Applied Sports Science newsletter – October 30, 2015

… The optimistic models take into account that while the Celtics do not have a franchise player, they do have a number of good ones. To put it another way, they have depth and lots of it. They’re likely to use up to 10 players in their regular rotation and maybe even more if the situation calls for it. That depth can be used in multiple ways, from killer reserve lineups to recovering quickly from injuries and managing game-to-game fatigue.

“We’ll see how our minutes end up, but I envision this team being a hand the baton off, let’s go. Next guy up,” Brad Stevens said after practice last week. “Somebody gets tired? Great, let me know. It’s not a situation where you gut through it for the next three minutes. If we have to go 11-deep, which is not normal, or 12-deep in a game I’m very comfortable doing that right now.”

… It’s been six months since the last of Durant’s three foot surgeries, and much longer since anyone in Oklahoma City could feel joy for the Thunder’s willowy superstar. For all of those official statements about “successful” surgeries and methodical timetables, nothing is as reassuring as this routine three-second burst of activity.

And for Durant, nothing could be more unnerving than sensing this. The anxious buzz? He heard it, felt it, all the way to the basket.

“I don’t like that feeling, though,” Durant said afterward. “I mean, I remember when I was in ninth grade, I was one of those bench players that would come in, and the crowd would cheer. I hated that. So no, I don’t really like it. I’m glad they’re cheering for me, but yeah, that’s a normal play for me.”

That has become clear at this point, and there are signs the issue could be worsening. But it is also important to understand James has been dealing with back issues of varying degrees for nearly a decade, and he’s always managed it and continued to thrive.

There was a time when James worried his knees would someday betray him as they do so many athletes. That was long ago replaced by attention to the lumbar region of his spine, his lower back. He probably is going to have to fight it in some way or another for the rest of his career.

When I recently began working on a story on teen sleep for Stanford Medicine magazine, I was afraid I might not find teens who were troubled by sleep issues and willing to talk about them. I need not have worried: Virtually every teen I encountered had a story to tell about consistently late nights stressing out over tests or papers or spent texting friends and cruising the web. It also wasn’t unusual for teens to say that they kept their cell phones on at night in case they got a message from a friend who needed to talk.

Some were tortured by the lack of sleep, often nodding off in class, but said they felt compelled to stay up in order to compete academically in these high-pressure local communities that worship at the altar of academic achievement.

Penn field hockey has played through five overtimes this year. Five!

What’s crazy is that in a six-game span between Sept. 25 and Oct. 28, the Quakers played almost 70 extra minutes of sudden death field hockey. Even crazier is that the team emerged unscathed every time but one — a tough 2-1 loss to Columbia on the road that snapped Penn’s nine-game winning streak.

The first time I really wanted to understand the mental psyche of a professional athlete was when my coach was being choked by my teammate.

That was 18 years ago — my rookie year.

My curiosity about that incident — and what was behind it in the mind of the two individuals — resulted ultimately in my obtaining a graduate degree in sport psychology and becoming a mental skills consultant.

The Ohio State Buckeyes are trickling into the Woody Hayes Athletic Center a few hours before practice, but a couple of dozen players need to check in with a member of the sports performance team before they get suited up.

Tyvus Powell and Joshua Perry wrap a band around their torsos and place an electrode on their hands and forehead, and link it up to an iPod. After about five minutes, the players take the gear off and head to the locker room.

The device is one of many ways coach Urban Meyer’s staff tracks how players are holding up to the wear and tear of football. The data gathered will help tell coaches whether to go hard or ease up when the players hit the practice field.

A physics professor re-imagines the size and shape of the NFL football in an effort to optimize it for flight. A couple of small changes can add a whole lot of distance, but how would that change the way the game is played?

Monitoring physical activity is important to better individualise health and fitness benefits. This study assessed the concurrent validity of a smartphone global positioning system (GPS) ‘app’ and a sport-specific GPS device with a similar sampling rate, to measure physical activity components of speed and distance, compared to a higher sampling sport-specific GPS device. Thirty-eight (21 female, 17 male) participants, mean age of 24.68, s?=?6.46 years, completed two 2.400?km trials around an all-weather athletics track wearing GPSports Pro™ (PRO), GPSports WiSpi™ (WISPI) and an iPhone™ with a Motion X GPS™ ‘app’ (MOTIONX). Statistical agreement, assessed using t-tests and Bland–Altman plots, indicated an (mean; 95% LOA) underestimation of 2% for average speed (0.126?km·h?1; –0.389 to 0.642; p?<?.001), 1.7% for maximal speed (0.442?km·h?1; –2.676 to 3.561; p?=?.018) and 1.9% for distance (0.045?km; –0.140 to 0.232; p?<?.001) by MOTIONX compared to that measured by PRO. In contrast, compared to PRO, WISPI overestimated average speed (0.232?km·h?1; –0.376 to 0.088; p?<?.001) and distance (0.083?km; –0.129 to –0.038; p?<?.001) by 3.5% whilst underestimating maximal speed by 2.5% (0.474?km·h?1; –1.152 to 2.099; p?<?.001). Despite the statistically significant difference, the MOTIONX measures intensity of physical activity, with a similar error as WISPI, to an acceptable level for population-based monitoring in unimpeded open-air environments. This presents a low-cost, minimal burden opportunity to remotely monitor physical activity participation to improve the prescription of exercise as medicine.

… Using video of soccer matches, Footovision uses a proprietary and in-house developed software tool they call Footoanalysis to take feeds of soccer matches and create the most tailored data. One of the unique facets about what they do is that it requires no hardware in stadium. Through live and taped broadcasts, fixed cameras in arenas, and piped footage from production trucks, Footovision extracts all the media they need.

Through visual identification via facial recognition, jersey numbers, hair, and skin color, Footovision’s tracking software currently has a “90% success rate” on identifying players according to Medhi.

… So many players of import went down last season that, when taken together, the injuries span a full career: from rookies and rising stars through players in and just past their primes to one particular legend in the twilight of his career.

It is all about context, as usual, and successfully recovering from any injury requires a very nuanced understanding of all the factors in play during the recovery process. At different stages during a career, these factors are going to differ based on physical, psychological and competitive pressures. With the host of players—young, old and in between—making high-profile, heavily scrutinized comebacks, we looked at some common challenges present at each stage of a player’s career.

The present study evaluated the effects of a newly developed injury prevention programme for children’s football (“FIFA 11+ Kids”) on motor performance in 7–12-year-old children. We stratified 12 football teams (under-9/-11/-13 age categories) into intervention (INT, N = 56 players) and control groups (CON, N = 67). INT conducted the 15-min warm-up programme “FIFA 11+ Kids” twice a week for 10 weeks. CON followed a standard warm-up (sham treatment). Pre- and post-tests were conducted using: single leg stance; Y-balance test; drop and countermovement jump; standing long jump; 20-m sprint; agility run; slalom dribble; and wall volley test. We used magnitude-based inferences and linear mixed-effects models to analyse performance test results. We observed likely beneficial effects favouring INT in Y-balance (right leg; +3.2%; standardised mean difference (SMD) = 0.34; P = 0.58) and agility run (+3.6%; SMD = 0.45; P = 0.008). Possibly beneficial effects were found in Y-balance, drop jump reactive strength index, drop jump height, countermovement jump, standing long jump, slalom dribble and wall volley test. At least possibly beneficial improvements in favour of “FIFA 11+ Kids” were observed in nearly all parameters. Most effects were small, but slight improvements in motor performance may potentially contribute to a reduction of injury risk.

The level playing field of competitive sports is an irrelevant concern in asymmetrical warfare. However, there is a common theme of pressure to use performance-enhancing drugs because athletic or military opponents may be using them to advantage. This interest is fueled by personal anecdotes, misconceptions, and myths, and decisions to use or not to use pharmacological interventions may ignore available scientific data. The U.S. Army has led research in this area, with an abundance of published data extending back to World War II. Behavioral effects have been a consistent concern. A key conclusion to be drawn from this research is that although there may be specialized applications for some of these interventions, the majority of soldiers will gain the greatest performance benefits from effective physical and mental training programs combined with good principles of rest and nutrition. Furthermore, the perceived need to improve human biology with drugs may be solving the wrong problem, trying to fit the human to the demands of poorly conceived tactics, tasks, and equipments instead of capitalizing on human capabilities.

The objectives of this article are twofold: first, an innovative approach to notational analysis in football is outlined. By considering the important theoretical requirements for the analysis of sports games (like the interaction between two parties, the procedural sequence of action or the significance of tactical behaviour) the meaning of the introduced parameters, called tactical metrics, is illustrated. In a second step, the validity of this approach is tested using matches of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Euro 2012® to investigate a connection between these metrics and success. The results show that 11 tactical metrics model tactical behaviour in 4 different dimensions (game speed, transition play after ball recovery, transition play after ball loss and offence efficiency (OE)). Discriminant analysis based on the factor values leads to a correct classification of 64.8% identifying winners, losers and drawers. This successful discrimination reveals a connection between match success and the presented metrics. Especially, the transition play after losing the ball and the OE seem to be factors connected directly with the result of a match, since those were important values for a successful discrimination. Furthermore, the procedural description of tactical behaviour provides the opportunity to conduct meaningful recommendations for the training and coaching process.