… “My work has always been: I’m going to run through a wall to get what I want,” Lucas said as she warmed up for a 90-minute physical therapy session Tuesday by riding 20 minutes on a stationary bicycle. Now, the 25-year-old must take time to examine the wall. Her work still would exhaust most species. She’d already been to a gym in Havertown, did some cardio work, some upper-body strength work. Her day includes touch shooting on her driveway, ballhandling work in her basement. She believes that was important after her first surgery.
“I never felt like I lost my form, lost my touch,’’ Lucas said. “I kept the ball in my hands. I never lost that.”
McEachran and his brother Josh began at Chelsea. But whereas Josh is now at Brentford, Zac is among the hopefuls participating from Monday at the Vardy academy designed to help non-league talent into the professional game
… Great performers like Joyner choose where to focus their energy and protect it from everything else that could encroach upon it. This includes even seemingly simple things, like deciding what style of shirt to wear. And Joyner isn’t alone. In the reporting for our new book, Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success, nearly every great performer we spoke with developed daily routines to eliminate the trivial and maximize time spent on important things. In other words, to be a maximalist in a particular field, the world’s best are minimalists in nearly everything else. Here’s what you can learn from them.
… There’s a difference between addressing bad behavior and changing bad norms. The first requires confronting the inappropriate meanderings of one or two individuals. The second is about resetting the norms of an entire group. Here are some suggestions for new managers who see the need for quick and fundamental change.
Is it me or is it them? First, get feedback from trusted sources to ensure your concerns are a matter of principle not of taste. For example, Paula should consult HR to ensure her new standards don’t conflict with company policy. She might also tap into colleagues who fit three criteria: (1) having a view of her work group; (2) having a sense of broader company norms; and (3) telling her the truth — even if she doesn’t like it.
The research aim of this study was to determine possible hormone predictors of physical performance in adolescent team sport athletes. Saliva samples were collected immediately prior to performance testing sessions from 114 state squad athletes (77 male, 37 female) participating in either Australian football, basketball, hockey, or netball. Participants completed tests of aerobic and anaerobic capacity, agility, power and speed. Samples were collected over 22 months at quarterly, six-monthly and/or yearly intervals depending on the testing schedule of the athlete. Saliva was analysed for testosterone (T), cortisol (C), estradiol (E) and progesterone (P) levels. A strong negative correlation existed between multistage fitness test performance and T:E ratio (r=-0.76, p=0.01) in females not taking oral contraceptives and a strong positive correlation existed between repeat agility total time and estradiol levels (r=-0.71, p=0.001) in females taking oral contraceptives. In males, strong negative correlations were evident for individual changes in planned agility time and estradiol levels (r=0.87, p=0.02), and CMJ height and T:C (r=-0.88, p=0.01). In females taking oral contraceptives a strong positive correlation was noted between individual change in yo-yo intermittent recovery test performance and T:E (r=0.74, p=0.01) and a strong negative correlation was noted between 20m speed and T:P (r=0.73, p=0.01). In females not taking oral contraceptives a strong negative correlation was found between individual change in CMJ height and T:P (r=-0.72, p=0.02). The findings show that in adolescent team sport athletes the P:E, T:E and the T:P ratios are important predictors of performance in tests of physical capacity. The findings also indicate estradiol and progesterone have a predictive function in the physical performance of adolescent male team sport athletes.
Of all the areas of the body susceptible to running related pain or injury, most runners will agree that the calves rank high. … So, let’s take a look at what most of us should be doing to reduce the incidence of calf injuries.
… To get fired up for their upcoming games against Scotland and France, manager Gareth Southgate and several members of the squad visited the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre, where, according to the press release, the team donned camo uniforms and got dunked in cold water. Do yourself a favor and go look at the photos of a very groomed Harry Kane standing like a financier’s renegade son sent to military school to learn a little respect.
Why did these high-priced footballers play military dress-up for the weekend? “We wanted to come and put the guys into a different environment, something they weren’t expecting,” Southgate explained. “The Marines talk about a dislocated expectation, and that was part of the theme of the camp—how will we be adaptable in moments of difficulty for us as a team?”
The smell of bacon wafts through the most unorthodox office in Schembechler Hall on a spring morning in Ann Arbor. Separated from the rest of the staffers, Fergus Connolly can stand in his doorway in the corner of Michigan’s football facility and keep an eye on the team’s buffet-style training table.
The L-shape desk tucked inside is decorated with stacks of journal articles and other reading material. Two wardrobe-sized, metal bookshelves sit on the other side of the room, crammed full of an eclectic collection that ranges in subject from ancient Chinese medicine to general systems theory to one on the psychological effects of training a soldier to kill. On top of the shelves are heart rate variability monitors and GPS tracking devices and tools for recording sleep habits. He has at his disposal elsewhere in the building a number of other fancy gadgets and data-gathering tools.
The real estate and the resources are well and good, but Connolly didn’t request any of them when he followed Jim Harbaugh from the San Francisco 49ers to work for him as Michigan’s director of football performance. (In fact, the only thing he asked for specifically when taking the job was an overstuffed, backside-swallowing black recliner that formerly sat in the boss’ office. Harbaugh obliged.) That’s because what Connolly learned while picking up a master’s degree in advanced manufacturing and a doctorate in computer science before entering the sports world is that the finest technology in the world is only as effective as the person driving it.
A proper running technique focusing on every step can help an athlete increase efficiency while preventing injury. Specifically, how the foot strikes the ground can affect performance, comfort, and even pain following an exercise routine.
Engineers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University have developed an electronic insole that is able to sense the pressure on the feet on every step, displaying and recording the data continuously to help improve a runner’s gait and to help prevent injury.
Researchers from MIT’s Media Lab have developed a tattoo ink that changes colour according to varying glucose and pH levels inside the body.
The DermalAbyss project is the result of a collaboration between Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students Katia Vega, Xin Liu, Viirj Kan and Nick Barry and Harvard Medical School students Ali Yetisen and Nan Jian.
To say Bill Clark’s plate is full today on the second anniversary of UAB football’s return would be an understatement.
He has to get his football team ready to play by the first weekend in September for the first time in three years. He also has to move his entire football program into its sparkling new Operations Center in a month.
Those tasks alone would overwhelm some coaches, but Clark has been working behind the scenes on another project near and dear to his heart.
He wants to bring the UAB football program, the undergraduate side of the university and the medical center together in a new way. He wants to construct a Center for Sports Medicine Excellence on campus that could benefit his program, the university and the entire state.
The NFL Players’ Association proposal to alter the league’s substance-abuse policy and take a more “lenient” approach to marijuana will seek involvement from players’ families, too.
Union executive George Atallah said in an interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio that the NFLPA believes players are using marijuana to self-medicate. To address why and how, and to better examine players’ overall health, requires involving their families, he said.
“We believe that is the result of players trying to deal with managing pain on their own as opposed to going through a medical professional,” Atallah told hosts Alex Marvez and Geoff Schwartz. “If that’s the case, we need to really take a hard look at what’s causing them to self-medicate, how we can take better care of players in the locker room and how we can incorporate frankly all of the families of players into this solution.
… Privately, many aspiring African-American coaches and GMs believe they are being tabbed as not being schooled in basketball analytics, so they are being passed over for opportunities. Many did not want to speak on the record for fear of jeopardizing their chances for an employment opportunity. The league has taken a dramatic turn over the past decade toward more analytical thinking. Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge has filled his staff with analytical thinkers, including assistant GM Michael Zarren, who is considered one of the league’s bright minds. But some former players privately believe their basketball acumen from playing is being overlooked because they are not considered analytics freaks.
“That may be part of the problem,” Silver said. “Without weighing in on the balance between real-life basketball experience and analytics, I think these things are a bit cyclical. But there’s a trend right now toward the analytics folks and I think that’s one of the reasons I should have mentioned that in terms of a league training program, to make sure former players or others who are coming up through the basketball line also feel they have that competency in analytics.
… “I think to ignore that information would be not wise on my part,” Laviolette said Sunday. “There’s a lot of information out there that can help guide you to how your team’s playing, how a player’s playing, how a line is playing, how a matchup works.
“There’s just a lot of information out there. I think you’re crazy not to use that information.”
That information strongly suggested the Predators should have been optimistic of their chances after losing the first two games of the Final to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and they were rewarded for their strong play with a 5-1 win at home in Game 3 on Saturday.
… According to Germany coach Joachim Low, increasing the number of teams to this amount will simply dilute the quality of the tournament. FIFA President Gianni Infantino argued that the quality of football is improving around the world. So who is right?
One way of answering this question is to look at the impact of the changes in the number of teams on “competitive balance” in the World Cup since 1930. Competitive balance is a measure of the sporting parity between teams. More specifically, we can examine the intra-game competitive balance which refers to the percentage of time during a match in which there is a difference of no more than one goal between the two teams. The higher the percentage, the better the competitive balance.