Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 27, 2015

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for August 27, 2015

 

The Meaning of Serena Williams – The New York Times

The New York Times Magazine from August 25, 2015

There is no more exuberant winner than Serena Williams. She leaps into the air, she laughs, she grins, she pumps her fist, she points her index finger to the sky, signaling she’s No. 1. Her joy is palpable. It brings me to my feet, and I grin right back at her, as if I’ve won something, too. Perhaps I have.

There is a belief among some African-Americans that to defeat racism, they have to work harder, be smarter, be better. Only after they give 150 percent will white Americans recognize black excellence for what it is. But of course, once recognized, black excellence is then supposed to perform with good manners and forgiveness in the face of any racist slights or attacks. Black excellence is not supposed to be emotional as it pulls itself together to win after questionable calls. And in winning, it’s not supposed to swagger, to leap and pump its fist, to state boldly, in the words of Kanye West, ‘‘That’s what it is, black excellence, baby.’’

 

How Serena Williams Produced Her Second Act – WSJ

Wall Street Journal from August 26, 2015

Serena Williams was talking about the last time she won four consecutive Grand Slam singles titles, when she was in her early 20s, and what stood out was the speed.

“I was really fast then, I mean I was getting everything,” Williams said in an interview in Toronto this month. She was preparing for next week’s U.S. Open, where she will try to do something that her younger self could not do: win a fifth straight major title and a fourth in one season, the first clean sweep of the tennis majors in 27 years.

“I’m fast now too, but more on a when-I-want-to level,” Williams said. “When I was 22, I was everywhere. I use my energy more wisely now.”

 

Allyson Felix Is Back With a Better Sense of Limits, and Schedule Is One – The New York Times

The New York Times from August 26, 2015

Allyson Felix has the sniffles: a cold during the summer and the world track and field championships. But in view of the challenges she has overcome to get back to the Bird’s Nest and the challenges her sport continues to face to its integrity, that seems a minor concern.

“I’m good — just looking forward to getting this final underway,” Felix said Wednesday on the eve of the 400-meter final.

Felix has accomplished her boldest-faced professional goals, with three gold medals at the 2012 London Olympics. But the last time she raced for a major medal, she ended up in a heap on the track after tearing her right hamstring deep into the curve of the 200-meter final at the world championships in Moscow in 2013.

 

Atlanta Hawks add two trainers to staff from Warriors | www.ajc.com

AJC.com, Atlanta Journal-Constitution from August 26, 2015

A couple of championship rings are headed to the Hawks basketball operations staff.

The Hawks have made several hires to their athletic performance staff, including Keke Lyles as executive director, according to a person familiar with the situation.

 

‘You carry our message’: Ohio State’s model for success centers on leadership training – Campus Rush

SI.com, Campus Rush, Pete Thamel from August 25, 2015

… [Tim] Kight cites the case of former linebacker Curtis Grant as an example of the culture of Meyer’s program. As a senior last season, Grant tenuously held on to a starting job in the final year of a career that never lived up to its five-star billing. Freshman Raekwon McMillan, who arrived as a similarly heralded freshman, was expected to take Grant’s snaps. Instead of shunning McMillan, however, Grant drove him to the facility, tutored him on the playbook and mentored him without concern for how it might impact his playing time. Grant finished 2014 with by far the best year of his career, even recording 10 tackles in the Sugar Bowl against Alabama. McMillan also played well and is now poised to star for years in Columbus. “If you don’t have that within the team,” linebacker Josh Perry says, “I don’t think Raekwon is going to be in the position he is now to step up as a leader himself.”

 

SOUTHAMPTON FC | Southampton hosted world’s first bio-banded tournament

Southampton FC from August 25, 2015

Southampton hosted the world’s first bio-banded tournament at the Staplewood Campus last weekend.

Saints were joined by fellow Category 1 academies Stoke City, Reading and Norwich City for the tournament, which saw players competing in teams based on their maturational status and biological age, rather than chronological age.

The tournament, the first of its kind, was a huge success and served to highlight the progressive application of sports science in the development of young players at Southampton Football Club. [commercial video autoplays in right column]

 

False Fundamentals

USA Volleyball, John Kessler's Grow The Game Together blog from August 24, 2015

The term false or fake fundamentals, along with the concept of irrelevant training, is one that it seems coaches, parents and players simply want to ignore. Understandably so, as it gives them a feeling of success and mastery, even though it is not helping them in competition. It is what Dr. Richard Schmidt said to our US Olympic coaches multiple times “you are practicing for practice, and not performance…” There are some who think that by getting fundamentals to be learned through grills and game play and not blocked training that this is like heresy to the job of coaching. Those people better not start coaching any X games or other individual sports, for they will be out of a job – nor making an offer to coach Bubba Watson for sure. While not many kids learn to ride a bike with a “coach” – or drills or summer camps for that matter, the job of a team sport coach is to blend skilled individuals into team tactics, while tweaking the players’ skills for successful performance at their level and beyond.

 

The Basics: An Interview With Canada Basketball’s Charlie Weingroff

Omegawave blog from August 25, 2015

Playing in this past July’s Pan Am Games, the Canadian Men’s National Basketball Team proved the program’s depth and quality by pulling off a dramatic, overtime victory over the United States and winning silver in Toronto, the team’s first ever Pan Am medal. Building off that momentum, this month Team Canada begins preparations for the FIBA Americas Championship, studding their roster with an even greater mix of NBA talent—including 2014-15 Rookie of the Year Andrew Wiggins, sharpshooter Nick Stauskas, and seven-footer Kelly Olynyk—who will represent their country alongside former number-one lottery pick Anthony Bennett and future University of Kentucky freshman Jamal Murray.

As they train for FIBA Americas, Team Canada’s goal is greater than bringing home another medal: playing in Mexico, the team will be competing to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Just before the players returned to camp, we had the opportunity to speak with the team’s strength & conditioning coach, Charlie Weingroff, whose lengthy experience as a trainer, physical therapist, and elite sport consultant has led to positions with the US Marine Corps, the NBA, and his current role with Canada Basketball.

 

The stats vest and the injury-free Barcelona | Grup 14

Grup 14 from August 27, 2015

If you see something advertised as an injury-prevention tool and Arsenal one of the teams using it, it is but normal to be suspicious of the product. But quips aside, one of the ways that football is being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the modern age is via performance-monitoring technology.

To follow up on the El País story published about FC Barcelona players wearing monitoring vests as part of an overall training and injury prevention program, it seemed worth digging a bit deeper into the STATSports product, to know what it does and try to explain just a bit about why it can work.

An athlete gets a knock during a match and we all see the trainers come out with the magic water, an absurd practice that is similar to your Mom kissing an owie to make it all better. Players do the same warm-ups and routines in a game that generates loads of cash yet sometimes relies on voodoo when it comes to player maintenance. These monitoring vests from Northern Ireland-based STATSports are, for athlete-tech nerd types who also love football, too cool for words.

 

The NFL’s Best Practice: No Wasted Time – WSJ

Wall Street Journal from August 25, 2015

… Teams are limited to one practice a day instead of infamous and grueling two-a-days. Once the season starts, teams are limited to 14 practices in which players wear pads. Yet despite decades of technological and schematic advancement, NFL practices are still generally the same as they were years ago. Players take turns running plays. It is no frills.

With these two factors in plain sight, Bills offensive coordinator Greg Roman identified a problem with NFL practices: “In my experience, there’s a lot of standing around.”

So Roman devised a plan to change the way Buffalo practices. The first part is to effectively split practice into two practices on separate parts of the field, so that everyone is running a play at all times—and there’s no more standing around.

 

MocaCare raises $2M for handheld, heart tracking device | mobihealthnews

mobihealthnews from August 26, 2015

Palo Alto, California-based MocaCare, which has developed a device that tracks cardiovascular health, raised $2 million in a round led by JDM Mobile Internet Solutions with participation from EMB International and Atom Health Corporation. This brings the company’s total funding to $4 million to date.

The device, called MocaHeart, scans the user’s fingertips to measure blood flow velocity and uses that metric to determine heart rate and blood oxygen levels. It also offers users a qualitative measure of users’ overall cardiovascular health, called the Moca Index, which the company says is correlated to blood pressure.

 

Tennessee experiments with high-tech sleep monitors

Associated Press from August 26, 2015

About an hour before a Tennessee football player’s scheduled bedtime, he gets a reminder via an app on his phone or a text message. That’s when he puts on orange glasses that block out the glow of smartphones or computer screens, making it easier to fall asleep.

All the players have been given sleeping masks as well. Some have sensors above their mattresses and under their sheets to monitor heart rate, movement and respiration rate to detect their quality and quantity of sleep.

The idea is that if they sleep better each night, they’ll work better the following day.

 

Can food make you a better runner?

BBC iWonder from August 22, 2015

Are you one of the two million people in the UK that goes out for a run at least once a week? Do you think about what you eat before you force yourself out of the door? Or what you drink when you get back in with that post-run glow?

Whether you enjoy a short jog around the park on a Saturday morning or are training for an event such as a 10k or marathon, could what you eat make a difference to your performance?

 

How Stats Won Football: From Moneyball to FC Midtjylland | Hyundai #FanFilmFund – YouTube

YouTube, Copa90 from August 12, 2015

How statistical analysis and new thinking in football is changing fortunes for innovative football clubs such as FC Midtjylland and Brentford FC.

 

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