… The dynamic of the family competitions changed when Holmes, a self-proclaimed “super, super late bloomer,” sprouted from a lanky, 6-foot-2 jack-of-all-trades to a bruising, 6-foot-9 power forward in his early teens.
Once he adjusted to his newfound size and strength, he was the one showing no mercy on the court – against his siblings and opposing high-school big men alike. He still fondly remembers finally defeating Ray, his most vocal brother, one-on-one for the first time at age 16.
“I was always this in-between player who kind of just did everything,” Holmes said. “I was just so raw. I just loved playing. I think when I grew, that just helped me solidify a skill set, and (allowed me to) try to become something and try to make it … I think my senior year, it started coming together a little bit more.”
… No one encapsulates the turnaround at Everton more than Kelly. The 21-year-old forward spent the second half of last season on the sidelines after having ankle surgery. Now, though, she is flying and picked up the first Barclays player of the month award, for September, and was shortlisted for October’s. “It was definitely a difficult time for me,” she says of her spell off the pitch. “But it was a time for me to work on areas that I wasn’t strong in. I wasn’t ever the best in the gym and I knew that. But it gave me an opportunity to focus on getting my body strong.
“It was a difficult time and seeing the team low, the lowest, was quite difficult. When you can’t really impact on the pitch it’s hard but it was just about being positive around the team.”
In an apparent departure from previous game plans this season, the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday relied on running back Todd Gurley to power them to a 17-7 victory over the Chicago Bears.
Gurley had 133 all-purpose yards on 28 touches, both season highs.
“I guess I felt like the old Todd,” Gurley said after the game. “But it’s cool, man. I’m just happy I was able to go out there and take advantage of my opportunities.”
Is anyone in the NFL more improved than Jacksonville Jaguars receiver DJ Chark? A second-round pick in the 2018 draft, Chark caught only 14 of his 32 targets as a rookie for 174 yards and zero touchdowns. He nearly eclipsed those totals in Week 1 this year, tallying 146 yards and a score in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. He‘s kept up the production, and through Jacksonville’s bye week Chark is on pace for 74 catches, 1230 yards, and 11 touchdowns.
Chark entered the draft with a boom-or-bust profile. At 6’3”, 199 pounds, he ran a 4.34 40 while showcasing dominant explosive traits. He didn’t always translate those physical qualities into on-field production, however, scoring just six receiving touchdowns in his LSU career and topping out a solid-but-not-special 874 yards as a senior in 2017. Chark was an upside gamble, and one that didn’t look like it would pay off after his rookie season.
Neuromuscular fatigue (NMF) is usually assessed non-invasively in healthy, athletic or clinical populations with the combination of voluntary and evoked contractions. Although it might appear relatively straightforward to magnetically or electrically stimulate at different levels (cortical/spinal/muscle) and to measure mechanical and electromyographic responses to quantify neuromuscular adjustments due to sustained/repeated muscle contractions, there are drawbacks that researchers and clinicians need to bear in mind. The aim of this opinion paper is to highlight the pitfalls inevitably faced when NMF is quantified. The first problem might arise from the definition of fatigue itself and the parameter(s) used to measure it; for instance, measuring power vs. isometric torque may lead to different conclusions. Another potential limitation is the delay between exercise termination and the evaluation of neuromuscular function; the possible underestimation of exercise-induced neural and contractile impairment and misinterpretation of fatigue etiology will be discussed, as well as solutions recently proposed to overcome this problem. Quantification of NMF can also be biased (or not feasible) because of the techniques themselves (e.g. results may depend on stimulation intensity for transcranial magnetic stimulation) or the way data are analyzed (e.g. M wave peak-to-peak vs first phase amplitude). When available, alternatives recently suggested in the literature to overcome these pitfalls are considered and recommendations about the best practices to assess NMF (e.g. paying attention to the delay between exercise and testing, adapting the method to the characteristics of the population to be tested and considering the limitations associated with the techniques) are proposed.
The News-Gazette (Champaign, IL), Scott Richey from
… “We work low-level tumbling every day in our warmup,” Fletcher’s Instagram post read. “The focus is mobility, balance and kinesthetic awareness. A lack of kinesthetic sense can lead to poor coordination, fear of movement and lack of agility.”
Fletcher’s approach to strength and conditioning is different. Squats and sprints still have their place. But so does the science of sports. Fletcher has broadened his approach in his quest to help athletes build their bodies the right way, and then keep them as injury-free as possible and able to play at their peak best on the court.
It’s why he pursued a master’s from Edith Cowan University — world renown for its exercise and sports science program — in Perth, Australia. It’s why he spent a year taking classes at Parkland College to become a licensed massage therapist in order to help with the Illini’s recovery.
When mice learn to do a new task, their brain activities change over time as they advance from ‘novice’ to ‘expert.’ The changes are reflected in the wiring of cell circuits and activities of neurons.
Using a two-photon imaging microscope and a wealth of genetic tools, researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), Columbia University, University College London, and Flatiron Institute found that neural networks become more focused as mice got better at performing a trained task. They used the data to construct computational models that can inform their understanding of the neuroscience behind decision-making.
“We recorded the activity from hundreds of neurons all at the same time, and studied what the neurons did over learning,” said CSHL Associate Professor Anne Churchland. “Nobody really knew how animals or humans learn the structure of a task and how the neural activity supports that.”
Increasing diversity in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields has become imperative to ensure equitable access to economic opportunity and to provide the technologically adept workforce of the future. The present STEM pipeline preferentially engages youth who are, not only aware of and interested in STEM, but also, can see themselves on a path to a STEM career. The present pipeline fails to capture youth for whom STEM remains remote and outside their current experience. Interest in sports casts a wider net and includes populations currently underrepresented in the STEM pipeline and in STEM careers. To engage these young people in STEM, it is necessary to incorporate STEM into activities they enjoy and already participate in, such as sports. Sports engage millions of youth who are intrinsically motivated to grow and improve as athletes. Biomechanical experiments and activities can build a bridge between young people’s interest in sport activities to awareness and interest in STEM. This connection between science and sports is reinforced by the growing use of sport-science as a tool for elite athletic performance at the highest levels. The potential of sport-science to provide diverse youth with access to the STEM Pipeline is extraordinarily promising. Biomechanics researchers are uniquely positioned to deliver on the promise of sport-science based STEM outreach due to the applicability of biomechanical analysis to sport-science analysis. Historically, and not without resistance and great effort, participation in sports has broken barriers of cultural and racial discrimination within broader society. Through sport-science infused STEM outreach, biomechanists have potential to jumpstart the same process within the STEM career fields.
Big Brother is watching you … and he wants you to keep your shooting elbow in.
Over at Chaifetz Arena, looming sensors track the Saint Louis Billikens, who wear small devices on their sneakers. And the sensors track the basketballs, which are equipped with computer chips. The result is a sophisticated data-collecting operation that is influencing the way coaches coach and players play.
It’s called ShotTracker. It’s the future. It’s the present. And it’s emblematic of technology’s role in all sports in 2019, which these days seems more like “1984.”
… It turns out, fatigue is surprisingly tricky to define. You feel great at the start of a thing, and then after a while, you feel like you’d rather stop. That means you are short of … something. It could be any number of things, though. Sleep is one of the possibilities. So are blood levels of iron, sodium, and potassium. … If you did all kinds of testing in NBA locker rooms as players prepare for games, you might find examples of all of the above. But there’s one particular way of demonstrating readiness and injury resilience that is especially worth exploring, because it’s fascinating, visually rich, encapsulates a lot of the above, has some scientific rigor, just makes sense, and, interestingly, shows immense promise as a predictive tool: biomechanics. The measurable physics of how you move. It’s important, weird, and new.
… Twenty-six triathletes (14 men, 12 women) faced two identical Olympic-distance triathlons 14 days apart in South Africa. One hour before the start of each race, they either took a placebo or a capsule containing 6mg of caffeine per kilogram of bodyweight.
On average, the men raced 1.7% faster after the caffeine, compared to 0.9% for the women. The majority of physiological markers remained similar, although cortisol was much higher in the men. The stress hormone rises during intense exercise, suggesting that the men could dig slightly deeper when racing on caffeine.
… A number of STATSports’ international clients will take centre stage as some of the biggest talents in the world prime themselves for glory.
Who’s quickest to the ball always plays a huge role in sport, so we decided to look at some of the fastest players on their way to this summer’s Euro 2020.
NFL owners on Wednesday wrapped up their fall meetings in Fort Lauderdale, and as he addressed reporters to conclude the day, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell conveyed a sense of encouragement over the status of discussions on the collective bargaining agreement.
Negotiations between the league and players union will continue in the coming weeks, and Goodell expressed optimism that the sides can reach their goal of hammering out a new deal before the NFL faces the risk of a work stoppage.
“We’re hopeful that we all see the benefits of doing something earlier and getting something done,” Goodell told reporters.
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said he believes the sign-stealing scandal that has engulfed the sport involves only the Houston Astros and that he can mete out discipline beyond the standard fine and draft pick penalties if necessary.
Speaking as the owners meetings began Tuesday, Manfred called the allegations of technology-driven sign-stealing by the Astros “the most serious matter.” He said “it relates to the integrity of the sport” and promised “a really, really thorough investigation.”
Managers and those who evaluate the performance of others, whether in the workplace or on the sporting field, are likely to be often confusing luck with skill, and over rewarding those who are just lucky, a new study reveals.
The researchers analysed data from European football league matches, including more than 10,000 shots at goal that hit the goal post. The study revealed that getting a goal off the post was due to random chance, rather than the skill of the player.
“There was no significant difference in the average performance of the players who either scored or did not score after hitting a post,” says study co-author University of Technology Sydney (UTS) economics Professor Lionel Page.