Applied Sports Science newsletter – August 29, 2015

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for August 29, 2015

 

Defining Djokovic

tennis.com from August 24, 2015

… Djokovic has long been the rubber-band man of tennis. With him, the term is appropriate both for physical and psychological reasons. During a rally, he can stretch and flex and contort his body into positions that have never been dreamed of by tennis instructors or textbook writers. And during a match, where he is prone to wild swings in mood and form, he has a unique—and if you’re a fan of his, heart-attack-inducing—ability to bend nearly to the breaking point, before snapping back into place just in time to win.

Now we can add the French Open and Wimbledon finals to his bounce-back list. Few champions have ever returned to the victory stand in London so quickly and convincingly after such devastating defeats in Paris. The question now, and the one that will ultimately define Djokovic’s legacy, is which of those performances—the wins at Wimbledon or the losses at Roland Garros—will become the norm for him.

 

How Do We Fix The Preseason?

Deadspin from August 25, 2015

It’s official: Packers top receiver Jordy Nelson will miss the entire 2015 season with a torn ACL suffered on the sixth play in Sunday’s preseason game. Injuries, by and large, are freak things, and there’s no way to absolutely prevent them. But their volume could be reduced so simply: give them fewer games in which to occur. And what do you know? There are a handful of games that could be eliminated, and some players are wondering whether we need the preseason at all.

 

Homegrown defender Matt Miazga making good on his potential in third season with New York Red Bulls | MLSsoccer.com

MLSsoccer.com from August 25, 2015

… Since joining the Red Bulls academy in 2009, the young defender has experienced a meteoric rise through the ranks en route to his current standing as a first-team regular. From appearing in just seven games last year to bottling up the likes of David Villa, Kaká and Sebastian Giovinco this season, Miazga’s progression has been staggering. The combination of his height, passing ability and composure has always made him stand out, but in 2015, the central defender is putting it all together.

“It’s happened quickly,” Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch said. “I said from the beginning that we were going to really help him establish himself. I think that the veterans have been very good with him and provided him with the opportunity to be successful.”

 

Here’s what recovery really means

Suunto from August 21, 2015

We all know proper recovery is an essential part of any training regime, but what exactly happens in our bodies while we rest, how does it impact our performance and how can new recovery features released to Ambit3 watches support our recovery? To get the answers on the science of recovery, we talked with Tero Myllymäki, who leads the physiological analytics development at Firstbeat Techologies.

Tero, can you talk us through how recovery impacts our performance?

The role of recovery is not only crucial to an athlete’s development, but to overall health and wellness; without sufficient recovery, it is impossible to build one’s endurance and stamina. In sports, the whole exercise philosophy is based on the fact that while exercising, body balance, so called homeostasis, is placed in a state of imbalance which lowers our body’s performance level. By taking the time to rest (referred to as “recovery”), this performance level is gained back, and, thanks to this recovery process, it is possible to gain a higher performance level.

 

Coping strategies in elite sport

BelievePerform from August 24, 2015

“The ability to perform successfully under pressure is a crucial aspect of sport performance.” (Mesagno, 2010, p. 343). A major problem for elite athletes is to deal with the feeling of ‘choking’ under pressure. Although there is no exact definition for choking, many researchers claim that it is the “critical deterioration in skill execution leading to substandard performance that is caused by an elevation in arousal levels.” (Mesagno, 2010, p. 343) Current research has highlighted strategies that can be implemented to help the athlete overcome this issue (Tod, 2011).

Research has found that athletes are becoming more conscious about their performances; resulting in an upsurge of athletes administering special techniques aimed at lowering arousal levels and stress through mental skills training (MST) (Howden, 2007).These techniques are known as coping strategies.

 

Tim Lees: Coaching possession, youth development and the future | These Football Times

These Football Times from August 26, 2015

Tim came through the academy system in England with both Bolton Wanderers and Everton as a youngster. He has over 300 appearances semi-professionally in England and in 2007 earned the highest scholarship awarded to an athlete at Maryland, USA. In 2006, he was chosen to represent the UK from 17,000 players for The Pepsi Max World Challenge, a global TV Series screened on Channel 4. Tim competed against the best semi-professional players from ten other countries in 2V2 tournament around the globe; working with Ronaldinho, David Beckham and Thierry Henry. In 2006, he was chosen by Jamie Redknapp to represent England semi-professional team at the FIFA World Cup finals in Germany.

He is also a football skills champion, finishing second in the World 2004 Nike Freestyle Championships and has performed choreographed and body doubled on dozens of commercials and advertisements around the world for the past ten years.

 

Reach for Goals You REALLY Want | Runner’s World

Runner's World, Run Matters from August 25, 2015

Working toward a goal is something people do in all walks of life, whether it’s aiming for a promotion at work, getting a PR in a race, performing pushups or pullups with ease, or learning a new language. There are many things we want to accomplish, but achievement rates are rarely 100 percent. Some goals are never reached, no matter how hard we try. Failing can lead to frustration, sadness, and self-deprecation, among other things.

Why do we reach some goals and not others?

 

Why We Can’t Get Over Ourselves – Issue 27: Dark Matter – Nautilus

Nautilus from August 27, 2015

You and I are members of one of the most social species on the planet. No human being succeeds in life alone. Getting along and getting ahead requires coordinating with others, either in cooperation as friends, spouses, teammates, and coworkers, or in competition as adversaries, opponents, or rivals. Arguably our brain’s greatest skill is its ability to think about the minds of others to understand them better. Our daily lives are guided by inferences about what others think, believe, feel, and want. This is your sixth sense at work.

But over the past two decades in my research as a psychologist, my experiments and research from many other scientists demonstrate the ways in which our sixth sense works well, but not nearly as well as we might think. The truth is that you are likely to understand much less about the minds of your family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, competitors, and fellow citizens than you would guess.

 

Ajax: the academy for world football – video

The Guardian from August 27, 2015

In his first full management role, Frank de Boer secured Ajax four consecutive Eredivisie titles and the automatic Champions League qualification that follows. But 2014-15 proved to be a disappointing season; rather than a fifth title that would have seen De Boer complete his project, the Dutch club finished 17 points behind PSV and have been forced to qualify for this season’s Europa League. Here, De Boer talks about the challenges Ajax face competing at the highest level while losing players ever earlier to clubs across Europe.

 

Oakwood’s field goal: Impact NFL safety

Crain's Detroit Business from August 22, 2015

A thin piece of engineered plastic can be the difference between life and death.

For the past 15 years, The Oakwood Group has been supplying engineered thermoplastic components for doors and headliners. The parts are designed to reduce the energy impact caused during a car crash. The Dearborn-based company’s patented safety product distributes the energy from the impact across the component — reducing violence in the cockpit.

Oakwood is hoping the same energy-absorbing technology used by nearly every major automaker can absorb the impacts of another auto industry downturn. Sometimes, diversification can come in the form of turning a traditional technology application on its head. In this case, it’s turning the technology application to protecting athletes — and more. While the technology isn’t aimed at the most critical safety tool used to protect football players — their helmets — it is being developed for use in turf, which also plays a role in head injuries.

 

Sports Compression: What the Science is Revealing

Inside Tracker, Carl Valle from August 21, 2015

… Compression technology is mystifying at first glance for several reasons, and even the science behind it can be misleading. The clash of the latest research and marketing can frustrate even elite coaches who are desperately trying to keep up with the latest innovations with sports apparel and training recovery devices. When one mentions compression in conversation, an associated array of images and definitions create much confusion.

Ask a runner about compression and they may mention the latest Under Armor spandex pant, but a NBA player may bring up the Squid Compression System as his tool for therapy. Visit a progressive CrossFit box and one may see several Voodoo Floss bands on the floor, used for both training and self-therapy. Lastly, talk to someone who just had surgery to their ACL and Game Ready might come to mind. Compression technology ranges in scope, from a pair of socks all the way to the futuristic products that are disrupting the wearables space.

In simple terms, compression is this: applying circumferential pressure to the body with fabric or medical materials. The expected outcome of creating a restriction of blood flow is that an acute physiological response will help heal the body. Hundreds of studies have looked at compression garments and medical devices that rhythmically squeeze the limbs, but the latest sport science research is hinting that much of the results are in fact placebo effects, especially with regard to the garments worn by athletes.

 

Stanford engineers develop a wireless, fully implantable device to stimulate nerves in mice

Stanford News from August 17, 2015

A miniature device that combines optogenetics – using light to control the activity of the brain – with a newly developed technique for wirelessly powering implanted devices is the first fully internal method of delivering optogenetics.

The device dramatically expands the scope of research that can be carried out through optogenetics to include experiments involving mice in enclosed spaces or interacting freely with other animals. The work is published in the Aug. 17 edition of Nature Methods.

 

St. Louis startup makes a Fitbit for stress relief

St. Louis Business Journal from August 25, 2015

Feeling stressed out? A group of St. Louis entrepreneurs wants to help you.

From their office in the Cortex district of mid-town St. Louis, a team of developers from Data Dog Health Inc., is creating an app to monitor your stress level via a wristband, much like the popular Fitbit technology that measures your heart rate from the pulse on your wrist.

The inspiration for the product, called Mindset, said Data Dog co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Russell, came in 2013.

 

Calling all coders: USC Center for Body Computing hosts ‘Hacking Virtual Medicine’…

PRNewswire, USC Center for Body Computing Conference from August 26, 2015

As an academic leader in the digital health revolution, the University of Southern California (USC) Center for Body Computing (CBC), part of the Keck School of Medicine of USC, announced today its first hackathon, “Hacking Virtual Medicine,” using Virtual Reality (VR) tools to create a consumer experience evolution in health and medicine. Software and hardware programmers, developers, and designers will join innovative engineers, clinicians, business people, and others for a 2-day marathon brainstorming and building event October 3-4. Held on the university’s Silicon Beach campus at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) in Playa Vista, five finalists will be chosen to continue hacking until October 8, when a panel of expert judges will award the top prize winner a $10,000 grant to further develop the concept.

 

Tackling goes high-tech at Dartmouth with new dummies

Associated Press from August 26, 2015

On the Ivy League campus of Dartmouth College, even the football tackling dummies are smart.

The team introduced a new MVP as the first practice of the season got underway Wednesday. Not a most valuable player, but a “Mobile Virtual Player” — a padded, remote-controlled figure designed to allow players to make full contact while minimizing head and neck injuries.

The project started two years ago when coach Buddy Teevens asked Dartmouth’s engineering school to create a safer way for players to practice tackling.

 

Impact of Sport Context and Support on the Use of a Self-Report Measure for Athlete Monitoring

Journal of Sports Science & Medicine from August 12, 2015

Athlete self-report measures (ASRM) are a popular method of athlete monitoring in high-performance sports. With increasing recognition and accessibility, ASRM may potentially be utilized by athletes from diverse sport contexts. The purpose of the present study was to improve understanding of ASRM implementation across different sport contexts by observing uptake and compliance of a newly implemented ASRM over 16 weeks, and investigating the perceived roles and factors influencing implementation. Athletes (n=131) completed an electronic survey at baseline and week 16 on their perceptions and experiences with ASRM implementation respectively. Despite initial interest, only 70 athletes attempted to use the ASRM. Of these athletes, team sport athletes who were supported by their coach or sports program to use the ASRM were most compliant (p < 0.001) with a mean compliance of 84 ± 21 %. Compliance for self-directed individual and team sport athletes was 28 ± 40 % and 8 ± 18 % respectively. Self-directed athletes were motivated to monitor themselves, and rated desired content and minimal burden as key factors for initial and ongoing compliance. Supported athletes were primarily motivated to comply for the benefit of their coach or sports program rather than themselves, however rated data output as a key factor for their continued use. Factors of the measure outweighed those of the social environment regardless of sport context, however the influence of social environmental factors should not be discounted. The findings of the present study demonstrate the impact of sport context on the implementation of an ASRM and the need to tailor implementation strategies accordingly.

 

Preseason Perceived Physical Capability and Previous Injury

National Athletic Trainers' Association, Journal of Athletic Training from August 19, 2015

Context: ?Patient opinion about the ability to perform athletic maneuvers is important after injury; however, prospective assessment of self-perceived physical capability for athletes before the beginning of a season is lacking.

Objective: ?To perform a descriptive analysis of knee, shoulder, and elbow self-perceived measures of physical capability specific to athletics and to compare the measures between athletes with and without a history of injury.

Main Outcome Measure(s): ?Athletes self-reported a history of knee, shoulder, or elbow injury. Perceived physical capability of the 3 joints was evaluated using the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) Sport and Recreation Function and Knee-Related Quality of Life subscales and the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic Shoulder and Elbow Score. We conducted nonparametric analysis to determine if scores differed between athletes with and without a history of injury.

Results: ?Median values for the KOOS Sports and Recreation Function, and Knee-Related Quality of Life, and the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic Shoulder and Elbow Score for all athletes were 100. Median values for perceived physical capability of athletes with a history of injury were 3 to 12 points lower for each questionnaire before the start of the season (P < .001).

Conclusions: ?Our study provided descriptive values for for individual perceived knee, shoulder, and elbow physical capability of collegiate athletes participating in 19 sports. Athletes who did not report previous injuries perceived their physical capabilities to be nearly perfect, which could set the goal for these athletes to return to participation after injury. Athletes reporting previous injuries perceived less physical capability before the competitive season. Self-assessment of joint-specific capability may supplement preseason physical examinations, identifying particular athletes needing further monitoring or care during a season.

 

Team Physicians: On your mark, get set….go!

Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine blog from August 12, 2015

It’s still full-on summer in North America. The temps can exceed 40 C (104 F) in some parts, and the geese haven’t flown anywhere…..but fall is in the air, as team sports are in the midst of two-a-days and the hitting has begun! My clinics have shown an uptick in patient numbers, as the injured are trickling in. I have yet to stand on a sideline, but will do so in two weeks. It’s a good time to review the Team Physician Consensus Statement (see below) published a couple of years ago.

 

Locomotive biomechanics in persons with chronic ankle instability and lateral ankle sprain copers. – PubMed – NCBI

Journal of Sciece & Medicine in Sport from August 10, 2015

OBJECTIVES:

To compare the locomotive biomechanics of participants with chronic ankle instability (CAI) to those of lateral ankle sprain (LAS) copers.
DESIGN:

Cross-sectional study.
METHODS:

Twenty-eight participants with CAI and 42 LAS copers each performed 5 self-selected paced gait trials. 3-D lower extremity temporal kinematic and kinetic data were collected for these participants from 200ms pre- to 200ms post-heel strike (period 1) and from 200ms pre- to 200ms post-toe off (period 2).
RESULTS:

The CAI group displayed increased hip flexion bilaterally during period 1 compared to LAS copers. During period 2, CAI participants exhibited reduced hip extension bilaterally, increased knee flexion bilaterally and increased ankle inversion on the ‘involved’ limb. They also displayed a bilateral decrease in the flexor moment pattern at the knee.
CONCLUSIONS:

Considering that all of the features which distinguished CAI participants from LAS copers were also evident in our previously published research (within 2-weeks following acute first-time LAS); these findings establish a potential link between these features and long-term outcome following first-time LAS. Clinicians must be cognizant of the capacity for these movement and motor control impairments to cascade proximally from the injured joint up the kinetic chain and recognise the value that gait re-training may have in rehabilitation planning to prevent CA

 

Have you got what it takes to be a Premier League physio?

The Independent, UK from August 19, 2015

You’ll need people skills as well as academic ones – and a thick skin will help, says Russ Thorne

The medical teams taking care of footballers have been hitting the headlines recently, courtesy of Jose Mourinho’s fracas with Chelsea FC’s doctor. Staying calm in the face of a furious manager is one thing, but aspiring physiotherapists will need a range of other abilities if they want to get into the top flight.

A degree is one essential component, not only for the training it provides but for gaining membership of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, the professional body for UK practitioners. “The course will help students develop a whole range of skills,” says Peter Hanley, a lecturer in physiotherapy at Sheffield Hallam University. “The primary one is learning to assess the different systems within the body.”

 

Role of nutrition in performance enhancement and postexercise recovery | OAJSM

Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine from August 11, 2015

A number of factors contribute to success in sport, and diet is a key component. An athlete’s dietary requirements depend on several aspects, including the sport, the athlete’s goals, the environment, and practical issues. The importance of individualized dietary advice has been increasingly recognized, including day-to-day dietary advice and specific advice before, during, and after training and/or competition. Athletes use a range of dietary strategies to improve performance, with maximizing glycogen stores a key strategy for many. Carbohydrate intake during exercise maintains high levels of carbohydrate oxidation, prevents hypoglycemia, and has a positive effect on the central nervous system. Recent research has focused on athletes training with low carbohydrate availability to enhance metabolic adaptations, but whether this leads to an improvement in performance is unclear. The benefits of protein intake throughout the day following exercise are now well recognized. Athletes should aim to maintain adequate levels of hydration, and they should minimize fluid losses during exercise to no more than 2% of their body weight. Supplement use is widespread in athletes, with recent interest in the beneficial effects of nitrate, beta-alanine, and vitamin D on performance. However, an unregulated supplement industry and inadvertent contamination of supplements with banned substances increases the risk of a positive doping result. Although the availability of nutrition information for athletes varies, athletes will benefit from the advice of a registered dietician or nutritionist.

 

Are Artificial Sweeteners Helping Your Game? Potential Dangers and Side Effects | The Official Website of The NBA Coaches Association

National Basketball Coaches Association from August 19, 2015

By now, you’ve probably heard that sugar isn’t great for your waistline, your blood sugar or your long term health. With more information surfacing daily about the dangers of excess sugar, artificial sweeteners have staked their claim in the media as a “healthier” alternative. Artificial sweeteners are found in a wide variety of popular products, including but not limited to diet sodas, gum, yogurt, breads, energy bars, protein powders, and low-sugar or sugar-free versions of ice cream and other baked goods.

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Without the added calories from real sugar, artificial sweeteners may sound like an enticing solution to a rapidly expanding obesity problem. However, current research on artificial sweeteners suggests that these replacements may be just as harmful to your health as regular sugar. In fact, artificial sweeteners have been linked to certain cancers, heart disease and surprisingly, weight gain.

 

Time for food: the intimate interplay between nutrition, metabolism, and the circadian clock. – PubMed – NCBI

Cell from March 26, 2015

The circadian clock, a highly specialized, hierarchical network of biological pacemakers, directs and maintains proper rhythms in endocrine and metabolic pathways required for organism homeostasis. The clock adapts to environmental changes, specifically daily light-dark cycles, as well as rhythmic food intake. Nutritional challenges reprogram the clock, while time-specific food intake has been shown to have profound consequences on physiology. Importantly, a critical role in the clock-nutrition interplay appears to be played by the microbiota. The circadian clock appears to operate as a critical interface between nutrition and homeostasis, calling for more attention on the beneficial effects of chrono-nutrition.

 

For Athletes, the Risk of Too Much Water – The New York Times

The New York Times, Well blog from August 26, 2015

Are we, with the best of intentions, putting young athletes at risk when we urge them to drink lots of fluids during steamy sports practices and games?

A new report about overhydration in sports suggests that under certain circumstances the answer is yes, and that the consequences for young athletes can be — and in several tragic cases already have been — severe and even fatal.

 

Why eating late at night may be particularly bad for you and your diet – The Washington Post

The Washington Post from August 24, 2015

Loath as you may be to admit it, chances are that at some point you have found yourself in the kitchen late at night, devouring some sweet, salty or carb-rich treat even though you weren’t hungry.

Scientists are getting closer to understanding why people indulge after dark and to determining whether those nighttime calories wreak more havoc — whether they drive up the risk of weight gain and of chronic diseases such diabetes — than ones consumed earlier in the day.

“For years, we said a calorie is a calorie no matter when you consume it,” says dietitian Joy Dubost, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “I don’t know if we can say that anymore, based on the emerging research. The timing of a meal may potentially have an impact.”

 

As NBA Schedule-Maker Departs, He Takes with Him an Era League Won’t See Again

Bleacher Report, Howard Beck from August 21, 2015

… For the last 30 years, Matt Winick has punched the keys on this PC (or one like it) and arranged all of those dates, color-coding for home games (blue) and away (red), agonizing over every six-game road trip and every back-to-back set, bracing for the complaints that were sure to follow.

“I tell the teams, ‘Hey, that’s the way the computer did it,'” Winick said from behind his desk. “But it was never the computer. I was the computer.”

 

Pitfalls of measuring shooting and saving skill

North Yard Analytics, Daniel Altman from August 22, 2015

One of the biggest and most important challenges in sports analytics is asking the right question. Many metrics are produced and published without any sense of how precise they are, what assumptions they rely on, and how they might be used in practice. As a result, it’s hard to phrase questions that the metrics can answer correctly, at least from a statistical point of view. Shooting and saving skill are cases in point.

Recently Michael Caley, one of the best soccer analysts doing public work, suggested an approach to measuring shooting skill. Like others before him, he chose to focus on the difference between a shooter’s actual goals and expected goals. He borrowed his method from Russell Carleton, a baseball analyst and social scientist. The idea was to find a metric that was “reliable” – a term Carleton used to imply a correlation of 0.7 across two sufficiently large samples of events covering the same group of players. For Michael, actual goals minus expected goals per shot probably would likely become a “reliable” metric after several hundred shots.

 

On the relative age effect and a new U.S. Soccer youth rule change | The 91st Minute | Soccer Blog | Videos | Pop-Culture

The 91st Minute, Top Drawer Soccer from August 25, 2015

U.S. Soccer’s thesis here is that relative age effect, which naturally skews the system toward players earlier in the cycle due to their faster physical maturation, is cutting off the pool’s natural circulation. So, to combat that, they’ve flipped the eligibility calendar from a school-based system (August-July) to a year-based system (January-December). U20 MNT coach Tab Ramos cites the easier-to-understand calendar as a reason for the switch, since currently two players born in June and August of the same year are initially arrayed in different cycles. At least from that standpoint, this makes sense.

But the wider question is how, exactly, this is going to change anything in regard to relative age effect.

 

Examining the Groundbreaking Work of the NHL’s Latest Analytics Hire | Bleacher Report

Bleacher Report, Jonathan Willis from August 26, 2015

Last week, the Carolina Hurricanes announced an addition to their front office. Eric Tulsky, a hockey blogger whose credits include mainstream publications such as the Washington Post and appearances at MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, will now work as an analyst for the Hurricanes.

Given that hire, it’s worth taking another look at Tulsky’s work to see exactly what he’s bringing to the ‘Canes organization.

One item is an impressive resume.

 

How reliable are Functional Movement Screening scores? A systematic review of rater reliability — Moran et al. — British Journal of Sports Medicine

British Journal of Sports Medicine from August 27, 2015

Background Several physical assessment protocols to identify intrinsic risk factors for injury aetiology related to movement quality have been described. The Functional Movement Screen (FMS) is a standardised, field-expedient test battery intended to assess movement quality and has been used clinically in preparticipation screening and in sports injury research.

Results 12 studies were appraised. Overall, there was a ‘moderate’ level of evidence in favour of ‘acceptable’ (intraclass correlation coefficient ?0.6) inter-rater and intra-rater reliability for composite scores derived from live scoring. For inter-rater reliability of composite scores derived from video recordings there was ‘conflicting’ evidence, and ‘limited’ evidence for intra-rater reliability. For inter-rater reliability based on live scoring of individual subtests there was ‘moderate’ evidence of ‘acceptable’ reliability (??0.4) for 4 subtests (Deep Squat, Shoulder Mobility, Active Straight-leg Raise, Trunk Stability Push-up) and ‘conflicting’ evidence for the remaining 3 (Hurdle Step, In-line Lunge, Rotary Stability).

Conclusions This review found ‘moderate’ evidence that raters can achieve acceptable levels of inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of composite FMS scores when using live ratings. Overall, there were few high-quality studies, and the quality of several studies was impacted by poor study reporting particularly in relation to rater blinding.

 

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