Applied Sports Science newsletter – May 7, 2019

… Despite his ability to overwhelm hitters, Paxton is no stranger to breakdowns. The left-hander never threw more than 160 ⅓ innings in six seasons with the Mariners, sustaining injuries to a forearm, an elbow, a pectoral muscle, a latissimus and a left finger. But the knee had never been a problem for Paxton, at least not before he made four starts in the Bronx in 2019.

Is there a connection? Paxton believes there might be. After brainstorming with the pitching coach Larry Rothschild and some of his fellow pitchers, Paxton suspects the mound’s hard, sticky clay could be the culprit. He theorizes the lack of “give” is irritating the knee as it rotates upon release of the ball. It’s only a hypothesis, but the Yankees seem willing to indulge Paxton. They plan to sprinkle a softer, looser compound near the rubber when Paxton returns from the injured list, which will allow for freer movement.

… While his NBA career ended abruptly when he was 30, Arenas pointed to Derrick Rose as an example of a high-profile guard who has successfully reinvented himself after a string of health problems. The former Chicago Bulls star missed significant portions of multiple seasons because of knee injuries before bouncing from the New York Knicks to the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Minnesota Timberwolves. This year, at 30, Rose averaged 18 points and 4.3 assists while garnering sixth man of the year buzz.

“Derrick Rose was damn near an all-star this year,” Arenas said. He has had to learn “how to stay away from instinctual moves, the kind you don’t think about it. Rose doesn’t just blast off and jump anymore. [Wall] has to understand that he can’t do that anymore and learn what his new attributes are.

… While other teams use cramped visitors training rooms to stretch and work on their players before games, Todd Wright, the 76ers’ assistant coach and head of strength and conditioning, brought his on-court method with him from the University of Texas in 2015. Wright takes advantage of the extra space on the court while allowing players to enjoy the atmosphere of the arena.

… “It’s like a toboggan,” said Devan Blair, a 26-year-old staffer whose official title is offensive strategy/video coordinator. “We’re very close.”

The massive size of Houston’s bench is now typical of N.B.A. staffs, which have become clipboard-wielding brigades. The Rockets, one of the league’s most high-profile franchises, agreed to lift the curtain, revealing the extraordinary detail of their in-game operation.

Since D’Antoni first became a head coach more than 20 years ago, his staff has expanded while each role has become more specialized. The Rockets may play with flair, but D’Antoni craves structure. So his top two assistants in charge of the defense, Jeff Bzdelik and Roy Rogers, sit in the front row with Brett Gunning, who helps D’Antoni run the offense. (Jason Biles, the head athletic trainer, also has a front-row seat.) Blair is in the back row with Matt Brase, Mitch Vanya and John Lucas.

Projected on to a wall at the Newcastle United training ground is the monthly report of a prominent first-team regular.

These are the progress bulletins that ping into player’s e-mail inboxes and tablets throughout the season and, for this defender it’s an impressive read. High 9s and 8s dot through the endurance and stamina categories, his energy levels are near the top of a Newcastle group that, statistically, is in the top four of the Premier League for its work rate.

The level of detail in the report is astonishing, from maximum and average speeds in training through high tempo sprints right down to dietary advice gleaned from regular pin-prick blood tests. “Could eat salmon twice a week,” it reads. “And think about putting olive oil on pasta.”

As a brief snapshot of the work that goes on every day away from the public eye every day at Newcastle United it is instructive. Every single day they are peering “beneath the bonnet” of their elite athletes, hoping to make nimble use of the reams of data available to give them an added edge over their Premier League rivals.

… Of the four decision categories we identified two years ago, three matter most to senior leaders. Big-bet decisions (such as a possible acquisition) are infrequent but high risk and have the potential to shape the future of the company; these are generally the domain of the top team and the board. Cross-cutting decisions (such as a pricing decision), which can be high risk, happen frequently and are made in cross-functional forums as part of a collaborative, end-to-end process. Delegated decisions are frequent but low risk and are effectively handled by an individual or working team, with limited input from others. (The fourth category, ad hoc decisions, which are infrequent and low stakes, is not addressed in this article.) Clearly, it is important that these types of decisions happen at the appropriate level of the company (CEOs, for example, shouldn’t make decisions that are best delegated). And yet, just as clearly, many decisions rise up much higher in the company than they should (see sidebar, “Avoiding life on the bubble”).

Objectives The first main goal of this study was to investigate the prevalence of depression and anxiety as well as self-compassion in a heterogeneous sample of male amateur soccer players. The second main goal of this study was the examination of the relationship between injuries and psychological factors in amateur soccer players.

Methods Players were recruited from German amateur soccer clubs of the fourth to seventh league. 419 soccer players with the mean age of 22.88 years participated in the psychological and the injury assessment at the beginning of the season and at the end, 9 months later. For the psychological assessment, depression and anxiety rate as well as self-compassion was analysed. Furthermore, the frequencies of injuries were registered.

Results The results showed that players of the highest amateur league, the fourth league in German soccer, showed significantly higher anxiety values than players from a lower league (p=0.013). There were no differences in depression values dependent on the league. Furthermore, players who suffered from an injury before the start of the season demonstrated higher anxiety values (p=0.027). This result was independent of the respective league.

Conclusion The results of this study demonstrate that even in higher amateur soccer the anxiety level of the players varies between soccer players of different leagues. Because an injury before the start of the season influenced the anxiety level, a psychological treatment during injury should be considered.

Background

Running is a popular form of physical activity with many health benefits. However, the incidence and prevalence of running-related injuries (RRIs) is high. Biomechanical factors may be related to the development of RRIs.
Objective

This systematic review synthesizes biomechanical risk factors related to the development of RRIs in non-injured runners.
Methods

PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, Embase, and SPORTDiscus were searched in July 2018 for original peer-reviewed prospective studies evaluating potential biomechanical factors associated with the development of RRIs. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were followed. Two reviewers independently assessed articles for inclusion and methodological quality. Due to methodological heterogeneity across studies, a narrative synthesis of findings was conducted, rather than a meta-analysis.
Results

Sixteen studies, including 13 of high quality and three of moderate quality, were included. A large number of biomechanical variables were evaluated, producing inconsistent evidence overall. Limited evidence indicated greater peak hip adduction in female runners developing patellofemoral pain and iliotibial band syndrome, but not for a mixed-sex population of cross-country runners sustaining an RRI. The relationship between vertical loading rate and RRIs was inconsistent. Other kinematic, kinetic and spatiotemporal factors were only studied to a limited extent.
Conclusions

Current prospective evidence relating biomechanical variables to RRI risk is sparse and inconsistent, with findings largely dependent on the population and injuries being studied. Future research is needed to confirm these biomechanical risk factors and determine whether modification of these variables may assist in running injury prevention and management.

Take Home Message: Bridge-enhanced anterior cruciate ligament repair is producing similar outcomes to hamstring autograft reconstruction up to 2 years post-surgery.

With a growing interest in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to overcome challenges in bag data an personalisation, the NutraIngredients team asked experts at our recent Probiota conference how they believe the technologies will impact microbiome research in the future. [video, 1:30]

Background

Recently, gut microbiota have been studied extensively for health promotion, disease prevention, disease treatment, and exercise performance. It is recommended that athletes avoid dietary fiber and resistant starch to promote gastric emptying and reduce gastrointestinal distress during exercise, but this diet may reduce microbial diversity and compromise the health of the athlete’s gut microbiota.
Objective

This study compared fecal microbiota characteristics using high-throughput sequencing among healthy sedentary men (as controls), bodybuilders, and distance runners, as well as the relationships between microbiota characteristics, body composition, and nutritional status.
Methods

Body composition was measured using DXA, and physical activity level was assessed using IPAQ. Dietary intake was analyzed with the computerized nutritional evaluation program. The DNA of fecal samples was extracted and it was sequenced for the analysis of gut microbial diversity through bioinformatics cloud platform.
Results

We showed that exercise type was associated with athlete diet patterns (bodybuilders: high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate, and low dietary fiber diet; distance runners: low carbohydrate and low dietary fiber diet). However, athlete type did not differ in regard to gut microbiota alpha and beta diversity. Athlete type was significantly associated with the relative abundance of gut microbiota at the genus and species level: Faecalibacterium, Sutterella, Clostridium, Haemophilus, and Eisenbergiella were the highest (p < 0.05) in bodybuilders, while Bifidobacterium and Parasutterella were the lowest (p < 0.05). At the species level, intestinal beneficial bacteria widely used as probiotics (Bifidobacterium adolescentis group, Bifidobacterium longum group, Lactobacillus sakei group) and those producing short chain fatty acids (Blautia wexlerae, Eubacterium hallii) were the lowest in bodybuilders and the highest in controls. In addition, aerobic or resistance exercise training with an unbalanced intake of macronutrients and low intake of dietary fiber led to similar diversity of gut microbiota. Specifically, daily protein intake was negatively correlated with operation taxonomic unit (r = − 0.53, p < 0.05), ACE (r = − 0.51, p < 0.05), and Shannon index (r = − 0.64, p < 0.01) in distance runners. Conclusion

Results suggest that high-protein diets may have a negative impact on gut microbiota diversity for athletes, while athletes in resistance sports that carry out the high protein low carbohydrates diet demonstrate a decrease in short chain fatty acid-producing commensal bacteria. [full text]

The NCAA Gambling Working Group will propose the first-ever standardized national player availability report for college sports, two sources told CBS Sports.

Later this month, the working group will propose a pilot program that would have coaches list players as “available,” “possible” or “unavailable” for that week’s game without mentioning a specific body part or injury.

A heightened educational component for athletes and staff would also be included. Currently, athletes are not allowed to gamble on sports sponsored by the NCAA.

… There’s a lot for Moreira to balance, but since he was hired at the end of October, he’s been one of the key figures behind the scenes of Orlando City’s roster overhaul between the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

“That’s something I brought to the club, I think … active scouting,” Moreira told Pro Soccer USA. “Lots of clubs – it works in some places, some places it doesn’t – they tend to react to offers of players from other clubs, from agents, et cetera. I like to do the opposite.”

Moreira, a 34-year-old with a wife, Camila, and a son, João, who is less than 1 year old, watches “five or six” games per day. Plus, he’s regularly at Orlando City’s training sessions. He has two scouts working underneath him and the club is looking to add “a couple more,” he said.

We present Possession Sketches, a new machine learning method for organizing and exploring a database of basketball player-tracks. Our method organizes basketball possessions by offensive structure. We first develop a model for populating a dictionary of short, repeated, and spatially registered actions. Each action corresponds to an interpretable type of player movement. We examine statistical patterns in these actions, and show how they can be used to describe individual player behavior. Leveraging this vocabulary of actions, we develop a hierarchical model that describes interactions between players. Our approach draws on the topic-modeling literature, extending Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) through a novel representation of player movement data which uses techniques common in animation and video game design. We show that our model is able to group together possessions with similar offensive structure, allowing for efficient search and exploration of the entire database of player-tracking data. We show that our model finds repeated offensive structure in teams (e.g. strategy), providing a much more sophisticated, yet interpretable lens into basketball player-tracking data. This is joint work with Andrew Miller.

… I have identified a number of concepts that I have for long considered somewhat marginal and now I think are foundational.

Unfortunately, these same concepts do not seem to be covered properly in existing data visualization books. Some research exists for “some” of these concepts, but this same research needs to be translated in ways that is easy to teach and rendered practically useful in visualization design.

Here are the concepts …

1. Data Transformation