Applied Sports Science newsletter – July 22, 2019

The United State’s cross-country team has set the precedent of what it means to be a team, which in sports that revolve around individual success is often hard to find. After years of hard work by coaches and athletes alike to foster a healthy team culture, the fruits of their labor have shown in their results. For example, at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall teamed-up in the sprint to win the first gold medal for the United States in cross country skiing. Team veteran Sophie Caldwell was the first United States skier to win a classic sprint on the World Cup circuit and has eight World Cup podiums under her belt.

Now, cross country teams across the world want to train with the United States to see exactly how they do it. Coaches and athletes from other teams join in on camps just to observe. U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s initiatives to build a more open, communicative environment across all teams is modeled after the cross country team’s system. So what is it exactly that this team does that others don’t, in order for athletes to prosper?

“What the cross-country team has been so good at, that we would really like to see the other teams be better at, is really controlling the environment that the team is in when they are not competing. The off the hill time, the social dynamics, the way people behave with each other,” says U.S. Ski & Snowboard President & CEO, Tiger Shaw.

Each spring, the team (including both men and women) get together to have a team culture meeting, where the group has a chance to collectively reflect on the successes and failures of a season. They talk about what they’ve done well, what they can improve, what they are known for, and what they want to be remembered for. Thoughts and initiatives are then recorded in a cohesion agreement, that lays out how the team plans to move forward into the upcoming training and competitive season.

… In recent weeks he’s railed against MLS travel, the officiating, the salary cap and the league’s playoff structure. And he’s taken regular digs at the quality of play here, which he has clearly found disappointing.

“Of all the places I’ve been in my life as a professional, this is the most difficult,” he said in a recent interview with ESPN. “MLS is not the level of Europe, to be honest. Before, I played with players either on my level or close to it. Which makes the game connect easier.

“Here I am like a Ferrari among Fiats.”

… Getting there’ takes a superhuman level of commitment and sacrifice: It’s swimming 10,000 metres a day, practically every day, six hours in the pool, staying intensely focused on those goals and what it takes to get there.

Then there’s the analysis, the coaching, the listening, the improving, the technique tweaks that shave off tenths of seconds.

And somehow finding a way to make all that fun.

… The lack of financial resources in the post-collegiate world of running can act as a barrier for promising athletes attempting to enter the professional ranks. And without a national league like in team sports, there’s no set path for talented runners to follow. The individualistic nature of track and field also makes it difficult for athletes to compare their situations against a standard.

Will Crocker ran his fastest time in the 1,500 meters (three minutes, 41.44 seconds) while competing for the District Track Club, which launched in January of 2016 from the efforts of Brumlik, long-time track coach Drew Mearns, and two-time Olympian Matt Centrowitz, the former American University cross-country and track and field coach.

Crocker joined the team in January 2017 after finishing his eligibility at the University of Missouri, where he holds the school record in the 1,500-meter race (3:41.89). Crocker says he was good enough to keep running, but “just not good enough for a team, an elite sponsored group.”

District Track Club, which at the time did not have a sponsor, was one of the few clubs willing to give Crocker an opportunity.

… The second-year head coach always has football on his mind, continuously evaluating ways to improve his team. But he’s also a family man who strives to stay involved with his wife, Jen, and two sons, Carter and Tyler. How does he balance the two?

In short, it’s maintaining priorities despite numerous demands of the job.

… Strength coaches, who are the expert in the field, tell hockey players to do other things so they’re not overusing their skating muscles or if they’re soccer players to do other sports so they’re not always using their running muscles,” said Katie Lachapelle, Holy Cross women’s hockey head coach. “To be a well-rounded [athlete] is only going to help you when you do decide to target in on a sport.”

It’s not just a recommendation to play multiple sports – it’s best practices. Just look at the 2019 NHL Entry Draft prospect list, and you’ll see most of them have in common: they played multiple sports.

Coaches should encourage multiple sport participation for a number of physical, mental and social reasons, all with the long-term goal in mind: developing the athlete first, then the hockey player.

Withings has made BPM Core available for purchase in Europe. The US launch of the smart ECG blood pressure monitor is expected in Q3. The company has also released BMP Connect, an updated version of its classic blood pressure monitor.

Advanced functional fabrics workshop, held jointly with AFFOA and industrial partner New Balance, develops concepts for biodegradable footwear, active textiles.

… Perch has positioned itself to address the needs of professional athletes first before expanding their scope to casual gyms. Their solution is a modular camera installed within the free weight squat rack to observe the motion of the weightlifter as they perform their reps. Computer vision is used to identify the bar as it moves in 3D space. Machine learning is applied to determine from the camera’s images whether the bar is being lifted correctly or not given the person’s physical attributes. In addition to getting immediate feedback on whether you’re correctly lifting or not, the hardware can output how fast you were lifting the bar as well. Rothman built Perch on the basis that velocity-based training was the future of weightlifting. Velocity-based training incorporates and emphasis the speed at which you lift weights for a particular exercise. Given the cutting-edge methods in training for weightlifting are velocity-based techniques, Perch’s software-enabled hardware solution allows for instant adoption among professionals. In addition, the product’s ease-of-install makes it a prime candidate for mass adoption in gyms all across the U.S. Perch is planning to work closely with Lousiana State University (LSU) to test out their product in their gym’s to better train their athletes. However, the need for a strong founding team is necessary to usher in this revolution in weightlifting training.

“Our hope is that with Perch, we can begin to build the foundation for “smart gyms” or gyms with equipment that has our technology installed into it, so that from the moment you walk in to when you walk out, you can get comprehensive data on your workout performance so you can improve in your next session,” Rothman says.

Sports and other physical activities are an important part of a healthy lifestyle for young people. Activity promotion is a critical part of health supervision visits in the primary care setting. However, participation in athletics during childhood may increase the risk of some types of unhealthy behaviors. Young athletes may be more likely to pursue weight loss or gain to improve performance in their sports. Some methods of weight loss and gain can put a young athlete’s health at risk. Primary care providers can incorporate discussion of how athletes can maintain healthy weight into health supervision visits.

We Talked to Dozens of Experts, and They Agree: No Fad Diets. No Superfoods. No Shame.

Sonya Looney found international fame years ago, and she recently added another exclamation mark to her career by winning the prestigious WEBMO 24-Hour World Championships, riding over 234 miles with 29,000 feet of climbing. While her endurance mountain biking accolades stack high, she has expanded her cycling success into a number of different ventures. In recent years, Sonya has become a podcast host, an apparel business owner, and a plant-powered warrior (somehow still finding time to keep herself in top cycling shape!)

Since learning about the benefits of plant-based nutrition, Sonya has been on a quest to find the most nutritious and beneficial foods for athletes. She’s read countless scientific journals, hosted panels of nutritionists on her podcast, and done field testing by tossing vegetables in every gap of her diet. (Pro tip: She eats arugula by the handful for its nitrate content!) In the following article, Sonya will share her findings in her plant-based research and lifestyle. Mother Nature offers foods that are incredibly beneficial for athletes, and Sonya’s list of her top 5 performance-enhancing foods can easily be tacked into anyone’s diet – plant-based or not!

As the recent signing of of Cole Turner to Bethlehem and to a Philadelphia Union pre-contract illustrates, in mid-July Keystone Sports and Entertainment finalizes the year’s academy youth development decisions.

Probably Ernst Tanner’s decisions are made, and are now moving from inside his mind to signatures on paperwork, whether the paper work is the Union’s or the NCAA’s. Besides Turner, Tomas Romero and Nathan Harriel are the two other likeliest prospects.

As reported earlier by various sources, Romero is officially still headed to Georgetown and Harriel de-committed to Clemson before joining the Union’s Academy at Christmas time.

The still-unnamed Seattle franchise is two years away from debuting in the NHL, but the league’s 32nd team has its first GM. That’s Ron Francis, the Hall of Fame player who spent four years as the Carolina Hurricanes GM before being demoted, then fired, under new owner Tom Dundon in 2018.

Francis landed a coveted job in Seattle and has about 27 months before the 2021-22 season opener. The biggest challenge for Francis and his new squad? Matching the expectations that the Vegas Golden Knights set on (and off) the ice when they redefined success for an expansion franchise in 2017-18. In a candid conversation with ESPN, Francis discusses how he landed the job, his thoughts on watching the Canes’ playoff run this spring, when he’ll look to fill out his staff, what he’s looking for in his players and coaches and whether he believes other GMs will alter their approach to the expansion draft this time around.

To better understand sports participation rates for middle and high school–aged youths, the funding landscape, barriers and enablers to youth sports participation, and perceptions of the benefits and challenges of youth sports, RAND researchers launched three large-scale surveys of parents, school administrators, and community sports program leaders. A separate appendix provides detailed descriptions of survey and analysis methods, additional survey results, and survey protocols.

Perceived and actual barriers for middle and high school youths who may be interested in playing sports include financial costs and family time commitments, such as volunteering and providing transportation. Lower-income families in the sample were more likely to name financial costs as a reason for not participating than were middle- and higher-income families. Schools and community-based organizations may need to examine how costs — both time based and financial — currently burdening families can be reduced or supplemented with outside sources. Schools, community sports programs, policymakers, and funders can work to lower fees, particularly for low-income students. Providing equipment and transportation and minimizing parent time commitments may have the greatest effect on increasing sports participation among youths from lower-income families.