… For Cain, patience has kept paying off ever since. In a written statement at the time of the signing, Milwaukee general manager David Stearns cited Cain’s “speed, fielding prowess, and ability to hit for average” as the on-field benefits he would bring to the Brewers, and all of those skills are still intact: Cain has batted .291, stolen 16 bases, and recorded his highest Baserunning Runs, Defensive Runs Saved, and Ultimate Zone Rating totals since 2015 while tying for seventh among all outfielders in the Statcast-derived Outs Above Average. But he’s also done something different: dramatically reduced his chase rate and raised his walk rate, which has helped him post a career-high .394 on-base percentage and amass 3.4 WAR, a total that easily leads all NL outfielders. As the Brewers cling to a slight lead over the Cubs in the NL Central, they can credit their first-place status partly to Cain not only excelling in the same old ways, but also demonstrating a skill that he hadn’t flashed before.
Gatorade Sports Science Institute, Andrew M. Jones from
The hyperbolic relationship between power output and the time for which it can be sustained is well established in exercise physiology (Hill, 1925; Monod & Scherrer, 1965; Poole et al., 1988). This relationship is typically established by having a subject complete between 3 and 5 separate high-intensity exercise tests on different days, during which they are asked to sustain a fixed external power output for as long as possible. The power outputs are selected to result in “exhaustion” in a minimum of ~2 min and a maximum of ~15 min. The subject’s precise “time to the limit of tolerance” at each of these power outputs is recorded. When power output is subsequently plotted against time, it can be observed that the sustainable power output falls as a function of the exercise duration and that it will eventually level off or reach an asymptote (Figure 1A). This asymptote has been termed the critical power (CP) which is measured in Watts (W). The curvature of the power-time relationship, which represents the work capacity available above CP, has been termed W′ which is measured in kilojoules (kJ). The information contained in this “curvilinear” power-time relationship can also be expressed if work done in each of the separate exercise bouts is plotted against sustainable time. This results in a more “user-friendly” linear relationship which can be described with the regression equation y = mx + c, where the slope m is CP and the intercept c is W′ (Figure 1B). It is important to note that while the description given above relates to power output, and the majority of the related research has employed cycle ergometry, this same relationship exists in other modes of human locomotion, including running (Hughson et al., 1984) and swimming (Wakayoshi et al., 1992). In these situations, the terms critical speed (CS, or velocity (CV) in m/s) and D’ (m) are used instead of CP and W′.
Volleyball consists of dynamic, multi-directional movements in a confined space. The physical demands include reacting, accelerating, jumping, landing, pivoting, decelerating, and hitting. Therefore, the physical preparation of the volleyball player should consider aspects of vertical and horizontal training, rotational movements, and upper body strength to improve on-court performance and also decrease the risk of knee and shoulder injuries in the developing and veteran volleyball athlete.
In this blog, we are fortunate to interview University of Texas Volleyball strength and conditioning coach Donnie Maib, who shares his thoughts on program philosophy and methodology on training the female volleyball player.
Tony Strudwick says sport science has “lost its way” because an obsession with injury prevention is “killing” the pursuit of performance.
The Wales Head of Performance – who worked at Manchester United for 11 years and is one of the most respected figures in the industry – was speaking at TGG’s Cohesive Coaching event.
He said: “I think sport science has lost its way a little bit. GPS monitoring and analysis has become synonymous with sport science. It’s not, it’s one component.
… “What were you thinking?” is a past-focused question. When Pamela explains her thinking, she will sound defensive because we already know that it was faulty. She’ll explain why she made that trade (which, in the situation, is what she did) and he will get angry at her poor judgement (which, in fact, he did). Then they’ll both leave the conversation frustrated and disheartened (which is, predictably, what happened).
A better alternative would have been to ask her this question: “How will you do it differently next time?” This kind of future-focused question allows her to acknowledge her mistake while demonstrating her learning.
Scientists at the University of Warwick have created a new way to view proteins that are inside human cells.
Using Ferritin, a large protein shell that our cells use to store iron, the researchers have found a method they have called FerriTag that allows an electron microscope (EM) to view proteins precisely unlike current methods. The method allowed the scientists to enable the cell to make the tag itself avoiding damage caused by placing it from the outside of the cell.
Georgia Institute of Technology, Research Horizons from
By integrating the design of antenna and electronics, researchers have boosted the energy and spectrum efficiency for a new class of millimeter wave transmitters, allowing improved modulation and reduced generation of waste heat. The result could be longer talk time and higher data rates in millimeter wave wireless communication devices for future 5G applications.
The new co-design technique allows simultaneous optimization of the millimeter wave antennas and electronics. The hybrid devices use conventional materials and integrated circuit (IC) technology, meaning no changes would be required to manufacture and package them. The co-design scheme allows fabrication of multiple transmitters and receivers on the same IC chip or the same package, potentially enabling multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems as well as boosting data rates and link diversity.
The Post & Courier (Charleston, SC), Grace Raynor from
At some point this month, Dabo Swinney will put down his play-calling sheets and head to a meeting at Clemson that has nothing to do with football fundamentals. There will be no talk of strategy, no game prep, no talk of behemoth expectations that have become the annual norm for his program.
Brent Venables, Clemson’s defensive coordinator, will attend this meeting, too. So will co-offensive coordinators Jeff Scott and Tony Elliott, along with any support staff member and any coach in any capacity from the football program.
Between now and May, every staff member from every athletic team at Clemson will attend a similar meeting.
It’s a blistering Friday afternoon and a shirtless Amar’e Stoudemire is lying face down on the carpeted floor of the downtown Westin’s Garfield Park conference room. The six-time NBA All-Star is on his latest tour stop with the BIG3 summer league and is phoning in his lunch order: a medium-well burger with Thousand Island dressing, no mushrooms and no tomatoes for himself and blueberry pancakes for his 5-year-old son.
Stoudemire, who is hoping to make an NBA comeback, pushes himself up off the floor, settles into a leather armchair and launches into how he wound up playing for a fledgling 3-on-3 summer league after a short stint in Israel. Now 35, he wants it known that his body feels better than ever. Even so, he is quick to issue warnings to his fellow players when he is asked about his experience with the once-popular microfracture knee surgery, which has become nearly obsolete in recent years.
The NBA estimates an increase of 40,000 miles of travel in the postseason if it scrapped its current conference format and took the top 16 teams.
Calls to change the system were renewed this week when LeBron James left Cleveland for the Los Angeles Lakers, which could create another strong Western Conference team, where both Houston and Golden State finished above .700. The only team in the Eastern Conference with a similar record was Toronto. Houston and Golden State met in a thrilling West final before the Warriors swept the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
The Toronto Blue Jays were the oldest team in baseball in both 2016 and 2017. During the first of those seasons, that experience paid off, with 30s sluggers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion leading the charge to Toronto’s second straight ALCS berth. But when the Jays tried to run it back with most of the same core, a 76-86 snoozefest of a season ensued.
With Toronto now preparing to sell off many of its remaining veterans and launch a full-on rebuild, we got to thinking: How long should we expect to wait until the Blue Jays get good again?
… The Eagles are the antithesis of the tanking movement in professional sports. Their turnaround can be attributed to finding inefficiencies across the different markets at their disposal. For instance, Howie Roseman, the executive vice president of football operations, used the trade market to acquire quality veteran-plug and play contributors in exchange for late round draft picks. These moves vastly increased their projected return on investment and helped vault them into instant contenders.
It’s clear now the Browns and Eagles were on the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of analytical strategy. At least during the Sashi era for Cleveland, as their current general manager John Dorsey comes from a scouting background. From a macro perspective it’s fun to study and make generalizations about organizations, but it’s more interesting to go under the hood and zero in on some of the moves made that makeup their strategies. It’s even more fascinating, however, when the two worlds collide as they did in 2016 prior to the NFL Draft…
… Even if you look past the hundreds of younger, cheaper and exponentially more talented players in the world, on $5-8m a year, Rooney will join Bastien Schweinsteiger and Carlos Vela as the three players in the league that make-up over 50 percent of their teams’ payroll. Think about this fact for one second. Is there any other serious league, team or even sport in the world in which one player is paid more than all of his teammates combined? Of course not – from an athletic perspective, the idea that one man could have the same on-field influence as an entire roster is ridiculous.
Even Lebron James, potentially the best player in NBA history, only makes 11 percent of the Cavaliers’ total payroll, and he plays a sport with five starters. What if Rooney gets injured or suspended? What if he performs like the slightly above average player that he now is and United continue to lose? There goes of half of the DC United payroll, wasted on a player that for the past two seasons has averaged a goal less than every four games.
It’s time for the fence-sitting Grand Slams to hop off and follow the US Open’s lead in adopting a 25-second shot clock to keep the game moving.
The US Open is committed to implementing an on-court clock intended to enforce the rule specifying players have 25 seconds to initiate play after a point ends. But the other majors have been dragging their feet in the clay, on the grass and over the hard courts in Melbourne.
Here at Wimbledon, the most traditional of events, chief executive Richard Lewis recently told the The Times of London, “‘It probably will happen. But we are not charging in because we do not think it is necessary.”