Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 18, 2015

… In his last five games, Bryant is shooting 47.2 percent from the field and is averaging 18.2 points per game. He is now playing less than 30 minutes per game (28.2 over this recent five-game stretch), whereas he was routinely playing well above that figure before. He’s deferring to his promising young teammates more often, too.

But during that abysmal shooting stretch, Bryant, who said he plans to retire at the end of this season, said he wasn’t deterred.

“I knew that I was going to keep pushing and pushing, either I was going to get through it or I wasn’t,” he said after practice Wednesday. “But I wasn’t going to capitulate to it and not try. I was going to continue to work.”

… Heading into his third summer since being drafted into the league, Burke knew the same approach wouldn’t be enough. He changed his habits off the court, including slimming down by about 10 pounds over the summer4. He made some big alterations on the hardcourt as well, varying up his offseason regimen — the goal was to “work not only harder, but work smarter,” to use Trey’s words. In one particularly vital area, it was more about changing the mindset of his work than any physical element.

“Obviously the first two years [in the NBA], I had some games where I’d shoot the lights out, and I had some down games where I’m not shooting well at all,” Burke said. Shooting drills needed to become more than just a number to check off a list. “My approach [this summer] was to try to be consistent while I was shooting rather than just getting a bunch of reps up, or just making a bunch of shots. But making shots in bunches, and consistency, was big for me.”

… Central to [Brandon] Payne’s mission for Curry is “overload,” a term he often repeats. “Overload” means flooding your perception, to challenge your ability to focus on the tasks at hand. At its most basic representation, that’s the idea behind Curry’s now famous pregame dribbling drills. Dribbling two basketballs simultaneously is less a test of coordination than a test of realization. Can you track two things at once? Can you do the basketball version of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time?

… People start to wonder if age and wear has caught up with one of the NBA’s more prolific 3-point shooters …

“I’ve thought about that: Is it an age thing? I’ve actually thought about that a lot. I don’t think so. But you watch guys around the NBA and you think: What it does it look like? Is it a gradual thing? Or do you just all of a sudden fall off?”

It was late Wednesday night following a game and the Hawks’ shooting guard said he feels great, the standard postgame visual of his knees wrapped in ice bags notwithstanding. Look great? No. Feel great? Yes.

Midfielder signed for Everton at 15 for a king’s ransom but the money went to his head, his game went to pot and only now he is back on the straight and narrow.

… Not only is Mikaela a remarkable athlete, but she is an absolute fount of powerful lessons that every young athlete can benefit from to help them reach their goals. Yes, Mikaela is truly a gift that keeps on giving. And during this holiday season, Mikaela (without realizing it) gave athletes the world over three gifts from her World Cup races in Aspen, Colorado in November.

Today, I’ll talk about Gift 1: Disappointment.

… The majority of football coaches’ contracts end somewhere between the end of December and the end of March, but the better ones run out until the end of the academic fiscal year on June 30. This provides coaches, in the event of a termination, a number of months of “severance” and an extra half-year for coaches’ families to stay on school’s insurance programs.

Strength coaches have no seasons. They have a crucial role to play as long as players are in pads, but when the regular season and spring practice aren’t in session, strength coaches become even more important.

The training room at the Under Armour Performance Center has been a crowded place the last two years.

The Ravens have placed 38 players on injured reserve or the physically unable to perform list over the last two seasons, and those injuries have taken a heavy toll on what the Ravens can do on the field.

Head Coach John Harbaugh admitted that he asks himself “multiple times a day” whether the injuries are just a rash of bad luck, and what more the Ravens can do to prevent them.

He plans to dig into those questions this offseason.

On Dec. 6, three days after Barry Odom took over the Missouri football program from Gary Pinkel, Tigers strength and conditioning coach Pat Ivey said he would be staying on with Odom’s staff.

Something has changed, apparently.

Ivey will not return to Missouri, a source confirmed to the Tribune on Thursday afternoon. FootballScoop.com first reported the news.

… In the very near future, most drugs will have both a chemical and digital component, as every pill will have a companion mobile app that collects patient-specific data. We are entering an era in which this mobile data will be as important as a drug itself in the therapeutic management of the patient. Unlike traditional, passive therapies, the data will enable therapeutic recommendations that are tailored to the individual and actionable. Pharma companies must change their business strategies to go “beyond the pill,” and quickly understand how to create a business model that incorporates acquiring mobile data, medical devices, health IT, Big Data and the Internet of Everything.

Many pharmaceutical companies are in the midst of creating large-scale apps. We are starting to see mobile apps being developed that manage all aspects of health care: Drug adherence, individual content, patient activity and other data points. For apps to be useful, they need to provide better accessibility and connectivity to the health-care system in traditionally non-health-care settings, such as in the home.

If we gain a few pounds during the winter holidays, we often blame the extra cookies and great food we ate or lack of exercise during the season’s cold and dark days. But could our weight gain be related to the hibernation signals that come from our brain?

Background/aim To investigate the role of eccentric knee flexor strength, between-limb imbalance and biceps femoris long head (BFlh) fascicle length on the risk of future hamstring strain injury (HSI).

Methods Elite soccer players (n=152) from eight different teams participated. Eccentric knee flexor strength during the Nordic hamstring exercise and BFlh fascicle length were assessed at the beginning of preseason. The occurrences of HSIs following this were recorded by the team medical staff. Relative risk (RR) was determined for univariate data, and logistic regression was employed for multivariate data.

Results Twenty seven new HSIs were reported. Eccentric knee flexor strength below 337?N (RR=4.4; 95% CI 1.1 to 17.5) and possessing BFlh fascicles shorter than 10.56?cm (RR=4.1; 95% CI 1.9 to 8.7) significantly increased the risk of a HSI. Multivariate logistic regression revealed significant effects when combinations of age, history of HSI, eccentric knee flexor strength and BFlh fascicle length were explored. From these analyses the likelihood of a future HSI in older athletes or those with a HSI history was reduced if high levels of eccentric knee flexor strength and longer BFlh fascicles were present.

Conclusions The presence of short BFlh fascicles and low levels of eccentric knee flexor strength in elite soccer players increases the risk of future HSI. The greater risk of a future HSI in older players or those with a previous HSI is reduced when they have longer BFlh fascicles and high levels of eccentric strength.

… Americans have what journalist and food advocate Michael Pollan has called a “national eating disorder.” In books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, Pollan has exposed the knotty intersection of food, science, culture, and politics, while gently advising Americans on how to eat better. (He also has a new PBS documentary coming out on December 30 about new food science and rediscovering the pleasures of eating.)

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I talked to Pollan about how America got so screwed up about food, his tips for navigating the grocery store to avoid what he calls "food-like substances," and why other countries, like Brazil, get food right.

Skeletal muscle is a direct target for vitamin D. Observational studies suggest that low 25[OH]D correlates with functional recovery of skeletal muscle following eccentric contractions in humans and crush injury in rats. However, a definitive association is yet to be established. To address this gap in knowledge in relation to damage repair, a randomised, placebo-controlled trial was performed in 20 males with insufficient concentrations of serum 25(OH)D (45 ± 25 nmol/l). Prior to and following 6 wk of supplemental vitamin D3 (4,000 IU/day) or placebo (50 mg of cellulose), participants performed 20 × 10 damaging eccentric contractions of the knee extensors, with peak torque measured over the following 7 days of recovery. Parallel experimentation using isolated human skeletal muscle-derived myoblast cells from biopsies of 14 males with low serum 25(OH)D (37 ± 11 nmol/l) were subjected to mechanical wound injury, which enabled corresponding in vitro studies of muscle repair, regeneration, and hypertrophy in the presence and absence of 10 or 100 nmol 1?,25(OH)2D3. Supplemental vitamin D3 increased serum 25(OH)D and improved recovery of peak torque at 48 h and 7 days postexercise. In vitro, 10 nmol 1?,25(OH)2D3 improved muscle cell migration dynamics and resulted in improved myotube fusion/differentiation at the biochemical, morphological, and molecular level together with increased myotube hypertrophy at 7 and 10 days postdamage. Together, these preliminary data are the first to characterize a role for vitamin D in human skeletal muscle regeneration and suggest that maintaining serum 25(OH)D may be beneficial for enhancing reparative processes and potentially for facilitating subsequent hypertrophy.

The final buzzer sounds, the Los Angeles Lakers stride into the locker room and the hunt for chocolate milk begins.

It’s the first item many Lakers players reach for after games, and it can often be found in or in front of their lockers — up to 16 ounces of creamy cocoa goodness in a clear plastic container. Each jug bears players’ initials so that no one grabs someone else’s. At least, that’s the plan.

“Guys get furious if their chocolate milk is taken,” Lakers rookie forward Larry Nance Jr. recently said with a straight face. “Nick [Young] and Roy [Hibbert], if they don’t get their chocolate milk, they throw a hissy fit.”