Applied Sports Science newsletter – October 27, 2015

… Curry has revolutionized the basketball industry in much the same way the transportation service has transformed the driving world. His shooting, above all else, has reached such spectacular levels that it sparked a league-wide movement toward the kind of small ball that is at its best when the long-range game is prioritized and perfected. The taxi drivers might not like it — here’s looking at you, Byron Scott and Phil Jackson — but even they have to admit it’s the wave of basketball’s future.

The remarkable part about Curry is that he has taken it so much further than that. Imagine Uber expanding into the food service market, the news business and the social media sphere, and you’ll get a sense of how versatile and impactful he has become.

But as the Warriors begin their title defense against many teams that are coming back stronger than before, it all raises this natural question about Curry: How can he top last season?

“I just think he’s in a good place,” Trotz said. “He’s working. He’s using his biggest asset, his legs. I think his compete level has been really good. I just think when a player’s in a good place and he’s using his assets, they’re always going to be productive.

“I think him and Beags have played together a little bit over the past few years. They’ve got a little bit of chemistry, and I think Willie helps that as well because I think he’s under both of their wings. They’re just working hard and using their assets.”

Purpose

The aim of the study was to investigate whether heart rate recovery (HRR) may represent an effective marker of functional overreaching (f-OR) in endurance athletes.
Methods and Results

Thirty-one experienced male triathletes were tested (10 control and 21 overload subjects) before (Pre), and immediately after an overload training period (Mid) and after a 2-week taper (Post). Physiological responses were assessed during an incremental cycling protocol to exhaustion, including heart rate, catecholamine release and blood lactate concentration. Ten participants from the overload group developed signs of f-OR at Mid (i.e. -2.1 ± 0.8% change in performance associated with concomitant high perceived fatigue). Additionally, only the f-OR group demonstrated a 99% chance of increase in HRR during the overload period (+8 ± 5 bpm, large effect size). Concomitantly, this group also revealed a >80% chance of decreasing blood lactate (-11 ± 14%, large), plasma norepinephrine (-12 ± 37%, small) and plasma epinephrine peak concentrations (-51 ± 22%, moderate). These blood measures returned to baseline levels at Post. HRR change was negatively correlated to changes in performance, peak HR and peak blood metabolites concentrations.
Conclusion

These findings suggest that i) a faster HRR is not systematically associated with improved physical performance, ii) changes in HRR should be interpreted in the context of the specific training phase, the athletes perceived level of fatigue and the performance response; and, iii) the faster HRR associated with f-OR may be induced by a decreased central command and by a lower chemoreflex activity.

A growing body of research supports what so many trail running enthusiasts, myself included, have experienced themselves: logging your miles in nature does wonders for mental health. There’s something magical about the trails that promotes balance while seemingly melting angst and sadness away. Just last weekend, I went to Yosemite National Park on Saturday night with a racing mind. I returned on Sunday, 18 miles in my legs later, with a sense of calmness and clarity—something that previous runs in the city did not bring about.

A new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sheds light on why this might be the case. For the study, Stanford University researchers set out to learn more about the impact of physical activity in nature on rumination, or an unrelenting cycle of negative thoughts and worry associated with increased risk of depression and other mental illnesses. (If you’ve ever gotten “stuck” in a vicious cycle where one negative thought leads to another, that’s rumination—and it’s not fun.)

… Overcoming pain is often seen as the fundamental challenge in endurance sports. But at last month’s Endurance Research Conference, hosted by the University of Kent, a series of new experimental results from [Alexis] Mauger and others offered conflicting views of what role pain plays during exercise and how important it is. The only point of universal agreement: You can’t avoid it.

One of the more intriguing studies, presented by Thomas O’Leary and Martyn Morris of Oxford Brookes University, looked at how regular exercise increases pain tolerance. Previous studies have shown that training doesn’t change your pain sensitivity (the point at which you say “ouch”), but does increase pain tolerance (how long you’re willing to endure a given level of ouch) – a puzzling and poorly understood result.

The NFL Players Association has filed a grievance against the league and its 32 clubs over the use of sleep monitoring devices, union executive director DeMaurice Smith told players in a memo Thursday.

The collective bargaining agreement allows the NFL to require players to wear sensors and other tracking devices during games and practices to collect performance, medical and safety-related information, as long as the NFLPA gives prior consent. The union argues the use of such technology outside of games and practice violates the CBA.

“It has come to our attention that several Clubs are currently using or have used sensors to monitor players’ sleep,” Smith wrote in his memo to players.

As the date nears for companies to present their electronic performance and tracking systems to IFAB and FIFA, Insideworldfootball has spoken to wearable technology market pioneers Catapult about how far the technology can inform decision-making, including in-game, how it can be used generally, and what FIFA/IFAB are looking for.

In early August, US Club Soccer partnered with a platform to help make the youth soccer culture more nurturing and holistic in the way it measures and values each player’s experience. This new mission is called Players First. The foundation of Players First is built upon five pillars; club development, coaching development, player development, parent engagement and education, and player health and safety.

US Club Soccer CEO, Kevin Payne, said in August 2015, “We’re on a mission to change the sport. In order to achieve our mission, we need a vision, courage, enthusiasm, resilience and a plan. The reason we should be attempting to embrace a Players First philosophy is not because it will be easy, but because it will be hard.”

Recently, in order to expand the long-term success of soccer clubs in the United States, US Club Soccer added another collaboration to their vision: Fit for 90. US Club Soccer announced Fit for 90, a player-monitoring platform that delivers sports science to soccer coaches, players and teams, as their official player monitoring system, with the hopes of revolutionizing youth soccer.

When Florida State heads to its practice field, the Seminoles are adorned not only in garnet and gold, but with high-tech monitors that use GPS and track distance, speed, acceleration, deceleration and heart rate.

Coach Jimbo Fisher swears by it. With real-time feedback on players’ exertion, coaches can adjust practice intensity for the team or specific players. As a result, he said, soft-tissue injuries like muscle pulls, “we’re cutting those way, way down. Injuries in football as far as shoulders, knees, those kinds of breaks and tears, there’s not anything anybody can do. The other part, we can monitor and keep our guys as fresh as we can.”

Georgia Tech, FSU’s opponent Saturday night at Bobby Dodd Stadium, has to do without.

Said coach Paul Johnson, “Pretty expensive.”

A new study confirms what doctors working with young athletes already suspected: the number anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears among youths, particularly high school students, has risen during the past 20 years.

The study, to be presented at the 2015 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference & Exhibition in Washington, DC, reviewed an insurance company’s 1994-2013 billing data within a large metropolitan network. Researchers found the overall incidence of ACL tears among 6- to 18-year-old patients increased by 2.3 percent per year.

With fall sports season underway, concussions are all over the news. In the past two weeks, at least three NFL players — New York Jets cornerback Buster Skrine, Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Jeremy Maclin and Jacksonville Jaguars running back Bernard Pierce — have suffered concussions during a game. Such incidents underscore the risks of a sport where crashing into opponents is part of normal play, and the long-term consequences of hits to the head during athletic competition have sparked lots of worry both inside and outside the NFL, much of it focused on youth athletes. Parents worry about their kids, sports programs worry about liability issues, and coaches worry about what to do when athletes take a blow to the head.

Concussion tests have become the favored response to these concerns for professional and amateur athletes, promising to bring a sense of reassurance in the face of a scary threat. But these tests aren’t offering answers; they’re merely offering numbers. And numbers do not automatically translate to useful information. Here, they may instead serve as a distraction by making decisions about letting athletes return to play seem more objective and certain than they really are.

Tendons can be tricky to treat. Any athlete that’s experienced tendinopathy will know they can be slow to improve and easy to aggravate. Despite recent developments in tendon rehab a number of patients remain somewhat unresponsive to conservative treatment and recurrence rates of tendinopathy are high, even after treatment. Those of us with a particular interest in tendinopathy are always looking for better ways to help our patients, so it’s exciting when a new concept is brought to the treatment table. The latest concept, hot off the press, is Tendon Neuroplastic Training, or TNT…

American football remains one of the most popular sports for young athletes. The injuries sustained during football, especially those to the head and neck, have been a topic of intense interest recently in both the public media and medical literature. The recognition of these injuries and the potential for long-term sequelae have led some physicians to call for a reduction in the number of contact practices, a postponement of tackling until a certain age, and even a ban on high school football. This statement reviews the literature regarding injuries in football, particularly those of the head and neck, the relationship between tackling and football-related injuries, and the potential effects of limiting or delaying tackling on injury risk.