Applied Sports Science newsletter – October 14, 2015

Have you been constantly putting something off that is important to you simply because “it isn’t a good time?”

If it is important to you, find the time. Time will never present itself in a neat, little, packaged circumstance. Do you constantly bail on training sessions when you are feeling tired, or sore, or uninspired? Find something to train for that means enough to you to push through those plateaus. Generic goals are easy to throw to the side because we do not tend to foster deep and meaningful connections with these things.

The most important thing to remember is that not everyone is built of the same stuff when it comes to being able to create the necessary internal psychological structures – or mental ‘grit’ – to support themselves in times of great challenge, adversity and distress.

The first time I sat down for coffee with U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team coach Jurgen Klinsmann nearly four years ago, he had one very important message he wanted to get across to players—go to Europe to fight your way onto the rosters of the world’s best clubs.

“Show me you play for a Champions League team, and then you start on a Champions League team and that you may end up winning the Champions League,” Klinsmann said then, staring across a table as he plowed through three espressos in 45 minutes. “There is always another level. If you one day reach the highest level then you’ve got to confirm it, every year. Show me that every year you deserve to play for Real Madrid, for Bayern Munich, for Manchester United. Show it to me.”

You’re going for a run – well, you’re going to, once you get off the sofa. One glance at the crisp autumn sky outside reminds you how nice it is to get a bit of fresh air, but somehow it’s not enough, and you stay glued to your seat. Finally you do rouse yourself to action, but only by picturing your future self: lean and fit from managing to keep to your exercise schedule. Mid-way through the run, you have a chuckle – what a beautiful day, what an exhilarating experience! Of course this run would be worthwhile on its own terms! Later on, you settle back into the sofa and your perspective flips yet again. Why is running so important? For the purpose of getting fit, of course.

This dramatised pattern is the topic of a new article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which investigates how differently we appreciate the yields of an activity when we’re actually in its midst. Then, we see the intrinsic features of an activity as more important than we do either beforehand or afterwards.

Sleep is usually considered an all-or-nothing state: The brain is either entirely awake or entirely asleep. However, MIT neuroscientists have discovered a brain circuit that can trigger small regions of the brain to fall asleep or become less alert, while the rest of the brain remains awake.

This circuit originates in a brain structure known as the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), which relays signals to the thalamus and then the brain’s cortex, inducing pockets of the slow, oscillating brain waves characteristic of deep sleep. Slow oscillations also occur during coma and general anesthesia, and are associated with decreased arousal. With enough TRN activity, these waves can take over the entire brain.

… It is good to have multiple radio standards available, but it is sometimes difficult for people to decide which approach is the best for their application, device, or business. Complicating matters is the fact that many of these standards are adding features that are similar to those of other existing standards.

So the bad news is that choosing a standard may get more confusing. The good news is that the competition for market share from these standards should continue to lower operating costs. The evolution of the Internet of Things is still in progress.

KEY POINTS

Regular moderate exercise reduces the risk of infection compared with a sedentary lifestyle, but very prolonged bouts of exercise and periods of intensified training or competition are associated with increased risk of infection. In athletes, a common observation is that symptoms of respiratory illness cluster around competitions and these can impair exercise performance

… The coaching staff at Steele High School in Cibolo makes hygiene a big deal for those big boys who can make a big mess.

“If you are the one that’s washing the towels for the day, or you were picking up uniforms, you make sure that you clean off and soap up after you do that.” said head football coach Scott Lehnhoff.

“We spray the locker room. We spray their pads, which you can see around the top. We sprayed those in their helmets and things. We just spray around the lockers, the showers, the bathrooms and everything to kill what may be lingering around,” said head athletic trainer Diedra Schwertner.

Doctors treating New York Giants tight end Daniel Fells for MRSA are more optimistic than they were a few days ago that Fells won’t lose his foot, sources close to the situation said Tuesday.

Fells remains in a New York hospital for the foreseeable future as he and his doctors work to fight off the staph infection he contracted in his foot two weeks ago.

Boston company ENERGYbits is selling algae strains spirulina and chlorella as the next chia seeds: power supplements that improve stamina and reduce inflammation. The algae is sold in one-calorie tablets about the size of an Advil, and the company recommends taking 30 spirulina tabs 15 to 20 minutes before exercise, then another 30 chlorella tabs immediately following in order to get algae’s full endurance and recovery benefits. Promised superhuman power as motivation, I recently found myself standing in my kitchen with a palmful of green pills, wondering if I could down them all in one gulp. (It took two.)

ENERGYbits isn’t the first organization to market algae as a superfood. After World War II, several U.S. institutions looked into growing algae to feed a booming population because they thought it’d be relatively easy and cost-efficient to grow, and researchers liked chlorella’s high vitamin, mineral, and protein content.

We are excited to announce the next Seattle Sports Tech Meetup on October 14th at SURF Incubator. Joining us will be very special guest Dash Davidson from Tableau!

This is the first in a series of three blogposts about the Seeing Data project. The first post is guest written by Helen Kennedy, Professor of Digital Society at the University of Sheffield and director of Seeing Data. Part one discusses some of the findings and what this means for how we think about ‘effective’ visualisations.

… Here’s an important lesson I’ve learned about interpreting HRV in athletes. A daily change in HRV can occur for a number of reasons, and may or may not have any meaningful impact on acute performance or “readiness”. Putting too much focus on an acute change in HRV without stepping back and observing the overall trend is a bit myopic. This isn’t to say that daily changes aren’t useful, just that a full appreciation of the training process, including the evolution of the trend in response to training will enable better analysis and therefore decision-making. This is because longitudinal changes in an athlete’s HRV trend do not occur for no reason. Increases, decreases, greater fluctuation, less fluctuation, when assessed over time, are all very meaningful.