Applied Sports Science newsletter – September 25, 2015

Fabian Johnson and DaMarcus Beasley returned from injury to give the U.S. side a big boost ahead of next month’s showdown with Mexico.

Time is more precious than ever for Bradley Beal. Between his professional obligations, personal plans and pursuit of a spot on Team USA for next summer’s Olympics, the 22-year-old can’t waste a moment, even on the hardwood.

“We were in the gym for maybe three hours a day, and probably an hour of it was efficient,” Drew Hanlen, his longtime trainer, told Bleacher Report of his early workouts with a 14-year-old Beal. “The other two hours was just us working our asses off, but that hour paid off, for sure.”

… Travel day for F.C. Kansas City begins at our apartment complex, where we load up a shuttle bus to the airport. Only in the playoffs do we travel earlier than the day before the game, and upon our arrival in an opponent’s city we rent minivans and put a veteran player behind the wheel. I’m a proud member of Leigh Ann Robinson’s van; Leigh Ann doesn’t stand for any nonsense, on or off the road, and she dominates lanes on the highway the same way she dominates the right side of our back line.

Each host team has an affiliate hotel where the visiting team stays. Sometimes, the wide eyes of the children who see us staying at the same place they do for a youth tournament reminds me that, in a lot of ways, we have come full circle. Yes, 12-year-olds in the hotel running up and down the hallway, we are just like you. (Except the knock-on-someone’s-door-and-run routine got old for us a long time ago.)

Setting goals appears simple, but there are a number of rules that must be followed if you are to deliver success, says professor Greg Whyte.

… The winning entry was called Precision in Motion – an idea based on chronic issues that arise when someone is working out using bad form. The solution they found was to create fitness clothing equipped with sensors that monitored the body in motion while performing the activity. This technology is able to detect bad form and correct it by providing real time feedback with sensory cues that will sync with an app to track your form showing a 360-degree view. While this idea could be sold in partnership with a brand like Reebok or Under Armour for incremental product sales, the app experience can extend to monetize further – from contextual ad push to partnerships with insurance companies, service providers and like minded active brands.

For many athletes who play on artificial turf, the tiny granules of rubber that pad the field are familiar and ubiquitous. The black specks often get trapped in folds of clothing, carried home in shoes or embedded in scrapes and under fingernails.

Crumb rubber infill — the most common material used in artificial turf fields across the country — is intended to improve safety and create a more accessible, easily maintained playing field. But after recent public concerns about possible health risks from exposure to crumb rubber, several local jurisdictions are searching for clearer answers about its potential dangers and considering alternatives.

The rapid evolution of technology over the past two decades has only been matched by the rapid implementation of the technology in professional sport. From hawk-eye and third match review systems to how the players are trained and monitored after a performance, technology has influenced sport across the board.

Rugby has been one sport that has wholly embraced the evolution of technology and it is the player tracking systems that have become the most popular tool for coaches and team managements. Previously just used for training, the development of more smaller and efficient equipment means that player tracking during games has become practically mainstream. And it is something that will be extensively used at this year’s Rugby World Cup.

The pioneers of using technology in assisting the application of sports science to player movement whilst training and coaching is Irish company STATsports.

Changes or introductions of technology or equipment can affect how a sport is played or influence its performances. This article conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature to identify any case studies of controversial events surrounding the implementation or use of sports technology. 56 articles were identified that highlighted 31 different case studies found over a three decade time period. Thematic analysis revealed six distinctive themes when reviewing the articles. Whilst the sport of golf had the highest number of case studies, it was found that a significant level of attention had been recorded in the cases of Oscar Pistorius use of prosthetic legs in athletics and the use of full length swimsuits in swimming. The trend surrounding the number of articles was shown to be initially intermittent but saw a peak period from 2008 to 2010. However, the frequency of such articles since this peak has been more consistent. It is proposed that long periods of time without intervention or resolution by a governing body often increases the peer-reviewed attention paid to such cases in examples such as those identified in this systematic review.

The list of the injured and infirm among the NBA’s star set last season was long and unrelenting.

Name the team, and almost every one of them had a star player go down at an inopportune time — in the regular season (Tony Parker, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul) and the playoffs (John Wall, Mike Conley, DeMarre Carroll). Injuries happen every season, of course, but last season seemed to be particularly hard on the difference-makers, those whose absence would be the hardest to overcome. And the residue from many of those injuries will carry over into 2015-16.

With camps set to start soon, we try to update some of the bigger names that are trying to come back from season-ending injuries suffered last season.

Note to contact lens wearers: Get with the hygiene program.

Nearly every contact-lens wearer learns the common-sense recommendations for good hygiene, such as cleaning your contact-lens case every day and replacing it every three months. And most ophthalmologists also advise lens wearers to avoid swimming, showering or sleeping while wearing contacts. These behaviors increase one’s risk of developing eye infections caused by bacteria, fungus and even amoebas in the water. If serious or left untreated, infections can require surgery and result in permanent loss of vision.

… What explains prodigies? How can a person accomplish so much so fast? Psychologists have long debated this question. According to one account, it is possible that most anyone could be a prodigy, with the right environment. As the late psychologist Michael Howe argued, “With sufficient energy and dedication on the parents’ part, it is possible that it may not be all that difficult to produce a child prodigy.” Extraordinary opportunity is indeed a theme that runs through the biographies of many prodigies. Mozart’s father, Leopold, was a highly sought after music teacher, and gave up his own promising career as a musician to mange his son’s career. More recently, Tiger Woods’ father introduced him to golf at age 2. When Venus and Serena Williams were children, they moved with their family from California to Florida so they could train at an elite tennis academy.

However, recent research indicates that basic cognitive abilities known to be influenced by genetic factors also play a role in prodigious achievement.

… The sad truth of the matter is that the state of football analytics in 2015 is not good and isn’t showing signs of improving. This is especially true in the NFL, though I think a lot of this applies to college football as well.

The body of football research is not advancing with the same rate and is not of the same quality as in basketball, baseball, or hockey. At least publicly, teams are not generally investing in analytics talent in the same way that other sports are. Even when they are, as evidenced by the Steelers above, there is little evidence that teams are incorporating many of the most basic quantitative lessons from the analytics community either on or off the field.

… At Mindfull we work with the Auckland Blues Super Rugby team to integrate predictive analytics, with the aim of forecasting when players might be struck down with injury and finding the next superstar of the sport.

Why do the New England Patriots keep winning? They won the Super Bowl last season, of course. They have won four Super Bowls. Maybe it’s that Tom Brady is great or that coach Bill Belichick is a genius. Critics, of course, are already screaming at the radio that it’s because they bend the rules, something the Patriots were accused of even before Deflategate. So you can offer many reasons why the Patriots win. But maybe there’s something more, something else that causes winning athletes to keep winning. NPR’s social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam has come across some new research suggesting that. [audio, 3:53]