Applied Sports Science newsletter – January 23, 2018

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for January 23, 2018

 

Emil Forsberg – Growing up on a street of sport (Game-Play-Learn)

footblogball, Mark O'Sullivan from

… My Street

“For 4 or 5 of us (on our street) it was football direct. But it wasn’t just football. We played tennis, table tennis, floorball, ice hockey. In the street I grew up it was mainly ‘sports families’, it became a ‘sports street’ and this is how I got in to sport”.

Many Sports

“Take part in as many sports as you can as long as you can. I think that it is wrong to focus early on one sport. Maybe at 13 you think that Ice hockey is something that you want to focus on but then when you are 15 you may think that despite all the time and effort it was not such a good idea. These days there is a far too early focus on only playing football. I played football and floorball until I was 17 nearly turning 18. I thought it was perfect but maybe not always optimal but I felt that at 17 that football is something that I wanted to focus on”.

 

Rubio Rubin talks USMNT camp and player development

US Soccer Players, Charles Boehm from

… For Rubin, a severe ankle injury, a coaching change at his club, and the cold realities of life in the big time conspired to drive a promising career off course.

Rubin remembers when and how his time at Utrecht ran off the rails, and with startling speed.

“I was able to go into preseason my second year, after my injury, and earn a starting spot,” he recalled in a conversation with USSoccerPlayers.com this week. “I was one of the starters in the first three games – against PSV, Heerenveen and I think it was AZ – and I just didn’t score in those three games. And right away, I was benched for the fourth game and then I didn’t see the field after that.

 

Vince Carter, Dean Smith’s final NBA legacy, still jammin’, surprising himself at 40

Charlotte Observer, Brendan Marks from

… “I love it, to be honest with you,” Carter said. “If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t have the desire to put the work in that I have to put in each and every day.

“The day I don’t want to prepare for the season, prepare for a game, is the day I’ll walk away – and I’m still willing to do it.”

 

NFL’s Fastest Rookie Wide Receiver John Ross On Overcoming Injuries, Adversity

GOOD Sports, Kristin Marguerite Doidge from

… What’s your nutrition routine like as you work on injury recovery?

I haven’t bought into the vegan fad that some other players have, but I do try to eat healthy and prioritize sleep. When I came across the local water brand Essentia while I was in college in Washington, I was blown away by it and became a brand ambassador. It’s an ionized alkaline water with a 9.5pH or higher, which is great for rehydration. Some athletes might not pay attention to that, but being at the university I was, our nutritionist would talk a lot about the pH level. She talked about the importance of alkaline water and not having so much juice or so many sports drinks. It’s especially important to be able to use alkaline water in the situations we’re in [in Cincinnati] with the humidity and things like that to prevent cramping in the body and to improve and speed up rehydration. Especially for wide receivers, we have to stay energized and can’t risk cramping up on the field.

 

A 6-week warm-up injury prevention programme results in minimal biomechanical changes during jump landings: a randomized controlled trial

Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy journal from

Purpose

To examine the extent to which an ACL injury prevention programme modifies lower extremity biomechanics during single- and double-leg landing tasks in both the sagittal and frontal plane. It was hypothesized that the training programme would elicit improvements in lower extremity biomechanics, but that these improvements would be greater during a double-leg sagittal plane landing task than tasks performed on a single leg or in the frontal plane.
Methods

Ninety-seven competitive multi-directional sport athletes that competed at the middle- or high-school level were cluster randomized into intervention (n = 48, age = 15.4 ± 1.0 years, height = 1.7 ± 0.07 m, mass = 59.9 ± 11.0 kg) and control (n = 49, age = 15.7 ± 1.6 years, height = 1.7 ± 0.06 m, mass = 60.4 ± 7.7 kg) groups. The intervention group participated in an established 6-week warm-up-based ACL injury prevention programme. Three-dimensional biomechanical analyses of a double- (SAG-DL) and single-leg (SAG-SL) sagittal, and double- (FRONT-DL) and single-leg (FRONT-SL) frontal plane jump landing tasks were tested before and after the intervention. Peak angles, excursions, and external joint moments were analysed for group differences using 2 (group) × 4 (task) repeated measures MANOVA models of delta scores (post–pre-test value) (α < 0.05). Results

Relative to the control group, no significant biomechanical changes were identified in the intervention group for any of the tasks (n.s.). However, a group by task interaction was identified for knee abduction (λ = 0.80, p = 0.02), such that participants in the intervention group showed relative decreases in knee abduction moments during the SAG-DL compared to the SAG-SL (p = 0.005; d = 0.45, CI = 0.04–0.85) task.
Conclusion

A 6-week warm-up-based ACL injury prevention programme resulted in no significant biomechanical changes during a variety of multi-directional jump landings. Clinically, future prevention programmes should provide a greater training stimulus (intensity, volume), more specificity to tasks associated with the mechanism of ACL injury (single-leg, non-sagittal plane jump landings), and longer programme duration (> 6 weeks) to elicit meaningful biomechanical changes.

 

The validity, objectivity, and reliability of a soccer-specific behaviour measurement tool

Science and Medicine in Football from

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to assess the validity, objectivity, and reliability of a Soccer-Specific Behaviour Measurement Tool (S-SBMT) in relation to the soccer philosophy of a Category One Premier League soccer academy. Methods: A 30 minute, 8 vs. 8 small-sided game (SSG), played by the U12 squad of the participating academy was used for analyses. Validity was ensured through formulating the S-SBMT definitions with experienced soccer coaches from the same soccer academy. Percentage agreement with a reference value of ±1, 95% Confidence Intervals, median sign and Yule’s Q were used to assess objectivity and reliability. Results: High levels of objectivity were found for the number of passes (98.8% agreement), runs with the ball (97.5% agreement), and goal attempts (100%). Reduced objectivity was apparent for forward zonal transitions (75.3%), along with tackles (70.4%), interceptions, (63%), and loose balls (48.1%). Reliability was tested after 1- and 4-weeks, with levels of percentage agreement found to be above the 85% acceptable threshold for most behaviours (passing = 95.1%, runs with the ball = 92.6%, goal attempts = 100%, tackles = 100%). Conclusions: The study demonstrated acceptable objectivity and reliability for S-SBMT behaviours and these findings demonstrate the potential utility of the S-SBMT in monitoring technical actions in a Category One Premier League soccer academy, and a methodological process for other academies to follow in ensuring the quality of performance data.

 

Sleep Interventions Designed to Improve Athletic Performance and Recovery: A Systematic Review of Current Approaches | SpringerLink

Sports Medicine journal from

Background

Athletes experience various situations and conditions that can interfere with their sleep, which is crucial for optimal psychological and physiological recovery as well as subsequent performance. Conventional sleep screening and intervention approaches may not be efficacious for athletes given their lifestyle, the demands of training and travel associated with interstate/international competition.
Objectives

The present systematic review aimed to summarize and evaluate sleep intervention studies targeting subsequent performance and recovery in competitive athletes. Based on the findings, a secondary aim was to outline a possible sleep intervention for athletes, including recommendations for content, mode of delivery and evaluation.
Methods

A systematic review was conducted based on the PRISMA guidelines in May 2016 with an update completed in September 2017. Ten studies met our inclusion criteria comprising a total of 218 participants in the age range of 18–24 years with athletes from various sports (e.g., swimming, soccer, basketball, tennis). A modified version of the quality assessment scale developed by Abernethy and Bleakley was used to evaluate the quality of the studies.
Results

The included studies implemented several sleep interventions, including sleep extension and napping, sleep hygiene, and post-exercise recovery strategies. Evidence suggests that sleep extension had the most beneficial effects on subsequent performance. Consistent with previous research, these results suggest that sleep plays an important role in some, but not all, aspects of athletes’ performance and recovery.
Conclusion

Future researchers should aim to conduct sleep interventions among different athlete populations, compare results, and further establish guidelines and intervention tools for athletes to address their specific sleep demands and disturbances.

 

11+Kids Reduces the Number of Injuries in Children’s Football

Amsterdam Collaboration on Health & Safety in Sports from

We are proud to have been involved in this one. The age-specific warm-up program “11+ Kids” has been tested regarding its potential to reduce football (soccer) injuries in children. In total, 243 teams with around 3900 young football players from Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Czech Republic took part in this study. Together with our International colleagues we found considerable protective benefits for overall injuries (48% reduction), severe injuries (74% reduction) and lower extremity injuries (55% reduction). Importantly, injury incidence decreased with increasing compliance.

 

Starting small on the path to rebuilding our bodies

Stanford University, Stanford News from

Biologists have wondered for centuries why plants and animals take the shapes they do. Now, researchers exploring the mechanics of cells and tissues are finding answers that might one day help engineers rebuild our bodies.

 

The Tech Guy Building Wearables for America’s Olympians

Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Eben Novy-Williams from

Some of the most advanced sports technology on the planet isn’t being created at a shoe lab in Oregon or a moonshot factory inside Google. It’s coming out of a guy’s house.

Mounir Zok, the biomedical engineer in charge of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s tech and innovation, brainstorms products and training aids from his home in Cupertino, Calif. Together with his team of engineers and specialists, he’s produced, among other training gear, a set of connected glasses for the U.S. women’s cycling pursuit team that projects performance data directly onto lenses. “Just like a butterfly can never be a caterpillar again,” Zok says, “once an athlete starts using technology to peak when she wants to peak, limit injuries, and maximize performance, she can never go back to just intuitive training.” The team used them to prepare for the 2016 Summer Games and won a silver medal.

 

Do Sleep Apps And Gadgets Really Help You?

NPR, Science Friday from

… New data tracking apps and gadgets that claim to help monitor and improve your sleep are infiltrating bedrooms. They range in diversity and in price, from no-cost sleep track apps to $500 headsets. You can even cuddle up and sync your breathing with a “sleeping” robot—the experience akin to sleeping with a furry pet animal. Over about the past five years, the consumer market for sleep technology has been steadily rising, says Angela Chen, a science reporter for The Verge who surveyed the latest sleeping gadgets at the 2018 International Consumer Electronics Show.

The wave of sleep gadgets may be at its pinnacle, but are they really doing anything for you? According to Chen, the ideas are moving faster than the research. [audio, 16:24]

 

Oregon State athletes launch mental health initiative to help students with depression

USA Today Sports, Lindsay Schnell from

Oregon State men’s soccer player Nathan Braaten heard about the Tyler Hilinski news, and his heart dropped. … This week Braaten, in partnership with former Oregon State gymnast Taylor Ricci, launched #DamWorthIt, a mental health initiative aimed at helping OSU students understand, discuss and learn how to cope with depression and other issues. The plan had always been to launch the campaign this week. Hilinski’s death made it feel even more timely — and crucial.

 

Power Five conferences approve medical benefits extension

Associated Press, Michael Marot from

The NCAA’s five largest conferences approved sweeping changes in everything from medical care to basketball during the holidays on Friday, dashing through the agenda with little opposition and virtually no debate.

Extended medical benefits for former athletes, a three-day break for basketball players over the holiday season, more money for student hosts, and allowing men’s hockey players to receive draft advice before enrolling in college without losing eligibility were all approved. The Division I autonomy group passed all four measures — and 11 in all — in just 35 minutes at the NCAA’s annual convention.

“It’s a great day, all the proposals passed,” said Taylor Ricci, a former gymnast and undergraduate assistant coach at Oregon State who serves on the Student Athletic Advisory Committee. “It’s really, really exciting to see the medical proposal pass. It put a smile on my face.”

 

A stroke of genius: Math and computer science teams with athletes for swim study

Emory University, Emory Report from

Emory mathematician Ken Ono is launching an analytical study of training methods for elite swimmers — a joint effort between Emory Athletics and the university’s Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.

Lead collaborators include Jon Howell, Emory’s head swimming and diving coach, who has led the Eagles to 10 NCAA Division III Women’s Swimming and Diving Championship titles and the 2017 NCAA Division III Men’s Swimming and Diving Championship title, and Madeline Locus Dawsey, a PhD candidate in mathematics in Emory’s Laney Graduate School.

Dawsey was a former NCAA Division I swimmer at the University of Georgia and swam in the 2012 and 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials. She won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. National Swimming Team in the 2015 World University Games.

“This study was born out of a conversation I had with Emory assistant swimming coach Cindy Fontana while we were working out side-by-side on treadmills, just two university employees talking about our day jobs,” Ono says. “It’s exciting to turn that conversation into reality.”

 

Efficiency is the goal for Cashman, Epstein and Friedman

ESPN MLB, Buster Olney from

… The players and their union would benefit from some recklessly aggressive spenders right now, especially at the top of baseball’s food chain. But that is not how Epstein, Friedman and Cashman operate.

“They’ve each had a ton of success,” one of their peers on management side said. “The tools they use are even sharper. They try to analyze and quantify, and they look at things like aging trends. And then there’s the discipline that’s required.”

Yes, fans get excited, media members criticize and cajole, and owners can push and nudge based on feedback they’re getting from friends. Friedman, Cashman and Epstein have constructed mute buttons on that sort of stuff, the peer said, and they tend to ignore it.

 

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