Applied Sports Science newsletter – October 9, 2015

… “You can be the fastest player in the world, but if you constantly make the wrong decision, it doesn’t matter,” says Brandon Payne of Accelerate Basketball, Stephen Curry’s trainer since the 2011 lockout. That might be an obvious truth, but what’s less obvious is that one can train his decisions in the same way he might strengthen his legs. This is why Payne says the word “cognitive” as much as he says anything about muscles or fat.

It’s how we arrived at a point where, if you lack context, Curry sounds like a “Telegraph Avenue” drifter rambling about a fight against space aliens: “I’m coming down toward the light beam, I see a green color. I know what that move is, a between-the-leg move. So I got to do that, knock out the light with a beam and go make a play.”

Beams? Green colors? There’s a method to this madness.

The Dallas Mavericks opened the vault for Wesley Matthews in free agency, but before the shooting guard can prove his worth, he must battle back from a torn Achilles

… Defender Tim Hoogland, who Klopp signed for Mainz back in 2007, remembers the fundamental rule of working for Klopp.

“You have to run. That’s it,” he says. “I think this is one of the important things you have to know about him. The whole team has to run 120 km (74.5 miles) collectively every game. 120km minimum [laughs].” [commercial video autoplays]

In an anonymous stretch of office buildings off Highway 101 in Menlo Park, California, just miles from tech giants like Facebook and Google, sits a laboratory dedicated to the perfection of athletic training. On this Bay Area day, the large rolling door of the warehouse-like space is thrown open to let in the sunshine, filling the room with light as a dozen professional baseball players embark on their ninety-minute workout.

They begin by rolling out their muscles to loosen them and increase blood flow before starting the actual work. Rather than using the more typical foam rollers, each player employs a four-foot length of PVC pipe to help free up the tightness in his quads and hamstrings. No traditional static stretching here, no toe-touches. Research shows that doing those activities before exercise can actually decrease an athlete’s strength and explosiveness. After the rolling, the players start to move around the gym, gradually ramping up their activity level (this prevents injury, and is a better method for all of us, not just professional athletes, to warm up).

Ralph Cuddemi didn’t need more games. That wasn’t going to help him score more goals and develop into a consistent, skilled and gritty offensive threat. He needed more time away from the rink to achieve that.

Cuddemi found that at Canisius College. Drafted by the Erie Otters in the OHL Priority Selection in 2010, his hockey route instead led him to the Golden Griffins. While the Canadian major-junior teams offer more games, Canisius gave Cuddemi the opportunity to strengthen his weaknesses and turn good skills into great skills with focused work in the weight room.

The proof is in his numbers.

From an early age, we’re taught that breathing is part of our autonomic nervous system, like digesting food, so unless there’s a problem, it’s not something we need to think about. But, unlike digestion, we actually have the ability to control our respiration — and for good reason. Arguably, the way we breathe has the power to impact every aspect of our health and wellness, from how we think and feel to how we move.

Many of us recognize the link between breathing and physiology, particularly during times of stress, but most don’t realize its reciprocal impact on our overall posture and mobility. Bad breathing creates tension and immobility, and immobility and tension prevent good breathing. That’s why teaching proper breathing biomechanics is the foundation of all my work with professional athletes.

… here are 3 general statements about recovery and regeneration from Dr. Cardinale:

1) Recovery is a complex phenomenon and there isn’t a magic bullet. For this reason basic hygiene and recovery practices need to be put in place (cooling down, eating and sleeping). Once the basics are done well, there may be space to explore other modalities making sure the target systems can benefit from the modality of choice [and 2 more]

… “I arrived at Manchester United back in 2008 [as fitness coach],” said Strudwick. “It struck me that United did not only have fantastic talent at the time – Ronaldo, Scholes, Giggs, Rooney and van der Sar, all fantastic players, but the performance culture came from manager Sir Alex Ferguson. It’s about defining what’s important, what value is, the way you do things, the way you conduct yourself and the whole behavior code associated with performance culture. It took so long to build a culture of success, a culture of sustained winning. No team have ever won the Premier League four times in a row, Manchester United nearly did, winning it three years in a row.”

Strudwick joined Manchester United in 2007 and has had the opportunity to work for the club in different coaching roles. At the end of September 2014 Manchester United appointed Strudwick as their head of athletic development. Strudwick’s new role at Carrington shortened his career with the English national team. He had been an integral part of Roy Hodgson’s back room staff at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, where England faltered in the heat of Manuas before meeting Luis Suarez in Sao Paulo.

… The only way to know if a training program or load has has caused the specific desired physiological changes for that phase is through testing. If one person does the pre test, and a different person does the post test, the data has been compromised. It is inconsistent, it is irrelevant, and cannot be compared.

What I am most impressed about Global Performance Testings approach to field testing is that we provide the most up to date technology for testing, the protocols and testing surfaces are exactly the same from one test to the next, the data is clean and reliable, and there is no hand held stop watches involved!

Understanding what we see in the world around us might seem like a straightforward task to a person, but for computers that lack the context we have acquired over a lifetime of experience, it is anything but simple.

By allowing people to supply information about objects by physically touching them in the real world, this system gives us a quick and easy way of training computers to understand their local environments.

The ultimate aim is to use it to provide crucial information for augmented reality smart glasses that are being developed in Oxford to help people who are partially-sighted.

… The success is built, in no small part, on an approach that puts technology and data insight at the heart of everything the club does. Southampton have adapted the number-crunching, data-driven approach that saw cash-strapped baseball underdogs Oakland Athletics rise to glory in their 2002 season, using statistical analysis to identify bargain talent and put it to best use, building a winning side. The method was eventually made famous in the 2011 Hollywood movie Moneyball with Brad Pitt as then manager Billy Beane.

Lumo Bodytech has developed a pair of running shorts that can provide the wearer with real-time feedback on their performance. The Lumo Run shorts could help runners increase their speed, distance and also prevent them from suffering injuries.

Can football, or soccer, compete in the USA with the big four traditional sports? You’ve probably read, heard or even asked this question at some point in your life, it’s a popular topic with football fans.

The truth is that judging from TV audiences, it already is. No, the US’ own division, MLS, isn’t and neither is the world’s most popular football league, the Barclays Premier League. However, the division from across the southern border, Liga MX, is.

Statistical analysis has changed the way players and fans alike look at sports. Because of the rise in use of quantitative data, statisticians have the rare opportunity to join the athletics field.

“There is a wonderful opportunity for people who have statistical backgrounds to come up with new ways of measuring performance and understanding things about sports through exploring data,” said Jim Albert, a professor of statistics at Bowling Green State University.