The San Diego Union-Tribune, Pro Football Doc from
… By video, Stafford appears to take a hit while scrambling, which is likely how he suffered a transverse process fracture. He got up without any assistance and finished the game in what was almost certainly considerable pain.
An MRI or CT scan likely discovered the transverse process fractures. Of note, Matthew Stafford last season apparently played through some back fractures that were thought to be transverse process in nature as well, though the two injuries do not seem to be related.
… This past summer’s workout regimen consisted of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and shooting. Literally, a combination of the two. Espinoza-Hunter sprinted up and down the court and began shooting immediately thereafter.
“We turned it up this year,” Williams said.
He knows how well Espinoza-Hunter can shoot when she’s standing still. The spectators saw it during Maroon Madness three weeks ago. They saw it last season, too, when Espinoza-Hunter made 42.2% of her 3-pointers. Williams said he wants that number to increase to 47%.
For that to happen, Williams said she has to be a better athlete. Hence, the HIIT. After sprints, Williams made Espinoza-Hunter make seven 3s in a row at five different stations around the arc. She couldn’t move onto the next station until all seven were hit in succession.
… Gareth Sandford, a British researcher currently based at the University of British Columbia, presented some of his work on “speed reserve,” the idea that even in events with a significant endurance component, top speed can sometimes emerge as a limiting factor. Sandford’s research, which has produced a series of widely discussed studies in recent months, focuses on 800-meter runners, who sit at the intersection between speed and endurance. But I think it’s a concept that’s worth considering even for more endurance-focused athletes.
Let’s start with some definitions. Your “anaerobic speed reserve” is the range between your fastest aerobic speed and your fastest all-out speed. Your fastest aerobic speed is defined as the speed where you reach your VO2max, or maximal aerobic capacity, in a lab test. That’s hard to measure, so in Sandford’s studies he instead estimates that speed from a formula based on 1,500-meter race times. (If you don’t want to mess around with conversions, your speed in a 2,000-meter time-trial will give you a decent estimate.)
Success in soccer, however, is defined less by force-producing abilities, and more on skill; players who excelled through their developmental progressions were those who were more skillful than their peers – not necessarily those who were bigger and faster.
… While some coaches and teams may not agree with or like the precautionary measures players like Kawhi Leonard, who won a championship after being load managed, and others are taking, others embrace the science behind it. Teams like the Dallas Mavericks are collecting all sorts of data on the well being of their players and the physical toll the game takes on them. It helps them determine a course of action and takes the decision whether or not to rest a player out of the hands of the coach.
“Well, it’s not necessarily what my philosophy is, it’s what our organization’s philosophy is,” Mavericks Head Coach Rick Carlisle said. “We monitor it very closely with all of our players. These guys now wear GPS things during practice that track all that information. To my knowledge, they’re not wearing them in games yet, but at some point that will happen. It’s important information. The professional athlete has got to be trained in a certain way. We look at it very closely.”
First and foremost: The theme of load management – or rest games, or days off, or whatever you want to call it – is not unique to the NBA. In fact, it’s been a longtime standby in several other sports.
Consider modern hockey goaltenders, perhaps the best analogy available here. Within the last decade or so, the hockey community as a whole has realized the diminishing returns of overtaxing goalies within a given season. It’s to the point where you virtually never see an NHL goalie play games on back-to-back nights – even the best at the position in the league hover in the mid-50s or perhaps the very low-60s for games played each year, while their backups take on the other 25% or so of the load.
… “The game now is being played differently,” says Craig Buntin, a former Canadian Olympic pairs skater and co-founder of the company. “There’s always been a disconnect between analytics and coaches. We’ve made millions of data points suddenly useful for coaches. Artificial intelligence has given teams eyes where they didn’t have them.”
To the naked eye, or at least to mine, a recent game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Vegas Golden Knights was a push-and-shove match that the Habs won, 5-4, in overtime, simple as that. But the next morning, in the Mile End section of Montreal, Mr. Buntin pulled up an image of the game’s passes to the slot in the neutral zone. In that spaghetti image was the future of hockey, available in time for coffee and Montreal’s famous wood-fired bagels.
No traditional statistic reveals nearly as much information. “You win games scoring more goals than are scored against you,” says Mr. Buntin. “You need to know how you score those goals. So you need to know where the high-probability shots came from and how they are generated.”
As an existing customer using a Vicon optical system to look at the performance of its athletes, Red Bull has now chosen to invest in Vicon’s inertial tracking solution to help reduce the risk of injury. Red Bull will use a combination of the Blue Trident inertial sensors – Vicon’s newest wearable which provides immediate analysis in the field or in water – and IMeasureU’s IMU Step app to monitor lower limbs during training to aid return-to-play, reduce reinjury risk and optimise the performance of their athletes.
Rutgers engineers have embedded high performance electrical circuits inside 3D-printed plastics, which could lead to smaller and versatile drones and better-performing small satellites, biomedical implants and smart structures.
They used pulses of high-energy light to fuse tiny silver wires, resulting in circuits that conduct 10 times more electricity than the state of the art, according to a study in the journal Additive Manufacturing. By increasing conductivity10-fold, the engineers can reduce energy use, extend the life of devices and increase their performance.
“Our innovation shows considerable promise for developing an integrated unit – using 3D printing and intense pulses of light to fuse silver nanoparticles – for electronics,” said senior author Rajiv Malhotra.
Spearheaded by director of soccer analytics Ravi Ramineni, the Sounders have for years been one of the most data-oriented clubs not only in MLS, but the entire world. Every major personnel decision is informed with deep analysis and number-crunching, and technology is fully integrated with daily team activities to limit injuries and maximize performance.
The LSU quarterback entered this season projected to be a fifth-round pick at best. Three months later, he’s being talked about as a top-10 selection. How did he get there? And what does his ascension say about the QB evaluation process?
… Chris Davies, Brendan Rodgers’ assistant at Leicester City and part of a modern breed of coaches who were initially analysts, has described “transition, or controlling transition” as the “most important part of the game now”. Most modern coaches feel the same.
It is the instance that possession is lost and a ball is free, leaving one side out of shape and disorganised, and offering a millisecond of an entirely uncontrolled game for the more forceful side to pounce.
It is consequently also the moment of nothingness that means everything. If you control the transitions, you control the game.
Much of this is itself the natural consequence of the scientific evolution within football,
… There are numerous other metrics as well that teams use to assess player performance, and some critics argue the traditional ‘stat sheet’ has become archaic and should be updated to include new metrics that previously had been overlooked statistically speaking, but have definite impacts on the final score.
One of those people is Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder, a respected voice in the profession who believes that some ‘player hustle’ stats that definitively affect the outcome of games need to be included in the typical box score. Among the overlooked advanced stats he noted is the ‘screen assist’ — a pick set for a teammate that directly lead to a made basket by that teammate.
Fewer than half of the world’s sports industry leaders are implementing ‘concrete innovation strategies’ despite the vast majority recognising the importance of technological transformation, according to a new research from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
PwC’s Sports Survey 2019 claims that sports properties must find the right combination of infrastructure, processes and people to remain relevant in an ‘increasingly competitive and disrupted industry’, and cites director-to-consumer (DTC) distribution as one of the sectors of contention among executives.
PwC’s data shows that 94 per cent of all sport leaders surveyed worldwide recognise the importance of transformation and innovation, however, only 47 per cent are laying the groundwork for change.