Applied Sports Science newsletter – January 3, 2018

James Harrison just wanted to play. The New England Patriots provided the opportunity in his first game with the club.

The 39-year-old linebacker played 34 snaps in Sunday’s victory over the New York Jets, per Next Gen Stats. The count was just four shy of the 38 snaps Harrison saw all season with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In his Patriots debut, Harrison compiled two sacks and five total tackles. The veteran was pleased with his workload despite only having a few days to learn the playbook.

For more than a month, left knee tendinitis lept Milwaukee Bucks point guard Matthew Dellavedova on the sideline. He spent that time doing various rehab exercises, aiming at building strength in that knee as well as the muscle groups in his leg surrounding it.

But he wasn’t just focused on himself. He was intently watching his teammates on the court, both finding ways to help them and considering ways he might be of use when back in action.

“I think when you’re away or not playing you get a bit of a different perspective on what is needed and how it looks out there because when you’re in it it’s a bit tougher to see sometimes,” Dellavedova said Tuesday at the Bucks’ Sports Science Center. “I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do when I came back and I think we found some things that have worked, especially for the second unit.”

Focusing on changes in body weight and body mass index (BMI) alone as outcome measures of lifestyle interventions, ignores the beneficial multi-system and psychological effects of lifestyle medicine, in particular exercise. This includes advantageous changes in body composition for health and performance.

Why is body composition important? Because not all weight is equal in terms of tissue composition and distribution. To support optimal health, favourable levels of lean mass versus fat mass decreases the risk of sarcopenia, associated bone loss and metabolic syndrome. For athletes, high lean mass coupled with low fat mass is related to improved athletic performance, especially in disciplines where the strength to weight ratio a major consideration and/or those disciplines such as gymnastics and ballet where an aesthetic component confers a performance advantage.

The range of methods for measuring body composition have advantages and disadvantages in terms of accuracy, accessibility and expense. Although accurate in experienced hands, skin fold measurements are limited to giving a measure of subcutaneous fat. Impedance scales have the advantage of giving a measure of both total and visceral fat percentage, however accuracy is dependent on hydration status, amongst other variable factors.

… In this post, I’d like to tackle a couple key points. First, I’ll outline what a typical training week in the off-season might look like and how the overall cycle takes shape. Next, I’ll take a stab at commenting on the interplay and subsequent management of on-court and off-court training loads. Lastly, I will then offer some feedback – in other words, why it’s my belief that training the various qualities outlined in last week’s article shouldn’t stop once the off-season cycle ends.

Most nights at the world junior championship, when the rink has been emptied, the TV cameras have been packed away, the last tactical words have been spoken and the work day has officially concluded, Team Canada gathers one final time.

Players find a spot in a large room at the team hotel, get comfortable, release a deep breath and devote their attention to a lone voice. Dr. Ryan Hamilton then leads the 20-plus teenagers with the weight of the country on their collective shoulders through a “mindfulness body scan.”

No more strides to take, no more shots to take, the university professor tells the group. Time to let go of the good and the bad. What’s done is done, live in the present.

OBJECTIVES:

Injured and non-injured national team footballers were compared for external and internal loads during transition from club to National team training camp.
DESIGN:

Prospective Case Study.
METHODS:

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.
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).
CONCLUSIONS:

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.

The cocktail party was canceled. A joint research project was abruptly cut short. Barely a month after athletic director Tom Jurich described the University of Louisville as being “arm-in-arm, shoulder-to-shoulder” with Adidas, events demanded more distance between the school and the shoe company.

News of an alleged bribery scheme involving Adidas employees, U of L coaches and basketball recruit Brian Bowen, detailed in an FBI affidavit made public on Sept. 26, forced the university to reconsider its relationship with the global sportswear giant and to reevaluate a $160 million sponsorship agreement that had been announced less than five weeks earlier.

For Jurich and men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino, the Adidas scandal would hasten the end of their careers at U of L. For associate athletic director Julianne Waldron, though, it was but an awkward beginning to a long-term partnership of broadly beneficial possibilities.

“The biggest takeaway,” she said, “is that the greatest chapter is not the $160 (million). The biggest chapter has yet to be written.”

A fresh startup made up of recent MIT student-athletes is developing a smart system that uses camera vision and machine learning in the gym to create connected workouts and aid athletic development.

When integrating biometric sensors in a hearable or wearable, the project team may come across a number of challenges that have the potential to slow down the product development cycle. Whether it’s mechanical, electrical, software, or testing procedures, let’s take a look at common questions from an engineering point of view that may arise during the product development process and how solving potential issues early can minimize setbacks and get your product to market successfully.

Brainerd, Elizabeth. 2017. X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (XROMM) yields new insights into musculoskeletal structure and function. 41st meeting of the American Society of Biomechanics. Boulder, CO.

INTRODUCTION:

The application of contemporary statistical approaches coming from Machine Learning and Data Mining environments to build more robust predictive models to identify athletes at high risk of injury might support injury prevention strategies of the future.
PURPOSE:

The purpose was to analyse and compare the behaviour of numerous machine learning methods in order to select the best performing injury risk factor model to identify athlete at risk of lower extremity muscle injuries (MUSINJ).
METHODS:

A total of 132 male professional soccer and handball players underwent a pre-season screening evaluation which included personal, psychological and neuromuscular measures. Furthermore, injury surveillance was employed to capture all the MUSINJ occurring in the 2013/2014 seasons. The predictive ability of several models built by applying a range of learning techniques were analysed and compared.
RESULTS:

There were 32 MUSINJ over the follow up period, 21 (65.6%) of which corresponded to the hamstrings, three to the quadriceps (9.3%), four to the adductors (12.5%) and four to the triceps surae (12.5%). A total of 13 injures occurred during training and 19 during competition. Three players were injured twice during the observation period so the first injury was used leaving 29 MUSINJ that were used to develop the predictive models. The model generated by the SmooteBoost technique with a cost-sensitive ADTree as the base classifier reported the best evaluation criteria (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve score = 0.747, true positive rate = 65.9%, true negative rate = 79.1) and hence was considered the best for predicting MUSINJ.
CONCLUSIONS:

The prediction model showed moderate accuracy for identifying professional soccer and handball players at risk of MUSINJ. Therefore, the model developed might help in the decision-making process for injury prevention.

After Purdue quarterback Elijah Sindelar threw for nearly 400 yards and four touchdowns in a Foster Farms Bowl victory over Arizona, the redshirt sophomore revealed he had been playing since Nov. 11 on a torn ACL — a span of about three-and-a-half games.

Sindelar’s performance sparked two dramatically different opinions online. Some called it incredible. Some said it was irresponsible.

To provide some clarity and correct any misperceptions, Dr. Rodney Benner sat down with CNHI Sports Indiana. Dr. Benner is a knee specialist who works at the Shelbourne Knee Center in Indianapolis. He’s served as an orthopedic consultant for Purdue over the past six years.

Dr. Benner is not permitted to speak specifically about Sindelar’s situation due to patient privacy laws. However, he explained in generalities why some athletes can continue to play and what risks are involved.

… Regardless of your goals—weight loss, improved performance, or just better health—incorporating a nutrition app into your fueling plan can be effective, says Sarah Koszyk, a San Francisco sports nutritionist. “It’s a convenient way to build awareness about what you’re eating and allows you to make smarter decisions, so that you can reach your goals in a measurable way,” she says.

But not all apps are created equal. These five nutritionist-approved picks help you create sustainable changes in your eating habits and are best suited for high performers looking for more than just an easy way to count calories.

… Event data is coded by humans and with this comes error. Big thumbs, tired brains and even unknowingly racist eyes. Tracking data is algorithmically derived from multiple cameras, yet has some inherent error.

As you enter the unexplored, you will quickly notice a mismatch between the datasets.. excitedly you continue.. then you notice another.. and another.. then with a sinking feeling you realise this is a big issue.

In 2018, most of the top professional sports leagues in North America and Europe will share an important trait: They will be more international in composition than ever before.