… He and his companions discuss the future, debating philosophies of business, a new world opening up. Later they turn nostalgic and talk about the past. He started training every day in the third grade and has never stopped. Once during his career he took a vacation, a trip to Milan that he hated. This past October, Marlins infielder Dee Gordon came to get something at the clubhouse after the season. He heard the crack of a bat in the cages and found Ichiro there, getting in his daily swings. “I really just hope he keeps playing,” Gordon says with a chuckle, “because I don’t want him to die. I believe he might die if he doesn’t keep playing. What is Ichiro gonna do if he doesn’t play baseball?”
Former teammates all have favorite Ichiro stories, about how he carries his bats in a custom humidor case to keep out moisture, how in the minors he’d swing the bat for 10 minutes every night before going to sleep, or wake up some mornings to swing alone in the dark from 1 to 4 a.m. All the stories make the same point: He has methodically stripped away everything from his life except baseball. Former first baseman Mike Sweeney, who got close to Ichiro in Seattle, tells one about getting a call from an old teammate who’d had an off-day in New York. You’re not gonna believe this, the guy began. He’d brought along his wife and they walked through Central Park, thrilled to be together in such a serene place. Far off in the distance, at a sandlot field with an old backstop that looked leftover from the 1940s, they saw a guy playing long toss. The big leaguer did the quick math and figured the distant stranger was throwing 300 feet on the fly. Curious, he walked closer. The guy hit balls into the backstop, the powerful shotgun blast of real contact familiar to any serious player. He became impressed, so he got even closer, close enough to see.
The man working out alone in Central Park was Ichiro.
Chelsea left N’Golo Kante out of their squad to take on Manchester City after the midfielder fainted at the club’s training ground on Friday, sources have confirmed to ESPN FC.
The France international was a surprise omission from Antonio Conte’s matchday squad at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday despite having travelled to Manchester, with Chelsea attributing his absence to illness.
And sources confirmed that Kante fainted in the dressing room at Cobham following Chelsea’s training session on Friday, prompting a shocked reaction from his teammates and a swift response from the club’s medical staff.
It is understood Wimmer is not overweight, but at this stage is deemed unfit to play in Lambert’s high-octane, pressing style of football.
Lambert revealed last week that Saido Berahino, the £12m striker, was also in a similar position and “not up to my level of fitness”.
And with Stoke battling to avoid relegation to the Championship, Wimmer is unlikely to play until he is fully up to speed. Insiders say he is working hard to get fit and there has been no fall-out between the player and Lambert.
Dan Bylsma still marvels at Sidney Crosby’s processing power.
He coached Crosby with the Pittsburgh Penguins for six seasons, winning the Stanley Cup with in him 2009. During that span, he watched a naturally gifted hockey player become the best of his generation through his work ethic and aptitude for the game.
When Crosby struggled on faceoffs, he taught himself how to master them. Same thing with his shot quality. On the bench during games, Crosby will break down his own shifts to see how to improve them.
“Sid is not the best hockey player in the world, skill-wise. He has an unbelievable ability to take a situation, analyze it, work on it in a very small sample size and improve drastically.”
When you walk into the entrance of Chip Smith Performance Systems training facility, you see a modest weight room.
On the Thursday before the NFL Scouting Combine, the gym was crowded — roughly 15 NFL prospects were sharing a few benches, sets of dumbells and aerobic equipment. Wander a few feet to the back of the complex and mid-2000s rap music comes into sonic focus. Open the door to the back warehouse, carpeted with fake turf, and the music amplifies like the natural sunlight through the open garage doors as dozens of (mostly former) college and professional football players work out with resistance bands tethered to their waists.
In one corner, offensive line prospects freeze, then clash in repetition, as former Parkview High School University of Georgia and NFL lineman Jon Stinchcomb critiques their blocking technique and calls out, “Set. Hit!”
… “On days it was like 10 below zero, my dad would be like, ‘we’re going out there.’ Saturdays, Sundays, we’re going out there and playing,” said Atkinson. “My dad was a big influence. All my brothers played. And there were just wars in the backyard. Three-on-three, four-on-four, around the world. Always competing. And you’re just around that? That’s where it started.”
When it came time to play organized ball, the first stop was CYO hoops at St. Phillip’s.
“Little church, tile floor, stage,” said Atkinson. “Make a layup and you get nailed. We had an eighth-grade team, I think we went undefeated. We had an unbelievable team. We beat Roosevelt, we beat all the teams. I started to realize, I could be pretty good at this. After that was going to Gus Alfieri’s All-American basketball camp, which was out in Smithtown. That’s when I started getting a global look. Because everybody from the island would come to that camp and compete and I started to realize I can compete at this level.”
Modern athletes have more information than ever at their fingertips, and using that knowledge requires the right plan to recover deeper and faster. For years, I have seen mystery illnesses and poor regeneration, and wish I did more investigation of air quality. Training demands that rest be complete and without complications, and poor air quality certainly interferes in the recovery of an athlete.
Not surprisingly, many coaches in elite sport search for marginal gains by looking at small areas in performance that they can manipulate. However, from what we have seen, most of those cases need to focus on bigger factors. In this article, I tackle a fresh topic for SimpliFaster, an investigation into common and sometimes rare problems that can make a difference between an athlete winning or sitting on the sidelines.
Sports Medicine Research: In the Lab & In the Field, Nicole Cattano from
To improve implementation of injury prevention programs, we need to adopt a multi-factorial approach that focuses on coach education and linking program benefits to game-related outcomes.
This study indicates that scheduling Nordic hamstring exercises (NHE) before or after football training shows similar outcomes in terms of increasing eccentric strength, but distinct architectural adaptations.
Muscle thickness and pennation angle increased when exercising before training. Performing the exercises after training resulted in a small increase in fascicle length.
Hamstring strains are the most prevalent injury in both amateur and professional footballers. The NHE is widely prescribed as part of hamstring injury prevention schemes and has been shown to reduce injury rates. Despite this, there is still a lack of consensus about when to perform these exercises.
… Bannister’s four-minute attempt required extraordinary effort and planning, involving—highly controversially—the unprecedented use of pacemakers to lead him through the first three laps, and a coach, Franz Stampfl, whose role he tended to downplay. And Bannister was highly attuned to the latest physiology: his paper on the effects of running with supplemental oxygen was published just a few months after his four-minute mile.
The counterfactual scenario often discussed about Bannister is what would have happened if he had won the 1952 Olympics, instead of coming in fourth. Would he have followed through on his stated plan of retiring? But to me, the more interesting question is: What would Roger Bannister’s running career have been like if he’d been born a decade later? By 1966, the world record was 3:51.3, set by a teenager named Jim Ryun, who was already training at a volume and intensity that Bannister could never have fathomed. If Bannister was sincere about his motivations for running and his desire for a balanced life, he would never have been able to compete with the talented and hard-striving generation that followed him.
The 106 EXOS-supported athletes produced a record 335 top performances across their position groups. Six athletes led all combine participants in five drills — Denzel Ward in the 40-yard dash with 4.32 seconds and broad jump with 11 feet 4 inches; Mike Gesicki and Terrell Edmunds in the vertical jump with 41.5 inches; Harrison Phillips in the bench press with 42 reps, and Avonte Maddox in the 60-yard shuttle running 10.72 seconds. And eight athletes set position records including six in the new EDGE position category.
“We’re excited for all of the top performances by our supported athletes, in addition to the many personal bests and great performances during the position work,” said Adam Farrand, vice president of pro/elite sports at EXOS. “During combine preparation, the athletes put in full days consisting of twice-a-day strength and speed training, position-specific work, and preparing for media interviews and the Wonderlic test. We’re excited to see the rest of our athletes perform at their pro days and for all the results to pay off at the draft.”
Developing Apple Watch apps is extremely frustrating and limited for one big reason: unlike on iOS, Apple doesn’t give app developers access to the same watchOS frameworks that they use on Apple Watch.
Instead, we’re only allowed to use WatchKit, a baby UI framework that would’ve seemed rudimentary to developers even in the 1990s. But unlike the iPhone’s web apps, WatchKit doesn’t appear to be a stopgap — it seems to be Apple’s long-term solution to third-party app development on the Apple Watch.
The separation of Apple’s internally-used frameworks from WatchKit has two huge problems:
Apple doesn’t feel WatchKit’s limitations. Since they’re not using it, it’s too easy for Apple’s developers and evangelists to forget or never know what’s possible, what isn’t, what’s easy, and what’s hard. The bugs and limitations I report to them are usually met with shock and surprise — they have no idea.
WatchKit is buggy as hell. Since Apple doesn’t use it and there are relatively few third-party Watch apps of value, WatchKit is far more buggy, and seems far less tested, than any other Apple API I’ve ever worked with.
Last December, several members of the U.S. Air Force volunteered for a sweaty mission. During extra workout sessions at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio, the volunteers wore on their backs adhesive patches that collected their perspiration. Sensors in the patches were able to detect the specific levels of electrolytes in the sweat the volunteers released. That data was transmitted wirelessly to a laptop computer app where researchers could analyze it in real time.
“We can measure the sodium and potassium levels — the electrolyte balance that correlates with dehydration,” says GE materials scientist Azar Alizadeh, who is developing the patch with her team at GE Global Research and outside partners including the Nano-Bio Manufacturing Consortium, NextFlex, Air Force Research Laboratory, State University of New York, Binghamton, and New York State’s Empire State Development arm. “This could be so important to anyone who is working in hot or high-stress conditions, like firefighters, miners or elite athletes.”
The disposable wireless patch, which can fit in the palm of your hand, is made from materials used in medical tape and wound dressings. It contains two key elements: microfluidics technology and a sensor. GE engineers originally used microfluidics in jet engines to manipulate the natural airflow currents coming through the engine and channel them to optimize efficiency and performance. In a similar sense, Alizadeh has created a patch with tiny pathways and valves that can channel sweat into a conduit that contains a sensor.
WHOOP, the human performance company, today announced a $25 million Series C financing round led by UAE71 Capital with participation from the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), Durant Company, Thursday Ventures, and existing investors including Two Sigma Ventures, Accomplice, Mousse Partners, Promus Ventures and NextView Ventures. Individuals participating include David Stern, National Basketball Association (NBA) Commissioner Emeritus; Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter; Russell Okung, offensive tackle for the Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League; Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital; and Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab and One Laptop per Child. PJT Partners acted as financial advisor on this capital raise.
Nanobionic® USA announces today, that their products are regulated by the U.S Food & Drug Administration (FDA) as medical devices and general wellness products, as defined in Section 201(h) of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Nanobionic® USA is FDA registered, and several Nanobionic® products are listed with the FDA as medical devices.
Nanobionic® technology is a high-tech patented coating that releases Far Infrared Rays (FIR) to the body. Far Infrared Rays (FIR) are invisible waves of energy that have the ability to penetrate, sooth and stimulate the human body.
Nanobionic® technology is the world’s most advanced Far infrared technology on the market, that delivers up to 99 percent of Far Infrared emissivity, which is the most beneficial to the human body.
Melbourne sports data analyst John Young, who consults with sports teams in Australia and the United States, is constantly carrying hard drives. His job is all about “the ability to quickly process gigabytes of data from each game, creatively collect data on the other teams and mine that data for insights for the coaching staff, based on data and sports science best practice.” The data Young examines is critical: it has the potential to reduce injuries, improve performance, and extend athletes’ careers.
Wearable tech is having a huge impact on football’s most illustrious clubs. Real Madrid C.F. is using the technology to get a better insight into its players’ fitness, speed and intensity. WIRED went to the club’s training ground to find out how.
… Our take: We’ve been bullish on the next wave of wearables changing athlete performance and even moving into adjacent markets like health care. We follow this “Quantified Athlete” trend closely, but we define it much more broadly than wearable devices. However, we remain skeptical that form factors that focus on wrist worn devices will have a meaningful impact or staying power in the market.
Sports technology is becoming incredibly advanced and specialized, and tech pros working in industries that touch on athletics are hoping that will result in focused education, better networking with other professionals, and maybe even a formal certification of some sort.
But first, let’s be clear: sports technology is about more than professional athletics, said Tino Mantella, CEO of Tier4 Advisors. A data-center consultant based in Alpharetta, Ga., he is also a board member of the International Sports Technology Association in Marietta, Ga. Sports technology involves deploying tech that can help assess an athlete’s performance, using data to track health, and leveraging visual tools that can show how athletes at all levels can improve.
Nine out of ten people are willing to share health data from a wearable with their doctor, but only one out of three with their employer says a new report by Accenture.
The global professional services company surveyed over 2,300 Americans and found that wearable tech use has nearly quadrupled since 2014, from just 9% to 33% today. Three-quarters of those Accenture spoke to see fitness trackers, smartwatches and other wearables as beneficial to understanding their health.
Perhaps more interestingly, in addition to our family and friends we are all too happy to share our health stats with medical personnel. In fact some 90% of us have no problem sharing personal data with our doctor, while nurses and other healthcare professional rank only slightly lower at 88%. Some 72% of us are willing to share health data with our insurance company, up on 63% last year.
Accounting for subsequent injuries is critical for sports injury epidemiology. The subsequent injury categorisation (SIC-1.0) model was developed to create a framework for accurate categorisation of subsequent injuries but its operationalisation has been challenging. Objectives
The objective of this study was to update the subsequent injury categorisation (SIC-1.0 to SIC-2.0) model to improve its utility and application to sports injury datasets, and to test its applicability to a sports injury dataset. Methods
The SIC-1.0 model was expanded to include two levels of categorisation describing how previous injuries relate to subsequent events. A data-driven classification level was established containing eight discrete injury categories identifiable without clinical input. A sequential classification level that sub-categorised the data-driven categories according to their level of clinical relatedness has 16 distinct subsequent injury types. Manual and automated SIC-2.0 model categorisation were applied to a prospective injury dataset collected for elite rugby sevens players over a 2-year period. Absolute agreement between the two coding methods was assessed. Results
An automated script for automatic data-driven categorisation and a flowchart for manual coding were developed for the SIC-2.0 model. The SIC-2.0 model was applied to 246 injuries sustained by 55 players (median four injuries, range 1–12), 46 (83.6%) of whom experienced more than one injury. The majority of subsequent injuries (78.7%) were sustained to a different site and were of a different nature. Absolute agreement between the manual coding and automated statistical script category allocation was 100%. Conclusions
The updated SIC-2.0 model provides a simple flowchart and automated electronic script to allow both an accurate and efficient method of categorising subsequent injury data in sport.
… “It’s harder because there’s no objective imaging test that tells you much,” said Dr. Scott Rodeo from the Hospital for Special Surgery, who has been the Giants’ head team physician since 2015. “So, the biggest thing we look at is number of concussions. An important factor, not just with concussions, is the number of injuries a kid has had. If he’s had three hamstring strains and two high-ankle sprains and a shoulder subluxation … a kid who has had a number of injuries, he’s likely to have another. Concussions fit in that.”
… Robert H. Brophy, MD, orthopaedic surgeon and professor of orthopaedic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, conducted one of the first studies to look at revision ACLs in soccer athletes to determine their success rate when they return to the field.
The study “Return to Play and Risk for Reinjury Following Revision ACL Reconstruction in Soccer Athletes” found that overall 62 percent of soccer athletes returned to the sport at an average of 9.6 months after revision ACL surgery. Additionally, there was no significant difference between males and females in the rate of return (male 70 percent versus female 56 percent) or time to return to play. Overall, 12% of patients underwent subsequent knee surgery. However, female soccer players faced a higher risk of additional knee surgery after revision ACL reconstruction than males, as about one in five needed additional knee surgery, compared to one in 20 for men.
“Patients and providers can use this information to guide their expectations about return to play and risk for reinjury in soccer athletes,” said Dr. Brophy.
Sports science professor John Brewer spoke to Julia Hartley-Brewer after the Commons Digital, Culture Media and Sport Committee said it believes Wiggins took steroids to boost his performance during his historic Tour de France win.
Brewer said that modern sport is so competitive and advanced that coaches are “almost encouraged to look into that grey area”.
He added that “it’s those marginal gains… that athletes and coaches will be looking to try and achieve,” and competitors are willing to explore any possible avenue in the pursuit if excellence.
The report by MPs, Brewer said, is “pretty damning” but he stressed that lawmakers are not professional experts in this area.
Eating for endurance on the field is simply smart, but often overlooked. Soccer players of all ages and abilities should recognize the value of nutrition and how it impacts peak performance but often can still be concerned with eating too much.
The following information can help you figure out the best way to fuel your body before you step out on the field.
… This time last year, LAFC were the ultimate blank canvas. Bradley was still four months away from being hired. The team’s first signing, Mexico international Carlos Vela, was five months away. That left executive vice president for soccer operations John Thorrington, who had been in the job for little more than a year, to get his arms around the challenge of building a team from nothing. This involved more than just recruiting players: there was a staff to build in terms of coaches, scouting, sports medicine and the team’s academy.
“The canvas is less blank now,” Thorrington told ESPN FC following a recent training session. “It was so much to wrap my head around that I had to compartmentalize everything. Then just have a daily check-in of that dashboard to say: Where are we?”
But putting the squad together is the most visible manifestation of the work he and Bradley are doing. Instead of finding a handful of players, like most teams do in the offseason, 28 are needed. And it invites an inevitable question: What comes first, the style or the players? For Thorrington, it is the former.
Last Wednesday, Roma led 1-0 at half time against Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League. Their coach Eusebio di Francesco urged his team to continue attacking; not only had they outshot the Ukranians 9-4, they’d created by far the better chances. Roma had an opportunity to put the tie to bed.
Within seven second half minutes though, Shakhtar were level. Roma conceded another with 19 minutes remaining, and could easily have fallen 3-1 behind in injury time. Di Francesco was dismayed. “I told the team to play the second half the way we played the first,” he said after the match, “but what I saw on the pitch is that team was happy to defend. We need to work on that.”
Roma’s players were loss averse; after half time the thought of conceding a goal outbalanced the thought of scoring another. This is our natural instinct, and it’s evident across many sports. However, loss aversion often means we don’t maximise our chances of winning; in football we find that teams concede at nearly a 20% higher rate when leading by one goal compared to when the scores are level.
… Sure, players can work out to get faster, but you have to initially be blessed with being fast. All the players on this list have that God-given gift, and they’re all trying to translate that onto the field. For some, they’ve already gone a long way toward doing that. For others, it’s a work in progress.
Clemson’s Tavien Feaster, Akron’s Kwadarrius Smith, Ohio State’s Kendall Sheffield and others already are well on their way to becoming playmakers. For others, like Texas’ Devin Duvernay and USC’s Dominic Davis, playing time has been an issue.
But everybody on this list has two things: a recorded speed time (whether a 60- or 100-meter dash or a 40-yard time) and an opportunity to shine on the gridiron. There aren’t any players on this list without an opportunity to showcase their wheels.
Whether they’re able to capitalize on that opportunity remain to be seen. But let’s take a look at the fastest returning college football players for 2018.
… Baseball strength always has been one of the great, hidden components of the game, at least to some. The strength of the players, especially in their hands, wrists and forearms, goes largely unappreciated: I’ve never met a position player who wasn’t really strong in those areas, even dinky, little middle infielders. Indeed, after Michael Jordan’s one year in baseball in 1994, one of his many observations about the game was that virtually every player on his Double-A team was stronger than him from the tips of their fingers to their elbow.
“I noticed how really strong baseball players are when I joined the general population after retirement,” said John Baker, who caught in the big leagues from 2008 to 2014. “I started practicing jujitsu. From day one, when I grabbed the lapel, I could grab it longer and harder than anyone else. That comes from thousands and thousands of violent swings with a baseball bat. Swinging a bat makes your hands strong. Baseball players are so strong.”
Today marks the first day of medical exams at the NFL Combine, with the group of offensive linemen usually kicking that off in the morning.
Hall of Fame general manager and ESPN analyst Bill Polian said this a couple years ago:
“The absolute gospel truth is the one and only reason for the combine is the medical tests, and if they did away with everything else … the combine would still be exceedingly valuable.”
Why is the medical exam so important? Didn’t these approximately 330 players get invited to Indianapolis to show off their physical skills?
… the reality, one that has accelerated in recent years, has seen a greater emphasis on younger players. While older stars like Bastian Schweinsteiger occasionally make their way to North America, younger performers like Atlanta United’s Ezequiel Barco and New York City FC’s Jesus Medina have become more prevalent, as have still-in-their-prime players like LAFC’s Carlos Vela and the Seattle Sounders’ Nicolas Lodeiro.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the average age of players starting on opening day last season was 28.0 years. MLS stated that of the 91 players signed by its clubs this offseason from outside the league, the average age is 24.9.
So how then, should MLS be viewed beyond the “league of choice” mantra? Is it a feeder league for players on the rise? Is it a developer — and hoarder — of domestic talent? Is it simply a league aspiring to put the best product on the field, all while appealing to a diverse audience, regardless of the consequences to the U.S. and Canadian men’s national teams? Only that last question can be answered in the affirmative.
… Looking inside the balls and testing their chemical composition revealed that the cores of recent balls were somewhat less dense than the cores of balls used before the 2015 All-Star Game. The newer cores weigh about a half a gram less than the older ones, which might be enough to cause baseballs hit on a typical home run trajectory to fly about 6 inches farther. That alone is hardly enough to explain the home run surge of recent seasons, but when combined with previous research finding that baseballs began to change in other small ways starting around the same time, it suggests that a number of minor differences may have combined to contribute to the remarkable upswing in home run power we’ve witnessed since 2015.
Asked about these findings, MLB noted that it had commissioned a group of scientists and statisticians to investigate any changes to the ball, and that the committee would issue a report on its research soon.
… Though we naturally assign great power and agency to the leader of a team or organisation, an expert panel explored whether culture is developed ‘top-down’, or ‘bottom-up’. The answer is ultimately that both processes occur, but the main focus during this discussion was on the prominence of the leader-figure, rather than the individual athlete. It is the leader’s role to take athletes’ individual stories, goals and ambitions to define who the team is. It was agreed that the most effective leaders see their job as the ‘gardener’ who creates the environment for success to flourish.
Organisational culture is complex and multi-dimensional. It is hard to quantify, but it is something leaders have to do day-in, day-out. It is important to set an all-encompassing ‘vision’, and within this, goals that need to be continuously restated. One key aspect of the discussion was whether people buy into a higher purpose, something greater than winning, or if a team just succeeds on team members’ passion for what they do.
Either way, a model for success that resonated among the discussion group was the culture at NASA that led a sweeping janitor, when asked by John F. Kennedy what he was doing, to reply, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
… The NFL is expected to shares mounds of player-tracking information with all of its clubs later this spring, NFL.com reported last month. And while that data will come too late to factor into the major free-agent decisions teams will make next week, the Lions and others already are wrestling with how to use the intelligence they’re about to come upon.
“I think all of it goes in,” Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia said last week at the NFL combine. “You try to use as much of it as you can. I think the biggest thing again, don’t ever get away from the bottom line is watching the tape. The tape, as we say, doesn’t lie. So that would be the biggest thing.”
… Falk hesitates to name his contributions to the Process in Philly. So much of it, he says, was with an eye toward the future – dividends expected down the road. Infrastructure built for the long game. Technically, he was there for the Sacramento and Michael Carter-Williams trades, the Okafor and Ben Simmons drafts. But he’s not one to claim credit or assign blame. He says he most values his relationships, and all he learned.
The end came in April 2016, when Hinkie and the Sixers “mutually parted ways,” which you are welcome to read as euphemism. Within a few months, Falk did the same.
Which meant that, at 28, Falk was suddenly out of a job. At the same time, he wasn’t in a hurry to get a new one. Rather, he existed in that sweet spot between being highly employable and totally okay with unemployment, at least temporarily. Single, he’d saved his money, was fine with working long hours, and wasn’t so entrenched in a career that he was leery of taking risks. And, as you may know, from such perches have many great concepts—as well as plenty of batshit schemes—been birthed.