Applied Sports Science newsletter – October 31, 2016

When the crowd finally walked away, Darrelle Revis revealed his truth.

“My body’s breaking down,” the Jets cornerback told Newsday.

Once a one-man island in Rex Ryan’s defensive schemes, Revis was the player former Jets coaches entrusted to blanket half of the field all by himself. Now he’s realizing that those game-day scars never go away. The pain lingers. The recovery time is longer. The inevitable decline is slow but steady.

… This week, Atkinson made his debut as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets, with Lin as his starting point guard—a bit of happy symmetry for two basketball vagabonds who got here the hard way and almost certainly wouldn’t be here without each other.

Brought together by basketball, reunited by friendship, Lin and Atkinson now face their greatest challenge: making the Nets respectable.

… Soon, however, Raiola was selling players in Italy. In Foggia he had got to know the club’s coach, a workaholic Czech named Zdenek Zeman. They had talked football obsessively. One day Raiola told him, “The footballer you want doesn’t exist. That’s the perfect footballer: one who runs 17km a match, dribbles like Maradona, and can train harder than you can imagine.”

But then, in the mid-1990s, through contacts in the Czech Republic, Raiola spotted Zeman’s perfect footballer — another Czech, Pavel Nedved. Raiola today says: “Pavel Nedved is an extremist. The only thing he thinks of himself is that he can’t play football. But he can train harder than the rest.” Nedved would train at his club as a kind of aperitif, and then come home and train much harder in his garden. In 1996, Raiola sold Nedved to Zeman’s new club, Lazio in Rome.

The two Czechs reinforced the lesson Raiola had learnt from his dad: “extremists” succeed.

The last few months of the year are a good time to work on key running skills, which are often neglected in a target-oriented race-training schedule. But by spending time working on your form, cadence, pace and sense of effort, you’ll be setting down the building blocks for future running success.

Improving your cadence – the number of steps you take per minute – is beneficial, as a quicker stride rate tends to encourage lighter form and reduces the risk of overstriding. ‘As you increase cadence, you tend to bring your landing foot closer to your centre of mass,’ says Peter Larson, an exercise physiologist and author of Tread Lightly.

The ability to sense how hard or fast you are going is an essential racing skill, but even if you run simply for fitness, a reliable pace sense is valuable, as you’ll find it easier to lock in to the intensity needed for different workouts.

… Moving our training to indoor sessions on the treadmill is one of the easiest switches people frequently make.

Is this potentially a recipe for muscle imbalances and injuries? It’s certainly worth thinking of the implications of training exclusively on treadmills before you embark on a winter indoors.

When we run outside, the ground beneath us does not move; it provides a solid surface that opposes the forces placed upon it by the sole of your foot. Running outside, we use our hamstrings, glutes and lower back muscles to push off against the ground.

UND coach Brad Berry was comfortable with double-shifting Tucker Poolman and Gage Ausmus during Saturday night’s 5-4 win over Bemidji State.

And there’s good reason for it.

This season, Berry and his staff have been closely monitoring players’ heart rates during practices and off-ice workouts to know exactly what they can handle and how fast their bodies can recover from exerting energy.

Each player wears a monitor, placed over their heart. It’s held on by an elastic band that wraps around the upper torso of their bodies.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between changes in running performance and the stress-recovery state in collegiate soccer players. Running performance was evaluated in seven Division I NCAA male soccer players (179.39+/-5.24 cm; 75.46+/-5.98 kg; 20.37+/-1.41 yrs.) via global positioning system over the course of 12 competitive games in a single season. The regular season was divided into four competitive blocks: B1 (n=3), B2 (n=3), B3 (n=3) and B4 (n=3). Total distance and distance covered while engaging in walking, jogging, low-speed running, high-speed running, sprinting, low-intensity running and high-intensity running were assessed during each block. The RESTQ 52 Sport was administered twice during each block to evaluate measures of stress and recovery. Total distance was greater during B4 compared to B1 (p=0.027). Jogging and low-speed running were greater during B4 compared to all other time points (p’s <= 0.05). Low-intensity running distance was greater during B4 compared to B1 (p=0.034). Sport-specific recovery decreased significantly during B4 compared to B1 (p=0.035). Correlational analysis indicated that high-velocity running was associated with increased stress, while low-velocity running was associated with greater recovery. However, changes in sport specific recovery did not correlate with changes in running performance from B1 to B4. Results of this study indicate that running performance decreased across the season. Changes in running performance coincided with a decrease in sport specific recovery. Practitioners may benefit from including the RESTQ as part of an assessment battery to monitor the stress/recovery state of athletes.

Purpose: Our goal was to quantify if small (1%–3%) changes in running economy quantitatively affect distance-running performance. Based on the linear relationship between metabolic rate and running velocity and on earlier observations that added shoe mass increases metabolic rate by ~1% per 100 g per shoe, we hypothesized that adding 100 and 300 g per shoe would slow 3000-m time-trial performance by 1% and 3%, respectively.

Methods: Eighteen male sub-20-min 5-km runners completed treadmill testing, and three 3000-m time trials wearing control shoes and identical shoes with 100 and 300 g of discreetly added mass. We measured rates of oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production and calculated metabolic rates for the treadmill tests, and we recorded overall running time for the time trials.

Results: Adding mass to the shoes significantly increased metabolic rate at 3.5 m·s−1 by 1.11% per 100 g per shoe (95% confidence interval = 0.88%–1.35%). While wearing the control shoes, participants ran the 3000-m time trial in 626.1 ± 55.6 s. Times averaged 0.65% ± 1.36% and 2.37% ± 2.09% slower for the +100-g and +300-g shoes, respectively (P < 0.001). On the basis of a linear fit of all the data, 3000-m time increased 0.78% per added 100 g per shoe (95% confidence interval = 0.52%–1.04%).

Conclusion: Adding shoe mass predictably degrades running economy and slows 3000-m time-trial performance proportionally. Our data demonstrate that laboratory-based running economy measurements can accurately predict changes in distance-running race performance due to shoe modifications.

Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are common, and children as young as 10 years of age exhibit movement patterns associated with an ACL injury risk. Prevention programs have been shown to reduce injury rates, but the mechanisms behind these programs are largely unknown. Few studies have investigated biomechanical changes after injury prevention programs in children.

Purpose/Hypothesis: To investigate the effects of the F-MARC 11+ injury prevention warm-up program on changes to biomechanical risk factors for an ACL injury in preadolescent female soccer players. We hypothesized that the primary ACL injury risk factor of peak knee valgus moment would improve after training. In addition, we explored other kinematic and kinetic variables associated with ACL injuries.

Study Design: Controlled laboratory study.

Methods: A total of 51 female athletes aged 10 to 12 years were recruited from soccer clubs and were placed into an intervention group (n = 28; mean [±SD] age, 11.8 ± 0.8 years) and a control group (n = 23; mean age, 11.2 ± 0.6 years). The intervention group participated in 15 in-season sessions of the F-MARC 11+ program (2 times/wk). Pre- and postseason motion capture data were collected during preplanned cutting, unanticipated cutting, double-leg jump, and single-leg jump tasks. Lower extremity joint angles and moments were estimated using OpenSim, a biomechanical modeling system.

Results: Athletes in the intervention group reduced their peak knee valgus moment compared with the control group during the double-leg jump (mean [±standard error of the mean] pre- to posttest change, –0.57 ± 0.27 %BW×HT vs 0.25 ± 0.25 %BW×HT, respectively; P = .034). No significant differences in the change in peak knee valgus moment were found between the groups for any other activity; however, the intervention group displayed a significant pre- to posttest increase in peak knee valgus moment during unanticipated cutting (P = .044). Additional analyses revealed an improvement in peak ankle eversion moment after training during preplanned cutting (P = .015), unanticipated cutting (P = .004), and the double-leg jump (P = .016) compared with the control group. Other secondary risk factors did not significantly improve after training, although the peak knee valgus angle improved in the control group compared with the intervention group during unanticipated cutting (P = .018).

Conclusion: The F-MARC 11+ program may be effective in improving some risk factors for an ACL injury during a double-leg jump in preadolescent athletes, most notably by reducing peak knee valgus moment.

Clinical Relevance: This study provides motivation for enhancing injury prevention programs to produce improvement in other ACL risk factors, particularly during cutting and single-leg tasks.

British digital health startup BioBeats is evolving, in part because of technological advances and in part because of a hardware supply problem.

The hardware issue comes courtesy of Microsoft, which seems to be withdrawing from the wearables market by phasing out the Microsoft Band fitness tracker. BioBeats had issued the Microsoft Band 2 to 560 UK employees of French bank BNP Paribas for a pilot on workplace stress and wellness.

That study wrapped up in August. BioBeats said earlier this month that the startup collected more than 60 gigabytes of data and ran that information through the BioBeats artificial intelligence engine. Neither BioBeats nor the academic researcher who ran the study has released any tangible results yet, but the company said in a press release that “scientific findings include perceived/actual stress, links between stress and ruminators, and the outcome of breathing as an intervention.”

… Here’s how Team USA uses emerging technologies to get the gold — and what the future holds for super-athletes. … From 2008 to 2012, very little happened among sports wearables. “Then, magically, between 2012 and today, there have been so many great, well-established companies that are looking at sports today,” Zok said. Those same companies are creating small, lightweight wearables that can track performance without interrupting training. The results, based on Team USA’s gold medal count, are clear.

… injuries — minor or serious — take their toll on teams. Once October and November roll around, the training room tends to grow into a small community of players and trainers.

“It ebbs and flows every year,” said Mark Mayer, Nebraska’s head football athletic trainer, “because you’re six, seven, eight games into the season. Guys get beat up every weekend, things get a little busy.”

Aside from the daily and weekly nicks and bruises, Nebraska’s training room has had a high occupancy rate recently. A bad hamstring sidelined senior wide receiver Brandon Reilly for the Oregon game, sophomore guard Tanner Farmer (ankle sprain) missed a game, Cethan Carter (elbow) and Jordan Westerkamp (back) left the Illinois victory, and offensive tackles Nick Gates and David Knevel have been dealing with ankle injuries.

Background: Studies have shown that previous injury, not necessarily anatomically related, is an important injury risk factor. However, it is not known whether a player runs an increased risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury after returning to play from other injury types.

Purpose: To analyze whether professional soccer players are more susceptible to ACL injury after returning to play from any previous injury.

Study Design: Case-control study; Level of evidence, 3.

Methods: A total of 101 elite male soccer players suffering a first-time complete ACL injury between 2001 and 2014 were included and matched according to team, age, and playing position with control players who did not have a current injury (1:1 match). For each injured player, the 90-day period prior to the ACL injury was analyzed for injuries and compared with that of control players by using odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs.

Results: The odds of a player with an ACL injury sustaining a previous injury in the 90-day period did not differ significantly from that of controls (OR, 1.20; 95% CI, 0.66-2.17; P = .65). Testing the frequency of absence periods due to injury between the groups revealed that the odds of a player with an ACL injury having a previous period of absence due to injury did not differ compared with controls (OR, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.64-2.01; P = .77).

Conclusion: Players with ACL injury did not have a greater occurrence of absence due to injury in the 3 months preceding their ACL injury compared with matched controls. This indicates that previous injury of any type does not increase the risk of suffering an ACL injury.

Antonio Conte says the nutritional changes he has introduced at Chelsea this season are in the best interests of his players’ health, as well as their fitness.

Club sources told ESPN FC back in August that Conte had taken pizza, ketchup, brown sauce and fizzy drinks off the menu at Cobham, as well as implementing a gruelling preseason regime of double training sessions intended to boost the conditioning of his new squad.

The new head coach’s changes appear to have yielded immediate results on the pitch. Chelsea have finished the majority of their first nine Premier League matches strongly this season, scoring six goals after the 75th minute — two more than any other team in the top flight.

… Marc Berk, a health policy researcher, got the checkbox idea on vacation in New York. He noticed that museum-goers who couldn’t pay the requested donation fee had to explain why — a demeaning procedure. He wondered whether something similar kept lower-income families away from youth sports.

Berk persuaded officials in Gaithersburg to amend their fee-waiver process. Instead of requiring families to fill out forms proving their need, administrators added a checkbox to the sign-up form. It says, “I am a resident of the City, and I am requesting a waiver of all fees.”

Waiver requests soared by 1,200 percent. Participation jumped 31 percent; for children who attend high-poverty schools, it shot up almost 80 percent.