Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 24, 2019

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for December 24, 2019

 

Zion Will ‘Probably Never Play 82 Games in His Career,’ Says NBA Analyst

Heavy.com, Vinciane Ngomsi from

Former Duke Blue Devil Zion Williamson’s NBA career hasn’t quite lived up to the hype. In fact, this year’s first overall pick in the draft hasn’t suited up for the New Orlean Pelicans once this regular season. For those reasons, NBA analyst Jalen Rose believes the 19-year-old won’t play for every single game for as long as he plays in the league.

 

OF Nick Heath just a phone call away from KC Royals

The Kansas City Star, Lynn Worthy from

When the Kansas City Royals were making the phrase “that’s what speed do” their national mantra and part of the magical memories compiled during postseason runs in 2014 and 2015, a young man from Kansas had just started to realize how his own athleticism translated to the baseball field.

Nick Heath, a 26-year-old from Junction City, Kansas, played for the Royals’ Double-A and Triple-A affiliates in 2019. This past season, he made a name for himself in the minor leagues by channeling the spirit of past Royals and running wild.

Heath’s 60 stolen bases in 73 chances led the minors, and he turned the base path into a racetrack in this era where the sport that has increasingly been played in a station-to-station fashion at the highest levels.

 

Sleep importance in athletics can’t be overstated enough, especially in college athletes that generally aren’t great at sleeping

Twitter, Jason Stone from

More Sleep in 2 Seasons of D1 Hoops =
1) Faster sprint times
2) 9.2% increase 3PT %
3) 9% increase FT %
4) ~13% increase Reaction Time

 

Some Michigan football early enrollees to practice with team in bowl prep

Detroit Free Press, Orion Sang from

Michigan football signed 22 players to its 2020 recruiting class Wednesday, the first day of the December early signing period.

And on Saturday, six of those players will officially get a head start on their college careers.

In an appearance on the ‘In the Trenches’ podcast with Jon Jansen, director of recruiting Matt Dudek said running back Blake Corum, linebacker Nikhai Hill-Green, offensive lineman Zak Zinter, safety Makari Paige, cornerback Andre Seldon and defensive end Braiden McGregor will arrive in Ann Arbor this weekend, and join the Wolverines as they prepare for Alabama in the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1.

 

NBA coaches look for balance between winning, development

Associated Press, Janie McCauley from

Billy Donovan challenges Oklahoma City’s young players to slow down and consider their strengths, focus first on defense and always think about whether the best decision is to shoot or pass.

Then, just be patient and teach the rest of the game’s nuances over time.

It can be a painful process for NBA coaches — and a costly one.

Many coaches are striking the delicate balance between pushing inexperienced players enough for the players and team to succeed while realizing that the learning curve in the league can be a long one.

 

CBS Sports goes behind the scenes with Iowa’s strength and conditioning program

Saturday Tradition blog, CBS Sports Network from

… CBS Sports got the chance to go a little behind the scenes of Iowa’s strength and conditioning program, looking at what Doyle focuses on and what the Hawkeyes hope to get out of that aspect of training.

Current offensive lineman Tristan Wirfs and defensive end A.J. Epenesa — both projected NFL first-round picks — also talked about the program. [video, 1:57]

 

Yankees fire strength coach Matt Krause as purge continues

New York Post, George A. King III from

According to two people with knowledge of the situation, The Post has learned Matt Krause, the Yankees’ director of strength and conditioning, has been relieved of his duties after six years with the club.

It is believed Krause had two years remaining on his contract. He follows pitching coach Larry Rothschild, who had a year left on his contract, and bench coach Josh Bard out the door.

Krause’s ouster follows a season in which 30 Yankees made a total of 39 appearances on the injured list. That is believed to be the most in major league history. Twenty Yankees made a total of 23 trips to the IL in 2018.

 

MLB Outlaws Amateur TrackMan Data Exclusivity

FanGraphs Baseball, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel from

Sources indicate to FanGraphs that major league teams have voted to institute new amateur data sharing rules that will, among other things, discontinue the practice of clubs enjoying proprietary amateur player data generated from games played at club facilities and some junior colleges; we’re told the vote was 29-to-1 in favor of data sharing. The vote came after the matter was initially discussed at last Monday’s annual scouting directors summit at the Winter Meetings.

While some distribution rules regarding data collected at NCAA games were already in place, there had previously been no such rules for the data collected at junior colleges, nor for various other methods of collection or for other settings for collection, including internationally. It’s unclear when mandatory data sharing will begin, and many team personnel still think there’s a grey area regarding what kind of data needs to be shared.

 

ONiO.zero Offers Up to 24MHz of RISC-V Microcontroller Performance on Nothing But Harvested Energy

Hackster.io, Gareth Halfacree from

Norwegian healthcare-focused Internet of Things (IoT) specialist ONiO has unveiled ONiO.zero, an ultra-low-power RISC-V-based microcontroller capable of operating wholly from harvested energy — without needing a battery, capacitor, or any other form of energy storage.

“ONiO.zero is an ultra-low-power wireless MCU that uses energy harvesting technology,” the company writes of its creation. “This means that the ONiO.zero solely operate on energy from its surroundings. No coin cell, no supercap, no lithium, no battery at all — but still a ton of power.

 

A self-healing sweat sensor (video)

ACS Pressroom, ACS News Service Weekly PressPac from

Wearable sensors that track heart rate or steps are popular fitness products. But in the future, working up a good sweat could provide useful information about a person’s health. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed a headband that measures electrolyte levels in sweat. And unlike many previous sweat sensors, the device can heal itself when cut or scratched during exercise. Watch a video of the sensor in action here. [video, 2:48]

 

Analysis of “old” proteins unmasks dynamic gradient of cartilage turnover in human limbs

Science Advances, Virginia B. Kraus et al. from

Unlike highly regenerative animals, such as axolotls, humans are believed to be unable to counteract cumulative damage, such as repetitive joint use and injury that lead to the breakdown of cartilage and the development of osteoarthritis. Turnover of insoluble collagen has been suggested to be very limited in human adult cartilage. The goal of this study was to explore protein turnover in articular cartilage from human lower limb joints. Analyzing molecular clocks in the form of nonenzymatically deamidated proteins, we unmasked a position-dependent gradient (distal high, proximal low) of protein turnover, indicative of a gradient of tissue anabolism reflecting innate tissue repair capacity in human lower limb cartilages that is associated with expression of limb-regenerative microRNAs. This association shows a potential link to a capacity, albeit limited, for regeneration that might be exploited to enhance joint repair and establish a basis for human limb regeneration.

 

Sen. Chris Murphy calls for NCAA to improve athletes’ health care; meeting with Emmert set

USA Today Sports, Steve Berkowitz from

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) issued a report Monday morning that calls for the NCAA to make dramatic changes in how it handles athletes’ health care, including demands that schools pay for “complete coverage” of costs related to current athletes’ participation in sports and unspecified “restitution” to former athletes suffering from the effects of head trauma.

On Monday afternoon, the office of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) announced that Romney and Murphy will be meeting with NCAA President Mark Emmert on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

The meeting likely will be related to the issues surrounding college athletes’ ability to make money off their names, images and likenesses.

 

Making advanced therapies takes industrializing personalization

STAT, Amy Duross from

… My experience working with advanced therapies has taught me, time and again, that true next-generation medicine requires the industrialization of personalization. That sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn’t. To create individualized therapeutics in a sustainable way, we need to deliver — even if it seems counterintuitive — mass customization.

Breakthroughs such as CAR-T cell therapies are inspiring. They are also unsustainably expensive, difficult to manufacture, and complicated to deliver. We can change this by creating a more focused cross-collaborative production and delivery ecosystem.

The Food and Drug Administration anticipates that it will approve 10 to 20 advanced therapies a year beginning in 2025. It also expects to receive up to 200 clinical trial applications for cell and gene therapies per year, starting now. The more than 1,000 advanced therapy clinical trials now underway worldwide could enroll almost 60,000 patients, according to the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. That pace won’t be possible without new systems and networks that reduce cost, simplify manufacturing, and streamline delivery.

 

MLB Changed More Than You Think in the 2010s

Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci from

Technological advances changed the landscape of MLB and baseball everywhere, and it’ll only get more intense in the 2020s.

 

A bioecological perspective on talent identification in junior-elite soccer: A Pan-European perspective

Journal of Sports Sciences from

Elite soccer clubs across Europe spend ever-increasing sums of money on transfers and salaries for world-class players. Consequently, clubs’ talent identification and development processes for junior players have become more professionalised. Based on a holistic ecological approach, this study presents an analysis of talent identification practices across some of the most productive soccer academies in Europe (N = 11). Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 11 heads of academy recruitment from clubs in the “big five” European leagues. Clubs were purposively sampled based on their player productivity ranking. Interviews ranged from 52:26 minutes to 114:06 minutes in length (m = 87:53 ± 20.10 minutes). This study argues that holistic ecological approaches the environments were characterised through the interplay of factors that ranged from high-level internal to international level relationships. This resulted in the identification and recruitment of players from local and international environments. The purpose of recruitment was suggested to have a dual purpose: recruitment of players for the first team; recruitment of players for further development/monitoring and/or selling to another club.

 

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