Applied Sports Science newsletter – January 27, 2018

The speedskaters summoned to Santa Rosa, Calif., last spring for the United States Olympic team’s annual strength and conditioning camp found a curious item on their schedules: a tai chi lesson.

Unsure of how the skaters would react, Shane Domer, the team’s sports science director, watched the first session with some apprehension.

“We were like, ‘O.K., this could go south,’ ” Domer said with a laugh. “Our guys could make fun, or not buy in.”

But the skaters took to it, and soon Mark Cheng, the tai chi instructor, became a regular presence around the team. When the group departs later this month for Pyeongchang, South Korea, for the start of the 2018 Games, Cheng will be part of the official traveling party.

… “I’ve had to adapt,” he said. “It speaks to my resiliency and my approach to the game. I have to stay focused.”

His passion for basketball kept him from becoming deterred despite a circuitous route to the NBA, he said.

Leitao said Henry came back to campus over the summer. He noticed Henry’s bubbly personality hadn’t changed but sensed he had grown as a person.

“It’s not an easy road,” Leitao said. “It didn’t happen the way one dreams of it. His positive attitude and work ethic helped him. When he came back last summer, you could tell a real difference (in) maturity and professionalism.”

… It’s a tricky situation, to be sure. First of all, it’s rare when an NBA player his size suffers an Achilles injury, which is more common to slashers and smaller players. That could dictate how much time he’ll miss, but again, that’s up to the doctors and therapists and experts.

Cousins is an unrestricted free agent this summer and if his injury is severe and will require surgery, the Pelicans won’t have the luxury of seeing how well he recovers before July 1. Cousins, had he stayed healthy, would’ve surely commanded a max contract. Is that still on the table now?

It was the height of my lifelong dream: I was proudly sporting my Dallas Pro Ultimate shirt while teaching at an underrepresented school in Dallas. A Junior High African-American girl in a fuzzy pink sweatsuit continually caught the disc over both girls and boys while spouting wonderful trash talk. At the end of class, I gave her the disc to keep. She said, “I could be pro someday too, huh?”

I stammered on how to answer “no.” My heart dropped as I watched her dream die.

How, in the pursuit of my own dream, did I become a destroyer of others’ dreams? This was the question that finally made me look at the American Ultimate Disc League boycott, which demanded gender equity, and my role in all of it. The answer turned out to be the most important discovery of my career.

… “I think if you start thinking about what other people think, it’s never going to be enough. As an athlete, you always want more, no matter what it is — if you win one Slam, you want two. There’s always more. If you’ve been No. 1 for a certain amount of time, you want it longer.

“At the end of the day, sometimes you have to be nice to yourself and just go, ‘You know what, this is a day-by-day process. As long as you put the effort in, that’s all you can do.’ ”

Always a tenacious battler on the court with a brilliant backhand, Wozniacki has heard all the criticism. Some say her serve is not up to snuff, while other pundits have scrutinized a forehand that is “technically flawed.”

Still, the stats at this year’s Aussie show that Wozniacki is tied for third in aces and is in the top five in service games won.

… [Mario] Cristobal has commented to the press that in the past he admired Oregon from afar. He always wondered, “imagine how good they could be if they were tougher in the trenches.” Well now he is doing a complete makeover in winter strength and conditioning training to resemble what he experienced at Alabama in the the renowned “Fourth Quarter Off-Season Program.”

Oregon’s head coach hired the assistant director of strength and conditioning at Georgia (Aaron Feld), who was someone Mario knew from their time together with the Crimson Tide.

The basketball players are outfitted in St. Thomas practice gear, ready to run drills and refine shooting strokes. But first, they must sit in a conference room inside the school’s athletics facility, listening to a psychology professor teach them something they thought they had mastered as toddlers.

“Sleep is as impactful on your performance as your training, your conditioning, your nutrition and hydration,” begins J. Roxanne Prichard, scientific director of the Center for College Sleep at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. “So how much attention do you pay to those other things, and how much attention do you pay to sleep?”

PURPOSE:

To investigate the 1) effect of the preparation period on the neuromuscular characteristics of 12 professional (PRO) and 16 semi-professional (SEMI-PRO) basketball players; 2) relationships between training load indices and changes in neuromuscular physical performance.
METHODS:

Prior to and following the preparation period, players underwent a counter-movement jump (CMJ) test, followed by a repeated change of direction (COD) test consisting of 4 levels with increasing intensities. The peripheral neuromuscular functions of the knee extensors (peak torque, PT) were measured using electrical stimulations after each level (PT1, PT2, PT3 and PT4). Furthermore, PT Max (the highest value of PT) and PT Dec (PT decrement from PT Max to PT4) were calculated.
RESULTS:

Trivial-to-small (effect size, ES: -0.17 to 0.46) improvements were found in CMJ variables, regardless of the competitive levels. After the preparation period, peripheral fatigue induced by a COD test was similarly reduced in both PRO (PT Dec: from 27.8±21.3% to 11.4±13.7%, ES±90%CI= -0.71±0.30) and SEMI-PRO (PT Dec: from 26.1±21.9% to 10.2±8.2%, ES±90%CI= -0.69±0.32). Moderate-to-large relationships were found between session rating of perceived exertion training load and changes in PPO measured during the CMJs (rs ±90%CI: PPOabs, -0.46±0.26; PPOrel, -0.53±0.23) and in some PTs measured during the COD test (PT1, -0.45±0.26; PT2, -0.44±0.26; PT3, -0.40±0.27 and PT Max, -0.38±0.28).
CONCLUSION:

Preparation period induced minimal changes in the CMJ, while the ability to sustain repeated COD efforts was improved. Reaching high session rating of perceived exertion training loads might partially and negatively affect the ability to produce strength and power.

Jon Cooper took over as coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning in March 2013. In most industries, he’d still be considered relatively new on the job. In the NHL, he’s the second-longest tenured coach, trailing only Chicago’s Joel Quenneville. Cooper’s Lightning will be a cause célèbre at this weekend’s All-Star Game in Tampa. In a normal season, Tampa Bay would be the toast of the NHL for storming to the best record at the break. (But this isn’t just any season; as Cooper himself notes: “Vegas [Golden Knights], I would say, have topped us for sure.”) Even still, the Lightning’s first-half dominance is something to admire.

In an interview with ESPN before Monday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks, Cooper — who never played top-level hockey after high school but took up lacrosse in college, spent time on Wall Street, got a law degree and became a high school coach in 1999 almost by chance — dishes on what he learned from last season’s letdown, why he used to fake phone calls, why he quit his job as a public defender to become a hockey coach and what people don’t know about star center Steven Stamkos.

The Pirates promoted former head athletic trainer Todd Tomczyk to director of sports medicine Tuesday and named Bryan Housand the head athletic trainer.

The Pirates created a position by elevating Tomczyk, who spent the past six seasons as head athletic trainer. Housand has been with the Pirates for 17 seasons, the previous two as the athletic training coordinator. Housand’s replacement has not yet been announced.

Jim Malone will replace Ricky White as strength coach. Malone previously worked for the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets and San Diego Padres and last year was Campbell University’s assistant athletic director for physical development/strength and conditioning.

… “We’ve been doing pretty detailed biometric analysis with our players for about the last seven years,” Edwards says. “It really allows us to do a whole-body analysis so that we can be as good as possible at preventing injury and help the player optimize his performance.”

It made perfect sense for the Crew to join Ohio State and the Air Force in a biometric research partnership. Like the Buckeyes, the Crew provides data on its players to the Air Force and in return receives access to better, more high-tech equipment and assistance in analyzing player data.

Edwards and his colleagues keep close tabs on team members’ health, monitoring a variety of measures, including inflammation, brain activity, sleep patterns and how fast players are running on the field.

“We’ve been able to pick up things as unusual as a player who has a new baby, and his sleep pattern changes at home,” Edwards says. “We notice how that affects his recovery.”

About a decade ago, the government of Spain issued a culture-rattling decree. Officials declared that the demands of the global economy were more powerful than the tug of tradition – and that it was time to eliminate the siesta.

For centuries, many Spaniards enjoyed a regular afternoon respite, often returning home for a meal with the family or a quick snooze. But the world had changed, Spanish leaders concluded. To compete and win in the modern economy, this ancient practice had to go.

North Americans, our spines already stiffened by frigid temperatures and the cold breath of Puritanism, applauded the news. At last, Old Europe was becoming modern.

But maybe we got it wrong. An emerging body of science is showing that siesta cultures might have been ahead of their time.

Fitbit, Misfit, Live by Earlysense, Jawbone. The market for sleep trackers is skyrocketing and finally, more and more people track the quality of their bedtime. However, getting conclusions from sleep measurements is tricky. Let me help you by sharing my experience!

There’s a superpower that instantly impresses college coaches—and it has nothing to do with your student-athlete’s size, speed or agility.

It’s all about their body language. From shoulder shrugs to high fives of encouragement, a coach can learn everything they need to know about a recruit without even talking to them. And when your child displays confident, positive body language on the field, it’s a tell-tale sign they can make a successful impact on the team.

In fact, many college coaches adapt coaching techniques around body language.

As personal informatics capabilities become embedded in more products and personal data touches more facets of life, these assumptions merit another look. How broadly do they hold up? Which use cases—and who—do they support, and which do they exclude?

In this article, I discuss some of the assumptions I have made in my own research and that I have encountered in working with my students, professionals, and other researchers. I draw extensively on my group’s work on food tracking—one of the most commonly tracked health behaviors, but also one of the most difficult to aggregate and use effectively [2]—to illustrate these assumptions, but they occur across health tracking.

Researchers at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at Linkoping University have developed the world’s first complementary electrochemical logic circuits that can function stably for long periods in water. This is a highly significant breakthrough in the development of bioelectronics.

We present an approach to efficiently detect the 2D pose of multiple people in an image. The approach uses a nonparametric representation, which we refer to as Part Affinity Fields (PAFs), to learn to associate body parts with individuals in the image. The architecture encodes global context, allowing a greedy bottom-up parsing step that maintains high accuracy while achieving realtime performance, irrespective of the number of people in the image. The architecture is designed to jointly learn part locations and their association via two branches of the same sequential prediction process. Our method placed first in the inaugural COCO 2016 keypoints challenge, and significantly exceeds the previous state-of-the-art result on the MPII Multi-Person benchmark, both in performance and efficiency.

“The Detectron project was started in July 2016 with the goal of creating a fast and flexible object detection system built on Caffe2, which was then in early alpha development. Over the last year and a half, the codebase has matured and supported a large number of our projects, including Mask R-CNN and Focal Loss for Dense Object Detection, which won the Marr Prize and Best Student Paper awards, respectively, at ICCV 2017.”

A method for studying the temperature-regulating abilities of clothes using a model of a human torso to simulate sweating will be made a global standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

The standard is based on a previous invention by researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) dubbed the “sweat torso”, which consists of a column equipped with several nozzles for dispensing controlled quantities of liquid.

When the column is placed inside a climate-controlled chamber, where temperature and humidity can be regulated during experiments, the torso “sweats” in response to the changes in conditions. Researchers can “dress” the torso in a firefighter’s jacket, for example, and then test how the imitation sweat evaporates or accumulates in response to heat.

In a mid-sized office building in the suburbs of Long Island, a company called LBi Software, with its sports-focused division LBi Dynasty, has been stealthily building scouting software for Major League Baseball since the late 1990s.

Now, after moving to a shiny new office in November meant to accommodate a growing team of developers (40 of its 56 full-time employees are developers), LBi is setting its sights on expansion.

LBi Dynasty’s engineer-heavy team started off developing customizable software systems that for years were used by the league’s scouting office. As the impact of the scouting office waned, LBi added the Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Philadelphia Phillies and Toronto Blue Jays to its roster of clients. And soon it hopes to add teams from the NBA.

Here’s how to cheat at the Apple Watch Stand goal: dangle your wrist by your side while you sit in a chair. I discovered this by accident — I dangle my arm during meetings — but once I found it out, I did it on purpose. I cheated while watching Thor: Ragnarok, in meetings, at brunch.

Cheating the calorie-based Move goal is harder, but doing restorative yoga while also turning the “yoga” setting on did the trick. I wasn’t doing the hard work I do during my Ashtanga classes, but it still “counted” as exercise, as far as the Watch was concerned. (Restorative yoga is mainly very nice stretching. There are pillows.) The idea of failing at my goal was so abhorrent, I’d devised ways to cheat.

So yes, I’d say the Apple Watch changed my behavior. I just don’t know if Apple intended for it to happen this way.

In industries where excessive mental workload can have tragic consequences, researchers at the University of Nottingham have been investigating non-invasive and non-intrusive methods to assess cognitive demand. Their new research suggests that easily collected physiological measurements, including facial thermography and pupil diameter, correlate strongly with the operator’s perception of task demand and difficulty.

With the skies becoming ever more congested, pilots and air traffic controllers have to juggle a number of tasks, with multiple tasks demanding both skill and situational awareness. Typically, operators would be asked to assess the difficulty of a task by responding to a questionnaire once the task is complete, or during a lull in the activity. Researchers at the University of Nottingham’s Institute for Aerospace Technology and Faculty of Engineering were interested in developing a method that can estimate the demands being made without having to interrupt a task or distract the operator. Of all the methods used, it was found that facial thermography and pupil diameter offered the most promise, as they are the least intrusive. When used in conjunction with machine learning, they offer a better correlation to reported workloads.

… It’s late September and just about a month before the start of the competitive wrestling season. Inside Ohio State’s Steelwood Training Facility, pairs of wrestlers are spread across scarlet and gray mats, sparring and sweating as hip-hop music blares through the gym’s speakers. From afar, it all seems pretty normal.

But look closer, and you’ll see one wrestler lying down in a corner with sensors on his chest and head monitoring his heart rate and central nervous system activity. Another athlete is pedaling quickly on a stationary bike while a flash drive captures information about how hard he’s working. Still another wears a high-tech shirt embedded with a wireless heart monitor as a TV screen on the wall displays his heart rate in real time.

[Don] Moxley, now on staff as a sports science consultant with the wrestling team, is the conductor of this well-orchestrated event. “To have this set of data falling into my lap every day, it’s incredibly valuable to me,” he says.

The information Moxley’s referring to is pulled into a spreadsheet so he can track each wrestler’s numbers and discern trends. It also goes directly to military researchers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, who help Moxley look for patterns.

Sleep – so precious, but for many, so elusive.

These days, we can choose from a myriad of gadgets — apps, headsets, even a plush robot – to track and improve our nightly Zzz’s.

But does the technology actually help?

Stanford’s Jamie Zeitzer, PhD, says don’t get your hopes up too high, at least not yet.

What could be more exciting than watching a line of cyclists spinning madly on stationary bikes, sweating profusely, faces grimacing, eyes transfixed on computer screens positioned before them?

Almost anything, right?

Ah, but there’s more to this scene. The cyclists are inside the National Velodrome in Paris, and these aren’t exercise bikes. The 10 extremely fit cyclists are decked out in full racing kit, pedaling svelte racing bikes mounted on indoor trainers that impart varying levels of resistance to the riders’ effort. Those computer screens are tuned in to a virtual cycling platform, and that’s where the action is. In the virtual world, each rider’s avatar is pedaling through a landscape punctuated with alpine peaks, tunnels, dark forests and lava-spewing volcanoes. The avatars duke it out as riders would in a real race — at times in a tight pack, at times responding to heroic breakaway attacks. A steep climb on screen corresponds to an uptick in resistance on the bike. The race may be virtual, but the pain is real. And it actually is exciting to watch.

Nine finalists have been chosen by the NFL, the Mayo Clinic and Comcast NBCUniversal in the league’s annual startup competition to spur novel advancements in athletes’ safety and performance.

Dubbed 1st and Future, entrepreneurs and innovators will compete in three categories: advancements in protective equipment; technology to improve athletic performance; and new therapies to speed recovery. One winner from each category will be selected by a panel of judges comprised of former NFL players, entrepreneurs and medical experts.

Brock Weimer went from a .216 hitter as a freshman to the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville single-season home run king as a sophomore.

Much of the heavy lifting the now junior catcher did to turn himself from backup to slugger was done laying on the sofa of his campus apartment.

An assistant professor of applied health at the SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior led a research study to see whether the use of virtual reality technology could held athletes exercise their mental imagery skills and, in turn, help them improve their on-field performance.

… work-life balance, and a mix of “old-school” and very modern, a devotee of technology and how it can be used. For example, he points over my shoulder as we chat to one of the huge video screens that adorn the impressive, 27,000 all-seater stadium which the club’s owner Steve Lansdown has transformed at a cost of £45 million.

“I want one of those big screens at the training ground,” Johnson says. “So we can do live analysis. We can film it and put it up on the screen, which we can move around.”

Then there is the “app” which Johnson, regarded as one of English football’s brightest young managers, built for the players to have on their smartphones. “They wake up and have to fill it in,” he explains. “We video train with the ‘drones’, we have play-books. It’s just about that information, attention and making sure they are stimulated in everything they do. At first it was a cultural shift. We built the ‘app’ and some lads would look at it, some wouldn’t. And now they are all on it every day.”

A new study from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center examines what may cause chronic back pain in runners and the exercises to help prevent it.

The study, published in the Journal of Biomechanics, suggests that runners with weak deep core muscles are at higher risk of developing low back pain. And, unfortunately, most people’s deep core muscles aren’t nearly as strong as they should be.

To examine the role of the superficial and deep core muscles, researchers used motion detection technology and force-measuring floor plates to estimate muscle movements during activity.

“We measured the dimensions of runners’ bodies and how they moved to create a computer model that’s specific to that person. That allows us to examine how every bone moves and how much pressure is put on each joint,” said Ajit Chaudhari, associate professor of physical therapy and biomedical engineering at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, who led the study. “We can then use that simulation to virtually ‘turn off’ certain muscles and observe how the rest of the body compensates.”

Background

Muscle lesions account for one-third of sport-related injuries, thus representing a substantial problem for both players and their teams. The use of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections is rapidly growing in clinical practice, prompted by an unmet clinical need with a large commercial market. However, after early reports of positive preliminary experience, higher quality studies recently questioned the real benefit provided by PRP injections to promote muscle healing and return to sport.
Objective

To evaluate the effect of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections on outcomes following acute muscle injuries.
Design

Meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials (RCTs), Level I.
Data sources

PubMed (MEDLINE), Cochrane (CENTRAL), Web of Science, clinicaltrials.gov, who.int, isrctn.com, greylit.org, opengrey.eu.
Eligibility criteria

RCTs investigating the effect of PRP for the treatment of acute muscle injuries against at least one control group including patients treated with placebo injection or physical therapy. The outcomes evaluated were time to return to sport, re-injuries, complications, pain, muscle strength, range of motion (ROM)/flexibility, muscle function, and imaging.
Results

Six studies, involving 374 patients, were included in the meta-analysis. The time to return to sport evaluated in all six studies was significantly shorter in patients treated with PRP (mean difference = − 7.17 days). However, if only the double-blind studies (n = 2) or studies including only hamstring injuries (n = 3) were considered, non-significant differences were found. Re-injuries (relative risk = − 0.03) and complications (relative risk = 0.01) were also similar between the two groups (p > 0.05), nor were any substantial differences found regarding pain, muscle strength, ROM/flexibility, muscle function, and imaging. The performance bias was high risk due to the lack of patient blinding in four studies. The quality of evidence according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) was therefore low or very low.
Conclusions

The promising biological rationale, the positive preclinical findings, and the successful early clinical experience of PRP injections are not confirmed by the recent high-level RCTs. Therefore any benefit in terms of pain, function, return to sport, and recurrence using PRP injections for the treatment of acute muscle injuries is not supported. Due to the bias in the studies, the heterogeneity of the findings, and the limited sample size, the evidence should be considered to be of low or very low quality.

Groin injuries are common in soccer and often cause time-loss from training. While groin injuries have been linked to full effort kicking, the role of inside passing is unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate hip joint kinematics and muscle force, stress and contraction velocity for adductor longus and gracilis during inside passing. 3D kinematics of ten soccer players (23.4 yrs; 77.5 kg; 1.81 m) were captured with a motion capture system inside a Footbonaut. Muscle force and contraction velocity were determined with AnyBody Modelling System. Gracilis muscle forces were 9% lower compared to adductor longus (p = 0.005), but muscle stress was 183% higher in gracilis (p = 0.005). Contraction velocity reveals eccentric contraction of gracilis in the last quarter of the swing phase. Considering the combination of eccentric contraction, high muscle stress and the repetitive nature of inside passing, gracilis accumulates high loads in matches and training. These results indicate that the high incidence of groin injuries in soccer could be linked to isolated pass training. Practitioners need to be aware of the risk and refrain from sudden increases in the amount of pass training. This gives the musculoskeletal system time to adapt and might avoid career threatening injuries.

Ease up and cross-train to prevent overuse injuries, advises youth sports medicine specialist Matthew T. DesJardins, M.D. Such problems can affect muscles, tendons, ligaments and growth plates and commonly plague young athletes who play soccer, football and baseball (pitchers in particular). Cheerleaders, skaters, dancers and gymnasts who train intensively at young ages are also vulnerable. Usually resolved with rest and icing, overuse injuries that reoccur or are left untreated can be catastrophic, Dr. DesJardins says. Persistent pain for more than two weeks warrants a visit to a specialist.

“The single, strongest predictor of injury in youth sports is sports specialization,” Dr. DesJardins says. Injury occurs when pre-adolescent bodies push beyond their limits with year-round training or a lack of diversification. For multisport athletes or, “preferentially, someone who is engaged in less structured play, the injury rates are much lower,” he notes. Studies show that 80 percent of collegiate athletes were multi-sport athletes. Thus, “funneling a 12-year-old into playing volleyball only, with the anticipation of getting a college volleyball scholarship, is a myth,” he says.

Several doctors have spoken out about the pressures medicos face to keep players on court in extreme heat at this year’s Australian Open.

Former chair of the Council of General Practice, Brian Morton, has warned Tennis Australia is putting the health of players at risk when play continues on hot days.

Dr Morton told the ABC some players are exposed to life-threatening conditions which pose an “extreme worry”.

“Yes absolutely, there’s a high risk,” he said.

As soon as Boston College Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond arrived at BC this past June, he began to assess the needs of his student athletes. Time and time again, nutritional concerns were raised. Due to their practice schedules, mandatory meetings, and course loads, student athletes reported that they often struggle to find time in their day to make it to the dining hall and grab a bite to eat. In response, the first-year AD made it his priority to come up with a solution. Seven months later, his vision became a reality.

On Monday morning, Jarmond unveiled the department’s new fueling station, located inside the student-athlete lounge on the first floor of Conte Forum. The installment—something that he had seen while working at both Michigan State and Ohio State—is designed to offer nutritional snacks and refreshments to all student athletes year-round.

The lounge is lined with refrigerators containing Powerade, water, chocolate milk, and other pre- and post-workout drinks. The main attraction, though, can be found at the center of the back wall. Sandwiched between two rows of cabinets, lies an assortment of snacks, including, but not limited to, fruit, granola bars, cereal, and trail mix. In addition, the room features a handful of tables, chairs, flat-screen televisions, and leather couches decorated with the BC logo.

Look around a high-level strength competition like the World’s Strongest Man or the annual Arnold Classic and you’ll see some abs, but you’ll also definitely see some bellies. The same goes for the super heavyweight divisions of powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting competitions. When it comes to pure strength, people with lots of mass typically win out over super-cut bodybuilder types— and the reasons get a bit complicated.

“Strongman training sessions are typically three to four hours long,” says Rick Howard, the northeast regional coordinator for the National Strength and Conditioning Association and strongman competitor. “Strength athletes eat while they train because they learn their bodies. They can feel when they’re running out of energy.”

Specific guidelines that aim to facilitate the recovery of soccer players from the demands of training and a congested fixture schedule are lacking; especially in relation to evidence-based nutritional recommendations. The importance of repeated high level performance and injury avoidance while addressing the challenges of fixture scheduling, travel to away venues, and training commitments requires a strategic and practically feasible method of implementing specific nutritional strategies. Here we present evidence-based guidelines regarding nutritional recovery strategies within the context of soccer. An emphasis is placed on providing practically applicable guidelines for facilitation of recovery when multiple matches are played within a short period of time (i.e. 48 h). Following match-play, the restoration of liver and muscle glycogen stores (via consumption of ~1.2 g⋅kg−1⋅h−1 of carbohydrate) and augmentation of protein synthesis (via ~40 g of protein) should be prioritised in the first 20 min of recovery. Daily intakes of 6–10 g⋅kg−1 body mass of carbohydrate are recommended when limited time separates repeated matches while daily protein intakes of >1.5 g⋅kg−1 body mass should be targeted; possibly in the form of multiple smaller feedings (e.g., 6 × 20–40 g). At least 150% of the body mass lost during exercise should be consumed within 1 h and electrolytes added such that fluid losses are ameliorated. Strategic use of protein, leucine, creatine, polyphenols and omega-3 supplements could also offer practical means of enhancing post-match recovery.

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in general interest in and research into vitamin D, with many athletes now taking vitamin D supplements as part of their everyday dietary regimen. The most recognized role of vitamin D is its regulation of calcium homeostasis; there is a strong relationship between vitamin D and bone health in non-athletic individuals. In contrast, data have consistently failed to demonstrate any relationship between serum 25[OH]D and bone health, which may in part be due to the osteogenic stimulus of exercise. Vitamin D may interact with extra-skeletal tissues such as muscle and the immune system to modulate recovery from damaging exercise and infection risk. Given that many athletes now engage in supplementation, often consuming extreme doses of vitamin D, it is important to assess whether excessive vitamin D can be detrimental to health. It has been argued that toxic effects only occur when serum 25[OH]D concentrations are greater than 180 nmol·l−1, but data from our laboratory have suggested high-dose supplementation could be problematic. Finally, there is a paradoxical relationship between serum 25[OH]D concentration, ethnicity, and markers of bone health: Black athletes often present with low serum 25[OH]D without physiological consequences. One explanation for this could be genetic differences in vitamin D binding protein due to ethnicity, resulting in greater concentrations of bioavailable (or free) vitamin D in some ethnic groups. In the absence of any pathology, screening may be unnecessary and could result in incorrect supplementation. Data must now be re-examined, taking into consideration bioavailable or “free” vitamin D in ethnically diverse groups to enable new thresholds and target concentrations to be established; perhaps, for now, it is time to “set vitamin D free”. [full text]

Weed and physical fitness are essential parts of the Boulderite identity, which is good news for me, considering toking up before a long run is my favorite training ritual. For me, there is nothing better than vaping until I’m stupid high, throwing on a pair of headphones and running around the woods for hours. I feel like it gives me a burst of energy and helps me turn my brain off while my body finds its rhythm. It turns out, I’m not alone. Supplementing your exercise routine with marijuana helps all sorts of athletes with motivation and recovery. This week, I chatted with professional climber and my BFF Courtney Sanders because she’s one of the fittest people I know and she smokes just as much as I do. Seriously, her body is insane, so I wanted to find out how she utilizes cannabis in her training.

… Muscles are made from protein, so they need more of it to grow, says Gabbi Berkow, a New York City–based dietitian, exercise physiologist, and certified personal trainer. … Timing also matters. It’s best to sandwich your workouts with protein, eating one to two hours before and after a workout. Berkow says doing so helps protects against excessive muscle breakdown during the effort and stimulates regeneration after the fact.

… “Subconsciously, you are affected by what people around you are doing,” said the lead author, Ashlesha Datar, an economist at the University of Southern California. “When I travel to the Bay Area, for example, everyone is riding bicycles. You get there, and it seems like you have to buy a bicycle. If you move to a community where a sedentary lifestyle is the norm, you join that. There is this social influence.”

Replacing saturated fat with healthier fats can lower your risk of cardiovascular disease. That may seem like old news, but given the popularity of coconut oil and headlines like “Butter is Back,” it bears repeating.

Frank Sacks is professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has led groundbreaking clinical trials on diet and blood pressure, lipids, and weight loss. Sacks spoke with Nutrition Action’s Bonnie Liebman.

Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages in the world and it can improve insulin sensitivity, stimulating glucose uptake in skeletal muscle when adequate carbohydrate intake is observed. The aim of this review is to analyze the effects of coffee and coffee components on muscle glycogen metabolism. A literature search was conducted according to PRISMA and seven studies were included. They explored the effects of coffee components on various substances and signaling proteins. In one of the studies with humans, caffeine was shown to increase glucose levels, Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase (CaMK) phosphorylation, glycogen resynthesis rates and glycogen accumulation after exercise. After intravenous injection of caffeine in rats, caffeine increased adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) phosphorylation, and glucose transport. In in vitro studies caffeine raised AMPK and ACC phosphorylation, increasing glucose transport activity and reducing energy status in rat muscle cells. Cafestol and caffeic acid increased insulin secretion in rat beta-cells, and glucose uptake into human muscle cells. Caffeic acid also increased AMPK and ACC phosphorylation, reducing the energy status and increasing glucose uptake in rat muscle cells. Chlorogenic acid did not show any positive or negative effect. The findings from the current review must be taken with caution due to the limited number of studies on the subject. In conclusion, various coffee components had a neutral or positive role in the metabolism of glucose and muscle glycogen, whilst no detrimental effect was described. Coffee beverages should be tested as an option for athlete’s glycogen recovery.

onflict is a part of coach-athlete relationships and should be carefully considered as it can have effects on the quality of coaching and the level of performance. Despite its practical relevance, there is a dearth of research around coach-athlete conflict. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the characteristics and topics of conflict, as well as coaches and athletes’ emotional, cognitive and behavioural experiences during conflict. A total of 22 independent coaches and athletes participated in semi-structured interviews evolving around the nature of interpersonal conflict. After all interviews were transcribed, a deductive-inductive content analysis was conducted. This was guided by the interview schedule as well as the by the conceptual framework of conflict in sport relationships (Wachsmuth, Jowett, & Harwood, 2017). Data were divided into five main categories: Conflict characteristics and conflict topics, as well as conflict cognitions, emotions, and behaviours. Findings highlighted the variety of ways in which participants understood and interpreted interpersonal conflict and how their impressions of conflict influenced its evolving process. Considering the participants’ cognitive, emotional and behavioural expressions of conflict, it became apparent that conflict can be described through uncertain, escalating and problem-orientated responses. Practical applications concerning (mal-) adaptive responses to conflict are discussed.

Obesity has been previously noted as a major issue in the National Football League (NFL), where it has been shown that 97% of all players demonstrate a body mass index (BMI) of ≥25.0 with a reported obesity rate of 56% (BMI ≥30.0). However, BMI does not take into account body composition by mass, and may overestimate prevalence of obesity. The purposes of this study were to (1) determine the validity of BMI as a measure of body fat percentage and obesity in athletes at the NFL Combine, to define the obesity rate based on body fat percentage compared to BMI. (2) to determine the relationship between draft status and body composition. It was hypothesized that the rate of obesity, as measured by air displacement plethysmography (ADP), would be less than the rate of obesity as measured by BMI. Athletes who competed at the 2010 through 2016 NFL Combines were included in this study. Air displacement plethysmograph testing at the Combine was performed through BOD POD® Body Composition Tracking System with collection of the following metrics: body fat percentage (%), and compared to BMI based on weight and height. In addition, the metrics were evaluated for differences over the 7-year study period to determine temporal changes and to determine draft status based on position relative to BOD POD calculations. A total of 1958 NFL Combine participants completed air displacement plethysmography body composition testing. Based on BMI (≥30.0), the obesity rate was 53.4% versus an 8.9% obesity rate when using ADP. Drafted players demonstrated a significantly lower body fat percentage than undrafted players (p<0.05), with the exception of quarterbacks and running backs. All eight positions of play, with the exception of defensive linemen, demonstrated a decrease in body fat percentage between 2010 and 2017. However, total body mass by position of play remained relatively constant with no significant change noted in any position. In conclusion, the obesity rate in prospective athletes at the NFL Combine was overestimated when calculated based on the BMI. Body fat percentage was a more valid for determining an NFL player candidate's true body composition. Drafted players demonstrated a significantly lower body fat percentage in six of eight positions compared to undrafted players. This is important to recognize for a strength and conditioning professional to use the correct metric when evaluating NFL players that could have been erroneously categorized in the obese population by their BMI. Further, a higher percentage of fat translates to lower chances of becoming drafted.

… This winter, Wiebe was hired by the Cardinals as an analyst in the baseball operations department. She’s the first woman to ever work as a baseball analyst for the team — she is part of what her boss, John Mozeliak, calls the “decision tree.”

She’s in. She made it.

“It’s kind of crazy, you pinch yourself,” said Wiebe, 23. “I’m sure there were women in previous generations who had the door closed on them because they were a woman. And there were also fewer that were trying, because they weren’t encouraged to have an interest in it as a kid, as a teenager. … Even when I was in high school, I knew — there are not a lot of women (in baseball).”

Because of the nature of inactivity this offseason, we’ve explored, among other things, whether MLB teams have learned how to wait on free agents and how agents and players may need to adapt. These are trying times for a baseball scribe. We could use some transactions!

One agent who has tried to adapt, who is arguably the game’s greatest at his chosen profession, is Scott Boras.

In recent offseasons, when only a tepid market has developed for his clients, Boras has on occasion attempted to circumvent front offices — which are increasingly operating with less emotion and more reason — and appeal directly to owners. It worked with Prince Fielder in early 2012 in Detroit, for example.

With 14 goals in 22 games, the Manchester City attacker is the poster boy for one of the key findings of the nascent field of soccer analytics: It doesn’t matter how you shoot, as long as you’re shooting

… perhaps there is something else here, beyond the players themselves – the question of why one of the world’s richest clubs seem hellbent on buying an ageing English meat-and-potatoes centre-forward to hold the ball up, create havoc, and get on the end of crosses speared into the mixer? Because in a game that gets faster and more fluid with every passing season, players such as Carroll – and to a lesser extent Crouch and Barnes – feel more of a curiosity than ever.

That narrative is reflected in the numbers. When Opta started collating records in 2003-04 there was an average of 51 crosses per Premier League game – a figure that was almost certainly much higher in previous decades. This season it is 38, the lowest on record. More intriguingly crossing accuracy, too, has plummeted to its lowest level. A 30% success rate in the Premier League used to be typical. This season it is below 22%.

One reason, as Opta’s Duncan Alexander points out, is that these figures include set pieces – and as teams increasingly play with only one, or even no, out-and-out striker, an increasing proportion of crosses will come from corners and free-kicks where defending teams have the opportunity to set themselves up.

But teams are more aware of the percentages, too.

… When you watch two world-class professionals barely able to lift their rackets in one of their sport’s signature events, you can’t help but wonder what, exactly, we’re trying to prove here. A reason we watch sports is to see the planet’s most talented, dedicated athletes perform at the highest levels, to see true physical genius in their chosen pursuits. It is not to watch them perform at a fraction of their abilities because they can hardly stand.

There has long been a fetishization of athletes being able to withstand the elements, to overcome them, en route to victory — the marathoner who survives 100-degree temperatures, the football player who braves frigid weather to win the big game.

But why? To appreciate true genius is to see it uninhibited by exterior circumstances, to see it in its purest natural element.

Baseball players are creatures of routine. When that routine is disrupted, the potential for chaos exists.

Much of the tennis world was looking to the 2018 Australian Open to be the story of comebacks.

Although some players have returned to start their season at the Australian Open, others have not. Five-time Australian Open finalist Andy Murray was the biggest name among the early withdrawals.

Rather than a time of comebacks, 2018 is shaping up to be a season of delayed starts and ongoing depletion at the top of the game. It’s a trend that signals a systemic problem in men’s tennis, which can’t be shrugged off as the misfortune of a few.

… The biggest factor in Barco’s decision is the same as what drew Atlanta’s other in-demand South American, Miguel Almiron. That’s head coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino. Without Martino, it’s difficult to imagine that player with as many options as Barco would leave his native country not for the bright lights of Europe, but for the relatively new soccer frontier of the United States. Martino’s name carries weight, especially with South Americans.

The question now worth asking is if any of the other teams try to play catchup with United. That means spending as well as coaching. While not everyone has the resources of Atlanta United owner Arthur Blank and few would be eager to spend $15 million on transfer fees for one player, the recruiting edge Martino provides Atlanta is obvious and presumably replicable.

You can’t overstate the “Tata Effect” for Atlanta.

… On Tuesday night, Guardiola and the rest of his squad experienced this revamped and rocking sold-out stadium for themselves, as well as a rousing rendition or two of The Wurzels’ back catalogue. If Guardiola’s intrigue was a veiled compliment, his words afterwards were explicit.

Asked if Johnson’s side can be a Premier League team, he shrugged his shoulders a little and said: “They are there. But I think the Championship never ends, it’s always 300 million games to go into the Premier League.”

As the Bristol City manager said himself, this was always going to be an unforgettable night, a party occasion regardless of the result. Goals by Leroy Sané, Sergio Agüero and Kevin De Bruyne were never going to kill a feelgood factor that has accelerated along this unbelievable journey, to within a game of a final under the Wembley arch. “The fact is it’s taken them two injury-time goals in both legs to beat us,” said Johnson, who guided his players on a lap of honour at full time.

What’s the opposite of robust?

A long-running joke about the Buffalo Bills has been about their much-heralded “robust football analytics operation,” a phrase used by Russ Brandon in 2013 to indicate grand plans to bring a progressive and aggressive approach to football.

Five years later, the Bills have blown it up.

… “When you look at a team like that, the best team to ever play basketball, if they’re that unselfish making those passes, why can’t we?” senior guard Dakota Mathias said.

The Boilermakers decided to create their own pass goal. They scaled the number down to account for the differences in the college game and settled on a nice, round number: 200 passes. That’s the goal.

Let’s back up for a second.

The motivation to read the article and to adopt a pass goal came from Purdue’s newest — and probably smartest — member of the staff, Andrew McClatchey.

… “Really, (my job) is just a lot of data management,” McClatchey said. “I take all the play-by-play data from the NCAA website, and I have a bunch of different tools and stuff that I use to kinda get what I want from it. So, its a lot of data management, a lot of planning ahead, and its a lot of analysis. I have a lot excel sheets and (software) code that I have written.”

McClatchey’s position may seem like an office-type-of-job, but really it is not. He sits with the team during games too and travels as well, actively crunching game time data for head coach Matt Painter’s disposal.

“I will track stuff (during games).” McClatchey said. “So, we will see, like, how often we get the ball in the paint. I will give (Painter) updates and stuff. If I see we haven’t had a paint touch in couple possessions I will let him know.”

… But what exactly does a weak system mean for the standings? To answer that, we built a massive spreadsheet, with organizational talent rankings from 1999 through 2010 — using Baseball America through 2008, Keith Law for 2009 and 2010 — and each team’s actual major league performance for the eight seasons that followed each ranking. These rankings consider only the players who still qualify as prospects, who haven’t exhausted their rookie eligibility. And here’s what we found:

Wait! At the risk of ignoring the obviousness of the question, let’s acknowledge that, of course, what we found is that teams with great farm systems do better in the future than teams with terrible farm systems. That’s not really a spoiler, because what world would we live in where it was otherwise? But we can get specific about how much better, and in what time frame.