Applied Sports Science newsletter – May 5, 2016

… Walker says this is a much-changed Tottenham; they are a group that is sturdier and more together. Walker’s last appearance at Stamford Bridge was the 4-0 drubbing in March 2014, after which the Spurs manager at the time, Tim Sherwood, questioned the character of his players. Under Mauricio Pochettino, the mentality is different.

“If you watch Tottenham week in, week out, I think you can see that,” Walker says. “It’s a completely different work ethic now. The lads are much closer. We’re going for a title and, worst-case scenario, hopefully it’s the Champions League. Who would have thought I would have been saying that two years ago? So it’s positives. This club is built on good foundations now. We’re not building on sand.”

Now that May has finally arrived, all attention that was already focused on UEFA Euro 2016 and potential squad places has now intensified greatly; with just over a month to go until the opening ceremony, who makes the final teams is big news and exciting odds.

One of the latest pieces of news to hit the sporting community is that Cristiano Ronaldo is at risk of losing his place at the France tournament if he doesn’t rest up. After gaining a hamstring injury in late April during a Villarreal match, where the forward was only able to walk when the final whistle was blown, speculation has been rife as to whether he would be fit in time for June. Initially the injury was played down, and it was thought that the footballer would return for his next game, but after several matches missed, the concern of his Euro 16 place grew amongst the team and fans.

Now having returned to training, and with a match against Manchester City coming, the pressure is on for the 31 year old to both rest and play, leaving the forward with little room to manoeuvre.

Almost exactly four years ago, as the early-season success of Stephen Strasburg and the Washington Nationals captured national attention, Bill Shaikin wrote in the Los Angeles Times about the Nationals’ plan to shut down their young ace.

“You have a five-year plan,” Strasburg’s agent, Scott Boras, told Shaikin then. “Do you want to take the risk of pitching that starter for a full season and not having him for the other four years?”

It’s now 2016, the fifth year of the five-year plan.

Adam Gase has been planning for months as coach of the Dolphins — and for over a year before he became an NFL head coach — how he would handle something that seems so mundane to the rest of the world as a rookie minicamp. And he’s got ideas. And he’s implementing those this week.

And they will not include actual practices on the field.

Instead Dolphins rookies will spend all their time during this minicamp in classroom sessions learning how to be Miami Dolphins. That means they’re going to get schooled on the schemes they’re playing, their assignments, and everything football that involves the brain.

Professor Greg Whyte gives five tips on how and why you should analyse your own performance

ALWAYS REFLECT ON WHAT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED IN COMPETITION

Embracing this process allows you to better understand the reasons for success and failure. In my opinion, excellence is achieved when you are able to critically analyse performance and make the necessary, and sometimes difficult, changes required to deliver success.

NFL O-linemen have never had it so tough, and everyone has an opinion, especially those who ‘don’t know how to buckle a helmet.’ Here’s what four linemen have to say about the hardest job in football.

The Jacksonville Jaguars and Miami Dolphins won’t need helmets for rookie minicamps.

No 11-on-11 drills. No 7-on-7 work.

The Dolphins don’t even plan to set foot on the practice field.

The Sunshine State teams could be starting an NFL trend this week by making significant changes to the way they handle initial training sessions for draft picks and undrafted rookies.

Everyone loves a fairytale, but how many do you know that involve beetroot shots and ice chambers reaching -135C?

As much as Leicester City’s transformation from relegation favourites to Premier League champions has been cast as fantasy football, the reality is a lot more calculated.

Diligent owners, resourceful scouting and an effervescent manager have played a telling part. But an innovative sports science and medical team, carefully integrated into the decision-making process, has created a perfect model for success.

Leicester are not alone in using cutting-edge technology in the Premier League, of course, but using beetroot shots as a performance enhancer and ice chambers to improve recovery do mark them out from the crowd.

Much has been made of Mauricio Pochettino’s ruthless training regime and emphasis on fitness. The Tottenham head coach is famed for working his players relentlessly in double, and occasionally triple, sessions.

Harry Kane has spoken of being pushed “to the limit,” while Kyle Walker admitted Pochettino’s drills are “hard, sometimes not enjoyable.” The most oft-cited assessment of the Argentine’s methods was then-Southampton midfielder Jack Cork’s claim that you need “two hearts” to play for him.

The benefits are there for all to see: Spurs have overpowered more than one opponent and outrun the majority, and attempts to match their energy and pressing usually end in failure, as Manchester United found in a 3-0 defeat at White Hart Lane last month.

… Why is Under Armour obsessed with data?

KP: The most important asset anyone has is health, but why is it that we know the least about it? When I ask how many days were you sick last year, why don’t you know? You could have $400 in a checking account and the bank would send reams of data. But if I ask, “How’s your health?” You’ll say, “I don’t know. I feel pretty good; I was at the doctor 18 months ago.” You have nothing monitoring [health]; we run through life and expect to remain healthy, but things happen and the ability for us to use predictive analytics and data can help us. Over 2 billion workouts and over 389 million runs were logged into our database last year. We’re finding the smartest people that could help us inform our consumer to make better decisions, to live healthier lives.

Last Sunday, basketball fans everywhere gasped as Steph Curry slipped in a pool of sweat during a routine jog down the court and fell awkwardly to the floor clutching his right knee. As he motioned for help to get up and hobbled around the court, the Golden State Warriors’ record-breaking season suddenly seemed in jeopardy.

Curry’s diagnosis turned out to be a mild medial collateral ligament sprain, which, for most people, is no big deal. But Steph Curry is not “most people.” And this postseason is anything but ordinary—historic even. Every game Curry isn’t on the court could cost the NBA and his sponsors millions of dollars. “Healing times might take several weeks,” says Anthony Luke, a sports medicine physician at the UC-San Francisco Medical Center, “and a playoff series might only be a couple of weeks.”

So for an athlete like Curry—or Chris Paul or Blake Griffin, whose recent injuries just as swiftly put into question the LA Clippers’ chance at a championship—team doctors go into overdrive.

… researchers wanted to go a step further [than traditional carb loading]: store carbs but also spare them by ramping up fat burning. Muscles then rely more on fat stores, a virtually inexhaustible source of energy for long-distance exercise, and save glycogen, lowering the chance of bonking. The body can only store enough glycogen for roughly 2 hours of exercise, but even the skinniest runner has enough fat to fuel over 100 hours of running.

Researchers began tinkering with carb availability, restricting carbs before exercise in an effort to force the body to “learn” how to burn fat as a fuel, a strategy they called “train low.” These attempts at using fat to stoke the fires of endurance exercise didn’t go too well, however. Despite the clear physiological changes found after training with low-carb availability, performance showed no improvement.

In fact, emphasizes Jeukendrup, most of the “train low” studies so far have been unable to show actual performance benefits. “Training low is something that does not work short-term (studies often show a reduced exercise capacity and lower quality of training when training low),” he says. It’s hard to train in a perpetually bonked state.

… Vitamin pills will not boost your energy. Vitamins help convert food into energy, but they are not a source of energy. Save your money.

Adequate sleep, however, will indeed boost your energy. Sleep is essential to recharge your body with the rest needed to feel fully functional and perform well. Eating the right foods at the right times is also energizing and fights fatigue.

The combination of adequate food plus adequate sleep not only sharply reduces fatigue—but also the need for caffeine.

What convinced Leicester to appoint Claudio Ranieri? Why are injured players pitchside at training on exercise bikes? And what have been the keys to a remarkable Premier League success? Stuart James reveals how the Foxes have stunned the world.

… Leicester have been buying smartly for years and last summer made a crucial acquisition that paints a vignette of the watertight process, used time and again, that limits risk and increases potential for finds.

N’Golo Kante has been one of the players of the season and the method for securing his services from Caen was meticulous, starting in February 2015 when Pearson identified the need to replace Esteban Cambiasso should the Argentine move on.

Leicester’s statistical scouts analysed key metrics of midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues — interceptions, tackles and forward passes per 90 minutes — and some big names featured. Xabi Alonso, Toni Kroos and Lassana Diarra.