Applied Sports Science newsletter – January 28, 2016

The world’s best professional teams are investing millions into sport science to find the winning edge, and travel fatigue is a key factor as to who wins and who loses. Whether you are a frequent traveler that needs to dazzle investors on a business trip, a weekend warrior trying to set a personal best at a Spartan Race, or just someone wanting to enjoy every day on a far away vacation, read on to find your edge.

Analytics have become a religion in sports. And why not? Coaches are looking for every possible way to squeeze more skill out of their athletes, and a data-driven approach makes sense.

But most developing athletes need something much simpler: more sleep.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Still, it’s rarely recognized as the low hanging, performance enhancing fruit that it is. I suspect that’s because it isn’t well understood.

Depending on how much sleep you’re currently getting, your body may be sending you sneaky signs that you’re sleep deprived. Since the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 50 to 70 million U.S. adults suffer from sleep wakefulness disorder, it’s clear that America is seriously sleep deprived. You might think that you’re getting more than enough sleep to function, but it might be time to examine your own definition of “function.” Functioning isn’t thriving, just as surviving isn’t really living. The bare minimum is never the goal, and sleeping the shortest amount of time in order to get through the following day is no way to present your best self to the world.

Sometimes it can be hard to tell, though, if you truly are sleep deprived. Especially if you work hard, eat right, and sleep as much as you can given your insanely hectic lifestyle. You’re doing the best you can, so what more can be done? However, your body is extremely trustworthy in letting you know what you need, so really, you just need to pay attention in order to find the answer. Listen up, and your bod will give it to you straight. Here are all the sneaky signs that you need more sleep, and should go take a nap immediately.

… For the first time, Drummond was wearing a gray sleeve on his right arm.

The sleeve has sensors that are able to alert the shooter when he deviates from the proper form that has been programmed into the app on a simple smartphone.

Will it help?

Running economy (RE) has a strong relationship with running performance, and modifiable running biomechanics are a determining factor of RE. The purposes of this review were to (1) examine the intrinsic and extrinsic modifiable biomechanical factors affecting RE; (2) assess training-induced changes in RE and running biomechanics; (3) evaluate whether an economical running technique can be recommended and; (4) discuss potential areas for future research. Based on current evidence, the intrinsic factors that appeared beneficial for RE were using a preferred stride length range, which allows for stride length deviations up to 3 % shorter than preferred stride length; lower vertical oscillation; greater leg stiffness; low lower limb moment of inertia; less leg extension at toe-off; larger stride angles; alignment of the ground reaction force and leg axis during propulsion; maintaining arm swing; low thigh antagonist–agonist muscular coactivation; and low activation of lower limb muscles during propulsion. Extrinsic factors associated with a better RE were a firm, compliant shoe–surface interaction and being barefoot or wearing lightweight shoes. Several other modifiable biomechanical factors presented inconsistent relationships with RE. Running biomechanics during ground contact appeared to play an important role, specifically those during propulsion. Therefore, this phase has the strongest direct links with RE. Recurring methodological problems exist within the literature, such as cross-comparisons, assessing variables in isolation, and acute to short-term interventions. Therefore, recommending a general economical running technique should be approached with caution. Future work should focus on interdisciplinary longitudinal investigations combining RE, kinematics, kinetics, and neuromuscular and anatomical aspects, as well as applying a synergistic approach to understanding the role of kinetics.

The novel data coming into Major League Baseball from entirely new spaces, such as the wearable tech companies we mentioned yesterday, was something we should have anticipated. Within the past few years, restrictions have been imposed which attempted to dramatically flatten out the possible differences between teams in their volume of amateur spending. While the rules have proven to be easily manipulated on the international front, the intent and goal is clear, and the long-term plan for the league is to equalize the spending on talent acquisition. Therefore, greater investment in amateur talent can no longer be a long-term strategy to the extent that it drove success under previous models. At the same time, a million dollars spent on MLB talent can be expected to provide a smaller return than ever, so the influx of cash in MLB had to go somewhere.

Thus, two major areas remain where an organization’s spending is not only unrestricted, but has the potential to provide much greater dollar-for-dollar return than elsewhere: player development and evaluative advancement.

Fifty years ago, when it was still a modest spectacle watched on a single medium, played by a single gender, contested exclusively between teams from the US, and largely ignored by most of planet Earth, Super Bowl 50 was nevertheless called a “world championship” by the National Football League, whose very name betrayed a parochial, one-nation interest in what the rest of the world knew—if they knew it at all—as “American football.”

That was 2016, when the NFL was a quaint pastime played for relatively low stakes and officiated by human beings who flipped a coin to start every game, used a physical length of chain to measure a first down, blew a whistle to halt play, and threw a yellow handkerchief to signal a penalty. So primitive was the technology of that benighted age—typing with opposable thumbs was our principal form of communication—that NFL players literally practiced against stuffed dummies.

As Super Bowl 100 played out in all its enormity last night, Super Bowl 50 looked tiny by comparison, the way the Earth now looks to our colonists in space. And yet it’s instructive to look back on that long-ago spectacle in the San Francisco Bay Area to see just how far the game has come, and society with it.

Developed by TrainingPeaks, WKO4 analytical software is helping endurance coaches find new and innovative ways to use training and racing data. Available now for PC and Mac, WKO4 gives coaches the ability to view and compare data in ways that were previously not possible.

Dean Golich, Premier Coach and Head Performance Physiologist at Carmichael Training Systems, is using WKO4 to compare metrics and find answers to questions he could only speculate on previously. “The possibilities of WKO4 are endless,” says Golich. “My first priority was to adjust all power data for environmental conditions. Now I can compare different rides and training in regards to heat, altitude, and more.”

Not only does WKO4 work with existing metrics and data channels, it was also developed with the ability to add new metrics and channels as they are created. With the emergence of running power,

Materials scientists have created a small, wearable sensor that can read the molecular composition of sweat and send its results in real time to a smartphone. The flexible plastic patches — which can be incorporated into wristbands and headbands — may be able to provide early warning of changes in the body, say their creators.

“The idea is to have this thumbs-up or thumbs-down device that will give real-time information: it could provide an alarm that you need to take some medication, or that you’re getting dehydrated and need to drink some water,” says Ali Javey, at the University of California, Berkeley, who helped to develop the sensors. He and his colleagues report their work in Nature.

… In an accompanying Nature editorial, Jason Heikenfield makes the case that this could be the next big differentiator for the fitness tracking space. For athletes, sweat sensing could help alert them to dehydration, fatigue, or overheating.

“Today’s commercially available wearables largely rely on decades-old technology,” he writes. “Their market success is due to a convergence of improved affordability and ergonomics and a rapidly growing consumer awareness of health. The next watershed in wearables will probably be driven by scientific breakthroughs. Sweat biomonitoring arguably has the greatest potential among the emergent non-invasive technologies.”

At the 2015 NHL All-Star Game, we were given a glimpse of the future.

There were real-time stats delivered via sensors on a player’s body, telling us everything from the speed of his skating to his (actual) time on ice.

There was a puck covered in infrared sensors, beaming information to cameras around the rink that would recreate games in a virtual, digital environment – and potentially end every argument about whether or not it crossed a goal line.

There was a sense that we were about to enter a new information age for analytics.

The situation, Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told dpa on Tuesday, was “not as dramatic” as initially feared: A scan by former club doctor Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt had revealed that injured Bayern defender Jerome Boateng (groin) could possibly come back onto the pitch for “the last third of the season”.

It was interesting to hear Rummenigge casually drop Muller-Wohlfahrt’s name into the conversation. You’ll remember that the 73-year-old had walked out on Bayern last April after Rummenigge had taken Pep Guardiola’s side in an ongoing argument between coach and medic about players’ injuries.

Sport-Bild revealed on Wednesday that the Bavarians are trying to reinstate Muller-Wohlfahrt, who has continued treating Bayern players in a private capacity, as a consultant next summer, when Carlo Ancelotti takes over, and Rummenigge’s confirmation that the iconic “Mull” (Muller-Wohlfahrt’s nickname) is involved in Boateng’s treatment must be read in that specific context.

The NCAA Research Committee has selected five research proposals to fund as part of the 2015 cycle of the NCAA Graduate Student Research Grant Program.

Now in its 10th year, the program is aimed at stimulating research on college sports by providing financial support to graduate students. Their work will help inform NCAA member schools and the general public on key topics by introducing new studies to the field. Awards for these grants are set at a maximum of $7,500 for one-year projects. Recipients are expected to culminate their project in an article suitable for publication in a scholarly journal or in a completed thesis or dissertation. They will present their final projects to the NCAA Research Committee members in fall 2016.

… The hulking robot thumps away incessantly, applying hundreds of pounds of force to a cadaver knee specimen implanted with a custom-designed sensor that measures forces in a knee ligament — a technique used nowhere else in the world but in this laboratory. Pairing this setup with a computer program that analyzes every move, Markolf and his collaborators at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine — bioengineer Daniel Boguszewski and orthopaedic surgeon Dr. David McAllister — are shedding new light on how the knee works, how it gets injured and how best to repair it.

“We need a big robot to simulate big forces,” Markolf explained.

The same brain cells that track location in space appear to also count beats in time. The research suggests that our thoughts may take place on a mental space-time canvas.