Applied Sports Science newsletter – July 28, 2016

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for July 28, 2016

 

How Basketball In LA Helped Prepare Three US Olympians

NBA.com, LA Clippers, Rowan Kavner from July 27, 2016

Getting three players on Team USA who grew up around L.A. and Southern California and graduated the same year in high school, is, as DeMar DeRozan put it, “crazy.” But that’s the circumstance DeRozan finds himself in as he prepares for the Olympics alongside Paul George and Klay Thompson, two players he grew up playing against.

“I’m pretty sure we all remember playing against each other when we were young,” DeRozan said. “To be sitting here, being multiple All-Stars, whatever you want to call it now, now on this level of team…it’s definitely crazy.”

 

USMNT’s Julian Green fighting for first-team minutes with Bayern Munich

FourFourTwo from July 27, 2016

U.S. men’s national team midfielder Julian Green is determined to fight his way into the Bayern Munich first team – and he doesn’t see a stint with the reserves happening again this year.

Green has reinforced his approach in several interviews during Bayern Munich’s U.S. tour, and on Tuesday after a training session at Soldier Field in Chicago he told FourFourTwo why it was so important to him to make it work with Bayern’s first team.

“Because it was my goal all my life,” Green said. “I have been playing here since I was 14 years old, so Bayern Munich has always been my club since a young age and that’s the reason why. I know it’s hard, but everything is possible in soccer. So that’s my biggest goal and I will work hard for it.”

 

Is rostering a still-recovering Megan Rapinoe a mistake or a strategy?

SB Nation, Stars and Stripes FC from July 27, 2016

Megan Rapinoe tore her ACL in December of 2015 while practicing for a friendly in Hawaii. That friendly was infamously canceled as players protested the playing surface as well as the sub-par training facility, where Rapinoe received her injury.

Ever since then it’s been a question of whether Rapinoe would mange to rehab in time for the August 3 group stage kick off of the Olympic games. ACL rehab can go from six months to a year depending on the player, and seven months and change for Rapinoe to get into shape for a major tournament seemed to be pushing it.

As we’ve discovered, that timeline was definitely pushing it. It became clear when Rapinoe was benched against South Africa on July 9 with a quad pull, then again against Costa Rica on July 22. Now, according to Goal, Rapinoe herself says she’s unlikely to play the first game in group and in fact the end of group/beginning of knockout is “more of a realistic time.”

 

Sam Allardyce’s passion for sports science, statistics and psychology

Sky Sports from July 22, 2016

To some he’s a long-ball manager who plays “19th century” football, but those who know Sam Allardyce well describe a different character.

A picture emerges of an expert man manager with a passion for sports science, statistics and psychology.

Here, with the help of his former players, we take a look at the aspects of the game that Allardyce uses to gain every advantage available…

 

Nike Technology – Olympic Athlete Physical Tests

Refinery29 from July 21, 2016

In mid-May, I traveled to McKinney, TX, a city located about 40 minutes outside of Dallas. The city itself is modest, with a population of just over 161,000, but flat stretches of land run for miles, making the region feel desolate. You’d never guess that many of the world’s best athletes and current Olympians stop there for days or weeks at a time.

The reason for their trip: The Michael Johnson Performance Center (MJP), a training and research center in partnership with Nike. The center was eponymously founded by the legendary Michael Johnson, a gold-medal-winning, world-record-setting Olympic sprinter.

I headed to MJP to undergo the same advanced athlete assessment that some of Nike’s top athletes complete one or more times a year.

 

Sandra Rossi: the ‘brain-trainer’ helping River Plate show their emotions – and win

The Guardian, Football from July 26, 2016

From the moment Sandra Rossi stepped on to the pitch at the Estadio Monumental for photographs with Marcelo Gallardo and the rest of her colleagues at River Plate, she was embarking on a mission that was both life-changing and game-changing.
Sport picture of the day: River Plate fans’ star turn
At first glance this image resembles one taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, until you look closely and see the faces of the River Plate fans amidst the flares and smoke at the “Monumental” stadium in Buenos Aires.
Read more

Her ever-present smile was a little wider that day because a childhood dream was coming true. Rossi was not just joining one of the biggest clubs in South America but her childhood club. She was also becoming the first female assistant coach in the continent’s top-level football history.

That moment, in June 2014, was the launching point for one of River’s most successful periods amid revolutionary input from Rossi. She works with players on the mental side of their game and uses neuroplasticity – in essence training the brain.

 

The 10–80–10 Principle:

Medium, Penguin Press, Urban Meyer from July 15, 2016

… The leadership challenge is to move as many of the 80 percenters into the nucleus as you can. If you can expand the top 10 percent into 15 percent or 20 percent, you are going to see a measurable increase in the performance of your team. By the end of the 2014 season, our nucleus group was close to 30 percent. We did that by challenging our top 10 percent to identify and go get some of the 80 percenters and, in turn, influence the 80 percent to elevate their level of play, deepen their commitment, and give more of themselves for the program. We wanted our top 10 percent to be leaders who influenced and motivated others. This is essential because leadership is about connecting. Leadership is an activity that happens person to person and heart to heart. It’s about engaging deeply with others and inspiring them to be better.

When I coached Tim Tebow at Florida, he was a leader and an influencer. He’d come in my office and we’d say to each other, “Let’s go get an eighty today and get him into the top ten.” It was a daily, intentional priority for Tim and for me.

 

USATF Sports Science leads the way to the podium

USA Track & Field from July 20, 2016

Release velocity, flight trajectory, force plates — it sounds like physics class. But this is track and field practice.

Science and athletics, two notably different realms, intersect in USATF’s high performance department and propel Team USA’s athletes toward their full potential.

Since 2010, USATF associate director of sports science and medicine Robert Chapman, Ph.D., and his staff have traveled across the nation to work with USATF athletes and use technology to pinpoint areas for improvement. The effect of these small changes can remain prevalent when athletes compete on the world stage.

“If you look at differences between gold and silver or between fourth place and a medal, on average you’re talking about a fraction of a percent difference in performance,” said Chapman, who is also an associate professor of kinesiology at Indiana University.

 

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola says overweight players risk injury

ESPN FC, Jonathan Smith from July 27, 2016

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has warned his players that they risk injuries if they are not totally match fit.

City defender Gael Clichy revealed that former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss Guardiola had told players that they would not train with the first team if they were overweight and has banned pizzas and heavy food.

City picked up a total of 81 injuries last season, according to physioroom.com, and lost key men such as Vincent Kompany, Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero for significant spells.

Guardiola is determined to look into every detail to ensure his players are as sharp and fit as possible.

 

Legal ketone sports supplement pushes athletes further, faster

New Scientist, Daily News from July 27, 2016

Here’s a way to pick up some speed. An energy supplement drink pushes endurance athletes over the line faster, and it is legal.

The drink, known as ?G, was originally developed for the US army, and works by releasing a ketone chemical that muscles can burn to produce energy.

Now Kieran Clarke at the University of Oxford and her colleagues have shown that their supplement really does seem to improve performance. When they gave the drink to elite cyclists, they found they were able to cycle an average of 411 metres further during a 30-minute time trial, compared with cyclists drinking a glucose drink.

 

Do injury rates effect team performance?

Mick Hughes Physiotherapy from July 26, 2016

… Before I get in to the nitty gritty, I want to pause for a second and ask a question; Whether you’re directly involved within the sporting environment as a club doctor, physio, High Performance Unit (HPU) manager, strength and conditioning coach or sport scientist, or simply you are a fan of sport in general;

How is your team fairing this year? Are they peaking nicely for the finals? Are they touch and go to make the finals? Or are you languishing at the bottom of the table?

Now I want to ask you another question;

How’s your team injury rate been this year? Does your injury rate correlate with your team’s performance? Ie. Low injury rate and sitting high on the table? Or high injury and sitting low on the table?

 

The Campbell Institute: Safety leading indicators: A data science solution (part two)

Safety+Health Magazine from July 24, 2016


… it is well known that senior leadership’s focus on lagging metrics is ineffective for driving better outcome performance. A focus on the “wrong” leading indicator is similarly unproductive. So, how can you find the “right” leading indicators to drive the organizational behaviors and conditions that result in better safety performance?

 

Is there a midweek effect on soccer performance?

Michael Lopez, StatsbyLopez blog from July 26, 2016

Playing midweek leads to an effect of about half a point in total, resulting from the home team losing about 0.2 points, while the away team gains about 0.3 points (the asymmetry results from the ‘3 points rule’)..it becomes clear that the home team loses all its home advantages in midweek games.

Interestingly, although matching is used as the primary method, selection effects (i.e., how much the weekend and weekday games differ) are weak. Primarily, conclusions are drawn as a result of the varying point totals described above.

As the authors discuss, several factors could be at play here, most notably referee bias and attendance. The authors also (gulp) suggest that testosterone levels could be linked to the poorer home team performance. In conclusion, Krumer & Lechner recommend that Bundesliga officials work to balance midweek game assignments.

 

U.S. women’s soccer team getting head start at Olympics in Brazil

The Washington Post from July 24, 2016

… One year after winning the World Cup, the Americans are No. 1 in the FIFA rankings and favored to win gold for the fifth time in the six Olympics that have featured women’s soccer. They’ll seek to become the first women’s team to conquer the Olympics and World Cup in consecutive years.

Despite the U.S. team’s status, another global honor is far from certain. Olympic soccer, for both men and women, is compact. For the women, it means up to six matches in 17 days (compared to a maximum seven in four weeks for the World Cup) and 18 rostered players, five fewer than at the World Cup. The men’s squads are limited to 18, as well.

Fatigue will stem from not only the heavy schedule but, like last year’s tournament in Canada, travel in a large country. The Americans will play their first two matches in Belo Horizonte, then journey 1600 miles into Amazonia for the group finale in Manaus.

 

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