Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 28, 2016

I am planning to cut back the distribution of this newsletter by asking longtime readers (greater than 1 year) to pay for it. Details are posted at https://sports.bradstenger.com/2016-payments.

This newsletter goes out to approximately 150 people at approximately 100 different sports and technology organizations. My goal is to reduce those numbers and then re-populate the newsletter distribution with new readers/organizations, stopping once the distribution is back to its current size (fewer than 200 readers and approximately 100 organizations).

Two 35-year-olds have been a major part of Manchester United’s upturn in form, which has seen Jose Mourinho’s side win four straight games and go unbeaten in 10 overall.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been an immediate success since his summer arrival. The Swedish striker has scored 14 goals, including five in his last five Premier League games.

“Teddy [Sheringham] was still playing at 40 and still scoring goals,” says David May, the former United defender David May covers the club for MUTV. “Teddy was never blessed with pace and nor is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, so I don’t see why he can’t continue playing. As long as he gets service, he will always score goals.

The stretching looks as painful as it does necessary. A trainer works meticulously, each motion equally gentle and firm; an iron fist in a latex glove. Limbs are pulled and pushed as the player splayed out across the table grits his teeth in acceptance. This continues for minutes before he stands and follows the next part of the routine. The process goes on for an uncomfortable while longer.

The session follows a designated shootaround that afternoon, which was preceded by an unscheduled practice earlier that morning. There is a game to be played as well, one which might require you to run, leap and fall at a rate mere mortals can never comprehend.

Or, as in the case of the Toronto Raptor’s Norman Powell, you might simply wind up a spectator.

… This season Ross has totaled 1,122 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns, solid numbers for a junior who missed last season with a torn ACL. NFL analysts have compared him to Pro Bowler DeSean Jackson, and he is capable at any moment of turning a routine catch into a spectacular score (or a spectacular catch into a routine score). So it turns out he is a pretty good receiver, and for that evolution he has kick returning to thank.

“It made me a playmaker,” Ross says. “I had so many opportunities to return kicks my sophomore year of high school I realized, hey, I can do pretty good with the ball in my hands—and I can probably do this in college, too.”

Purpose

To examine the swelling response and other markers of muscle damage throughout the early portions of a training program (Experiment 1). We also determined if a “swollen” muscle could swell further following additional exercise (Experiment 2).
Methods

Nine males performed four sets of biceps curls (or time-matched rest on control arm) at 70% of their one-repetition maximum three times over 8 days. Muscle thickness and torque were measured before and after exercise as well as on the days in between. Soreness was measured at the beginning of each day (Experiment 1). On the final day (Experiment 2), participants performed two bouts of exercise, followed by additional measures of muscle thickness.
Results

Following three bouts of exercise, muscle thickness was elevated over baseline (mean of visit 9 pre to visit 2 pre, 95% CI) at the 50% [0.21 (0.07, 0.34) cm], 60% [0.21 (0.02, 0.39) cm], and 70% [0.21 (0.06, 0.36) cm] sites. However, differences from a non-exercise control were only observed immediately following bouts of exercise (indicative of acute swelling). Torque was lower at every time point following the first bout of exercise and remained suppressed relative to pre at visit 9 [−6.1 (−11.7, −0.47 Nm] in the experimental arm. Experiment 2 found that a swollen muscle could not appreciably swell more.
Conclusion

Resting levels of muscle thickness do not appear to change beyond what occurs following the first naïve bout of exercise. Also, the acute swelling response may be used to differentiate swelling from muscle growth.

Finally, after months of non-stop work or school and busy family schedules, perhaps you’re lucky enough to get a whole week off to sleep in, relax and just languish on the couch napping. But will it make up for all those sleep-deprived days and nights you’ve racked up in recent months?

“The answer is yes and no,” said Dr. Michael Grosso, chief medical officer at Northwell Health’s Huntington Hospital, on New York’s Long Island, where he’s also medical director and chief of pediatrics.

“The short answer is yes, you can catch up on lost sleep, but making up for it depends on just how sleep-deprived you are,” Grosso told CBS News. [link to video]

Walter Mazzarri was left to bemoan his bad luck after witnessing his side limp to a 1-0 defeat at Sunderland, a game that saw another injury scare with Sebastian Prodl trudging off in the first half.

Some have drawn a correlation between head of medical Richard Collinge’s departure and the increase in the amount of players in Watford’s treatment room. It perhaps is just merely a coincidence, but under his guidance Watford had one of the best injury records in the top flight last season. Mazzarri is not benefiting from the same luxury as Quique Sanchez Flores in being able to name a settled side.

Brendan Rodgers last night insisted there was a blame culture in Scottish football which is responsible for young players not making the grade.

The Celtic manager, in a stark interview, revealed his frustration at the way some academy players who have genuine talent do not dedicate themselves to their profession.

Rodgers is a huge advocate of giving youth their chance with recent debutant Calvin Miller a prime example.

Many runners enjoy the sport for its elemental simplicity. You don’t have to learn how to hit a backhand or a curveball or a sand wedge. You don’t have to master the butterfly. You just lace on your shoes and head out the door.

Or so it seems.

However, appearances may represent only a small sliver of cognitive reality. A research group at the University of Arizona has a new view. To them, running requires a surprisingly high level of cognitive skill, particularly if you are running fast or on a challenging trail.

The team, which includes a neuroscientist, has recently completed the first functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (fcMRI) study of young, highly fit runners and non-runners of the same age.

Sports technology might start to disappear in 2017. Don’t worry, the end isn’t near; now isn’t the time to repent. Wearable gadgets are here to stay, and the data stream from sports is only going to get bigger and bigger. But the greatest technological advancement to come in the next couple of years could just be invisibility.

Fitbits, Apple Watches, and other wearables have become an ever-present sight at many sports events.

“If we were to go show up at a marathon somewhere, my bet would be that everybody in that first corral has a wearable on, if not more than one,” says Shawn DuBravac, chief economist of the Consumer Technology Association. “They consider that as important as, if not more important than other things that they might have on.”

Anyone seeking meal-time management advice will have heard the old chestnut: ‘breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a pauper’. It’s been heard so often that it’s become ostensibly important and taken for granted as a nutritional pearl of wisdom by most. But does the science underpin the ‘Royal breakfast’ theory?

It seems like every day a study comes out touting the purported health perks of a new supplement or food or beverage. Gelatin can help you recover faster! Chili pepper supps could help solve the obesity epidemic! Apple peels and green tomatoes could help preserve muscle mass! And while there’s certainly some validity to these claims and probably hundreds more, there’s still a lot “more research needed,” per the scientists behind the studies.

And while many of these things are worth trying in an “it can’t hurt” mentality, there are certain compounds in foods we’re certain work.

So, if you’re going to add apple peels and chili pepper to your diet, you should definitely add these three things in, according to Dr. James Carter, Director of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute.

Jurgen Klopp did not introduce his Liverpool players to the woman who would subtly change their lives right away. When she joined the team, at the club’s preseason camp in Palo Alto, Calif., last summer, Klopp waited a couple of days, eager to see if her actions would win them over more easily than his words.

“Usually, in preseason, the players eat as much as they can, as fast as they can,” Klopp said in an interview this month at Liverpool’s Melwood training base. He wanted them to slow down, not to “come, eat, go,” to leave their phones outside, to relax.

After a couple of days in Palo Alto, he noticed something was different. The players, aching from his demanding conditioning sessions, were lingering at their tables. They were lining up by the salad bar, intrigued by the choices. “I had not seen that atmosphere before,” he said. “They were staying to eat, and they loved it.”

The topic of low carbohydrate high fat diets (LCHF) or ketogenic diets for athletes is still hotly debated. I posted some thoughts in a blog recently but a few days a paper was published in the esteemed Journal of Physiology that studies the effects of different diets on metabolism and performance in elite athletes and one of these diets was a LCHF diet.

In his lab at Yale, Nicholas A. Christakis investigates the biological origins of our social networks, the web of relationships that we form with family, friends, co-workers, and others. He talked to Yale Insights about how ideas and behaviors spread through networks, and how leaders can shape networks to make their organizations happier and more effective.

It’s easy to imagine Andy Green in a front office. The 39-year-old former infielder graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Kentucky with a degree in finance, and his verbiage is that of a GM. Often lauded for his communication skills, he’s as analytically savvy as any manager in the game. … Green shared his thoughts on an array of topics in an impromptu conversation at the Winter Meetings.