Applied Sports Science newsletter – November 11, 2015

… Despite some observations, there are no scientific studies or injury audits that prove or refute the hypothesis that English players are more susceptible to injury. What we do know though is that there are enhanced risk factors for injuries, both due to the players themselves and the way they approach their profession, and also the nature of the league and environment in which they play.

Our congested fixture schedule, the lack of a winter break and regular changes in manager and their approach to training means that players of any nationality playing in this country have a higher risk of injury.

As a counterbalance, we can also categorically state that there is now a greater level of investment in Football Medicine and Science in this country than across our European counterparts. Domestic teams and the Football Association clearly recognise there is improvement to be had. Reducing injuries leads to increased performance.

… “Practice?!? We talking about practice.” Allen Iverson famously made this statement 22 times to a group of reporters following the Philadelphia 76’ers elimination from the 2002 NBA playoffs. As the MVP of the league, Iverson made it clear that he felt practicing was not important – as long as his performance during games was on point. All too often I’ve witnessed a similar attitude displayed by Track & Field coaches and athletes regarding the warm-up; as if this component of the session is less important than the actual workout. At ALTIS the warm-up is a key component of each session in which coaches, therapists and athletes gain valuable information regarding athlete health, energy, focus, and skill levels for that given workout.

… One of Pep’s main day-to-day tasks comprises working closely with the Talent Group, a handful of top young performers who are given a regular taste of the demands of elite-level football in order to fuel their development.

Their involvement with Klopp’s squad creates a ‘bridge’ between Kirkby and the senior setup, which Lijnders believes makes guiding the club’s top talents into the first team much easier.

He explained: “The best players of the Academy – the manager of a big, big club doesn’t have time to go and watch them.

18 coaches from FC Bayern official youth development partner Global Premier Soccer (GPS) visited Munich this past week from November 3-8. The visit comes as part of the partnership between the German record champions and one of the biggest youth soccer organizations of the U.S.

Sebastian Dremmler, Junior Team Operations Manager and U-15 Head Coach, led the extensive training course based on the FC Bayern Munich youth development curriculum. In addition to the daily courses and meetings at Säbener Straße, the coaches attended the junior teams’ training sessions and games.

One of the big challenges involved in being a coach of young athletes is knowing when to introduce a specific training regime and at what time to concentrate on particular skills. It is all too common to see well-meaning coaches attempt to introduce methods of coaching that children simply aren’t ready for. Their eagerness to succeed can often result in a failure to address the essential basic athletic skills due to the desire to jump to more advanced issues. An approach that may help coaches at various levels address this concern is ‘Long Term Athlete Development’ or LTAD which is one that is gaining in popularity.

Sometimes a little bit of a bad thing can be a good thing. This phenomenon, known as hormesis, is what happens when a chemical agent or environmental factor that is damaging at high doses yields a positive effect when used in smaller quantities. Perhaps the most common example is vaccinations. Inject a tiny bit or weakened form of a toxin, and your body will build up resistance to that thing. Expose yourself to too much, and you’ll probably get sick. Athletes have been using this strategy for years, but only recently have scientists started exploring how hormesis can be best used in the context of fitness.

This past May, researchers published a paper in the Journal of Applied Physiology titled “Modulating Exercise-Induced Hormesis: Does Less Equal More?” They evaluated hormesis training strategies and found that some can be quite beneficial, but the fine line between too much and too little is still being explored, and similar to other hormesis strategies, if done improperly, it can cause injury and illness.

We’ve all been there. The alarm goes off, it’s dark outside, and your comforter seems to have pinned you to the bed. You’re a dedicated runner, a faithful training partner, but admit it, running during the winter months can sometimes be a struggle. During the off-season you may need something less tedious than running to keep up with training. Incorporating a weight training plan into some of your run days can re-invigorate you for racing season. But even if slogging through the snow and cold is fun for you, adding some lifting targeted to improve your running technique can greatly enhance your spring performances. Regardless of your motivation for getting in the gym, a mobility and weight lifting routine is part of a balanced training program that will improve running mechanics, prevent injury, increase your strength, enhance your athleticism, and ultimately prolong your running career.

One day in March 2011, Emmanuelle Charpentier, a geneticist who was studying flesh-eating bacteria, approached Jennifer Doudna, an award-winning scientist, at a microbiology conference in Puerto Rico. Charpentier, a more junior researcher, hoped to persuade Doudna, the head of a formidably large lab at the University of California, Berkeley, to collaborate. While walking the cobblestone streets of Old San Juan, the two women fell to talking. Charpentier had recently grown interested in a particular gene, known as Crispr, that seemed to help flesh-eating bacteria fight off invasive viruses. By understanding that gene, as well as the protein that enabled it, called Cas9, Charpentier hoped to find a way to cure patients infected with the bacteria by stripping it of its protective immune system.

Among scientists, Doudna is known for her painstaking attention to detail, which she often harnesses to solve problems that other researchers have dismissed as intractable. Charpentier, who is French but works in Sweden and Germany, is livelier and more excitable. But as the pair began discussing the details of the experiment, they quickly hit it off. ‘‘I really liked Emmanuelle,’’ Doudna says. ‘‘I liked her intensity. I can get that way, too, when I’m really focused on a problem. It made me feel that she was a like-minded person.’’

At the time, bacteria were thought to have only a rudimentary immune system, which simply attacked anything unfamiliar on sight. But researchers speculated that Crispr, which stored fragments of virus DNA in serial compartments, might actually be part of a human-style immune system: one that keeps records of past diseases in order to repel them when they reappear. ‘‘That was what was so intriguing,’’ Doudna says. ‘‘What if bacteria have a way to keep track of previous infections, like people do? It was this radical idea.’’

The other thing that made Crispr-Cas9 tantalizing was its ability to direct its protein, Cas9, to precisely snip out a piece of DNA at any point within the genome and then neatly stitch the ends back together. Such effortless editing had a deep appeal: In the lab, the process remained cumbersome.

With the rise of low-cost sensors, connectivity everywhere, and our fast-growing volume of data, the Internet of Things is likely to reshape the world as we know it. The possibilities are immense, but so are the challenges. Making the IoT work for the masses is more of a data challenge than a problem of things. We need to extract the data from devices then figure out what it all means.

So far, the market has been focused on getting smart devices online. We’ve seen little innovation to help us consume all the data that the gadgets and machines collect. As a result, many IoT solutions suffer from the last-mile problem. In other words, these solutions fail to help people see and understand the data they mine. But what good is data you can’t use? And if you can’t use it, why go through the trouble of collecting it?

So how do we democratize IoT data, be it from a smart home appliance, a wearable, or an industry-scale solution like GE’s Predix Platform? We need to address three hurdles that stand in the way.

Deep learning is becoming ubiquitous. With recent advancements in deep learning algorithms and GPU technology, we are able to solve problems once considered impossible in fields such as computer vision, natural language processing, and robotics.

Deep learning uses deep neural networks which have been around for a few decades; what’s changed in recent years is the availability of large labeled datasets and powerful GPUs. Neural networks are inherently parallel algorithms and GPUs with thousands of cores can take advantage of this parallelism to dramatically reduce computation time needed for training deep learning networks. In this post, I will discuss how you can use MATLAB to develop an object recognition system using deep convolutional neural networks and GPUs.

… Sports can determine what the athlete eats for breakfast, what she pursues as her major, whether or not he affiliates with a Greek organization, what time she wakes up in the morning, the amount of time he has to study for midterms, the amount of time she spends relaxing or, more appropriately, all the time she cannot afford to spend at rest. And most disturbingly, the culture in sports — demanding toughness in the face of adversity, focus amidst the chaos — can cause athletes to keep injuries and illnesses — mental or otherwise — to themselves.

“It is tough to talk to people about it. Some teammates are more receptive than others. It is hard because you don’t want to burden people with your problems,” Will Young ’17, a former heavyweight rower at the College, said after leaving the team at the end of this past summer.

Young, who struggled with depression on and off before coming to Dartmouth, fell into the same revolving cycle that many athletes face. His depression was triggered by stressful events in his life, causing his athletic performance to drop and, in turn, causing his depression to worsen and his athletic performance to worsen.

In between anatomy and biochemistry, medical students in the US are learning how to sauté, simmer and season healthy, homemade meals.

Since 2012, first and second year students at Tulane University School of Medicine in Louisiana have been learning how to cook. Since the program launched, Tulane has built the country’s first med school-affiliated teaching kitchen and become the first medical school to count a chef as a full-time instructor.

Sixteen med schools have now licensed the center’s curriculum, as have two non-medical schools, the Children’s Hospital San Antonio-Sky Lakes Residency Program and the Nursing School at Northwest Arkansas Community College. In fact, about 10% of America’s medical schools are teaching their students how to cook with Tulane’s program.

… Amplified Soccer: What do athletes need to do on their own to prepare to play at the highest level?

Coach Krikorian: They have to have good habits on and off the field. They need to take care of their body. They need to have a competitive spirit and mentality and never take plays off … always be consistent in their effort. Make no mistake; they have to have talent … that goes without saying … but proper habits, fire and consistency must always be there.

Amplified Soccer: What characteristics do you look for in potential recruits?

Coach Krikorian: Certainly athletically they need to stand out. From there, I am looking for a ‘thinking player’ … a smart player who possesses good technique. We look at the entire package: athleticism, psychology … what they do on the ball, how they apply information that is given to them. We want players that will apply the information we are giving them – really important that they can think and solve problems … this especially shows during tough, physical games … how they handle situations and find solutions on their own.

… In 2014-15, the Warriors were the only team to average more than 100 possessions per 48 minutes. In 2015-16, there are 15 teams averaging more than 100 possessions per 48 minutes. Last season’s gold medal sprinters from Golden State would rank 12th this season.

There haven’t been this many teams playing this fast since 1990-91, when there were also 15.