Applied Sports Science newsletter – June 11, 2015

How Harrison Barnes learned to stop worrying and let the game come to him … and how he’ll need that skill to help bounce back after a disastrous Game 3.

Changes in central fatigue have been linked to active and passive changes in core temperature as well as integration of sensory feedback from thermoreceptors in the skin. However, the effects of muscle temperature (Tm), and thereby metaboreceptor and local afferent nerve temperature, on central fatigue (measured using voluntary activation percentage) during sustained, high muscle fatigue exercise remain unexamined. In this study, we investigated Tm across the range of cold to hot, and its effect on voluntary activation percentage during sustained isometric contractions of the knee-extensors. The results suggest that contrary to brief contractions, during a sustained fatiguing contraction Tm significantly (p < 0.001) influences force output (-0.7% per-degree-centigrade increase) and central fatigue (-0.5% per-degree-centigrade increase) showing a negative relationship across the Tm continuum in moderately trained individuals. The negative relationship between voluntary activation percentage and Tm indicates muscle temperature may influence central fatigue during sustained and high muscle fatigue exercise. Based on an integrative analysis between the present data and previous literature, the impact of core and muscle temperature on voluntary muscle activation is estimated to show a ratio of 5.5 to 1 respectively. Accordingly, Tm could assume a secondary or tertiary role in the reduction of voluntary muscle activation when body temperature leaves a thermoneutral range.

Captain Tom Chaby has been an active duty US Navy SEAL for 26 years. Throughout his career, Tom has led special operations at every level in over 60 countries around the world, including Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Earlier in his career, Tom lived in South America leading Counter Drug Operations throughout Colombia and the region. Outside of the operational realm, Tom has worked relentlessly with developing and ensuring performance optimization for the SEAL community, helping shape programs, authorities and resources to help build and sustain resiliency in four domains: physical, psychological, social and spiritual. Over the past four years, Captain Chaby has been collaborating with dozens of corporate leadership and sports teams, providing value to organizations by bringing his extensive experience and insights through speaking engagements and full spectrum consulting. He has worked with Bill Gates, Coach Nick Saban and the University of Alabama Football Team, Coach Jason Garrett and the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Yankees coaching staff and dozens of other high performance organizations.

Olympic cyclists Taylor and Davis Phinney have dealt with intense pressure, a near career-ending crash and a life-altering disease. Hear more about how they learned to embrace adversity in this short film from Lululemon.

NCAA values are promoted when athletics and institutional leadership create an administrative system where athletics professionals (team physicians, athletic trainers, coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, mental health professionals, sports dieticians, etc.) and athletics administrators are able to make decisions in the best interests of student-athletes. An environment of care and support for the student-athlete should be developed by each institution. An interdisciplinary team is fundamental to accomplishing this vision. This article will review an example of an interdisciplinary team created to support student-athlete well-being at Baylor University.

Organised by the Endurance Research Group at the University of Kent this will be a unique bianual scietific conference entirely dedicated to coaches, athletes, sports scientists, nutritionists and sport doctors interested in endurance performance. Topics include the basic sciences applied endurance performance (physiology, biomechanics, training methodology, psychology and nutrition) and more specific sessions on running, cycling, swimming, rowing, triathlon, ultraendurance events and other sports.

In addition to world-leading invited speakers the conference will free oral poster communications of the latest research applied to endurance performance. To encourage interactions between speakers and participants, plenty of time will be devoted to Q&A sessions and informal discussions and networking at the conference.

• BioImage Computing Workshop
• IEEE Computer Society Workshop on Biometrics
• Deep Vision: Deep Learning in Computer Vision 2015
• Group And Crowd Behavior Analysis And Understanding
• 11th IEEE Workshop on Perception Beyond the Visible Spectrum
• Vision Meets Cognition Workshop: Functionality, Physics, Intentionality and Causality
• 3D from a Single Image
• Analysis and Modeling of Faces and Gestures
• Challenge and Workshop on Pose Recovery, Action Recognition, and Cultural Event Recognition
• 4th IEEE International Workshop on Computational Cameras and Displays
• Computer Vision in Vehicle Technology: Assisted Driving, Exploration Rovers, Aerial and Underwater Vehicles
• The Eleventh IEEE Embedded Vision Workshop
• Looking from Above: When Earth Observation Meets Vision
• 2nd Joint Workshop on Multi-Sensor Fusion for Dynamic Scene Understanding
• IEEE Computer Society Workshop on Observing and Understanding Hands in Action

When he put on the mask and slipped on the headphones, Brandon Allen wasn’t sure exactly what he was getting into. Then it began — and he was “engulfed.”

Arkansas’ senior quarterback is among a growing number who sees — and feels — the potential of virtual reality in college football. Created by STriVR Labs, a start-up company grown out of a former Stanford kicker’s Master’s thesis, the technology is still in its infancy. But the universal first impression of the virtual reality trainer is something like this:

“It’s insane,” says Arkansas coach Bret Bielema, who adds: “This changes the game.”

Much of the world’s data is in the form of visual media. In order to utilize meaningful information from multimedia and deliver innovative products, such as Google Photos, Google builds machine-learning systems that are designed to enable computer perception of visual input, in addition to pursuing image and video analysis techniques focused on image/scene reconstruction and understanding.

This week, Boston hosts the 2015 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2015), the premier annual computer vision event comprising the main CVPR conference and several co-located workshops and short courses. As a leader in computer vision research, Google will have a strong presence at CVPR 2015, with many Googlers presenting publications in addition to hosting workshops and tutorials on topics covering image/video annotation and enhancement, 3D analysis and processing, development of semantic similarity measures for visual objects, synthesis of meaningful composites for visualization/browsing of large image/video collections and more.

On the day of Olivia Curry’s fourth concussion last October, the arena was so warm that fog hung over the ice where her St. Paul High School team was playing hockey. “No one could really see where they were going,” the 16-year-old recalls.

Curry had just come over the boards and was skating hard to join the play when she accidentally collided head-to-head with an opposing player. She fell, banging her head hard on the ice.

“I sat on the bench for a period, then went back and kept playing, because I thought I was fine,” says Curry, who suffered her first hockey concussion at age 12. “I had a bit of a headache, but I wanted to keep playing because I knew if I stopped, I wouldn’t be able to play hockey any more.”

Background: Preseason baseline testing using computerized neurocognitive tests (CNTs) is increasingly performed on athletes. Adequate effort is critical to establish valid estimates of ability, but many users do not evaluate performance validity, and the conditions that affect validity are not well understood across the available CNTs.

Purpose: To examine the rates and predictors of invalid baseline performance for 3 popular CNTs: Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics (ANAM), Axon Sports, and Immediate Post-Concussion and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT).

Study Design: Controlled laboratory study.

Methods: High school and collegiate athletes (N = 2063) completed 2 of 3 CNTs each during preseason evaluations. All possible pairings were present across the sample, and the order of administration was randomized. Examiners provided 1-on-1, scripted pretest instructions, emphasizing the importance of good effort. Profile validity was determined by the manufacturers’ standard criteria.

Results: The overall percentage of tests flagged as of questionable validity was lowest for ImPACT (2.7%) and higher for ANAM and Axon (10.7% and 11.3%, respectively). The majority of invalid baseline profiles were flagged as such because of failure on only 1 validity criterion. Several athlete and testing factors (eg, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], estimated general intellectual ability, administration order) predicted validity status for 1 or more CNTs. Considering only first CNT administrations and participants without ADHD and/or a learning disability (n = 1835) brought the rates of invalid baseline performances to 2.1%, 8.8%, and 7.0% for ImPACT, ANAM, and Axon, respectively. Invalid profiles on the Medical Symptom Validity Test (MSVT) were rare (1.8% of participants) and demonstrated poor correspondence to CNT validity outcomes.

Conclusion: The validity criteria for these CNTs may not identify the same causes of invalidity or be equally sensitive to effort. The validity indicators may not be equally appropriate for some athletes (eg, those with neurodevelopmental disorders).

Clinical Relevance: The data suggest that athletes do not put forth widespread low effort or that some validity criteria are more sensitive to invalid performance than others. It is important for examiners to be aware of the conditions that maximize the quality of baseline assessments and to understand what sources of invalid performance are captured by the validity criteria that they obtain.

Ask Pirates second baseman Neil Walker for the most important qualities of his game, and he won’t talk about catching or hitting.

“You can’t do any of those things without good vision,” says Walker.

Ocular workouts and vision drills on computers have become ubiquitous around MLB, and now players are also eating their way to improved sight. In a 2014 study published in the Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics, researchers from the University of Georgia also found evidence linking visual processing speed and reaction time and a daily intake of zeaxanthin, a nutrient found in many deeply pigmented vegetables and paprika. Today, all 30 MLB teams have started experimenting with the nutrient, including Walker, who was introduced to it through the team’s doctor last spring, after experiencing dry eyes and struggles with squinting during games.

Australian study looking at carbohydrate loading strategies for athlete performance.

The use of time motion analysis has advanced our understanding of position-specific, work rate profiles and the physical requirements of soccer players. Still, many of the typical soccer activities can be neglected, as these systems only examine activities measured by distance and speed variables. This study used tri-axial accelerometer and time-motion analysis to obtain new knowledge about elite soccer players’ match load. Furthermore, we determined acceleration/deceleration profiles of elite soccer players and their contribution to the players’ match load. The dataset includes every domestic home game (n = 45) covering three full seasons (2009, 2010, 2011) for the participating team (Rosenborg FC), and includes eight central defenders (CD, n = 68), nine full-backs (FB, n = 83), nine central midfielders (CM, n = 70), seven wide midfielders (WM, n = 39), and five attackers (A, n = 50). A novel finding was that accelerations contributed to 7-10% of the total player load for all player positions, while decelerations contributed to 5-7%. Furthermore, the results indicate that other activities besides the high-intensity movements contribute significantly to the players’ total match workload. Therefore, motion analysis alone may underestimate player load because many high-intensity actions is without a change in location at the pitch or they are classified as low speed activity according to current standards. This new knowledge may help coaches to better understand the different ways players achieve match load and could be used in developing individualised programs that better meet the “positional physical demands” in elite soccer.