At 5 in the morning in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, hundreds of costume-clad, endurance-oriented ultramarathoners begin lining up at the start of the Hoka One One Javelina Jundred 100-mile race. In a culture of extremes, the ultramarathon start includes a diverse group of elite athletes, weekend warriors and tattooed renegades eager to venture into the dry heat for the next 13 to 30 hours. In addition to their ambitions, these runners have brought along entire support crews to help them maintain fuel and hydration, pace through the night and face the mental demons that appear after 24 straight hours on the trail.
It’s an unlikely scene that takes place several times a year at the biggest ultramarathon races. With runners, volunteers and crew accounted for, there are all types, shapes and sizes of human represented. At this race, though, there is one notable omission from the start line: Megan Roche, the 2016 USATF ultrarunner and sub-ultrarunner of the year, four-time national ultrarunning champion, North American Mountain Running Champion and six-time member of the U.S. world ultrarunning team.
“I wanted to be there so badly!” Roche said in a phone interview. “I had to take my boards for medical school the next day. I tried to make it work, but getting on a plane at midnight and taking boards hours later just wasn’t going to fly.”
… Ultimately, whether I have any talent (I’ve accepted that I do, for what it’s worth) has become irrelevant, because I can’t fucking run. And I’d still really, really like to. Races and not. Recently, my physiotherapist made the assumption that I was still running 30-4o miles per week these last couple months (I haven’t, obviously). Gimme a fucking break. If I could run that much—consistently—I wouldn’t be here bitching about it so much! Being able to handle 40-50mpw with additional skiing or biking (season dependent), would be utopia.
Is that too much to ask? Did I really fuck myself with all those years of pointless miles? Is that why my Achilles hurts? (The prominent Haglund’s Deformity that I’ve had on that heel for literally as long as I can remember might suggest yes.) I still have so much shit I really want to do. Maybe I don’t deserve another chance, but, man, I’d really appreciate one.
Arsenal; a revolution. Of a sort. The day before a well deserved, surprising victory over the eternal rivals Spurs – even if each of the the Gunners’ actual two goals as somewhat tainted – one read of a bewildering host of appointments at the club, allegedly initiated not by Arsene Wenger himself, but by the chief executive Ivan Gazidis, a somewhat puzzling figure who recently, after being paid a huge surprising bonus, told us what a marvellous season the Gunners had just had, when, finishing in fifth place, they dramatically failed at last to reach the ranks of the European Champions Cup.
Now we learn the Gunners’ so-called chief operations officer, one Trevor Savings, has led to the various appointments. There is a so-called head of high performance, in Darren Burgess, while David Priestly will be charged with the mental preparation of the players. Not to forget the arrival of a new so-called performance nutritionist, Richard Allison. And there was I believing that Wenger himself, as soon as he initially took over, made a point of supervising that very thing.
A good many years ago now Arsenal appointed a resident psychologist, who issued the players with a questionnaire of such flatulent banality that one of the players publicly ridiculed it.
Diminished hip-abductor strength has been suggested to increase the risk of noncontact lateral ankle sprains. OBJECTIVE:
To determine prospectively whether baseline hip-abductor strength predicts future noncontact lateral ankle sprains in competitive male soccer players. DESIGN:
Prospective cohort study. SETTING:
Athletic training facilities and various athletic fields. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS:
Two hundred ten competitive male soccer players. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S):
Before the start of the sport season, isometric hip-abductor strength was measured bilaterally using a handheld dynamometer. Any previous history of ankle sprains, body mass index, age, height, and weight was documented. During the sport season (30 weeks), ankle injury status was recorded by team medical providers. Injured athletes were further classified based on the mechanism of injury. Only data from injured athletes who sustained noncontact lateral ankle sprains were used for analysis. Postseason, logistic regression was used to determine whether baseline hip strength predicted future noncontact lateral ankle sprains. A receiver operating characteristic curve was constructed for hip strength to determine the cutoff value for distinguishing between high-risk and low-risk outcomes. RESULTS:
A total of 25 noncontact lateral ankle sprains were confirmed, for an overall annual incidence of 11.9%. Baseline hip-abductor strength was lower in injured players than in uninjured players (P = .008). Logistic regression indicated that impaired hip-abductor strength increased the future injury risk (odds ratio = 1.10 [95% confidence interval = 1.02, 1.18], P = .010). The strength cutoff to define high risk was ≤33.8% body weight, as determined by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. For athletes classified as high risk, the probability of injury increased from 11.9% to 26.7%. CONCLUSIONS:
Reduced isometric hip-abductor strength predisposed competitive male soccer players to noncontact lateral ankle sprains.
Frontiers in Physiology; Brendan H. Lazarus et al. from
Aim: The use of external and internal load is an important aspect of monitoring systems in team sport. The aim of this study was to validate a novel measure of training load by quantifying the training-performance relationship of elite Australian footballers.
Methods: The primary training measure of each of 36 players was weekly load derived from a weighted combination of Global Positioning System (GPS) data and perceived wellness over a 24-week season. Smoothed loads representing an exponentially weighted rolling average were derived with decay time constants of 1.5, 2, 3, and 4 weeks. Differential loads representing rate of change in load were generated in similar fashion. Other derived measures of training included monotony, strain and acute:chronic ratio. Performance was a proprietary score derived from match performance indicators. Effects of a 1 SD within-player change below and above the mean of each training measure were quantified with a quadratic mixed model for each position (defenders, forwards, midfielders, and rucks). Effects were interpreted using standardization and magnitude-based inferences.
Results: Performance was generally highest near the mean or ~1 SD below the mean of each training measure, and 1 SD increases in the following measures produced small impairments: weekly load (defenders, forwards, and midfielders); 1.5-week smoothed load (midfielders); 4-week differential load (defenders, forwards, and midfielders); and acute:chronic ratio (defenders and forwards). Effects of other measures in other positions were either trivial or unclear.
Conclusion: The innovative combination of load was sensitive to performance in this elite Australian football cohort. Periods of high acute load and sustained increases in load impaired match performance. Positional differences should be taken into account for individual training prescription. [full text]
At this year’s EPFL Information Days, Pascal Vuilliomenet, an EPFL project manager for sports innovation, gave would-be students a cross-disciplinary talk on the latest technological advancements in his field.
As in prior years, over 3,000 prospective students came from across Switzerland to attend EPFL’s Information Days and learn about the different degree programs available at the School. They also attended talks on technological advancements in promising fields like energy transition, medtech and data science, as part of a new feature added in 2016. The presentation on sports innovation was included for the first time this year.
Discovery Magazine, D-brief, Nathaniel Scharping from
If you’ve ever spent any time at a hospital, you know what it’s like to be under constant supervision. Sensors and monitors keep track of your most basic bodily functions day and night, giving doctors and nurses to-the-second information on how you’re doing. All that supervision comes with wires and sensors taped and stuck all over a patient’s body, though, which is annoying and can throw off some readings.
Now, two Cornell University researchers say they’ve devised a way to monitor vital signs that doesn’t require skin contact. Their technique relies on small radio frequency identification (RFID) sensors, the same technology that’s in key fobs, that can pick up heartbeats, chest movements and even blood pressures, and can keep track of multiple patients at once. The technology could be useful in hospitals where round-the-clock supervision is key.
… the future of digital nutrition and dieting apps is rapidly evolving, giving consumers a plethora of options for managing their diet and exercise.
Dr. Kyra Bobinet, a physician and author who specializes in behavior change and design thinking, compares losing weight to going on a journey, and sees apps as a sort of helper.
“Dieting or losing weight is a transitional period where you are going from one thing to another,” Bobinet told MobiHealthNews. “It’s a journey and you are going to need something that helps you on that journey, but it is a very different thing to end up where you want to end up, and you may need something else at that point.”
Our bodies are full of bugs. They’re everywhere, hanging out on our skin, reproducing in our gut, growing on the glistening surface of our eyes. These bacteria, it turns out, don’t just beget other bacteria. They also beget scientific paper after scientific paper, which, in turn, beget headline after headline.
But for all our talk of microbiomes, we aren’t all that great at shaping them, says Dr. Timothy Lu, an associate professor of biological engineering and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He’s trying to change that. The two companies that have been spun off from his labwork are looking to manipulate the bacteria in our bodies in very different ways, to solve very different problems.
… Kelly was a revolutionary figure at Oregon, both in terms of using tempo on the field and his sports science approach off the field, but in some respects the rest of college football has caught up now, too, making Kelly’s second Pac-12 head coaching stint fascinating as we wait to see how he’s evolved after being so far ahead of the curve at the beginning of this decade.
Steve Kerr got a phone call Sunday morning, and he knew immediately what to do with the information he was being given.
Kevin Durant, who’d tweaked his left ankle the night before in a thrilling 24-point comeback in Philadelphia, had woken up with soreness and swelling. Right then, Kerr knew that Durant wouldn’t be suiting up Sunday night against the Nets in Brooklyn.
“It was an automatic,” Golden State’s head coach told Bleacher Report after the Warriors’ 118-111 victory over the Nets at the Barclays Center. “We’re trying to play deep into June, and so I’m not messing around.”
… City average over five sequences of 20 or more consecutive passes per game, which is freakin’ phenomenal. The next nearest side in (Opta’s) living memory is the Barcelona side of 2012/13 with 3.9, and then Bayern of 2015/16 with just over three. Guardiola’s influence here is clear. There are only two other sides who average more than 2.5 such sequences per game. City are doubling that.
They also get to the final third in over 55% of their possession sequences, at the top of the historical list along with Pep’s Bayern Munich sides of 2013-2016. For any who were sceptical about whether Guardiola could ‘do it in the Prem’, the answer is now clear.
Patient build-up is only half the story with City. A defining characteristic of Pep’s sides is how they shift through the gears, moving the ball (and consequently the opposition) from side-to-side until they spot an opening, at which point they up the pace and cut through the defence.
In world soccer, few scheduling quirks draw more ire than a double-game week. It’s standard practice in Europe for teams in the Champions League and Europa League. Add in domestic cup responsibilities, and it stretches even the clubs with massive budgets. Move that to MLS, and it’s a tough ask for any team.
MLS operates with a lack of depth. Playing 180 minutes per week, especially in the summer, stretches those squads. Players have no choice but to cut corners on their recovery time between matches to ensure they’re ready. Once these pileup, players are more susceptible to injuries.
What forces more of those double game weeks in MLS is how the league treats the international calendar. During the regular season, if a team chooses to site these ten-day windows out, they’ll have to make their matches up midweek during a different month. As international call-ups become more of an occurrence throughout the league, fewer clubs are choosing to play on these dates.
… Improvisational jazz provides another useful metaphor. This can sound magically spontaneous, bands creating music on the fly, but it adheres to rigorous musical conventions and norms. As Frank J Barrett, an expert in complex systems, put it: “Although there are many players known for their soloing, in the final analysis, jazz is an ongoing social accomplishment. What characterises successful improvisation, perhaps more than any other factor, is the ongoing give and take between members. Players are in continual dialogue and exchange with one another”.
It is no surprise, then, that Guardiola’s training methodology focuses so relentlessly on encouraging his players to encode, and further elaborate, these patterns and conventions. At Barcelona, the coach had the benefit of a group of players who had passed through La Masia, the academy, and so had been absorbing Cruyff’s ideas. They were so attuned to each other that they didn’t need to think before passing. You might call it collective chunking.