Applied Sports Science newsletter – September 8, 2015

Matt Harvey has the stuff and the strut of an ace. He pitches like a leading man and carries himself that way. The Mets seem bound for the postseason, and nobody should crave that stage more than Harvey.

The question that shadows Harvey and the Mets is how responsible it would be for him to pitch in October. His ability to do so is in doubt now, and it is jarring for the Mets and their fans. The Dark Knight may not be Gotham’s savior — but maybe Harvey has not really changed.

“If anybody questions his competitive desire, go back a year from now, when he was demanding to get back on the mound,” said Dr. Neal ElAttrache, a leading surgeon at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles. “I think he will do whatever he thinks is medically reasonable for him to do.”

… General manager John Mozeliak admitted that a lot of people in baseball were “surprised” when the Cardinals hired [Randy] Flores, 40. Count Flores among them. He’s the first scouting director during the Cardinals’ data-driven age to be a former big leaguer, following a line of academic heavyweights. His time scouting came as an assistant coach and recruiter for his alma mater, Southern Cal.

He’s a non-traditional pick, and yet his traits fit a trend.

Ian Mitchell became the first full-time Psychologist of a Premier League side when Garry Monk added him to his back room staff last year.

Now the former Chelsea trainee and Hereford United player is working with stars such as Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey ensuring they have the mental toughness to secure qualification for Euro 2016.

Massimo Massaro explains how intrinsic muscular control techniques have played a key role in the UK record-holder’s rise to the top of British women’s sprinting

United States coach Jurgen Klinsmann says developing the striker position — and not the embattled back line — is his greatest concern for the future, while also saying Jozy Altidore’s role on the national team remains “very, very important.”

U.S. defenders struggled in the CONCACAF Gold Cup and in friendlies this year as Klinsmann tried out a number of different combinations including John Brooks, Ventura Alvarado, Omar Gonzalez, Michael Orozco, DeAndre Yedlin, Timothy Chandler, Geoff Cameron and Tim Ream.

But Klinsmann told ESPN FC he’s more concerned with the U.S.’ inability to fully develop consistent strikers than he is about the back line as his side prepares to face Brazil on Tuesday.

Grounded on basic psychological needs theory (18) the purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to test the mediational role of basic psychological needs (satisfaction and thwarting), and 2) to test the model invariance over two consecutive seasons. 360 young male athletes completed a questionnaire package tapping the variables of interest at four time points during two consecutive seasons. Results of the path analyses revealed that in both seasons, changes in perceived coach autonomy supportive style positively predicted changes in needs satisfaction which, in turn, positively predicted changes in self-esteem; changes in perceived coach autonomy supportive and controlling style negatively and positively – respectively – predicted changes in needs thwarting which, in turn, positively predicted changes in burnout and negatively in self-esteem. Only in the first season, changes in needs satisfaction emerged as a negative predictor of changes in burnout. The mediational role of basic psychological needs and the invariance of the aforementioned relationships over the two seasons were supported. Results emphasize the importance of having coaches promoting autonomy supportive atmospheres and avoiding controlling styles to facilitate athletes’ well-being and to prevent their ill-being.

While The Institute’s June special report describes what is needed to make wearables more accurate, seamless, and better equipped to monitor vital signs—readers had other concerns, including data security and how to make the products simpler to use and wear. Here to answer their questions are four leading experts in the field.

They include IEEE Senior Member Kevin Curran [top left], a professor in computer science at Ulster University, in Northern Ireland, and an IEEE technical expert; Jesse Jur [bottom left], an assistant professor of textile engineering, chemistry, and science at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh; and collaborators Elizabeth Churchill right], a specialist in user experience with a background in experimental psychology, and IEEE Member m.c. Schraefel [center], founder of the WellthLab for Human Systems Interactive Design at the University of Southampton, in England. Here’s what they had to say.

As the craving for wearable electronics grows, laboratories around the world have been seeking to integrate fabric–the raw material of fashion—and electronic displays. Various researchers have demonstrated fabrics that change color, but Imec (formerly the Inter-university Micro Electronics Centre, Leuven, Belgium) today claims it is the first to integrated light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) into a flexible, wearable fabric that serves as both a sensor and a display.

As wearable devices become more and more numerous, they are going to need convenient new power sources so we don’t have dozens of chargers plugged in around our homes. The efforts toward pursuing a solution to this problem generally fall into two areas: means of generating, or harvesting energy on the go, and a way of storing that energy that goes beyond what we think of as batteries today.

A team at Drexel University has developed a “capacitive yarn” essentially tranforms fabric into an energy storage device by embedding functional materials into textile fibers at the molecular level. This was made possible through a process called natural fiber welding (NFW), which was developed by Paul C. Trulove at the US Naval Academy, who collaborated on the project.

Register today and join us for a full day of informative, energetic sessions exploring all aspects of sport concussion. Join us for either or both sessions, an invigorating lunchtime speaker, plus a tour of “The Big House.”

The morning session is designed for researchers and others with interest in the scientific aspects of concussion.

The afternoon session will feature information beyond the science — including policy implications, education, legal aspects, the media’s role, and more.

Webcast, Thursday, September 24, starting at 8 a.m.

We know injuries can strike at any age, but in youth soccer age differences can define the choice of treatment selected and also influence the nature of injuries sustained.

There’s a big difference between injuries affecting the younger children playing the sport and the older adolescents whose injuries often resemble those of the adult population. There’s an even bigger difference, though, in how injuries are managed between the two groups.

Injuries to the older age group are similar to adult injuries. An eighteen-year old adolescent with a knee ligament sprain is managed in much the same way as a young adult with the same injury. The older adolescents with injuries aren’t really any different from adults in that respect. When late adolescents leave their comfort zone of playing in the under-age competitions and enter the world of open age soccer, playing against adults can frequently lead to injury – usually as a result of physical mismatching. When talking about injuries in the younger age groups, however, the injury risk due to physical mismatching is often far greater.

… J.C. now has his baseball future all mapped out. “I’m going to go to Stanford and get a scholarship, and then I’m going to go to the Yankees in the MLB draft,” he says.

Those big dreams aren’t all that unusual. According to a recent poll from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 26 percent of U.S. parents whose children in high school play sports hope their child will become a professional athlete one day. Among families with household incomes of less than $50,000 annually, the number is 39 percent.

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, only a tiny percentage of high school athletes actually go on to play professionally — roughly 1 in 168 high school baseball players will get drafted by a Major League Baseball team, and just 1 in 2,451 men’s high school basketball players will get drafted by a National Basketball Association team.

Psychologists have hypothesized that when we try to understand the scenery we see, we begin by assessing some pre-ordained priorities. A new study questions that idea by providing evidence that people simply make the easiest distinctions first.

The relative age effect (RAE) and its relationships with maturation, anthropometry, and physical performance characteristics were examined across a representative sample of English youth soccer development programmes. Birth dates of 1,212 players, chronologically age-grouped (i.e., U9’s-U18’s), representing 17 professional clubs (i.e., playing in Leagues 1 & 2) were obtained and categorised into relative age quartiles from the start of the selection year (Q1 = Sep-Nov; Q2 = Dec-Feb; Q3 = Mar-May; Q4 = Jun-Aug). Players were measured for somatic maturation and performed a battery of physical tests to determine aerobic fitness (Multi-Stage Fitness Test [MSFT]), Maximal Vertical Jump (MVJ), sprint (10 & 20m), and agility (T-Test) performance capabilities. Odds ratio’s (OR) revealed Q1 players were 5.3 times (95% confidence intervals [CI]: 4.08–6.83) more likely to be selected than Q4’s, with a particularly strong RAE bias observed in U9 (OR: 5.56) and U13-U16 squads (OR: 5.45–6.13). Multivariate statistical models identified few between quartile differences in anthropometric and fitness characteristics, and confirmed chronological age-group and estimated age at peak height velocity (APHV) as covariates. Assessment of practical significance using magnitude-based inferences demonstrated body size advantages in relatively older players (Q1 vs. Q4) that were very-likely small (Effect Size [ES]: 0.53–0.57), and likely to very-likely moderate (ES: 0.62–0.72) in U12 and U14 squads, respectively. Relatively older U12-U14 players also demonstrated small advantages in 10m (ES: 0.31–0.45) and 20m sprint performance (ES: 0.36–0.46). The data identify a strong RAE bias at the entry-point to English soccer developmental programmes. RAE was also stronger circa-PHV, and relatively older players demonstrated anaerobic performance advantages during the pubescent period. Talent selectors should consider motor function and maturation status assessments to avoid premature and unwarranted drop-out of soccer players within youth development programmes.