Applied Sports Science newsletter – March 3, 2016

Altidore pointed out that having a domestic league among the best in the world isn’t simply a matter of patriotic pride. It means something important for the players who make up the national team, something vital changed forever in their own lives.

“People forget that for me, for Michael, we had to go at a really young age into everything new – new country, new culture,” Altidore said. “It’s outside your comfort zone. And I think it helps young players to get their first taste of being a professional around their friends and family.

… “I think Anthony Bennett’s summer has been absolutely fantastic for us,” Canada coach Jay Triano said in Mexico. “He’s engaged in everything that we do on the floor, off the floor, rebounding. We’ve asked him to rebound, and he’s done it on a continuous basis. He runs the floor on a continuous basis. He provides help on the defensive end. He understands our defensive system.

“We told him earlier this summer, if you do… things (other than focus on scoring), people are going to understand he’s got a lot of other skills: His ability to pass the basketball, his ability to get teammates open.”

Fewer than six months later, Bennett has been waived twice, and is currently out of the NBA.

We recently conducted satisfaction research with 3,000 sport participants and we found very high levels of satisfaction with coaching. However in a spirit of continual improvement what could coaches do to get even better?

A form of encephalitis that caused both wakefulness and profound somnolence reveals much about our inner clocks.

Artemis Racing Team manager and tactician, Iain Percy gives CNN’s Mainsail an insight into what goes into preparing for a race.

One by one, the Tottenham Hotspur players came across to shake Daniel Levy by the hand. The club’s chairman was bemused, to the point where he turned to Mauricio Pochettino and asked him whether it was a new rule he had implemented. The manager smiled. It had started out as a rule but now it was simply habit.

“When I came to the club, maybe there were rules [put in place],” Pochettino said. “For example, every morning, we shake hands with everybody. It was to show respect for each other; to show how you feel each morning when you meet.

“It is a small thing but it means a lot to create a real team. It shows you are interested in the people with whom you shake hands.

An Athlete self-report measure (ASRM) is any measure where an athlete self-reports their subjective physical, psychological, and/or social wellbeing. The measure may take the form of a questionnaire, diary, or log, and may be completed on paper or using technology. Metrifit is an example of an ASRM.

The market for ASRM has grown rapidly in recent years, with use by influential professional teams and sporting organisations spurring a rapid ‘me too’ response amongst competitors and aspiring lower-level settings. After all, an ASRM is a relatively low cost and low risk investment which may reduce the risk of injury, illness, and overtraining. However, as is often the case in sport, practice is ahead of the research. So what is the evidence to-date for ASRM?

Coaches need coaching. In the modern environment of professional football, pressures from various sources can overwhelm coaches and players and it can become crippling. No one has understood this more than Bill Beswick. Having worked with Steve McClaren with the England national team and at clubs including Manchester United, Middlesbrough, Nottingham Forest and Twente, Beswick is the first sports psychologist to operate fully in the English professional game.

… The Wimbledon final is undoubtedly a high-pressure situation; an event which is one of the highest profile events in tennis and could be considered a high stake situation, where performing carries implications for future opportunities and successes (De Caro et al. 2011). Lidz 1998 claims that, due to this pressure, Novotna ‘choked’ during the final set. ‘Choking’ is a metaphorical expression that describes performance decrements under pressure conditions despite an individual striving to perform well (Baumeister 1984). Gladwell (2000) argues that during the final set, Novotna began to think about what she was doing, she started to pay attention to her serves, lobs and volleys; this, he believes, is when the match started to go wrong for her. What caused this to happen? It is proposed that there are multiple routes to skill failure (De Caro, Thomas, Albert & Beilock 2011)

One reason may be due to Novotna cognitively appraising the game as a threat.

Injury prevention is the future of sports data analytics, we’re often told. Whoever figures it out will be rich.

Tim Gabbett, an Australian sports scientist, has been working in injury prevention and performance maximization for 20 years, and has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles on these subjects. He recently co-authored a paper in the British Journal of Sports Medicine titled, “High training workloads alone do not cause sports injuries: how you get there is the real issue.”

With all of the big promises being made around injury prevention, VICE Sports wanted to ask someone who has worked in the field about what really helps athletes—and what doesn’t.

Purpose

The aims of this study were to 1) compare the metabolic power demand of straight-line and change of direction (COD) sprints including 45° or 90°-turns, and 2) examine the relation between estimated metabolic demands and muscular activity throughout the 3 phases of COD-sprints.
Methods

Twelve highly-trained soccer players performed one 25-m and three 20-m sprints, either in straight-line or with one 45°- or 90°-COD. Sprints were monitored with 2 synchronized 100-Hz laser guns to assess players’ velocities before, during and after the COD. Acceleration and deceleration were derived from changes in speed over time. Metabolic power was estimated based on di Prampero’s approach (2005). Electromyography amplitude (RMS) of 2 lower limb muscles was measured. The expected energy expenditure during time-adjusted straight-line sprints (matching COD sprints time) was also calculated.
Results

Locomotor-dependant metabolic demand was largely lower with COD (90°, 142.1±13.5 J.kg-1) compared with time-adjusted (effect size, ES = -3.0; 193.2±18.6 J.kg-1) and non-adjusted straight-line sprints (ES = -1.7; 168.4±15.3 J.kg-1). Metabolic power requirement was angle-dependent, moderately lower for 90°-COD vs. 45°-COD sprint (ES = -1.0; 149.5±10.4 J.kg-1). Conversely, the RMS was slightly- (45°, ES = +0.5; +2.1%, 90% confidence limits (±3.6) for vastus lateralis muscle (VL)) to-largely (90°, ES = +1.6; +6.1 (3.3%) for VL) greater for COD-sprints. Metabolic power/RMS ratio was 2 to 4 times lower during deceleration than acceleration phases.
Conclusion

Present results show that COD-sprints are largely less metabolically demanding than linear sprints. This may be related to the very low metabolic demand associated with the deceleration phase during COD-sprints that may not be compensated by the increased requirement of the reacceleration phase. These results also highlight the dissociation between metabolic and muscle activity demands during COD-sprints, which questions the use of metabolic power as a single measure of running load in soccer.

The present study identified adolescents’ motor competence (MC)-based profiles (e.g., high actual and low perceived MC), and accordingly investigated differences in motivation for physical education (PE), physical activity (PA) levels, and sports participation between profiles by using regression analyses. Actual MC was measured with the Körperkoordinationstest für Kinder. Adolescents (n = 215; 66.0% boys; mean age = 13.64 ± .58 years) completed validated questionnaires to assess perceived MC, motivation for PE, PA-levels, and sports participation. Actual and perceived MC were only moderately correlated and cluster analyses identified four groups. Two groups of overestimators (low – overestimation, average – overestimation) were identified (51%), who particularly displayed better motivation for PE when compared to their peers who accurately estimated themselves (low – accurate, average – accurate). Moreover, adolescents with low actual MC, but high perceived MC were significantly more active than adolescents with low actual MC who accurately estimated themselves. Results pointed in the same direction for organised sports participation. Underestimators were not found in the current sample, which is positive as underestimation might negatively influence adolescents’ motivation to achieve and persist in PA and sports. In conclusion, results emphasise that developing perceived MC, especially among adolescents with low levels of actual MC, seems crucial to stimulate motivation for PE, and engagement in PA and sports.

Lance McCullers wants to master his changeup, so he mimics a master.

The 22-year-old righty, who jumped to the big-leagues from Class AA in 2015 and finished the season with a 3.22 ERA and strong rate stats in 22 Major League starts, models his version of the pitch after the one used by perennial All-Star and former Cy Young Award winner Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners.

But the imitation goes far beyond simply watching Hernandez on video and attempting to ape his mechanics. McCullers wants his changeup to look the same way Hernandez’s does in the eyes of opposing batters, so he seeks out data from the Astros’ analytics team.

EPFL researchers have developed conductive tracks that can be bent and stretched up to four times their original length. They could be used in artificial skin, connected clothing and on-body sensors.

Years ago, as a college varsity swimmer, I was surprised when one of my teammates told me she had struggled with an eating disorder. I knew this was a common problem in sports such as gymnastics and figure skating, where an athlete’s appearance is constantly judged, but had assumed – wrongly – that a sport where speed trumped glamour would confer protection against disordered eating.

But as a new story from NBC Bay Area explains today, both male and female college athletes from any sport are vulnerable to eating disorders, often triggered by anxiety about keeping a spot on a competitive team or belief that a lighter body weight will enhance performance.