This fall we’re following three runners aiming for the qualifying time for the Olympic trials marathon, who all train together in Boulder, Colorado. Part One described their summer base miles setting them up for the hard training, and took us on one of their early long, tough workouts. Here is Part Two, detailing a week in each of their training, and a key workout in the heart of their marathon buildup.
On the same day the Nets lost Caris LeVert to surgery, a specialist told The Post they’d be well-advised to shelve Kyrie Irving for anywhere from days to weeks.
While LeVert underwent surgery to repair ligaments in his right thumb, Irving has been diagnosed with a right shoulder impingement. Brooklyn hasn’t ruled its franchise guard out for Thursday’s game in Denver, even upgrading him from questionable to probable. But a specialist stated Irving might be better-suited resting.
… The proof is in the pudding, and the results are hard to quibble with. Of the teams that won a playoff round last season, the Sharks (62) and Blue Jackets (61) were the only ones to start their No. 1 goalie more than 45 times over the course of the regular season. The Bruins made a concerted effort to play Tuukka Rask less than ever and were rewarded with a brilliant postseason performance from a goalie who was peaking at the right time.
If the NHL really is a copycat league and people are paying attention, the success of the early adopters of the 1A-1B, 50-50 workload split in net is going to lead to this trend not only continuing but also potentially going further until certain boundaries are established. While playing the same goalie in both legs of a back-to-back is essentially a no-fly zone already, teams are now trying to squeeze in even more mandated nights off for their starters.
Athlete monitoring utilizing strength and conditioning as well as other sport performance data is increasing in practice and in research. While the usage of this data for purposes of creating more informed training programs and producing potential performance prediction models may be promising, there are some statistical considerations that should be addressed by those who hope to use this data. The purpose of this review is to discuss many of the statistical issues faced by practitioners as well as provide best practices recommendations. Single-subject designs (SSD) appear to be more appropriate for monitoring and statistically evaluating athletic performance than traditional group statistical methods. This paper discusses several SSD options available that produce measures of both statistical and practical significance. Additionally, this paper discusses issues related to heteroscedasticity, reliability, validity and provides recommendations for each. Finally, if data are incorporated into the decision-making process, it should be returned and utilized quickly. Data visualizations are often incorporated into this process and this review discusses issues and recommendations related to their clarity, simplicity, and distortion. Awareness of these issues and utilization of some best practice methods will likely result in an enhanced and more efficient decision-making process with more informed athlete development programs. [full text]
A new study looks at what makes organized sports fun for kids, and some of the findings might surprise you. The new study, published today, dispels the popular myth that what makes sports the most fun for girls are the social aspects, like friendships, while for boys the fun factor has to do with competition.
“Our data indicate girls and boys are more similar than different when it comes to what makes playing sports fun,” said Amanda J. Visek, PhD.
Professor m.c. schraefel will explore models that inspire a broad and sustained uptake of digital health technologies through a prestigious Established Career Fellowship at the University of Southampton.
The five-year fellowship, awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), is one of just over 50 of its kind to recognise significant career achievements across the UK academic community. The project was the top ranked proposal from all nationwide entries this autumn in the ESPRC ICT interview panel.
The award also confirms Professor schraefel, a prominent researcher in Computer Science and Human Performance, as an international field leader. She will develop and test approaches for Inbodied Interaction Design that address an EPSRC Grand Challenge to transform community health and care. The £1.58m fellowship will build upon initiatives such as the wellthLab and continue her mission to #makeBetterNormal.
… Load management is among the most debated, least understood issues in the NBA today. It isn’t just an indiscriminate excused absence from a regular-season game. It’s a program that seeks to have a team’s most important contributors playing at optimal health in the biggest moments for many years.
In a real sense, the friction between believers and skeptics exists because the best science (that the density of the NBA schedule elevates injury risk) has come into conflict with NBA folklore (that championships are the pinnacle of success). Given the speed and athleticism deployed in today’s game, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for players to remain consistently healthy. A good bill of health is a prerequisite for team glory, which can make load management vital.
When the NHL announced last month that it had selected SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology) to deliver its new puck- and player-tracking system, it marked a major step forward in what has been a long odyssey for the league. With the season now under way, NHL and SMT efforts are in full swing with plans to have the system installed in 22 arenas before the New Year and available for every single NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs game come April. The system will be installed and fully functional in all 31 arenas when the puck drops on the 2020-21 season.
“I’m happy to say that we are on schedule,” says NHL CTO Peter DelGiacco. “There’s a team of 20 people, and we all have a shared vision. So I’m confident that we will be able to deliver a system that’s going to have a major impact on the way people consume hockey.”
A surgical innovation is getting a lot of attention thanks to the way it’s helping athletes get back in the game.
This innovation is used in something called the tightrope procedure by the team at OrthoCincy at the St. Elizabeth Surgery Center.
It is getting a lot of attention because Tua Tagovailoa, the quarterback from Alabama, played against LSU just 20 days after reportedly undergoing the surgical procedure to correct a high-ankle sprain.
… During an injury, despite physical activity levels likely to be reduced compared to normal, it is important to avoid overly restricting energy/food intake. The aim is to meet energy requirements providing the body with the energy and nutrients it needs to fully heal. Meeting your energy needs will also slow muscle mass loss and tendon mass loss and function. If deficiencies in energy and protein occur via a reduced food intake during the early phase of an injury, wound healing is impaired and muscle mass and tendon function loss is exacerbated.
Regardless of the time point of your injury it is paramount first and foremost to eat a healthy diet that provides sufficient energy and nutrients preventing unnecessary weight loss and avoiding nutritional deficiencies (i.e. calcium, iron, copper, zinc). The opposite is also true, the temptation to comfort ourselves with alcohol and palatable sugary and fatty foods, resulting in body fat gain, should also be avoided.
As part of Barça Sports Tech Week, on Wednesday the second edition of the Barça Sports Analytics Summit, an event that puts up for debate statistical models in which data that may help in the game’s tactical challenges and in the new areas available in the sports industry, such as the visualization of data. The event was led by Javier Fernández, head of Sports Analytics at FC Barcelona, who describes the Barça Sports Analytics Summit as “a unique event in the field of football analytics, where data scientists can meet and discuss the application of advanced data analysis in the real world.”
Speakers at the event included Sergio Lana, data scientist at FC Barcelona and other figures from the world of sport such as Dan Cervone, Director of Quantitative Research for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Suds Gopaladesikan, head of information systems and data at Benfica.
Gopaladesikan explained his work when it comes to optimizing sprints carried out by players out on the field. When a player carries out a sprint, it takes at least 15 minutes before they can repeat that effort. This period of time has implications in the game. Gopaladesikan has carried out an analysis that allows the coach to identify sprints that are carried out unnecessarily. With his world, he attempts to help his team produces high quality passes to optimize effort.
… Penguins coach Mike Sullivan has declined to provide any more information other than to say he’s being evaluated. However, a report from The Athletic says that Crosby has been dealing with a sports hernia all season and — after further aggravating the injury in Saturday’s win over the Chicago Blackhawks — he’s pondering surgery that could keep him out four to six weeks.
Penguins center Sidney Crosby argues with an official during a March game at
What bad luck, right? Maybe. But maybe it’s also something more.
Looking at the injuries as a collective whole, there are a few common threads. They’ve hit the team’s biggest stars, the highest-paid players and, also, the oldest players. That last part might be the most critical.
Green et al., “Association Between a Rule Change to Reduce Home Plate Collisionsand Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Other Injuries in Professional Baseball Players” The American Journal of Sports Medicine (2019). [video, 2:34]
Ten years ago this week, the Patriots failed to convert a fourth down in a pivotal loss to the Colts, but they started a conversation about being more aggressive
Using a two-study approach, the main purpose of this case study was to explore the use of a verbal reporting methodology to better understand the thought processes of soccer talent scouts during an in-situ talent identification environment. Study 1 developed a standardized coding-scheme to examine verbal cognitions during a single soccer game. Study 2 then utilized this methodology to examine two full-time recruitment staff trained in the use of concurrent verbal reporting before undertaking a live, in-game task. Participants also participated in a debrief interview following the game. The findings of the two studies suggest that developing a verbal reporting protocol is viable, however when applied in a live-game environment it is problematic. Future research should therefore consider a modified version of this task to further explore the cognitions of scouts whilst observing and identifying potential talent.