Applied Sports Science newsletter – February 26, 2016

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for February 26, 2016

 

George’s recovery ‘shocks’ those who had endured injuries

[Brad Stenger] IndyStar.com from February 18, 2016

Matt Harpring has watched Paul George this season and sees a basketball miracle.

Harpring, a former NBA player for 11 seasons, has much of the same feelings that many fans have when it comes to George’s performance: He’s in awe of George’s ascension back to superstar status.

“I’m shocked,” Harpring, a television analyst for the Utah Jazz, said in a telephone interview Thursday. “I give him a lot of credit for hard work. It is a lot of hours behind the scenes. I’m a big fan of people who just bust their butt.”

 

How body analytics turned Kawhi Leonard into an MVP candidate – TrueHoop- ESPN

ESPN NBA, TrueHoop, Tom Haberstroh from February 25, 2016

… During his second NBA season in 2012, Leonard was sidelined for 18 games with quadriceps tendinitis near his left knee. That offseason, the Spurs sent him to P3 to assess his vastus medialis, a teardrop-shaped muscle in the quads that powers the knee joint. “They focus on trying to balance out your body,” Leonard explains. “You don’t train there. I learned more about the body.”

When P3’s evaluation showed imbalances from his injury — the particulars of which P3 refused to reveal to ESPN — Leonard and Shelton devoted that summer to ensuring his quads weren’t just strong but symmetrically and multidirectionally strong. “Most players are linear; they can run in a straight line and jump vertically,” Shelton says. “But with Kawhi, we focus on perfecting change of direction.”

 

Man United academy system is producing players but not stars – ESPN FC

[Kevin Dawidowicz] ESPN FC, John Brewin from February 23, 2016

… On Monday at Shrewsbury Town, United’s starting XI included young defenders Guillermo Varela (22-years-old) and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson (19), plus midfielder Jesse Lingard (23). Van Gaal later brought on debutant defender Joe Riley (19), midfielder Andreas Pereira (20) and striker Will Keane (23), making six graduates from the youth ranks.

That so many featured was necessary because United had travelled to Shrewsbury missing 14 first-team players, and Van Gaal grimaced on the New Meadow bench as Borthwick-Jackson, Lingard and Keane added to that casualty list when suffering fresh knocks.

But, having jettisoned the likes of Robin van Persie, Rafael, Angel Di Maria, Jonny Evans, Nani, Tom Cleverley and Javier Hernandez last summer, the manager might now have to reach further into the reserve and youth ranks to find players for vital upcoming fixtures.

 

Learning From Everywhere

Freelap USA, Ryan McNamara from February 23, 2016

… One thing I immediately picked up was the need to share what you know and listen to what others have to say. That last bit can be harder than it sounds.

I write and try to share my (limited) knowledge within the web and design industry but watching the coaches at ALTIS they view sharing knowledge on their craft as a cornerstone to furthering their learning on the subject. They understand that they don’t have all the answers and that no one does. However, they have surrounded themselves with brilliant individuals from all over the world who can open their eyes to new ideas and theories that can enhance every athlete, coach and therapist around them.

 

Remedies for Collegiate Burnout

[Annette Wong] HMMR Media, Jonathan Marcus from February 23, 2016

The past five years I coached at the NCAA Division I level here in Portland. This year, however, I am happy to report I have left the NCAA system. Why? In a word: burnout. No, I am not burnt out on coaching — I still have 5 more years until I retire! — rather I am burnt out on watching athletes burn out. From my experience, the heart of this variety of coaching entails an attempt, in vain, to prepare young men and women distance runners to compete at a very high competitive level for nine months out of the year, four years in a row. It is a fool’s gambit and athlete burnout is a guarantee.

It is fair to remark that nearly all distance athletes suffer one or more very serious injuries in college. An overuse injury is a right of passage in distance circles, often coming in the form muscular/tendon strains or a bone related injury. These self-inflicted maladies stem from an opaque source: burnout. My aim in this article is to think critically about burnout, look at various ways in which it happens and suggest actions to minimize it. Let’s start by unpacking the NCAA system itself.

 

Don’t Skip It: Active Recovery 101

LAVA Magazine from February 24, 2016

Active recovery is generally defined as activity performed at an easy level with the purpose of speeding up the recovery process.

The activity should be completed at an intensity that doesn’t induce further damage to the body, but expedites the body’s recovery systems instead. Active recovery will promote muscle repair, remove metabolic waste and induce beneficial hormonal responses.

In addition to quicker healing, triathletes can reap additional benefits with active recovery.

 

Jumping on the “happiness track” with author and Stanford psychologist Emma Seppälä | Scope Blog

Stanford Medicine, Scope blog from February 24, 2016

Many people think that hard work is the key to success and happiness, yet we all know it’s not possible to work, and work well, 24/7. This realization hit me as I was preparing to interview Emma Seppälä, PhD, associate director of Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, about her new book, The Happiness Track. In it, Seppälä highlights research on the complex relationship between work and happiness and outlines how we can apply these findings to our daily lives to boost our productivity and resilience, reduce stress and enjoy sustainable success and happiness.

 

Things Science Says Will Make You Much Happier

LinkedIn, Dr. Travis Bradberry from February 24, 2016

… Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is a psychology professor at the Riverside campus who is known among her peers as “the queen of happiness.” She began studying happiness as a grad student and never stopped, devoting her career to the subject.

One of her main discoveries is that we all have a happiness “set point.” When extremely positive or negative events happen—such as buying a bigger house or losing a job—they temporarily increase or decrease our happiness, but we eventually drift back to our set point.

The breakthrough in Dr. Lyubomirsky’s research is that you can make yourself happier—permanently. Lyubomirsky and others have found that our genetic set point is responsible for only about 50% of our happiness, life circumstances affect about 10%, and a whopping 40% is completely up to us.

 

Annals of Coaching: On Identifying Talent (& How That Shapes Coaching Decisions)

Doug Lemov, Teach Like a Champion blog from February 24, 2016

Manchester United played Shrewsbury Town in the FA Cup this week and managed a 3-0 victory, but the most interesting thing about the match might have been Stuart James’ article in the Guardian about Mat Sadler, the Shrewsbury defender who played alongside Wayne Rooney on the England U17 team 14 years ago. The “reunion” between Rooney and Sadler was forestalled by Rooney’s injury, but it seemed at first like the fleeting interaction would be a fitting metaphor for the vicissitudes of the two men’s careers, with Sadler’s, it was pointed out, having not quite panned out. After being tapped for the England national side and sure success early, he’d appeared briefly in the Premier League, but only briefly, and then began a “disappointing” career as a player in the lower leagues.

Ironically, though, Sadler isn’t really an underachiever. Playing in the third tier made him a success by youth national team standards. As the article noted, “Only five of the 18 members of the [U17] England squad who finished third in that tournament in Denmark are still playing professional football.”

 

Reliability of the Q Force; a mobile instrument for measuring isometric quadriceps muscle strength. – PubMed – NCBI

BMC Sports Science & Medical Rehabilitation from February 19, 2016

BACKGROUND:

The ability to generate muscle strength is a pre-requisite for all human movement. Decreased quadriceps muscle strength is frequently observed in older adults and is associated with a decreased performance and activity limitations. To quantify the quadriceps muscle strength and to monitor changes over time, instruments and procedures with a sufficient reliability are needed. The Q Force is an innovative mobile muscle strength measurement instrument suitable to measure in various degrees of extension. Measurements between 110 and 130° extension present the highest values and the most significant increase after training. The objective of this study is to determine the test-retest reliability of muscle strength measurements by the Q Force in older adults in 110° extension.
METHODS:

Forty-one healthy older adults, 13 males and 28 females were included in the study. Mean (SD) age was 81.9 (4.89) years. Isometric muscle strength of the Quadriceps muscle was assessed with the Q Force at 110° of knee extension. Participants were measured at two sessions with a three to eight day interval between sessions. To determine relative reliability, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated. To determine absolute reliability, Bland and Altman Limits of Agreement (LOA) were calculated and t-tests were performed.
RESULTS:

Relative reliability of the Q Force is good to excellent as all ICC coefficients are higher than 0.75. Generally a large 95 % LOA, reflecting only moderate absolute reliability, is found as exemplified for the peak torque left leg of -18.6 N to 33.8 N and the right leg of -9.2 N to 26.4 N was between 15.7 and 23.6 Newton representing 25.2 % to 39.9 % of the size of the mean. Small systematic differences in mean were found between measurement session 1 and 2.
CONCLUSION:

The present study shows that the Q Force has excellent relative test-retest reliability, but limited absolute test-retest reliability. Since the Q Force is relatively cheap and mobile it is suitable for application in various clinical settings, however, its capability to detect changes in muscle force over time is limited but comparable to existing instruments.

 

Delonte West, Mental Health, and Royce White’s Unpublished Letter to the NBA

The Nation, Dave Zirin from February 24, 2016

A former NBA player is suffering and another former player is taking the league to task for failing to do the right thing.

 

What’s normal for the abnormal? Analyzing NBA players’ hearts

STAT from February 24, 2016

Professional basketball players are, by definition, taller and stronger and more physically active than the rest of us. Their hearts are different, too.

Now, a new analysis of cardiac tests on more than 500 active NBA players offers the first solid look at what’s normal for these abnormal individuals.

The findings, published Wednesday in JAMA Cardiology, could prove helpful to teams trying to make sense of their players’ stress echocardiograms, which the NBA began requiring in 2006.

 

Seeking a brain boost in risky chemical cocktails

[Brad Stenger] STAT from February 19, 2016

Tomás Gutiérrez isn’t a brain scientist. But each morning, he mixes up a new chemical cocktail that he hopes will sharpen his focus and boost his intellect.

 

What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team

The New York Times Magazine from February 25, 2016

… When [Julia] Rozovsky and her Google colleagues encountered the concept of psychological safety in academic papers, it was as if everything suddenly fell into place. One engineer, for instance, had told researchers that his team leader was ‘‘direct and straightforward, which creates a safe space for you to take risks.’’ That team, researchers estimated, was among Google’s accomplished groups. By contrast, another engineer had told the researchers that his ‘‘team leader has poor emotional control.’’ … For [Google’s] Project Aristotle, research on psychological safety pointed to particular norms that are vital to success.

 

An examination of the relationship between athlete leadership and cohesion using social network analysis

Journal of Sports Sciences from February 22, 2016

Two studies investigated the structure of different athlete leadership networks and its relationship to cohesion using social network analysis. In Study 1, we examined the relationship between a general leadership quality network and task and social cohesion as measured by the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ). In Study 2, we investigated the leadership networks for four different athlete leadership roles (task, motivational, social and external) and their association with task and social cohesion networks. In Study 1, the results demonstrated that the general leadership quality network was positively related to task and social cohesion. The results from Study 2 indicated positive correlations between the four leadership networks and task and social cohesion networks. Further, the motivational leadership network emerged as the strongest predictor of the task cohesion network, while the social leadership network was the strongest predictor of the social cohesion network. The results complement a growing body of research indicating that athlete leadership has a positive association with cohesion.

 

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