… Having been a part of Mexico’s program, participating with their U20 team, and playing in the 2012 U20 World Cup, she worked her way onto a much bigger international stage with the senior Mexican Women’s National Team for the 2015 World Cup.
That opportunity dropped in her lap right as she was finishing up her college career at the University Of Michigan. Like most young girls with footballing talent, Murillo had dreams of playing professionally someday.
“I don’t think a lot of people will believe me when I say it, but playing professionally in the United States was a dream I had before even playing in the World Cup,” said Murillo.
… If there’s a ray of light, it comes from the most important sample in Lowry himself, who has appeared in 68 games or more in five of the past six seasons. Until last season, he was consistently amongst the league leaders in minutes played, too.
The Philadelphia native is no spring chicken. His playing style has ensured it. From drives to the rim that leave him careening into photographers and stanchions alike, to drawing charges that even the most robust physical specimens in the league would refrain from, Lowry has played the game one way.
He’s had his share of ailments in the post-season as a result of carrying that load, which is arguably why Toronto decided to take matters into its own hands last year, reducing his minutes by five per game and reworking the offence to be more self-sustainable.
Still going at age 51, the former Japan star represents the possibilities of aging productively in a country with an average life expectancy of 83.8 years.
… The triathlon and running worlds immediately began armchair analyzing everything from collegiate stats to her body type to decide which sport was right for her. Jorgensen ignored it all. “I just wasn’t motivated to do the same thing again,” she says. “My heart wasn’t in it.” Lemieux puts it more bluntly: “It’s no secret that triathlon found Gwen. She was never super in love with it.”
Her husband is right. But pursuing triathlon glory transformed Jorgensen from a conservative accountant into a risk-taking, unbreakable champion. It gave her the confidence to risk giving up everything from sponsorships to prize money and follow a different path. And if she could win gold in a sport she merely liked, what could she achieve in one she truly loves?
PLOS One; Jiri Mudrak, Pavel Slepicka, Irena Slepickova from
Background
Although performance-enhancing drugs appear to be prevalent in adolescent sports, relatively little attention has been paid to why adolescent athletes decide to use these drugs. In this study, we examine doping among adolescents from a motivational perspective and explore how motivational variables, such as achievement goal orientations and the perceived self-determination of sports activities, may be related to moral attitudes, doping intentions and doping behavior in adolescents who participate in competitive sports. Methodology
The study included 1035 adolescents participating in competitive sports from all regions of the Czech Republic (mean age = 16.3 years). The respondents completed a battery of questionnaires assessing their achievement goal orientations (task, ego), sports motivation at various levels of self-determination (intrinsic motivation, external regulation, amotivation), moral attitudes toward sport competition (acceptance of cheating, keeping winning in proportion, attitudes toward doping), doping intentions and doping behavior. A structural equation model was used to test the relations among motivational variables, attitudes, intentions and doping behavior. Principal results
Our analyses indicated a good fit with the proposed model, which explained 59% of the variance in doping intentions and 17.6% of the variance in doping behavior. Within the model, task orientation was positively associated with intrinsic motivation and lower amotivation, whereas ego orientation was positively associated with extrinsic regulation and amotivation. Furthermore, intrinsic motivation was positively associated with keeping winning in proportion and negatively associated with acceptance of cheating and attitudes toward doping; the less self-determined forms of motivation showed opposite relationships. However, only the acceptance of cheating and attitudes toward doping were related to doping intention, which subsequently predicted doping behavior. Conclusions/Significance
The results provide further evidence that sports motivation represents a psychological variable that should be considered in anti-doping policies, programs, and interventions aimed at the adolescent population because motivation was linked to the doping-related attitudinal variables and also partially mediated the effect of achievement goal orientations in this regard. On the basis of these results, we may argue that the focus on intrinsic enjoyment, self-referenced criteria of success and self-improvement may be related to more negative attitudes toward doping and cheating, lower doping intentions and less frequent doping behavior, whereas the emphasis on competition, comparison with others and external motivation appear to be related to the opposite outcomes.
Choosing the right running shoe has never been easy. There are so many shoe companies and so many models, each touting various high-tech features. How is a buyer supposed to make the smartest choice?
Now is the season to figure it out. With cross-country in full swing and the year’s most popular marathons and half-marathons just weeks away, lots of runners are looking for new footwear. Fortunately — almost amazingly — many experts believe shoe-buying is getting simpler. You don’t need a computer algorithm. You’ll probably fare best by trusting your sense of feel.
A unique trifecta of science, coaching and technology has positioned Orangetheory Fitness as a global leader in innovative heart-rate based interval training. Today, Orangetheory announces new technology advancements, including a new wearable heart-rate monitor and proprietary equipment enhancements.
Through this game-changing technology, Orangetheory advances its mission by giving members even better tools to capture performance data, measure their overall workout results and set new goals.
According to Orangetheory Fitness’ Chief Technology Officer Joseph Mazzarella, the brand developed this technology in house to uniquely position Orangetheory as the innovator in the fitness space. “We’ve been an industry leader in heart-rate based training for quite some time, and through continued innovation around our proprietary technology, we are providing even more personalized data that members won’t find anywhere else.”
As electronics decrease in size and increase in flexibility, it’s becoming harder and harder to power them. Now, a team in Japan has married a tiny, effective solar cell to a flexible biosensor to create a heartbeat monitor that powers itself.
It’s the latest work from Takao Someya’s team at the Riken Center for Emergent Matter Science in Saitama, Japan, building on their library of ultraflexible, washable, and breathable wearable sensors. As if that were not impressive enough, the sensors are pretty, too: Some resemble sleek gold tattoos, others pulse with green and red LED lights.
The new self-powering feature, described last week in the journal Nature, solves a problem the team first confronted years ago: How does one maintain a steady power supply without cords?
An international team of researchers led by RMIT University has developed paper-based UV sensors that could help people manage vitamin absorption and avoid sun damage.
The inability to alter intrinsic piezoelectric behavior in organic polymers hampers their application in flexible, wearable and biocompatible devices, according to researchers at Penn State and North Carolina State University, but now a molecular approach can improve those piezoelectric properties.
“Morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) is an important concept developed a half-century ago in ceramic materials,” said Qing Wang, professor of materials science and engineering. “This concept has never before been realized in organic materials.”
The concept of morphotropic phase boundary refers to significant changes in material properties that occur at the boundary between crystalline structures, and are dependent on a material’s composition.
Traditionally, the sports nutrition category has been dominated by bodybuilding and products exclusively designed to rapidly cut weight or to build bulky muscles. These products were sometimes formulated with questionable ingredients, not backed by scientific studies, and were of poor efficacy and quality.
In 2016, Euromonitor International reported that the sports nutrition category had grown from US$6.7B to $10.8B from 2010 to 2016. Much of this growth was due to an overall extension within the category. The market broadened its definition of sport nutrition from products used exclusively during exercise activity, to those that also focus on recovery, maintenance of immune function and reduction of downtime.
In 2018, the focus has continued to shift, not just with respect to formulations, but also from a consumer point of view. Americans are staying fitter longer, and are looking for ways to extend their joint health and flexibility in their golden years. The segment has expanded beyond the “gym rat” to the “everyday athlete.” There is an increased focus on women, fitness in advancing age, and regular people looking to stay fit vs. perform at an elite level.
Despite the progress made in personalised nutrition (PN) and the development of services offered to the consumer, the sector is still considered in its infancy with a number of issues, primarily privacy and regulatory, which need to be clarified in order for the industry to advance to the next level.
A lack of skilled people continues to stymie the AI revolution. That’s why smart companies invest as much in cultural change as technology adoption—and Google shows how
Batting average has sunk to its lowest level since 1972 and strikeouts are up. That means a game the young are less interested in and older fans struggle to recognize