Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 11, 2015

… Question: Are you back to feeling 100 percent healthy?

Answer: “I don’t think I’m ever going to see 100 percent (laughs). I’ve played too long to be 100 percent, but I’m getting pretty close. I’ve had a great summer here rehabbing with St. Vincent and think I’ll be ready to go. I can’t wait for the season to get going. I’m just trying to rehab and get back here for the start of camp. I’m excited to get back on the court and do what I love to do.”

… Connaughton believes that he will be less vulnerable to overuse injuries because his athletic portfolio has been diversified. He also tends to agree with the point of view of Olshey, who was attracted on draft night by Connaughton’s eclectic background.

“There are guys who have an inherent feel for sports,” Olshey says. “The relationship to the ball and the hand-eye coordination, it makes sense to them. And they have instincts. That’s why you see Pat get deflections and steals in the passing lanes. I look at it like somebody that is really good with the computer: They’re not going to be afraid to move onto a different operating system. Because it’s still going to make sense to them. It’s the same with sports. When you are that good, when you are at a professional level of multiple sports disciplines, then at the end of the day you are going to have success at whichever one you choose.”

General Manager of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team Robert Canterbury “R. C.” Buford, visited Aspetar, Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine hospital, Thursady afternoon. Mr Buford was given a comprehensive tour of the hospital’s facilities, and briefed about the services it provides to the world’s elite athletes.

There were 23 players missing from New England Patriots practice on Saturday when running back Travaris Cadet walked off the field with a trainer and kicked the ground in disgust.

With more than a quarter of the roster injured, coach Bill Belichick believes the Super Bowl champs are a victim of their success.

Consistently going deep in the playoffs leads to shorter offseasons, less recovery time and more watching than doing at training camp.

Frans Hoek is a Dutch former goalkeeper and current chief goalkeeping coach at Manchester United F.C. under manager Louis van Gaal. Hoek played for more than a decade at FC Volendam and later went to work as a goalkeeping coach at football clubs including AFC Ajax, FC Barcelona, FC Bayern Munich and Manchester United, and the Netherlands and Poland national teams. He has worked with goalkeepers including Edwin van der Sar, Stanley Menzo, Víctor Valdés, Vítor Baía, Pepe Reina, Robert Enke, ?ukasz Fabia?ski, Thomas Kraft, Michel Vorm and David de Gea. Hoek is widely regarded as one of world football’s best goalkeeping mentors.

Do you know why Rich Froning and JJ Watt can train hard two or three times a day and still perform at an elite level?

The answer: They put as much effort into recovery work as they do into their gym work.

That’s why at Gym Jones, we don’t believe in “overtraining”—we only believe in “underrecovery.” If go hard or long or fast, but don’t rest enough between bouts, you end up training at a deficit. You won’t be able to ramp up the intensity and you won’t see progress. In fact, you’ll almost definitely plateau no matter how hard you continue to work out.

Here at Arkansas our style of play is very up-tempo. We are known as the fastest 40 minutes in basketball and we press the entire length of the court. Our program started implementing Sparta Software Technology in April of 2015. When we initially tested our athletes with the force plate technology we noticed that a majority of our athletes had a linear scan. This is a scan where DRIVE is the highest variable. DRIVE is the ability to produce concentric force over long periods of time and using momentum to reach top end speed. Athletes that have a linear scan are typically wide receivers in football and track athletes. Having this information immediately validated the use of the technology because it gave us a baseline on how the scan of an Arkansas Basketball athlete should look.

… [Adoree’] Jackson said there was never a time last season when he felt exhausted. The USC training staff gave him and his teammates the Catapult system this summer “to see how we accelerate and decelerate.

“[Trojans strength coach Ivan Lewis] said my numbers are rare. I don’t even know what that means.”

Jackson knows Sarkisian will try not to overextend him. But the 19-year-old said he will still push to get more work on offense. Sort of. “The way I’m pushing it is keep making plays on both sides of the ball.”

The relationship between task difficulty and learning benefit was examined, as was the measurability of task difficulty. Participants were required to learn a postural control task on an unstable surface at one of four different task difficulty levels. Results from the retention test showed an inverted-U relationship between task difficulty during acquisition and motor learning. The second-highest level of task difficulty was the most effective for motor learning, while learning was delayed at the most and least difficult levels. Additionally, the results indicate that salivary ?-amylase and the performance dimension of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) are useful indices of task difficulty. Our findings suggested that instructors may be able to adjust task difficulty based on salivary ?-amylase and the performance dimension of the NASA-TLX to enhance learning.

Focus of attention during dual-tasks and practice schedules are important components of motor skill performance and learning; often studied in isolation. The current study required participants to complete a simple key-pressing task under a blocked or random practice schedule. To manipulate attention, participants reported their finger position (i.e., skill-focused attention) or the pitch of an auditory tone (i.e., extraneous attention) while performing two variations of a dual-task key-pressing task. Analyses were conducted at baseline, 10min and 24h after acquisition. The results revealed that participants in a blocked schedule, extraneous focus condition had significantly faster movement times during retention compared to a blocked schedule, skill focus condition. Furthermore, greatest improvements from baseline to immediate and delayed retention were evident for an extraneous attention compared to the skill-focused attention, regardless of practice schedule. A discussion of the unique benefits an extraneous focus of attention may have on the learning process during dual-task conditions is presented.

Context: There is increased growth in sports participation across the globe. Sports specialization patterns, which include year-round training, participation on multiple teams of the same sport, and focused participation in a single sport at a young age, are at high levels. The need for this type of early specialized training in young athletes is currently under debate. … Conclusion: Sports specialization is defined as year-round training (greater than 8 months per year), choosing a single main sport, and/or quitting all other sports to focus on 1 sport. Specialized training in young athletes has risks of injury and burnout, while the degree of specialization is positively correlated with increased serious overuse injury risk. Risk factors for injury in young athletes who specialize in a single sport include year-round single-sport training, participation in more competition, decreased age-appropriate play, and involvement in individual sports that require the early development of technical skills. Adults involved in instruction of youth sports may also put young athletes at risk for injury by encouraging increased intensity in organized practices and competition rather than self-directed unstructured free play.

In terms of size, speed, and strength, NFL football players have always been superhuman. This season, they’re all about to become cyborgs, too.

Last year, the NFL tested out Zebra Technologies MotionWorks RFID system in 18 stadiums to track vector data: A player’s speed, distance, and direction traveled during each game in real-time. This season, that wireless tracking technology will be embedded in every NFL player’s shoulder pads, and viewers at home can see all that data come to life in the redesigned NFL 2015 app for Xbox One and Windows 10.

Within the app, there’s a feature called Next Gen Stats that turns each player into an digital avatar for a “Next Gen Replay.” In coordination with a highlight clip posted shortly after it occurs live on the field, Next Gen Replay displays every player’s speed at each moment of a play, lets you toggle between players, and keeps track of the actual yardage a running back has run in a play or in a game.

The aim of the study was to investigate whether an increased risk of injury occurrence can be determined through frequent anthropometric measurements in elite-standard youth soccer players. Over the course of one season, we followed 101 male elite-standard youth soccer players between 11 and 19 years of age. Height and body mass were monitored at monthly measurement intervals and fat percentage was assessed every 3 months by use of the sum of skinfold method. Growth in height (cm), alternations in body mass index (kg/m2), fat percentage and fat-free mass index (kg/m2) were calculated. Injuries were recorded in accordance with the recommendations of the FIFA Consensus Model for Injury Registration. Odds ratio scores and 95% confidence intervals were calculated using binary logistic regression analyses. The following anthropometric injury risk factors were identified: ??0.6 centimeter growth per month (p=0.03; OR=1.63; 95% CI: 1.06–2.52), ??0.3?kg/m2 increase of body mass index value per month (p=0.03; OR=1.61; 95% CI: 1.04–2.49) and low fat percentage; i.?e., <?7% for players aged 11–16 and <?5% for players over 16 years (p=0.01; OR=1.81; 95% CI: 1.18–2.76). Individual monitoring of anthropometrics provides useful information to determine increased risk of injury occurrence in elite-standard youth soccer.

The Broncos hired Mitch Tanney as their director of analytics this offseason and coach Gary Kubiak said Sunday that Tanney’s work won’t be confined to analysis of the team’s performance after games are over.

Kubiak said that he has had Tanney by his side while simulating game situations in training camp practices so that the two men can get comfortable working with one another ahead of the regular season. When September does roll around, Tanney will be in Kubiak’s ear during games to offer opinions about strategy.