Applied Sports Science newsletter – April 3, 2020

If you’re reading the newsletter in this time of struggle, thank you. Please stay well. Stay safe.

Changes in routine are opportunities to reset habits. The pandemic social distancing is an opportunity for me to add a weekly writing habit to the curation and production that I do for the daily Applied Sports Science newsletter.

Why no writing before this? Making sense of something complicated is a task for professional communicators, and I can do that. But it was enough of a service, I felt, to curate, distribute and leave the sense-making to readers. Many on the distribution list are experts in their field, more expert than I am. I wasn’t going to tell you what to do.

I am naturally inclined to have readers put my curation into their own context, then figure out what it means for themselves and for their organizations. In the big picture, it might be harder to learn that way, but I think that ideas, methods and technologies that are new and complex should be hard to learn. It’s also true that explaining something complex to others is a good way to have the knowledge sink in. So I’ll be doing some writing, some explaining about the things that I know about. I hope that what I say here lands comfortably amid the wide range of expertise possessed by this newsletter’s readers.

I’ll mostly be writing about the application part of Applied Sports Science, about how research moves into practice and how technologies are transferred. It will fit the template you see here: 6-8 paragraphs, get in and get out. There will be a link or two for readers to explore further. If any thoughts or questions, follow up with me by email, brad.stenger@gmail.com.

Sports science is super-complex. Lots of things are complex — people, technology, evolution, chemistry, etcetera — and sports science has all of them. Shortcutting or simplifying the complexity holds back progress. Technology transfer, for example, is a difficult multi-step process, a series of fortunate events. The process is uncertain and failure is an ongoing possibility. Tim Wu wrote about “demanding technologies” in a 2014 New Yorker article. He makes the point that what’s hard to use about technology often what helps us to reach beyond the ordinary, to extend our ambitions and to realize goals that at outset seem impossible. I want more people to realize that essential aspects of Applied Sports Science are demanding and they are also technical.

Maybe you know that already. Feel free to tell me what you think.

-Brad Stenger

… Connor McDavid is the most exciting player in the NHL.

That’s also according to his peers. The NHLPA poll asked a fascinating question: “Of all players past or present, who would you pay to see play?” Wayne Gretzky (31.83%), Bobby Orr (14.99%) and Mario Lemieux (9.24%) were the top three. The fourth choice? McDavid, with 7.80% of the vote from 487 respondents. That’s some lofty company.

But his peers had something else to say about McDavid: For all of his offensive flourish, he’s not a remarkable defensive player.

… “There was legitimately and realistically nine to 10 spots already inked in and there were six to seven guys coming into camp hoping to maybe take that last starting spot or you’re hoping to come off the bench,” he said.

Edu said players from the 2008 Olympics team, including himself, Stuart Holden, Feilhaber and Sacha Kljestan made the jump into the national team “in small bundles” and learned from the veteran players, who set the tone.

“They basically trained us and groomed us to be national team players,” Edu said. “It didn’t just happen overnight. It took a few camps before they really got you in line. Straight from game one you felt, wow this is the national team, this is an honor, this is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly or taken for granted.”

… “I remember my first couple months, Trevor (Crabb) was like ‘Who the hell is this guy? He never shuts up!’” Hartford recalled, laughing. “That was my job. I want to make that weight room the most positive, engaging environment possible. That doesn’t mean we’re going to have full out conversations of how your wife and kids are doing or your boyfriend or girlfriend. But when you walk through the door, I’m going to greet you. When you’re in there training, I’m going to engage and music is going to be blasting.”

Hartford knows, both from personal experience as an elite athlete himself and from half a decade of training college teams, it’s not a one-size-fits all approach. His day might con.sist of working with 44-year-old Jake Gibb in the morning on the sand, shifting to helping 23-year-old Sarah Sponcil in the afternoon and prescribing a weight program for indoor convert David Lee in the evening.

“We always talk about individualization and how you’re going to be able to do this program because as beach volleyball players, you’re all going to need certain characteristics,” said Hartford.

Ideas for how to bring sports back to the world are being tossed left and right, with the most recent coming for the hopeful start of the Major League Baseball season.

Agent Scott Boras has been naming a few ideas as to how the MLB could return to play, with his latest coming on Thursday. Boras believes that a “function isolation” plan could work for the MLB to return within the next couple of weeks.

Sporting Kansas City Manager and Sporting Director Peter Vermes spoke with media on Thursday via a teleconference to discuss the training moratorium in place for all Major League Soccer clubs since the 2020 MLS regular season was suspended on March 12. Below is a transcript.

---

On the biggest challenge during this time…

Personally, I’m a people person. I’m a face-to-face person. So the fact that you have to do everything by phone or conference calls, that part is a little difficult. Not because of the technology, but because I like to meet face-to-face with people most of the time and obviously I’m around the players on a regular basis. Not being able to do that every day is tough.

… We had a group of parents who were immigrants mostly from Mexico and Central America. They hadn’t really heard the terminology “growth mindset,” but they were very quick to apply it to the American Dream immigrant experience — that if you come to the United States and you’re willing to work hard, then anything can be possible.

The teachers described some really thoughtful things that they were doing. One teacher gave me an example where a child was working through a problem at the board and realized he had made a mistake. It’s kind of scary for kids — especially if they’re shy — and they’re up there and all of a sudden they realize they’ve done it incorrectly. The teacher used it as an opportunity and said, “Wait, wait, wait. Something really important has just happened here. He just grew his brain.”

Despite an elevated recovery need, research indicates that athletes often exhibit relatively poor sleep. Timing and consolidation of sleep is driven by the circadian system, which requires periodic light–dark exposure for stable entrainment to the 24-hour day, but is often disturbed due to underexposure to light in the morning (e.g. low-level indoor lighting) and overexposure to light in the evening (e.g. environmental and screen-light). This study examined whether combining fixed sleep schedules with light regulation leads to more consolidated sleep. Morning light exposure was increased using light-emitting goggles, whereas evening light exposure was reduced using amber-lens glasses. [full text]

Currently, there is a wealth of technology claiming to improve all aspects of performance available to the sports science and S&C coach. Although on the surface some of these technologies may offer significant improvements in performance, their practical use in elite performance is often limited. This presentation will provide an overview of some of these technologies and demonstrate how they may be implemented in a high performance environment.

The seat can collect data on a patient’s heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, ECG and blood oxygenation.

The Independent has been told that figures at some clubs now want more clarity on when they return, both due to financial pressures and so football staff can start physically preparing players

… In this study, the research team discovered the small molecules, KL101 and TH301, that lengthen the period of the circadian clock. They found that KL101 and TH301 are the first compounds that selectively target clock components CRY1 and CRY2, respectively. By utilizing X-ray crystallography to determine the structures, they revealed how KL101 and TH301 bind to CRY1 and CRY2.

However, additional experiments were required to determine the mechanism of CRY1 and CRY2 selectivity. It was found that the disordered tail regions of CRY proteins impart compound selectivity. Additionally, in collaboration with Project Associate Professor Megumi Hatori and Postdoctoral Fellow You Lee Son of the Keio University School of Medicine, they found that CRY1 and CRY2 are required for the differentiation of brown adipocytes, and both KL101 and TH301 are expected to provide a promising foundation for the therapeutic treatment of obesity.

… Currently there is limited evidence to support the effect of satiating foods in obtaining a healthy body weight. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) does not consider a reduction in appetite to be a “beneficial physiological effect” in maintaining healthy weight – and no health claims can be made or placed on food products with regards to appetite.

But many food and supplement brands still appear to advertise these benefits, regardless of health claim regulations – particularly outside the EU. A prime example is the Flat Tummy Co’s “appetite-supressing” lollipops which claim to contain “Satiereal, a clinically proven safe active ingredient extracted from natural plants”.

… In the initial days of the NBA shutdown, Nurse regularly jumped on the phone with big man Marc Gasol and assistant coach Sergio Scariolo. Gasol’s parents were on lockdown in Spain, while Scariolo’s mother was in Italy, two of the most infected countries in the world. Nurse tried to assist them in reaching health officials in those countries to assure them their families were safe, and to try to facilitate food deliveries and medical needs.

“That concerned me a lot more than making sure guys have bikes and weights,” Nurse said.

NBA coaches are rooted in habit. From Oct. 16 to mid-June, they know exactly what city they will be in, exactly what time they will arrive and exactly how long they will stay. They will interact with a core of basketball assistants, staff members and a finite number of players on their roster in accordance with a schedule that rarely, if ever, wavers. It is a controlled environment that suits the personalities of precise tacticians whose livelihoods hinge on a detailed master plan.

When and if opening day comes around this year, New York Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake anticipates a brimming bullpen.

Major League Baseball and the players’ association have talked about a compressed schedule to get in as many games as possible. That will set off a call to arms.

“I think if you have 15 guys it gives you some depth,” Blake said Wednesday.