Applied Sports Science newsletter – November 27, 2015

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for November 27, 2015

 

Norwich have the best injury record in the Premier League… and the secrets behind their success are revealed as Everton join revolution in sport science  | Daily Mail Online

Daily Mail Online from November 21, 2015

What do Everton, Norwich, Bath, Gloucester and the Miami Dolphins all have in common?

Five teams that straddle three separate sports, but all of them brought together by their commitment to the data revolution in sports science.

Kitman Labs are Silicon Valley’s leading Sports Science and Technology Company, and Roberto Martinez’s side are just the latest to invest in their expertise

 

Eight hours of sleep may not be necessary

STAT from November 25, 2015

… The Takeaway: If you awaken after three or four hours and then later fall asleep again for a stretch, don’t assume it’s unhealthy insomnia: Interrupted sleep is common and just as good as the continuous variety. And if you average seven hours, you’re not necessarily falling short; if you’re functional the next day, you got enough sleep.

 

NRL: Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy NFL, NBA fact-finding USA trip | Rugby League, NRL Scores, NRL Ladder | Fox Sports

Fox Sports, Australia from November 24, 2015

When it comes to training, the latest technology, sports medicine and recruiting — Craig Bellamy wants to be the best.

That’s why for the fourth time in his 13 years as coach of Melbourne, the 56-year-old journeyed to the United States to learn about the latest skills and inside information from the top NFL and NBA organisations.

 

Assessing Stride Variables and Vertical Stiffness with GPS-Embedded Accelerometers: Preliminary Insights for the Monitoring of Neuromuscular Fatigue on the Field

Journal of Sports Science & Medicine from November 24, 2015

The aim of the present study was to examine the ability of a GPS-imbedded accelerometer to assess stride variables and vertical stiffness (K), which are directly related to neuromuscular fatigue during field-based high-intensity runs. The ability to detect stride imbalances was also examined. A team sport player performed a series of 30-s runs on an instrumented treadmill (6 runs at 10, 17 and 24 km·h-1) with or without his right ankle taped (aimed at creating a stride imbalance), while wearing on his back a commercially-available GPS unit with an embedded 100-Hz tri-axial accelerometer. Contact (CT) and flying (FT) time, and K were computed from both treadmill and accelerometers (Athletic Data Innovations) data. The agreement between treadmill (criterion measure) and accelerometer-derived data was examined. We also compared the ability of the different systems to detect the stride imbalance. Biases were small (CT and K) and moderate (FT). The typical error of the estimate was trivial (CT), small (K) and moderate (FT), with nearly perfect (CT and K) and large (FT) correlations for treadmill vs. accelerometer. The tape induced very large increase in the right – left foot ? in CT, FT and K measured by the treadmill. The tape effect on CT and K ? measured with the accelerometers were also very large, but of lower magnitude than with the treadmill. The tape effect on accelerometer-derived ? FT was unclear. Present data highlight the potential of a GPS-embedded accelerometer to assess CT and K during ground running.

 

The Top 5 Tech Tips for Strength Coaches – Freelap USA

Freelap USA, Carl Valle from November 23, 2015

I have visited enough pro, college, and high school teams to see what some shrewd coaches have done and what others need to do better. To keep you from slowly learning through trial and error, I will save you time and money by sharing what makes a great training environment and technologies that can help or hamper it. I have been on the support side for technology for 13 years and helped teams deal with complex issues by making things quick and easy.

This article can help make any training facility—from high school to elite—cutting edge without breaking the bank. My goal is to get you started with best practices by pointing out mistakes many coaches are lured into by listening to companies with no experience or understanding of what it takes to keep a group of athletes organized and coached properly. Don’t worry about what other teams are doing. Most of the hype is smoke and mirrors. Instead, put your trust into polishing the basics.

 

The Hyper-Intelligent Bandage

Communications of the ACM from December 01, 2015

… scientists have begun working on new types of smart bandages capable of monitoring and even treating such chronic wounds. The research is still in the prototype stage, and the approaches vary, but these intelligent devices will be closer to miniature medical labs than advanced bandages: they will protect the wound, provide a scaffold on which new cells can grow, monitor the area for infections, wirelessly alert caregivers to changes in the status of the injury, and potentially deliver medications directly.

Chemist Conor Evans of the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital compares the nascent technology to the life-supporting protective garb of the space-walking astronaut. “What we’re trying to do is make a space suit for wounds—something that can go over a wound, keep it safe, and start to allow it to heal,” he says.

 

Why Ball Tracking Works for Tennis and Cricket but Not Soccer or Basketball | MIT Technology Review

MIT Technology Review, arXiv from November 26, 2015

Following the examples of tennis and cricket, a new generation of ball-tracking algorithms is attempting to revolutionize the analysis and refereeing of soccer, volleyball, and basketball.

 

YOLO Watches Nature – YouTube

YouTube, YOLO Object Detection from November 24, 2015

A demo of real-time object detection on YouTube.

Our detection system runs from 45 – 155 fps. However, our webcam is capped at 30 fps thus in the video we only detect at 30 fps.

This version of YOLO was trained on the Microsoft COCO dataset so it can recognize more classes.

 

Friday Focus: W-League stars face a long road back from serious knee injuries | Joe Gorman | Sport | The Guardian

The Guardian from November 26, 2015

As Selin Kuralay lay on the turf clutching her right knee, her screams and sobs could be heard right around the ground. Eighty minutes into the first-round W-League match, the veteran Melbourne Victory midfielder immediately knew her fate. “When you’ve done it before, you never forget the feeling,” says Kuralay. “I kind of knew at the point where I put my foot down that I’d torn my ACL. For about two or three minutes it’s as if someone has literally got a knife and chopped your ligament out.”

Most W-League players will know a fellow player who has recently succumbed to an anterior cruciate ligament injury, or have gone through it themselves. Kuralay first tore her ACL in 2003, as she was preparing to represent Australia at the Olympics. Marijana Raj?i?, the captain of Lady Reds, injured her ACL last weekend. Caitlin Munoz, the veteran Canberra United striker who was recently recalled to the Matildas, jokes that she has had “three-and-a-half knee reconstructions” since 1998.

 

Youth development in soccer is a nature vs. nurture issue – ESPN FC

ESPN FC, Gabriele Marcotti from November 26, 2015

… having a team stocked with “club-trained” players can often be a result of factors that have nothing to do with being virtuous and believing in “youth development.” Many times, it’s simple economics: a cheap way to fill your roster. The CIES report lists the teams with the highest percentage of club-trained players and you’ll find FC Gomel topping it with a whopping 92 percent; they were relegated from the Belarusian top-flight last year. In fact, other than Athletic Bilbao (and there are other reasons at play here, starting with the Basque-only policy) you won’t see any clubs from Europe’s Big 5 in the top 20.

There’s also another factor, one that strikes to the heart of the ageless “nature vs. nurture” debate. Do the clubs with the most academy graduates playing professionally actually “produce” the players? Or are they just places that aggregate kids who are already extremely talented?

 

Identifying HRV Limits | Alan Couzens

Alan Couzens from November 25, 2015

In last week’s post, I looked at the relationship between training load and the athlete’s ability to complete a given session. I suggested that before mindlessly planning ballistic load ramps, it is important to do a ‘reality check’ of the implications of such a ramp on the athlete’s ability to complete the training and, for that matter, the athlete’s overall feeling/enjoyment of training!

In this post, I want to follow up on that by bringing heart rate variability into the conversation as a further guide to efficient and realistic session prescription.

 

Andy McGeady: Different versions of ‘Moneyball’ finding way into football boardrooms

The Irish Times from November 24, 2015

When something in soccer is described in terms of Moneyball, the famous Michael Lewis book, it can provoke suspicion. At times Liverpool have been adorned with it. Brentford and FC Midtjylland too. Arousing a curiosity in some, others in the game can be wary of numbers men.

Coventry City, currently in English League One, have come through some difficult times. The club has appointed a new managing director this month. It’s Chris Anderson, co-author of The Numbers Game, a 2013 book that applied a numerical eye to soccer. A club spokesperson was clear in stating that this was not Moneyball. “This is not what Brentford are doing, how they’re using analytics”. Their new MD, a former semi-professional player, would be concentrating on the commercial side of the club. Off-field only, with the soccer business being left to soccer people.

 

StatMuse Tutorial 2: Searching Advanced Stats

StatMuse from November 24, 2015

Everyone knows that one guy who sabotages friendly sports discussions by throwing out obscure stats and figures in a shameless attempt to prove how much smarter he is than everyone else.

Now, you can be that guy!

After discussing searching for basic stats last week, we’re diving head-first into advanced stats.

 

BLOG: Take him on

The OptaPro Blog, Johannes Harkins from November 24, 2015

Opta defines a take-on as:

An attempt by a player to beat an opponent in possession of the ball. A successful dribble means the player beats the defender while retaining possession, unsuccessful ones are where the dribbler is tackled, Opta also logs attempted dribbles where the player overruns the ball.

Last season in the second league fixture for each side, Arsenal faced Everton following a tight race between the two sides for fourth place in the previous season. In the first half Everton staked a commanding 2-0 lead (which they’d later relinquish). The second goal in particular made for exhilarating viewing. After outmuscling Per Mertesacker to collect a clearance on the right wing, Romelu Lukaku turned and raced up field with Arsenal’s other centre back, Calum Chambers, speeding towards him to close him down. Faced with a number of options, what Lukaku chose to do – take-on Chambers on the dribble – demonstrated just how valuable this action can be in displacing defensive shape. By the time Lukaku had successfully taken on Chambers, Arsenal’s defensive shape was more or personified in the lone figure of Mathieu Flamini, caught in no man’s land between Lukaku and Steven Naismith.

 

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