Applied Sports Science newsletter – July 29, 2015

… “Sometimes I am in pain after games,” he says. “I have to take some anti-inflammatories or something like that. But I like to have the ball at my feet and, when I have the ball at my feet, I get a lot of kicks. But this is football.”

Hazard’s card is marked. He knows it and so does his manager, José Mourinho. Yet this supremely confident, superbly skilful 24 year-old is increasingly hopeful that officials will finally grant him the protection he craves. Unsurprisingly Hazard has been bulking up to ensure his body stands up to the rigours of another blood-and-thunder Premier League campaign. “If I don’t work and do the training the defenders will kill me. It’s my job,” he says with a shrug.

Hazard fell back into the old routine during Wednesday’s defeat by the New York Red Bulls, after being on the receiving end of some crunching challenges. “If the referees can protect me, it would be good for me. Because they know now that I get a lot of kicks and I want to be protected by the referee. Whenever I feel pain, I try to keep a smile on my face. Always happy.”

When Stars defenseman John Klingberg was learning to play hockey as a boy in Sweden, one thing stood out. He was always the smallest kid on the ice. Rather than give up on his dream of playing professionally before it even started to take root, Klingberg had to adapt.

“I had to be smart,” he told SI.com by phone from his native country.

That meant learning to not get crushed in the corners by hard-charging forwards, to get out of a scrum with the puck and to play within his team’s structure and not for himself.

Developing a shrewd hockey sense has made Klingberg one of the game’s rising stars.

It is unclear whether you can make up a long-term sleep debt, because most studies have looked at the effects of sleep loss and recovery only over a few nights or weeks, said Dr. Matt T. Bianchi, the chief of the division of sleep medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. Simulated driving performance and reaction times are affected by just one sleepless night, research has shown.
… “The interpretation has been you can’t pay off your sleep debt, you just carry it with you,” though it’s also possible that people don’t sleep an extra 20 hours because they don’t need it, Dr. Bianchi said. He cited research by Jim Horne of Loughborough University in Britain showing that a timely nap of less than 20 minutes can equate to an extra hour of nighttime sleep.

Knowing the basics of how we generate energy can be helpful in understanding how we become fatigued and what training we can undertake to minimize fatigue. Just as you train your biceps or your hamstrings, you can train your energy systems for better conditioning and performance. This blog aims to give a high level and somewhat simplistic overview of the body’s energy system but you can delve into more detail by checking out the references detailed at the end.

Throughout my career as a Physical Therapist (PT), Certified Athletic Trainer (ATC), and Strength and Conditioning (S&C) Coach I have been witness to many trends that have transpired upon these related professions. The evolution of the internet has been a significant venue for the conveyance of these trends with much of this information comprising assorted material of pertinent substance, some without; nonetheless the internet has offered many professionals their own claim of “notoriety” and in some instances financial gain. I am personally not opposed to capitalism as I am in private business myself. Like many others I also acknowledge various practitioners who evolve as “experts” in their professional field of choice and have mentors whom I very much respect. Presently there is an abundant amount of information and products available to the practicing professional where as the boundaries for the specific application of some of this information is often clouded if not altogether disregarded.

… We hear about cycles of success in other youth systems whether it’s Germany, France at one stage, Belgium recently. Each has their own particular qualities. Given your experiences here and in Europe what do you think is absolutely specific to the U.S., that might either curtail or encourage youth development?

It’s an important question, and unfortunately one that I don’t feel we have a great answer to, but my theory is that it just takes time. I think that’s a hard answer for people to cope with, especially with Americans, because we think we can do anything. That’s a great mindset to have, and that’s a great way to live, but the reality is that things like this don’t just happen overnight. I mean, can you imagine if … I’m just trying to think of or pick a similar country that has our athleticism and our resources…all of a sudden was learning how to play and develop a new sport. It wouldn’t just happen overnight.

I think what’s happening now is that people who grew up playing, like myself, will eventually have children, who will then be fans and play, and maybe they won’t be professionals or play in college, but they’ll grow up appreciating the sport. Then they’ll have kids, and generation after generation of legitimate soccer fans. Then eventually you start having real fan bases and guys who’ve played all throughout MLS who are teaching kids all through 5,6,7 years old, all the way through academies, and everyone gets better and better that way.

Learning is an ongoing process of adaption

In the dynamic sport of soccer if we remove things from their context they are no longer the same thing. If we for instance want to evaluate the performance of a particular player we have to evaluate it in relation to those players around that player. Recently I was analysing the performance of a much coveted elite youth player. This is a very hard thing to do at youth level as many validate the process through results and form their analysis upon this. In youth soccer even if something is done well it does not guarantee that it will finish up well and vice versa. Take for example the young kid who is told by his coach to “get rid of it” launches blindly a hopeful long ball/clearance that results in a fast attacker running on to it and scoring a goal. Another young kid tries to play the ball out of defence, he succeeds a few times but on one occasion slips and this allows the oppositions forward to take the ball and score a goal.

The young player in question felt that he had made the correct decision on one or two occasions when the opponents almost scored a goal. These incidents could easily have been interpreted as his fault.

“Maybe I’d be in the NFL if this was available,” says former Stanford kicker Derek Belch, referring to the new technology that’s bringing virtual reality to the NFL and some top college football programs.

Belch, who graduated from Stanford in 2008, is the founder of STRIVR Labs. As NFL training camps open, the Silicon Valley startup will be working with the Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots and San Francisco 49ers to help quarterbacks and other players prepare for gameday.

Belch joined Only A Game guest host Shira Springer to discuss the new technology. [audio, 4:43]

Count Teddy Bridgewater as the latest young quarterback whose training is about to enter a virtual realm.

The Minnesota Vikings finalized a deal Sunday with STRIVR Labs, Inc., to use its immersive training solution, a person with knowledge of the deal told USA TODAY Sports.

Imagine you’re a running back, you see the offensive line begin to open a hole. And then, you’re gone, blazing into the open field. Rice football is about to make imagination a reality by adding virtual reality training to its program.

The Owls signed a contract with STRIVR Labs, an immersive training solutions company, to use their technology to increase players reps and reduce contact in practice. The technology allows a player to seem like they are on the field running through a play, without being near the field. He will do this while wearing Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head-mounted display that looks like futuristic goggles.

Nike has announced a new sports performance innovation that could speed up an athlete’s recovery time. The prototype cooling hood has been developed in collaboration with Ashton Eaton, a U.S. Olympic Champion and decathlon world record holder. Retaining cool water that offers a gradual and effective cooling of the head, the hood would be useful for those who need to recover quickly between events or maximize each break in sport.

A key factor for Eaton was keeping his head and face as cool as the rest of his body. As he was already using Nike’s PreCool Vest, he reached out to the Nike Sports Research Lab and they worked together to create the cooling hood prototype. In essence, they sought to mimic the feeling of pouring a bottle of water over your head in a more controlled and scientific manner.

Sport Dietician Lindsay Langford sheds light on protein packed food and how it can actually benefit you.

There is a story they tell at Midtjylland, the small Danish club that went from close to bankruptcy to lifting their first Superliga title in one exhilarating headrush of a season, which has echoes of Hans Christian Andersen. Two centuries ago there were wolves on the Jutland peninsula, which is why there is a red wolf on the club’s badge. They had long died out in Denmark but two years ago they suddenly appeared again. “We took it as a sign that the wolves could rise up,” says the club’s brand manager, Soren Marcher. “And now we have.”

This season Midtjylland aim to prowl into the heart of Europe. On Tuesday night they play the first leg of a Champions League third qualifying round tie against Apoel of Cyprus, having defeated Lincoln Red Imps of Gibraltar 3-0 on aggregate in their first taste of the competition. Come through that, and a final two-leg match on the early-season trans?Europe express, and they will be in the Champions League proper for the first time. “We would love to get to the group stages,” the majority shareholder, Matthew Benham, admits. “We know it is a tall order but we’ll give it our best shot.”

Midtjylland are not yet on the radar of most English football fans, but Benham increasingly is. The 47-year?old Brentford owner made millions at his company, Smartodds, using mathematical models to predict football results and believes the figures can also provide a vital edge in the transfer market and on the pitch. Brentford’s former management team, Mark Warburton and David Weir, did not buy into that theory. Midtjylland, however, were more amenable – and, arguably, successful.

If you’ve spent a sufficient amount of time messing around with sports statistics, there’s a good chance the following two things have happened, in order: 1. You probably started off with Excel, because Excel does a lot of stuff pretty easily and everyone has Microsoft Office; and 2. At some point, you mentioned to someone that you use Excel to do statistical analysis and got a response along the lines of, “Oh, that’s cool, but you should really be using R.”

Politeness issues aside, they might well be right.