Kevin Knox heard the criticisms while he was in Kentucky about his waning effort. The 18-year-old thought it was fair and — ahead of his first Summer League game with the Knicks on Saturday — said he has worked toward a solution by getting in better shape.
“I heard that all the time. I just kept playing. People are going to talk all the time, criticize you. I listened to my parents, listened to my coaches. They said the same thing,” he said. “I kind of got better at — I worked on my conditioning a lot this summer as far as getting in extra sprints, so I keep my motor up the whole game.”
After a strong collegiate career at Rutgers and an impressive start to her pro career with Montpellier in France, New Jersey’s Casey Murphy recently received her first call-up to the USWNT. Now ahead of the French season, she is poised for a continued breakthrough for both club and country.
The objectives of this study were to, (a) understand the role of the social support network in facilitating adolescent athletes’ dual careers in sport and education, and; (b) gain insights into the factors that may optimize the provision of such support. Design
A two-stage qualitative study. Method
In stage one, four different sport and education settings in the UK were examined: A tennis academy, a football academy, a national field hockey squad, and a high-performance swimming squad. Interviews were conducted with two athletes and associated significant others from each setting. In stage two, nine current or former international athletes from a variety of sports and countries recalled their experiences of managing a dual career. Analysis was conducted following the procedures outlined by Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2014). Results
Overall, athletes in stage one and two perceived that to maintain their dual careers, they were heavily dependent upon the support of significant others. The role of the support network was to recognize the demands of a dual career, anticipate problems, value education, minimize barriers, and create autonomy-supportive environments. Key factors to optimize such support were focusing on the whole person, providing integrated support, and fostering a culture that promotes continuing education. Conclusions
Results indicate that athletes require particular types of support within their home, at school, and in their sport context to be able to manage their dual career. However, a range of individual and group-level factors may influence the extent to which such support is available to athletes.
The world of youth sports is full of seemingly obvious choices backed up by years of study and research. But doing the right thing is not always so straightforward.
Take the idea of being a multi-sport athlete. Countless studies and development models tell us that it is better for young athletes to play multiple sports rather than focusing on just one year-round.
A recently released public service campaign titled Change it Up reinforces this important concept. It shows four elite Canadian athletes participating in sports other than the one they are best known for. The campaign is supported by the Canadian Olympic Committee, Hockey Canada, Baseball Canada and Canada Soccer.
Wearable Tech Education – Top 10 Changes For Years To Come. There’s been a lot of hype surrounding wearables over the last three years. Smartwatches, fitness bands, and smart glasses led consumers to question what they can get out of this novel technology. For a while it looked like wearables market ‘calmed down’, 2018 shows a record number of almost 152 million wearables making their way to the users’ wrists, faces, ankles and other body parts.
As Angela McIntyre, former research director at Gartner and current Executive Director of Wearable Electronics (eWEAR) Initiative once said: “Consumers will be able to integrate the data from most wearables into a single account. Moreover, that data can be analysed using AI and cognisant computing to provide useful insights to wearers and companies alike.”
New funding initiatives from Qualcomm, Apple, Google, Samsung (S.A.M.I.), Microsoft, and Nike – many among others – build on early innovations in wearable tech, fitness, and health monitoring to create the infrastructure for merging consumer data from fashion, health, and fitness devices.
More than 5,000 people registered for this year’s Sensor Expo, where more than 250 companies showed their wares. The numbers are a reasonable indicator that there’s a diverse and growing set of sensors and people interested in them in these early days of the Internet of Things.
I took just two hours out of a busy week to walk the show floor and came away with insights on a handful of the latest products from a mix of big chip vendors and startups.
Along the way, I met Albert Pisano, dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California at San Diego. Pisano used to lead a sensor and actuator lab at Berkeley and, in his new role, nourishes a similar initiative focused on wearables.
“We’re not working on things like the Fitbit, a box you strap to yourself,” he said. “We’re interested in bio-compatible devices that work by chemical reactions directly on your skin.”
Elite team-sport athletes are frequently exposed to stressors that have the potential to depress immunity and increase infection risk. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to describe how team-sport stressors impact upon immune responses, along with exploring whether alterations in these markers have the potential to predict upper respiratory tract illness symptoms. DESIGN:
Narrative review. METHODS:
Salivary secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA) and T-cell markers have been shown to predict infection risk in individual endurance athletes. Papers discussing the impact of team-sport stressors on SIgA and T-cells were discussed in the review, studies discussing other aspects of immunity were excluded. Journal articles were sourced from PubMed, Web of science and Scopus. Key search terms included team-sport athletes, stressors, immunity, T-cells, cytokines, SIgA and upper respiratory illness. RESULTS:
Most team-sport stressors appear to increase risk for illness. An association between reduced SIgA and increased illness incidence has been demonstrated. Intensive training and competition periods have been shown to reduce SIgA, however, it is less clear how additional stressors including extreme environmental conditions, travel, psychological stress, sleep disturbance and poor nutrition affect immune responses. CONCLUSIONS:
Monitoring SIgA may provide an assessment of a team-sport athletes risk status for developing upper respiratory tract symptoms, however there is currently not enough evidence to suggest SIgA alone can predict illness. Team-sport stressors challenge immunity and it is possible that the combination of stressors could have a compounding effect on immunodepression and infection risk. Given that illness can disrupt training and performance, further research is required to better elucidate how stressors individually and collectively influence immunity and illness.
To profile multi-year injury incidence and severity trends in elite junior tennis players from a national program. DESIGN:
Prospective cohort. METHODS:
Injury data was collated by sex, age and region for all nationally-supported Australian junior players (58m, 43f 13-18y) between 2012-2016. Injury was defined as a physical complaint from training/matchplay interrupting training/matchplay determined by presiding physiotherapists and doctors. Severity represented the days of interrupted training/matchplay per injury. Injury incidence was reported per 1000 exposure hours. Incidence rate change and rate ratios (RR) ±95% confidence intervals were used to assess changes over time. RESULTS:
No difference in male and female injury incidence existed (2.7±0.0 v 2.8±0.0) yet male injuries were more severe (3.6±0.6 v 1.1±0.9 days). The lumbar spine was the most commonly and severely injured region in both sexes (4.3±0.2, 9.9±1.4d). Shoulder injuries were the second most common in both sexes (3.1±0.2) and with the second highest severity in males (7.3±1.4d). Knee injuries were also common in males (2.3±0.2) yet potentially reduced over time (0.4±0.6 RR) as pelvis/buttock injuries increased (3.4±14.0 RR). Females had high trunk and abdominal injury incidences (2.5±0.3). Independent of sex, the injury incidence increased with age from 2.0±0.1 (13y) to 2.9±0.1 (18y). CONCLUSIONS:
Despite no sex-based difference in injury incidence, male injuries resulted in more interrupted days of training/matchplay. The lumbar spine and shoulder were the most commonly injured body regions in both sexes. The number of injuries sustained by players also increased as they aged.
Serena Williams expressed no qualms about antidoping officers showing up unannounced to collect urine and, on occasion, blood samples. She wasn’t even bothered when it happened twice in the same week in the lead-up to this year’s French Open. It was like T.S.A. searches at the airport — a minor inconvenience of her high-flying tennis career.
The five out-of-competition tests in the first six months of 2018 didn’t irritate Williams until she saw numbers, plucked from the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s public database and included in a recent Deadspin article, that seemed to suggest she was being tested far more often than her compatriots in the sport.
The registered pool of performers included the United States Open champion Sloane Stephens and the finalist she beat, Madison Keys, who were listed as having one completed test, and Sam Querrey, the men’s world No. 13, who had none.
“I didn’t know I was being tested three times more — in some cases five times more — than everyone else,” Williams said Monday after her straight-sets victory over Arantxa Rus in the first round at Wimbledon.
If you want to get a sense of how tired readers are of the latest round of headlines pondering the health benefits (or risks) of coffee, then all you need to do is read the replies on this tweet.
Penalty shootouts are nerve-racking for even the most skilled of footballers. And there’s good reason to fear them since science suggests that shootouts are more about luck than technical ability. The team that kicks first has a significant advantage because of the psychological pressure it puts on their opponents. After two tense penalty shootouts on Sunday that put Russia and Croatia through to the World Cup quarter-finals at the expense of Spain and Denmark, Euronews speaks to an economist about what would make one of the most dramatic and controversial moments of the competition fairer.
FL.com’s 18 for ’18 series closes with a look at college football’s most freakish athletes. They come in big and small packages over a cross section of every position on the field. They astound their teammates in offseason training, and many — if not all — will eventually put on an impressive show at the NFL Scouting Combine. Some are stronger than fast, others faster — or quicker — than strong, but they all bring crazy-impressive skills to the gridiron. The list was compiled in consultation with NFL scouts, college coaches and sports information directors.