… while 36-year-old Federer should arrive refreshed and ready for his Open title defence after a soothing family holiday, many of his chief rivals remain under serious fitness clouds.
After pulling the pin one match into his World Tour Finals campaign in London last month, world No.1 Nadal continues to battle a worrying knee injury.
… A restricted free agent for the first time, he focused on adding muscle and weight to bring consistency to his game. Just 237 pounds at the end of last season, the 6-foot-10 Mirotic reported to training camp at 260 and currently weighs, in his words, “250-something.”
Watch Mirotic’s game and the benefits are obvious. He has been aggressive on defense, particularly in the post, and he has powered through contact on drives. His footwork has remained active despite the added weight.
“I feel very, very strong in my legs,” Mirotic said. “Going to the board, I feel great. Defending the low post is a huge difference. Going into the basket, I’m going into the guy.
THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE PROCESSES THAT ARE UNDERTAKEN BY THE CONDITIONING COACHES OF ELITE SOCCER CLUBS WHEN PLANNING THE TRAINING PROGRAM FOR PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS. TO SUCCESSFULLY MANAGE THE TRAINING REQUIREMENTS OF A SQUAD OF PLAYERS THROUGHOUT A SEASON, IT IS IMPORTANT TO STRUCTURE TRAINING APPROPRIATELY USING STRATEGIES TO IDENTIFY THE INDIVIDUAL NEEDS OF PLAYERS, ENSURING THAT THOSE REQUIREMENTS ARE MET WITHIN THE CONSTRAINTS OF THE ANNUAL CALENDAR. THE OVERALL AIM IS TO MAXIMIZE SQUAD AVAILABILITY WHILE OPTIMIZING PLAYER READINESS FOR MATCHES, ENSURING THAT EACH PLAYER HAS THE PHYSICAL CAPABILITY TO IMPLEMENT THE REQUIRED TACTICS SUCCESSFULLY.
Injured and non-injured national team footballers were compared for external and internal loads during transition from club to National team training camp. Design
Load and injury data were collected from the same National team prior to and during training camps of 2 tournaments; World (n = 17) and Asian Cups (n = 16). External (number sessions) and internal (s-RPE) loads were collected 4-weeks prior to and during camps. The acute:chronic load ratio was calculated for the first week of camp based on the mean of previous 4-weeks. Respective loads and ratios were compared between injured and non-injured players for non-contact injuries occurring during camp. Design
Prospective Case Study. Results
Seven non-contact injuries occurred during World Cup camp and 1 during Asian Cup (preventing statistical analyses). Small-to-moderate effect sizes were found for lower chronic internal loads (ES = 0.57; 90%CI: 0.39–1.08) and higher acute:chronic ratio (ES = 0.45; 90%CI:0.31–0.87) for injured compared to non-injured players. Moderate-large effects (ES = 0.83; 90% CI:0.56–1.60) were evident for increased acute:chronic ratio for number of sessions in injured compared to non-injured players. However, small-moderate effect sizes were present for lower chronic training and match loads (ES = 0.55; 90%CI:0.38–1.06) in injured players prior to the World Cup camp, alongside an increased number of sessions in week 1 of camp (ES = 0.47; 90% CI:0.33–0.91). Conclusion
Players incurring non-contact injury during training camp prior to an international tournament performed less prior chronic external and internal load and a concomitant higher relative increase in camp, thus representing a practical marker to monitor in national teams.
Lower Extremity Review Magazine, Rachel Koldenhoven and Alex DeJong from
Wearable sensors allow for the collection of running biomechanics data outside the laboratory in natural training environments, enabling clinicians to collect a large volume of information in a relatively short time to help identify and manage individuals who may be at risk for running-related injuries.
Georgia officials made a huge gamble two years ago. They pushed out a successful coach (Mark Richt) because they believed their program should compete for championships more often. The Bulldogs sought only a few more wins a year, but the distance between good and great is the most treacherous gulf to cross in college football. Plenty of programs have tried, but only a few have reached the desired destination.
So Georgia hired an alumnus whose recent work experience gave him insight into how to cross that divide. Kirby Smart didn’t get the job because he once wore silver britches; he got it because he once wore silver britches and understood how Nick Saban built Alabama into a juggernaut that has dominated a decade. When Smart was hired, Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity didn’t issue orders. He asked questions. “He had to basically educate us on what it would take,” McGarity says.
In the days after a 40–17 loss at Auburn on Nov. 11, Georgia players heard the same message whether they were eating dinner at their training table, bench-pressing in the weight room or doing homework in study hall. The season isn’t over. All of your goals remain in front of you. Beating Kentucky is all that matters.
Second-year coach Kirby Smart and strength coach Scott Sinclair had begun formulating that refrain the night of that loss, the Bulldogs’ first of 2017. Smart honed it after he met with his staff. To make sure every athletic department employee who interacted with the players knew what to say, the word went out to all department heads: No one was to dwell on the defeat in the presence of the players.
BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation from
Background
The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of three different sport watches in estimating energy expenditure during aerobic and anaerobic running. Methods
Twenty trained subjects ran at different intensities while wearing three commercial sport watches (Suunto Ambit2, Garmin Forerunner920XT, and Polar V800). Indirect calorimetry was used as the criterion measure for assessing energy expenditure. Different formulas were applied to compute energy expenditure from the gas exchange values for aerobic and anaerobic running. Results
The accuracy of the energy expenditure estimations was intensity-dependent for all tested watches. During aerobic running (4–11 km/h), mean absolute percentage error values of −25.16% to +38.09% were observed, with the Polar V800 performing most accurately (stage 1: −12.20%, stage 2: −3.61%, and stage 3: −4.29%). The Garmin Forerunner920XT significantly underestimated energy expenditure during the slowest stage (stage 1: −25.16%), whereas, the Suunto Ambit2 significantly overestimated energy expenditure during the two slowest stages (stage 1: 38.09%, stage 2: 36.29%). During anaerobic running (14–17 km/h), all three watches significantly underestimated energy expenditure by −21.62% to −49.30%. Therefore, the error in estimating energy expenditure systematically increased as the anaerobic running speed increased. Conclusions
To estimate energy expenditure during aerobic running, the Polar V800 is recommended. By contrast, the other two watches either significantly overestimated or underestimated energy expenditure during most running intensities. The energy expenditure estimations generated during anaerobic exercises revealed large measurement errors in all tested sport watches. Therefore, the algorithms for estimating energy expenditure during intense activities must be improved before they can be used to monitor energy expenditure during high-intensity physical activities. [full text]
I normally eschew almost every fitness tracker, running app, fitness data analytics platform and fitness-geared social media website that’s come up in my 11 years of running. During training, I most often wear the cheapest GPS watch Garmin made at the time my previous watch broke — which also was the cheapest GPS watch Garmin made. And I don’t upload those workouts anywhere — I manually log my time and distance into Daily Mile.
But I appear to be in the minority. Eighty-two percent of runners like to have and track all of their running statistics, and 65 percent say it helps them train better, according to Running USA’s 2017 National Runner Survey. And the wearables market in the United States is likely to grow, from $4.8 billion in 2016 to $9.1 billion by 2022, according to Forrester, a market research company.
Peter Weyand, Glenn Simmons Professor of Applied Physiology and Biomechanics, directs The SMU Locomotor Performance Laboratory, internationally known for its performance and research testing. Weyand leads a team of researchers and doctoral students who examine the mechanics of movement, performance, and metabolic energy expenditure and power.
Despite being frustrated by the length of the process, Texans quarterback T.J. Yates was grateful referee Bill Vinovich took him out of Monday’s game to be checked for a concussion.
Kudos to Vinovich and the Texans medical staff.
But this is leading to controversy. It is going to happen.
The pendulum always swings hard the other way. It human nature. The NFL and fans should prepare for the inevitable.
If we think about weight management through the lens of social science, what solution would we come up with?
There are many angles we could take, but my team and I started with the scale. Specifically, we recently created a scale with no display. Sound odd? Perhaps. Let’s suspend judgement for a few minutes and walk through what we know about scales:
1) Stepping on a scale daily is good, especially when done in the morning.
… The NHL gets an awful lot of well-deserved stick for not having its sporting house in order. Whenever we hear about what they’re cooking up down on the The Avenue of the Americas, it’s usually some goofy idea about expanding into another desert town, or getting itself wound up in a civic bun-fight over stadium subsidies. Like most professional sports leagues, it has cynically embraced its role as the villain in the piece – the out-of-touch graspers looking to squeeze another buck out of their customers using a lot of bumf about the Grand Tradition as cover.
But give it this much credit – the NHL has over the past four or five years quietly staved off the greatest existential threat in the game’s history.
There is an entire industry built up around deciphering where 16- and 17-year-olds will play college football. Websites boast “crystal ball” predictions of where top high school recruits will suit up. Companies charge for premium subscriptions with claims that they can decode the caprice and whimsy of children.
And then there’s Kristina Bigbsy, a PhD candidate at the University of Iowa who is probably better than all of them.
She developed a mathematical model that predicts with 70 percent accuracy where a high school football player will go to college. And she uses nothing but their basic biographical information and Twitter account.