Applied Sports Science newsletter – January 12, 2017

Green spoke in-depth with the NBPA about his memories of the life-changing experience, mindset today, medical outreach and much more. His conversation is presented below in a first-person perspective and edited for clarity and length.

There is never much warning about Kekuta Manneh. Even among things that arrive with jarring suddenness, like fevers and flat tires, Manneh’s game is an abrupt soliloquy. There is rolling darkness and suddenly light, and Manneh is flying by and gone before both feet plant.

It is fortuitous, then, that Manneh found himself in Vancouver at the proscribed time. That is, under speed demon Carl Robinson, with a rumbling hot rod engine under the hood and a willingness to push tempo behind him along the flanks. It has not always worked. Vancouver of 2016 was by and large a faltering serious of foundation cracks, and Manneh missed the entire back half of it with a foot injury. If it was not a lost season for Manneh personally, then it certainly was for the organization.

And yet Manneh is waking up to an entirely new reality in 2017. His foot healing, Manneh was a surprise addition to Bruce Arena’s first January camp.

Michael Bradley has played for three coaches with the U.S. national team, one of whom was his father, Bob Bradley. But family ties notwithstanding, Bradley made little effort Wednesday to hide his enthusiasm over Bruce Arena’s return as manager.

“I’m very excited to be back playing for Bruce,” said Bradley, the U.S. captain. “He was the one who gave me my first opportunity with the national team. And that’s not something you ever forget.”

Periodization is a core concept in training. Recently, systematic reviews and meta-analyses have attempted to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic, but theoretical criticisms have arisen with regard to how such research has been conducted. The purpose of the study was to review comprehensively the conceptual and methodological issues surrounding empirical research on periodization in training with human subjects. A search was conducted late in February 2016 on Academic Search Complete, CINAHL Plus, MedicLatina, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scielo, Scopus, SPORTDiscus and Web of Science. Forty-two randomized or randomized controlled trials were retrieved. Problems emerged in three domains: (a) Conceptually, periodization and variation were applied differently in research, while no empirical research tested predictions concerning direction, timing or magnitude of the adaptations; (b) Study design: More than 95% of papers investigated the ‘physical’ factor (mainly strength). Research on long-term effects was absent (no study lasted more than nine months). Controlling for confounding factors such as nutrition, supplementation and medication was largely ignored; (c) Data analysis was biased as dispersion in responsiveness was ignored when discussing the findings. Overall, research on periodization fails to analyze the conceptual premises proposed by these approaches.

When Nike announced their sub-two-hour marathon attempt last month, there was lots of discussion about the three runners they chose—including behind the scenes here at Runner’s World.

In my initial article about the project, I described Ethiopian runner Lelisa Desisa, who turns 27 on January 14, as “the young gun and potentially the most untapped” of the three runners (the other two: Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya and Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea).

But in the weeks since then, my colleague Scott Douglas and I have been debating just how untapped Desisa is. Is his trajectory upward and his horizon limitless? Or has the bloom of a promising start—a 2:04:45 victory at Dubai in his debut in 2013, followed by a win at the Boston Marathon a few months later—faded in the years of up-and-down results since then?

Sure, it can be tiring going to work after a bad night’s sleep shortened by a snoring spouse, a bawling baby or staying up late to watch a game that didn’t end until after midnight (and during which your team lost). But at least you didn’t have to spend the night flying across a continent — or farther — before battling elite competitors who are trying to bust your chops.

That’s what athletes often must go through.

Consider the Denver Nuggets, who will play the Indiana Pacers in London on Thursday (3 p.m. ET) as part of the NBA’s Global Games series. Between Saturday night’s game in Oklahoma City and the London contest, the Nuggets were given just four days off to adjust to a difference of six time zones. They will then get three days off before their next game, which is back in Denver, a seven-hour change from London. Then the Nuggets will fly to Los Angeles and face the Lakers the very next night.

How does so much travel affect athletes’ sleep and performance?

The U.S. Soccer Federation hired Nico Romeijn of the Netherlands in June 2015 as its Director of Coaching Education. Romeijn previously served as the Head of Education for the Dutch federation (KNVB).

SOCCER AMERICA: After one and a half years on the job, what would you say have been your biggest accomplishments?

NICO ROMEIJN: I don’t like to talk about the biggest accomplishments, but the steps we have made because we are talking about a long-term project. Besides that, I want to emphasize that we are talking about a team effort of the Coaching Education team. Having said that, we introduced the U.S. Soccer philosophy on reality-based learning. This philosophy, together with the method of experiential learning based on a holistic approach, is the fundament for all our licenses.

… Amazon invests its’ time, energy and finances into the things that won’t be changing, instead of worrying about or trying to predict the things that are changing. It’s a sound strategy that has paid off handsomely for Amazon.

What if we did the same in youth sports? What if we stopped worrying about everything that changes, and instead focus on the one thing that does not?

We have had many changes recently – and will continue to see changes – in the youth sports landscape. In the US alone, we have seen a calendar year change in youth soccer dismantle teams. We have seen the introduction of American Development Models in almost every sport, small-sided games initiatives, and restrictions on things like heading in soccer and checking in hockey.

… Just this past season, four head coaches were hospitalized. As Dick Vermeil, a coach who retired from the Philadelphia Eagles in 1999 because he felt emotionally and physically ill told ESPN, “[A head coach is] like an engine. You can blow up a Porsche if you drive it too hard, and a football coach is no different.”

As a former NFL assistant coach with the Kansas City Chiefs, Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns, I “paid my dues” for five years to maintain the respect of my peers. The first purchase I made as an NFL coaching intern was a twin blowup mattress to put in my office. Although I rented an apartment in Kansas City, I spent most nights sleeping at Arrowhead Stadium. Why? So I could be the first one in the office. Most days would start at 4:30 a.m. and conclude around midnight. I chose to walk away from the world of coaching after my last stint with the Browns because my 3-year-old son told me that he had never seen me eat breakfast.

This practice of negotiating a gauntlet of 20-hour workdays is a hereditary condition that gets passed from branch to branch of coaching trees.

… The first thing your team is counting on you to do is to question unreasonable targets before accepting them. Too few managers have the courage or the wherewithal to do anything but roll over when their boss hands them an astronomically high number. If you receive a target for your team that you believe is unattainable, it’s your responsibility to share your concerns. The point is not to reject the goals, which might have negative repercussions on your career. Instead, you must calmly and rationally share the facts and highlight your concerns.

Exercise adherence is affected by factors including perceptions of enjoyment, time availability, and intrinsic motivation. Approximately 50% of individuals withdraw from an exercise program within the first 6 mo of initiation, citing lack of time as a main influence. Time efficient exercise such as high intensity interval training (HIIT) may provide an alternative to moderate intensity continuous exercise (MICT) to elicit substantial health benefits. This study examined differences in enjoyment, affect, and perceived exertion between MICT and HIIT. Twelve recreationally active men and women (age = 29.5 ± 10.7 yr, VO2max = 41.4 ± 4.1 mL/kg/min, BMI = 23.1 ± 2.1 kg/m2) initially performed a VO2max test on a cycle ergometer to determine appropriate workloads for subsequent exercise bouts. Each subject returned for two additional exercise trials, performing either HIIT (eight 1 min bouts of cycling at 85% maximal workload (Wmax) with 1 min of active recovery between bouts) or MICT (20 min of cycling at 45% Wmax) in randomized order. During exercise, rating of perceived exertion (RPE), affect, and blood lactate concentration (BLa) were measured. Additionally, the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) was completed after exercise. Results showed higher enjoyment (p = 0.013) in response to HIIT (103.8 ± 9.4) versus MICT (84.2 ± 19.1). Eleven of 12 participants (92%) preferred HIIT to MICT. However, affect was lower (p<0.05) and HR, RPE, and BLa were higher (p<0.05) in HIIT versus MICT. Although HIIT is more physically demanding than MICT, individuals report greater enjoyment due to its time efficiency and constantly changing stimulus.

As with most things in the tech realm – announcements from companies at CES usually fall into one of two camps: software or hardware. This year we saw many software focused announcements in the fitness/sports technology space. I suspect in part because so many companies instead shifted hardware product announcements earlier, to the fall, thus enabling units to be sold for the holidays, as well as putting them in position for future spring hardware announcements (fall/spring releases).

For example, we saw TomTom and Fitbit both make software-only fitness announcements at CES. And both of those companies released new products within a few days of each other this past September. I’ll likely cover Fitbit’s software changes (which I’ve spent some hands-on time with) in a separate post.

But this post is all about TomTom’s announcement – which was focused on a much-needed app refresh.

At the start of a new year many of us make resolutions about becoming healthier. For you it might be about adopting a new fitness routine, or maybe starting a new diet. Whatever it might be, there is no shortage of businesses that want to sell you stuff to help you meet your goals. But we often overlook some of the most basic ways to get healthy.

Dr. James Hamblin is a senior editor at The Atlantic and he is the author of “If Our Bodies Could Talk: A Guide to Operating and Maintaining the Human Body.” His book delves into health topics as basic as staying hydrated, and more complicated issues concerning our health care system and economic inequality. He gives us some health insight on the show this week. [audio, 9:00]

The dietary supplements had ominous names, like Black Widow and Yellow Scorpion. They contained an illegal and potentially dangerous molecule, similar in structure to amphetamines.

But when a Harvard researcher dared to point that out, in a scientific, peer-reviewed study and in media interviews, the supplement maker sued him for libel and slander.

STAT has conducted the first detailed look at the legal showdown that followed by interviewing key players and reviewing hundreds of pages of trial transcripts and other court documents.

In one of my favorite posts of 2016, Tango talks about Win Shares, and about forcing individual player totals are forced to add up to the team’s actual wins, and what that kind of accounting actually implies.

I was going to add my agreement to what Tango said, but then I got sidetracked about the idea of assigning team wins to individual players, even without the “forcing” aspect.

I thought, even if the player wins exactly add up to the team wins without forcing them to do that … well, even then, does the concept make sense?