15 of the past 16 years. They are out on their own and are commonly seen as the primary generator for the All Blacks machine. Their player and coaching heritage is beyond rich; Vance Stewart, Wayne Smith, Robbie Deans, Todd Blackadder and currently Dan Carter, Richie McCaw and Kieran Read. Think Kilkenny hurling and Kerry football wrapped up in one franchise. Yes they had process maps, yes they had Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). They even had drone cams but for the purposes of brevity, the most discernible feature of The Crusaders camp was in fact The Culture.

At The Crusaders, they believed in the importance of culture and they saw it as ‘their first competitor’. It was the one thing they could grow and enrich in meaningful ways that was 100% within their control and their budget.

cott Anderson, Director of Athletic Training, and Matt Mills, Assistant Athletic Trainer, recently returned from a trip to Ireland where they met with and lectured to students at three Irish Universities. Anderson and Mills visiting Dublin City University (DCU), IT Athlone, and IT Carlow, and met with faculty and students to discuss clinical affiliations, as well as current topics in sports medicine. Anderson, who has now made 4 trips to the Republic of Ireland, as well as the entire staff believes in fostering international relationships between the various universities. Anderson remarked, “Ireland is a very special place. In our many visits, we have had the opportunity to meet with clinicians, educators, and students alike and I find their collective enthusiasm, work ethic, and passion quite refreshing. The students there are trained very well, and are not afraid to seize opportunities outside of their borders to have a rewarding, impactful career in our profession. We learn from them as much as they learn from us“.

Compassion is a better managerial approach than toughness in today’s workplace, writes a Stanford psychologist in a new article.

In fact, trying to make employees fearful and punish them for mistakes is typically counterproductive to the organization, says Emma Seppala, associate director of Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. “The more compassionate response will get you more powerful results,” she wrote in a Harvard Business Review article.

In rapid succession on a recent afternoon, University of Richmond forward Terry Allen performed three standing weightlifting moves in the Robins Center’s basketball strength-training room.

Then he immediately looked at the monitor affixed to the station at which he worked. Via readout, Allen learned the speed of the bar he hoisted.

The faster, the better in this exercise designed to enhance explosiveness.

When discussing his company’s new multimillion dollar partnership with Real Madrid FC earlier this month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made quite the statement.

“There isn’t another industry that is being so fundamentally transformed with data and digital technology like sports,” Nadella said.

It certainly seemed that way on Wednesday evening, as GeekWire hosted a private dinner in Seattle that included team owners, an Olympic medalist, an NFL linebacker, startup CEOs, engineering gurus, and veteran journalists who came together for a discussion of what’s happening at the intersection of sports and technology.

Canadian Heather Hamilton has been involved with track and field for 15 years, 10 of which she has spent focused on pole vaulting.

Currently training at the World Athletics Center in Phoenix, Arizona, to qualify for the Pan American Games in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in July, and the International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships in Beijing, China, in August, she undergoes intense training that takes a toll on her body.

Massage therapy is one component of Hamilton’s training program. Sports massage helps correct muscle imbalances caused by the one-sided nature of pole vaulting.

There is a lot of debate about “training low”, low carb diets, Paleo diets, Atkins diets, fasted training, keto diets, etc. and the more traditional high carbohydrate approach. It seems that people are in one of these two camps and there is little or no middle ground. The low carb group shouts, “carbohydrate is bad”, while the high carbohydrate group, you shout “you must carboload”! The purpose of this short article is to provide some clarity. We will take an evidence based approach to the questions and start to analyse the issue.

… This month, U.S. Soccer is holding its inaugural Boys National Team Futures camp, for players born in 2000 and 2001. It is designed for players who “appear to be on a later physical development growth path and/or are born in the second half of the year, to reduce the impact of physical maturity and relative age effect on identification and evaluation of talent.”

In soccer, the relative age effect (RAE) was observed in both adult and young players. The RAE appears to be more pronounced in elite sports, probably by the need to select the best players to compete internationally. This study review: (1) the prevalence of RAE in soccer players, (a) considering competitive level (b) and specific position and (2) association between RAE (a) and anthropometric characteristics, (b) physical fitness components and technical skills. A total of 12 studies met all inclusion criteria for this review. One trial (meta-analysis) was included after the eligibility process. Overall, 77675 young soccer players were analysed. In all studies, significance level of 0.05 was set for the type I error. There is a consensus about the presence of an RAE in men’s soccer, and the percentage of players born in the first quarter in the selection year for professionals is high, with peak values found for elite young athletes, and a large decrease is evident throughout the regional and school representation. The relationship between RAE and the specific position is controversial, according to few studies. It is likely that players born in the first quarter differ in a variety of anthropometric characteristics and physical fitness components compared with peers born in the last quarter. Researchers need to understand the mechanisms by which RAE increase and decrease in order, to reduce and eliminate this social inequality that influence the experiences of athletes, especially in periods of development. Organizational and practical intervention is required.