Applied Sports Science newsletter – October 18, 2019

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for October 18, 2019

 

The Art of Sticking Around in the NBA

The Ringer, Dan Devine from

How do you carve out a decadelong career without superstar talent? Kendrick Perkins, Jared Dudley, and a bunch of other longtime veteran players reveal their secrets to lasting in the NBA in six easy lessons.

 

Nick Kyrgios steps up injury recovery with gruelling fitness regime

Express.co.uk (UK), Stuart Ballard from

… Taking to Instagram, Kyrgios posted a photo of him at F45 Training Tuggeranong on his story with the caption: “@d1m1_spartan putting me through my paces.”

However, Kyrgios suggested last month that he may consider taking the rest of the calendar year off to fully recover.

“At this at any rate I’m not even too sure what I’m going to do moving forward with the rest of my season,” he said.

 

Mad scientist isn’t done just yet … Lowry’s return was a vocal one … Load managment will be a thing again … | Toronto Sun

Toronto Sun, Mike Ganter from

… “We have a couple of guys, Marc (Gasol) and his long season, and Kyle (Lowry) heading into his 14th or 15th season, that it makes sense to load manage those guys a little bit,” Nurse said. “I’d say the rest of them are probably okay to go. They’re awful young and still have a lot of juice in those legs. Those two guys, we might load manage a little bit.”

Gasol, in particular, is coming off a full calendar year with little to no break. He began the 2018-19 season with the Memphis Grizzlies, was traded to Toronto at the trade deadline, and then played right into June in that memorable championship run. Gasol made a name for himself in the parade, but less than a week later was in Spain heading up Sergio Scariolo’s eventual FIBA-winning entry. Another parade — and a visit with Spanish royalty — later, and Gasol was on another plane heading back to Toronto. At 34, he’s a year older than Lowry. Expect to see both get the load management treatment, although we would be surprised if it were as extensive as the treatment Leonard got a year ago.

 

Bumpy road for Nationals manager leads to ‘beautiful place’

Associated Press, Howard Fendrich from

… it made perfect sense that this is what Martinez said when he was given a chance to address a full stadium and television audience this week after a 7-4 victory completed a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Championship Series: “Often, bumpy roads lead to beautiful places, and this is a beautiful place.”

Moments later, referring to his players, Martinez added: “These guys cured my heart, and my heart feels great right now.”

For all of the players, and there are many, who deserve credit for contributing to this season’s tremendous turnaround, including the current 16-2 run — the Nationals are the fourth club in major league history to go from 12 games under .500 to the Fall Classic — the 55-year-old called “Davey” by many gets his fair share of kudos for helping steer Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon and everyone else from where they were in May to this point in October.

 

Meet Steven Gerrard, the manager: How he has turned Rangers into a bulls***-free zone

Daily Mail Online (UK), Mark Wilson from

… Between the artificial playing surface and relentless graft of the modestly-paid opposition, this was Scottish top-flight football as its rawest. And Rangers were the ones left nursing the scrapes of defeat.

It persists in the memory because Gerrard’s response to journalists on that difficult day summed up one pillar of his managerial approach. An approach that, if Jurgen Klopp has his way, will be coming to Anfield at some point in the future given the German’s recent comments about his preferred successor.

There were no excuses from Gerrard about the modest surroundings in West Lothian, no complaints about the result and no soft-soaping for those under his command. Blunt about a woeful lack of cutting edge, he warned his players they couldn’t expect to figure in a title race if such an underwhelming display was repeated.

 

COPING WITH JET LAG AND PROTECTING ATHLETE HEALTH WHEN TRAVELLING

Aspetar Sports Medicine Journal; Dina C Janse Van Rensburg, Audrey Jansen van Rensburg and Martin P Schwellnus from

Global travel and international compe-tition are inevitable for the modern-day athlete and sports team. Jet lag can cause disarray for the individual athlete as well as for the whole team. Jet lag is caused by rapid transmeridian travel across different time zones, and is generally considered as a syndrome where the internal body clock is out of sync with the destination time zone. Its impact depends on the duration and direction of flight, the flight schedule, and individual differences. Jet lag tends to be transient and can result in physiologic disturbances and a complicated set of physical symptoms. Furthermore, in the short-term, at the new location, the traveling athlete is exposed to diverse allergens or strains of pathogenic organisms, unfamiliar environmental con-ditions (temperature, humidity, altitude, pollution), and variation in diets that may lead to a higher burden of illness.

Knowledge regarding the preparation and management strategies to assist travelling athletes and teams are therefore essential for the accompanying physician and support staff. The aim of this article is to firstly equip the travelling athlete and -team with a methodical approach during the pre-travel-, flight- and post-travel periods in order to minimise the effects of jet lag1,2and to secondly give practical advice on strategies to manage the risk of illness during traveling – protecting athlete health.

 

Aspire-backed Qatar Sports Business District and La Liga sign MOU

MENAFN, Gulf Times from

The recently launched Qatar Sports Business District (QSBD) has marked a major step forward in its goal to become a leading hub in the region for sports innovation by signing a representative office of LaLiga as an anchor tenant. As one of the most popular leagues in the world, the news that Laliga, the Spanish professional league, is backing the Qatar Sports Business District is a huge testament to the strategic vision of Aspire Zone Foundation, and the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) in launching the initiative.

 

Sony’s upcoming health platform is an easy-to-implement wearable for remote monitoring companies

MobiHealthNews, Dave Muoio from

Electronics juggernaut Sony is planning to launch a B2B device platform early next year that will help digital health companies incorporate a straightforward wearable sensor into their existing remote monitoring services.

The mSafety platform — which Sony is previewing today at the Connected Health Conference in Boston — doesn’t look to focus on the apps, color displays or other features that drive tech-savvy users to Apple Watches, Fitbits or other leading consumer smartwatches, Anders Stromberg, head of the wearable platform department in Sony’s European Network Communications group, told MobiHealthNews.

Rather, it wants to deliver an accessible user interface, a secure backend and as few headaches as possible for clients looking to maintain their devices over the long term.

 

That New Yarn?! — Wearable, Washable Textile Devices Are Possible With MXene-Coated Yarns

Drexel University, DrexelNow from

Producing functional fabrics that perform all the functions we want, while retaining the characteristics of fabric we’re accustomed to is no easy task.

Two groups of researchers at Drexel University — one, who is leading the development of industrial functional fabric production techniques, and the other, a pioneer in the study and application of one of the strongest, most electrically conductive super materials in use today — believe they have a solution.

They’ve improved a basic element of textiles: yarn. By adding technical capabilities to the fibers that give textiles their character, fit and feel, the team has shown that it can knit new functionality into fabrics without limiting their wearability.

 

How Stem Cells Make Decisions

University of California-Santa Barbara, The UCSB Current from

… This crossroads in the cell cycle has been of particular interest to neuroscientist Kenneth Kosik and his research group as they investigate how undifferentiated stem cells take their paths to becoming the specific tissues that comprise the human body, particularly those that become neural precursors.

“If you’re making a tough decision, it takes a little time,” said Kosik, the Harriman Professor of Neuroscience Research in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.

The mystery deepens when you consider the fact that pluripotent stem cells typically do not make these “decisions” in isolation: One parent cell becomes two daughter cells, which can become four, then eight, and so on. How does the exponentially growing population of sister cells choose their collective fate, ultimately becoming the human being with all the standard body parts and features that humans possess — no more, no less?

 

How Athletes Are Reaping the Benefits of Keto Without Actually Giving Up Carbs

Gear Patrol, Rachael Schultz from

… “For the last three years or so, we’ve seen Tour athletes fueling with carbs and then supplementing with exogenous ketones to score a two to three percent boost in performance from dual-fueling,” says Matt Johnson, a former competitive cyclist and co-founder of The Feed, an online sports nutrition shop and leading supplier of exogenous ketones in the U.S. “June was insane with team’s placing $10,000 to $20,000 orders for ketone esters and rush shipping them to France. We could barely keep up with it.”

Elite athletes biohacking to score a tiny edge? Nothing new.

But this is: a study in the Journal of Physiology says everyday athletes who aren’t on a keto diet, who aren’t fat-adapted, may improve their recovery by a whopping 15 percent just from drinking exogenous ketones after intense training days. And the news is spreading.

“We have also had a huge spike in individual athletes ordering the product that seems to be only growing,” Johnson adds.

 

What Do Your Fasting Blood Glucose and Hemoglobin A1c Levels Mean?

Inside Tracker, Diana Licalzi from

Blood glucose (aka “blood sugar”) serves as the primary energy source for our brain and body. Healthy blood glucose levels are therefore essential for maintaining overall health and longevity. Unfortunately, several factors including the Standard American Diet and a sedentary lifestyle can increase glucose beyond normal levels, and over time, result in prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. If undetected, consistently high glucose can lead to long-term health complications, including nerve damage, cardiovascular disease, and kidney failure. This article explains the two most common blood tests (fasting blood glucose and hemoglobin A1c) used to detect abnormal glucose levels and ways to properly regulate them.

 

Chelsea’s Lampard sees no need for more European games

Reuters, Alan Baldwin from

… “At the minute. ..I think the level is about right,” Lampard told reporters during an event organised by the European Leagues umbrella organisation.

“The competition is good, we have the group stage, can we get through that. ..I like the format personally as a manager now.

“If you ask me can we play more European games, I personally don’t know where you’d fit them in amongst our busy schedule,” he added.

 

The MLB Postseason Has Given New Life to the Starting Pitcher

The Ringer, Ben Lindbergh from

The bullpen-heavy approach of the past few Octobers has largely fallen by the wayside as teams get dominant performances from their rotations—and maybe some help from the ball

 

Predicting NFL play outcomes with Python and data science

OpenSource.com, Christa Hayes from

In part 2 of this series on machine learning with Python, train and use a data model to predict plays from a National Football League dataset.

 

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