Applied Sports Science newsletter – September 27, 2019

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for September 27, 2019

 

Charlotte Purdue’s preparations for humid midnight marathon

Athletics Weekly (UK), Jessica Whittington from

The British marathon champion has been running in heat chambers and out in Dubai to get ready for the IAAF World Championships in Doha

Charlotte Purdue admits that the conditions she faced at the Great Britain holding camp in Dubai were a lot more challenging than she expected but the 28-year-old adds that running there, and undertaking heat chamber sessions, has left her feeling as prepared as possible for the IAAF World Championships marathon on Friday night.

 

Corey Baird’s steep climb to Real Salt Lake stardom

MLSsoccer.com from

As a longtime US youth national teamer and member of U.S. Soccer’s Bradenton Residency Program, Corey Baird had long fixed his sights on a professional career. But when he matriculated at Stanford University for what he thought would be a brief stopover in NCAA soccer, the attacker was confronted by some harsh realities about the inconsistencies in his game. [video, 6:17]

 

Why seeking to improve X or Y when the objective is to improve jump, sprint, or more generally “sports” performance?

JB Morin from

… let’s tackle the main question: why focusing on improving force, velocity, power, or other neuromuscular factors when the objective is to improve e.g. the time to cover 20-m or the distance covered within a 3-s maximal acceleration? Our first, seemingly provocative answer, is to ask “ok, then what’s your plan to improve your 20-m time”. Immediately the discussion shifts to a kind of agreement. In order to improve a final outcome, we must “push the buttons” of the underlying “key performance indicators”, because if the answer is simply “well, do 20-m sprints in training over and over again”, we all know that this will help for a while, but if this was the best training possible then all coaches would lose their job. One of the pillars of sports training is to stimulate the athlete’s system in a way that induces adaptations. Thus, by definition, greater adaptations might result from unusual types of stimuli (in terms of load, muscles, coordination, force-velocity context, etc.) rather than usual ones. The neuromuscular system should be stimulated out of its “business as usual” comfort zone once performance plateau is met, which aligns with the principle of “diminishing returns”.

The following framework explains our research philosophy, and applies to both performance and injury prevention, by replacing key performance indicators by key risk factors and so on…We will discuss this framework step by step, keeping in mind that in the research context, each arrow means one or more scientific studies, so months and months of time and energy spent exploring or testing hypotheses.

 

Ritz on Running: Magic Happens

PodiumRunner, Dathan Ritzenhein from

When training and focus come together with the right conditions, breakthrough races are possible. Dathan Ritzenhein recalls his best race ever.

 

5 Training Insights from the Endurance Coaching Summit

Outside Online, Alex Hutchinson from

Some key takeaways on hydration, power meters, recovery, and menstrual period tracking

 

Georgia Tech researchers say knee sounds reveal secrets about joint health

FOX 5 Atlanta, Beth Galvin from

Many of us have knees that crackle, or pop or even crunch. But what do those sounds really mean?

Georgia Tech Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Omer Inan and his team are listening closely. Because, Inan says, the subtle vibrations and sounds our knees make call reveal a lot about their health.

“The knee is made up of soft tissue, and it holds up all of our body weight, and it has to do all kinds of crazy things when we’re trying to do things like jump or run or sprint,” Inan says. “When it does so, these tissues rub against each other.”

 

Apps for Healthcare Monitoring: Interview with Artem Petrov, CEO of Reinvently

Medgadget, Conn Hastings from

Reinvently, a mobile app development company based in Palo Alto, California, has created a number of healthcare apps, including those which collect, collate, and display data from wearable medical devices. The combination of a wearable device and a mobile app allows clinicians to monitor their patients in real-time and identify issues before they become a problem.

This approach is becoming increasingly popular, but in many cases, wearables are only as good as the software that accompanies them. Healthcare monitoring requires reliable and user-friendly apps that clearly display key data and alert users to issues as soon as they are identified. Bugs or glitches could have serious consequences when the apps indicate a patient’s wellbeing and determine treatment.

So far, the company has been the force behind some influential health monitoring apps. For instance, Reinvently developed the app that accompanies the Lumee Oxygen Platform from Profusa. The system allows clinicians to continuously monitor tissue oxygen levels in real time using the app, and is useful for monitoring at-risk tissues in conditions such as critical limb ischemia.

 

Georgia Tech Launches Sports Innovation Initiative

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Athletics from

The Institute for People and Technology, Georgia Tech athletics, and other campus units are partnering on SPRINT, or the Sports Research, Innovation, and Technology initiative. SPRINT centralizes and expands the Institute’s sports-related research, with the vision of making Atlanta a global leader in sports innovation.

The initiative will focus on three components:

  • Athletic performance (athlete health and human performance, wearables, and analytics)
  • Fan engagement (in-game engagement, relationship management, segmentation, communications, sales, and customer marketing)
  • Operations (ticketing, game-day operations, parking, security, concessions, ingress/egress, and venue management)
  •  

    Up-close and personal with neuronal networks – Nanoelectrodes record thousands of connected mammalian neurons from inside

    Harvard University, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences from

    … researchers from Harvard University have developed an electronic chip that can perform high-sensitivity intracellular recording from thousands of connected neurons simultaneously. This breakthrough allowed them to map synaptic connectivity at an unprecedented level, identifying hundreds of synaptic connections.

    “Our combination of the sensitivity and parallelism can benefit fundamental and applied neurobiology alike, including functional connectome construction and high-throughput electrophysiological screening,” said Hongkun Park, Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics, and co-senior author of the paper.

     

    A battery with a twist

    ETH Zurich from

    Markus Niederberger’s team of researchers at ETH has used stretchable materials to develop a battery that can be bent, stretched and twisted. For applications in bendable electronic devices, this is precisely the kind of battery they need.

     

    Portable electronics: a stretchable and flexible biofuel cell that runs on sweat

    CNRS, Press Area from

    A unique new flexible and stretchable device, worn against the skin and capable of producing electrical energy by transforming the compounds present in sweat, was recently developed and patented by CNRS researchers from l’Université Grenoble Alpes and UC San Diego (USA). This cell is already capable of continuously lighting an LED, opening new avenues for the development of wearable electronics powered by autonomous and environmentally friendly biodevices.

     

    Emory Healthcare and the Atlanta Falcons break ground on new orthopaedics clinic and sports performance and research center

    Emory University, News Center from

    Emory Healthcare and the Atlanta Falcons broke ground today on a new musculoskeletal and sports medicine clinic, located at the IBM Performance Fields, home of the Atlanta Falcons. The Emory Orthopaedics & Spine Center at Flowery Branch will provide a new location for patients, while also being an access point for Falcons who may need diagnostic imaging or to be seen by a sports medicine expert.

    The new clinic, approximately 29,000 square feet, signifies a long-term partnership between the Atlanta Falcons and Emory Healthcare. In 2018, Emory Healthcare became the Official Team Healthcare Provider, adding onto their existing role as the medical provider of the Atlanta Falcons.

     

    Here’s the truth about CBD, from a cannabis researcher

    Ideas.Ted.com, Jeffrey Chen, MD from

    … So what exactly is CBD and where does it come from? CBD is short for cannabidiol, one of the compounds in the cannabinoid family which, in nature, is found only in the cannabis plant (its official scientific name is Cannabis sativa l.). THC — short for tetrahydrocannabinoid — is the other highly abundant cannabinoid present in cannabis that’s used today. THC and CBD exert their effects in part by mimicking or boosting levels of endocannabinoids, chemical compounds that are naturally produced by humans and found throughout our bodies. Endocannabinoids play an important role in regulating mood, memory, appetite, stress, sleep, metabolism, immune function, pain sensation, and reproduction.

     

    In an age of superteams, Oakland A’s built a winner without tanking

    ESPN MLB, David Schoenfield from

    somehow, under Billy Beane and David Forst in the front office, and Bob Melvin as manager, the A’s continue to plug along and have success. They’ve won 91 games so far and currently hold the lead in the American League wild-card race, a tense three-team battle with the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Indians. After 2018’s surprising 97 wins and appearance in the wild-card game against the New York Yankees, this season’s run isn’t as much of a shock given the weakened nature of competitive balance in the AL, but it’s still impressive. The A’s have had to overcome issues in the rotation, the demotion of 2018 All-Star closer Blake Treinen, and the even tougher season of 2018 major league home run leader Khris Davis.

    What they’ve received is four superlative performances that have been mostly ignored in the dust of the Houston Astros’ romp to the top of the standings.

     

    Peter Moore: How Liverpool ‘merge analogue and digital’

    Training Ground Guru, Simon Austin from

    Liverpool chief executive Peter Moore says the club has “merged digital and analogue” to create “the essence of a modern football club”.

    The 64-year-old, speaking at the World Football Summit in Madrid, highlighted how the European champions have combined data and analysis with traditional scouting and human judgement to create success.

    Liverpool’s four-man data science unit, headed by Dr Ian Graham, is widely regarded as the best in English football

     

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