Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 3, 2015

Alberto Moreno says Liverpool can win the Premier League this season – and it’s all because of Jurgen Klopp’s “boring” training sessions at Melwood.

The Spaniard believes the impact of the German coach, including his intensive tactical work on the training ground, has lined them up for an unlikely push for the title.

His manager has tried to dismiss the notion of the Reds fighting for top spot this season, calling it “crazy”, but Moreno is confident that the transformation the club has undergone under Klopp gives them a chance.

… Normally when a leap like this occurs, we try to find an outside reason. The Raiders definitely made an investment in their receiving corps this season. They did strike gold in rehabilitating Michael Crabtree, who has been efficient and shown more burst than most NFL scouts thought he had left. Also, Amari Cooper landed in their laps with the fourth overall pick, and he’s been nothing short of the great rookie receiver we all thought he’d be.

But offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave’s role in Carr’s development has been undersold.

… To celebrate the success of Creed, we’d like to make one more contribution: a breakdown of all of the techniques that Rocky Balboa uses in the famous training montages from Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV and Rocky Balboa (Rocky V is not included because Rock’s protege-turned-antagonist, Tommy Gunn, does the bulk of the cinematic prep work in that film).

With some added insight from Evan Boris, a respected striking coach for pro boxers and MMA fighters who is currently based in Toronto, we took a look at the various exercises that Rocky does in preparation for his fights, the philosophy behind them, and their overall efficacy in making Rocky the fighter he is.

… As unfair as it may seem, it’s clear that we all respond differently to exercise. Back in the 1980s, Dr. Claude Bouchard of Laval University launched a series of groundbreaking experiments showing that volunteers who followed identical and rigorously controlled exercise programs for 20 weeks saw vastly different rates of improvement – and those outcomes tended to cluster within families, suggesting that genetics explained at least some of the variation.

It’s now widely accepted that some people respond more strongly or more rapidly than others, but the idea that some people don’t respond at all has remained more controversial. “I just never bought it,” says Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, who in 2013 co-authored a review in the journal PLOS ONE arguing that exercise programs that pushed subjects to higher levels of intensity would likely eliminate non-response.

There’s one muscle group you may be neglecting in training – your inspiratory muscles, which you use to breathe in. The primary inspiratory muscles are the diaphragm and the intercostals, which lie between the ribs. These muscles also play a role in core stability, says a new study. Runners who did the exercises below with an IMT – inspiratory muscle trainer – three or four times a week for six weeks improved their performance in a time trial and increased core endurance. ‘The athletes’ trunk muscles delivered breathing and core stability, without compromising either,’ says Alison McConnell, one of the study authors. She is professor of exercise science at Bournemouth University and the author of Breathe Strong, Perform Better.

I read a blog recently from the Georgia Youth Soccer Association DOC wherein he made some comments about creativity and creative players, comments that I’ve been wanting to see someone of note make for a long time.

The Seattle startup applies algorithms to strength and athletic training, targeting high schools and small colleges.

Acadia Athletics uses advanced technology to assess player performance in an array of sports and helps players avoid injury. Their innovative work is helping to shape the players of tomorrow, today. [video, 3:10]

One recent afternoon, following the Washington Wizards’ regularly scheduled practice, Marcin Gortat met briefly with team trainers, showered, changed and then strolled onto the court at Verizon Center, where one of the team’s video analysts was waiting.

“I never tried this before,” Gortat told Aaron Paul, “but I heard it’s freaky.”

Paul handed Gortat the headset — giant black goggles that covered his eyes and half his face — and on a nearby laptop Paul cued up a video.

… “Our goal is to create information that can be utilized by rehabilitation professionals on patients of all ages,” says Bell, an assistant professor with the Department of Kinesiology’s Athletic Training Program and the director of the Wisconsin Injury in Sport Laboratory (WISL). “We are trying to create ways to identify patients that are not responding to rehabilitation early in the process, so appropriate interventions can be applied in order to improve outcomes and enhance quality of life.”

Bell explains that in this research project, patients will be tested, repeatedly, throughout rehabilitation. The goal is to identify factors early on during the ACL rehabilitation process that predict later success and help mitigate the risk of a second ACL injury.

Call it a sign of the times.

The World Marathon Majors, the race series that allocates a $1 million purse to the top finishers of six marathons over a one-year season, has changed how it is distributing its prize money. Instead of the $500,000 lump sum each male and female series champion receives, now the purse will be distributed in five annual installments of $100,000.

The reason, organizers said, is so they can get their money back in the event a recipient is busted for using a performance-enhancing substance.

… Defining cohesion as the level of interrelationship between team members, the Prozone Performance.LAB uses the Teamwork Index (TWI) metric to quantify the unity of teams and how it influences performance levels.

Typically, the cohesion of international teams comes from two sources; top down and bottom up. Top down cohesion can be defined as the cohesion created within the national team itself, whereas bottom up cohesion is the unity brought to the squad by the players (e.g. a group of players from the same club side). TWI suggests a strong historical correlation between bottom up cohesion and success, with squads selected from a smaller number of clubs generally performing at a higher level.

This pattern was reflected in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, with Argentina, England and France the Tier 1 teams that selected squads from the highest number of clubs. The low cohesion of England and France was reflected in poor performances, while Argentina was able to mitigate a lack of bottom up cohesion with very strong top down cohesion.

Juventus President Andrea Agnelli and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova will today be unveiling the “Colour? What Colour?” report during a press conference at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, which is scheduled to begin at 15.00 CET.

First announced in May 2014 and financed exclusively by Juventus, the finished article, written by ESSCA School of Management duo Professor Albrecht Sonntag and David Ranc, looks into the relationship between the phenomena of discrimination and opposition to inclusion in sport around the world.

Purpose

Running at high speed and sudden change in direction or activity stresses the knee. Surprisingly, not many studies have investigated the effects of sprinting on knee’s kinetics and kinematics of soccer players. Hence, this study is aimed to investigate indices of injury risk factors of jumping-landing maneuvers performed immediately after sprinting in male soccer players.
Methods

Twenty-three collegiate male soccer players (22.1±1.7 years) were tested in four conditions; vertical jump (VJ), vertical jump immediately after slow running (VJSR), vertical jump immediately after sprinting (VJFR) and double horizontal jump immediately after sprinting (HJFR). The kinematics and kinetics data were measured using Vicon motion analyzer (100Hz) and two Kistler force platforms (1000Hz), respectively.
Results

For knee flexion joint angle, (p = 0.014, ? = 0.15) and knee valgus moment (p = 0.001, ? = 0.71) differences between condition in the landing phase were found. For knee valgus joint angle, a main effect between legs in the jumping phase was found (p = 0.006, ? = 0.31), which suggests bilateral deficit existed between the right and left lower limbs.
Conclusion

In brief, the important findings were greater knee valgus moment and less knee flexion joint angle proceeding sprint (HJFR & VJFR) rather than no sprint condition (VJ) present an increased risk for knee injuries. These results seem to suggest that running and sudden subsequent jumping-landing activity experienced during playing soccer may negatively change the knee valgus moment. Thus, sprinting preceding a jump task may increase knee risk factors such as moment and knee flexion joint angle.