As a top prospect in the 2016 NFL draft, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz barely had time to breathe last offseason. Tumbling his way through the pre-draft spin cycle, it was visits and workouts, interviews and physicals, events and appearances, throwing and traveling.
This offseason has been a whole different story for the North Dakota native. Wentz has been working on the finer points of his image — from his eyes to his diet to his wardrobe — to look the part of an NFL starting quarterback.
At a time when an increasing number of NFL players seem to be retiring early because of the health risks the game presents, one of the league’s most insightful and intelligent players has made the exact opposite decision.
Instead of hanging it up early, Baltimore Ravens tight end Benjamin Watson has made the decision to try to extend his career. At 36, Watson is working his way back from an Achilles injury that cost him the entire 2016 season. No, it hasn’t been easy, and yes, there were times when he wondered whether it was worth it.
SB Nation, We Ain't Got No History blog, Joe Tweedie from
… Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the Manchester City chairman, recently spoke at length about the end goal of the City academy by condensing the process into a single question: “[…] how are we going to get these young men to be part of our first team?”. I would hope that his question is also something debated amongst the Football Board™ at Chelsea. Tim Palmer points out that while the answer to this question is complicated, it all starts with establishing “what is the club’s vision and philosophy to youth development”. This concept underpins absolutely everything in this topic area. Tim states that “there isn’t even a one-size-fits-all for individual player development or any particular coaching approach.” Still, our inability to produce a single first team player, post-JT, given the talent passing through the academy is alarming.
In Chelsea’s case, it is probably difficult to have an overarching philosophy that aligns with a set of coaching principles due to the ephemeral nature of the manager. Should the development philosophy, therefore, come from board level and be adhered to by the “head coach”? Chelsea’s vision appears to be a simple one: develop youngsters for profit and reinvest that money into more experienced players for the first team squad.
The New York Times, Well blog, Gretchen Reynolds from
Runners, if you have worried about your stride, relax. It is almost certainly fine, according to a comforting new study.
Researchers found that both experienced and beginning runners tend to settle into the stride that is most efficient for them. Tinkering with how you run is unlikely to be beneficial for performance and could make running more difficult, the study found.
… “Coach ‘Los, he’s come in and implemented some things that we needed,” said Terry Larrier, who is working his way back from a knee injury. “Core values that we live by now.”
Shortly after the Huskies’ injury-plagued season ended, Travis Illian left the program. Coach Kevin Ollie sought out Daniel, who was an All-Pac-12 power forward, and after his fling as a strength and conditioning coach in the NBA, at Southern Methodist under Larry Brown.
“It’s not about better,” Ollie said shortly after Daniel joined the program in April. “It’s about different. Carlos Daniel brings something different than Travis brought. Travis did a great job. I needed something different. I think the players needed something different.”
… Tasha: In researching the topic of self-awareness, one of the things we had to begin with was simply to define what it is. It’s like so many things. The words “communication” and “trust” mean something different to everyone. It took us almost an entire year of synthesizing over 800 studies [to get to a definition.]
“Self-awareness” essentially has two parts: internal self-awareness is understanding our values, our passions, our aspirations, our personality. And then external self-awareness is knowing how other people see us.
What we found in our research is that most people are okay in one, but have a significant amount of room to improve in the other.
There is a large amount of information regarding risk factors for fifth metatarsal stress fractures; however, there are few studies involving large numbers of subjects.
This study aimed to compare the static foot alignment and distribution of foot pressure of athletes with and without a history of fifth metatarsal stress fractures. Methods
The study participants comprised 335 collegiate male soccer players. Twenty-nine with a history of fifth metatarsal stress fractures were in the fracture group and 306 were in the control group (with subgroups as follows: 30 in the fracture foot group and 28 in the non-fracture group). We measured the foot length, arch height, weight-bearing leg–heel alignment, non-weight-bearing leg–heel alignment, forefoot angle relative to the rearfoot, forefoot angle relative to the horizontal axis, and foot pressure. Results
The non-weight-bearing leg–heel alignment was significantly smaller and the forefoot angle relative to the rearfoot was significantly greater in the fracture foot group than in the control foot group (P = 0.049 and P = 0.038, respectively). With regard to plantar pressure, there were no significant differences among the groups.
Midfield players had significantly higher rates of fifth metatarsal stress fracture in their histories, whereas defenders had significantly lower rates (chi-square = 13.2, P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in the frequency of fifth metatarsal stress fractures according to the type of foot (kicking foot vs. pivoting foot) or the severity of ankle sprain.
Conclusions
Playing the midfield position and having an everted rearfoot and inverted forefoot alignment were associated with fifth metatarsal stress fractures. This information may be helpful for preventing fifth metatarsal stress fracture recurrence. More detailed load evaluations and a prospective study are needed in the future. [full text]
Sensing Future Technologies, a startup company based in Coimbra, Portugal, has developed a system called PhysioSensing that relies on a dense electronic pressure pad to assess a variety of characteristics about a person’s physical state, including balance, limits of stability, and related parameters. It can also be used, in a combination with gaming software, to help people with neurological and musculoskeletal conditions to rehabilitate. We had a chance to speak with one of the company founders, Pedro De Jesus Mendes, about PhysioSensing and to find out how it works and what it can offer to patients and rehabilitation specialists.
Symptom checkers or automated triage tools? Whatever you call them, the accuracy of these programs is often faulty because the advice tends to rely on the assumptions buried in the questions it triggers, according to Boston-based Buoy Health Cofounder and CEO Dr. Andrew Le. He believes his business is taking a smarter approach
He believes Buoy Health is taking a smarter approach than the likes of, say, WebMD by feeding its program 18,000 clinical papers. The idea is to trigger more thoughtful follow-up questions and reach more informed recommendations for what to do next, Le said in a phone interview. The goal is to do a better job of triaging patients by recommending urgent care facilities for minor cases and to ensure that patients who should be in the emergency room get there.
Graphene is the wonder material that can do everything from detect cancer to creating special paint coatings that change color when a building is in need of repair. Its latest trick? Giving you a sweet tattoo, apparently!
Created by a team of researchers led by Deji Akinwande and Nanshu Lu at the University of Texas at Austin, the graphene-based tattoos can be laminated onto skin using water, much like a temporary tattoo. Unlike regular tattoos, however, the test tattoos the team has developed are transparent — with the “sweet” part of the equation coming from their potential applications, rather than their looks.
“Unlike ordinary temporary tattoos, the graphene tattoos can function as sensors for various vital signs such as the electrical signals from the body, skin temperature, and hydration,” Akinwande, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering, told Digital Trends.
Lower extremity stress fractures are not limited to members of the armed forces, but have been studied extensively in military populations. That body of evidence has important implications for stress fracture prevention and management in runners, other athletes, and even nonathletes.
Runner's World, Sweat Science blog, Alex Hutchinson from
One of the most vexed questions in sports science these days is how much water weight you can afford to lose before your performance suffers. The standard rule of thumb is that losing 2 percent of your starting weight signals trouble; in contrast, in-competition measurements have found that top athletes generally lose far more. Haile Gebrselassie lost roughly 10 percent of his starting weight during several marathons, including a world-record run, according to one study.
And now, a new study suggests that in ultra-endurance events, you might lose as much as 6 percent of your starting weight without being at all dehydrated. That’s because weight loss doesn’t necessarily correspond to water loss.
A new high-precision feeding system for lab mice reinforces the idea that the time of day food is eaten is more critical to weight loss than the amount of calories ingested.
Mice on a reduced calorie plan that ate only during their normal feeding/active cycle were the only ones among five groups to lose weight, despite consuming the same amount as another group fed during their rest time in daylight, according to the study at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
… Teams utilize film and scouting services such as Synergy Sports Technology to streamline the process of accessing that information. Data science and technology are now also playing an increasing role in the fans perception of draft prospects, as ESPN is one of the many groups that create their own statistical models designed to identify which players are more likely to succeed at the next level, and which players have a higher probability of disappointing. Overall, data science has been trickling into every part of the NBA scouting process, from the front office to the media to the fans and is altering it in new ways.
Data science really started to enlarge its profile in the world of basketball scouting after the introduction of Synergy Sports Technology. It is a service that collects film and statistics and compiles it into an easily accessible and user friendly database. Game film is cut from the NBA, Division I college basketball, the G-League, and leagues all across Europe and Asia. Using this computer program, scouts are able to track the most minute of details and statistics and then immediately access the relevant game film in order for them to see those statistics in action. This means that scouts are easily able to see the efficiency with which a certain player drives to the basket with his left hand, and then see clips of him doing that exact thing.
The counterintuitive theory has pervaded books, studies, and Reddit threads and is something of a rally cry for LCHF converts. But while there may be some benefit to monitoring insulin levels, there’s no need to cut out all carbs quite yet.