… “I felt she was special right from the start,” said Sylvain Bruneau, who is in charge of the women’s side for Tennis Canada and is 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu’s coach. “The first time I met her, she was probably 11, and it was part of my job to help the country’s most promising young players. It was refreshing to watch her because she was playing with so much action on the ball and she was able to do so many different things, and you could see she just had such a big heart.
“Something that day that really impressed me, and I still remember clearly, was her focus and her concentration when I was talking to her. She was just taking it all in. It was something I had only ever really experienced with [2014 Wimbledon finalist] Eugenie Bouchard. The first few times I was on court I felt a different vibe from Genie and it was the same with Leylah.”
Rachel Hill is seeing the world while playing pro soccer.
Hill, of Rollinsford, recently added Sweden to her list of stops when she joined Linkopings FC of the Damallsvenskan league on loan from the Chicago Red Stars of the National Women’s Soccer League. Chicago played until late July, reaching the Challenge Cup final (losing to Houston), but with the NWSL’s future 2020 plans uncertain as the tournament was finishing, Hill jumped at the chance to play in Europe.
“When talking with other girls and stuff, I heard others were looking to go on loan overseas and that’s something that I’ve always wanted to do — playing in Europe,” said Hill, who has also played in Australia and for the Under-23 U.S. Women’s National Team. “It was the perfect opportunity to get a little taste of what it would be like … Knowing I’d be able get a solid amount of games out there was appealing to me and I’d heard great things about the Swedish league.”
… Injuries are common in moguls, a punishing event involving sharp turns, aerial tricks and high speeds. Kingsbury was spared up to age 28, never missing a start due to injury. He once almost missed a World Cup event because he was sick.
“But I ended up winning,” he said with a smile.
Earlier this year, with training and travel limitations in place, Kingsbury purchased home gym equipment. A vigorous workout routine put him in the best shape of his life going into the season.
The objectives of this study were to quantify the sleep behaviors and alertness of female basketball players and coaches and deploy a sleep education program. Twelve female players and three male coaches wore actigraphy devices for 60 nights during the Women’s National Basketball League, Australia, to assess sleep and alertness and completed questionnaires assessing daytime sleepiness, insomnia, and sleep apnea. Players and coaches participated in a sleep education program consisting of a 2‐hour sleep education session and a 20‐min individual consultation to identify improvements to sleep behaviors. There were no statistical changes when comparing post‐ to pre‐intervention data for players after the sleep education program. Whereas statistical significance was observed in the coaches with an earlier time of sleep onset (P = .04), increase in sleep duration (P < .05) and increase in time in bed (P < .05). The wake‐up time each morning was later by 31 minutes (P < .05). No player or coach was at risk for sleep apnea or daytime sleepiness. Three athletes identified with having insomnia symptoms. This study provides evidence that an intervention comprised of a group education session and individual consultations are relevant for the maintenance or improvement of sleep habits and behaviors in a team‐sport context.
Training with low-load exercise performed under blood flow restriction can augment muscle hypertrophy and maximal strength to a similar extent as the classical high-load strength training method. However, the blood flow restriction method elicits only minor neural adaptations. In an attempt to maximize training-related gains, we propose using other protocols that combine high voluntary activation, mechanical tension, and metabolic stress.
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The Las Vegas Raiders are building on the momentum of the popular ELITE chats that were instituted this summer. The ongoing ELITE series (an acronym representing Education, Leadership, Integrity, Teamwork, Equality) consists of weekly virtual meetings with high school football programs in Southern Nevada featuring Raiders players and Alumni.
The Silver & Black recently introduced a new program, ELITE Academy, a position training platform developed by the Raiders to assist in the development of young athletes. ELITE Academy offers football position specific drills at moderate and advanced levels. In addition, ELITE Academy provides tips, film study and words of wisdom from current and alumni Raiders. Every position group is being covered during this series, which is another coffering by the Raiders in supporting the game of football at the youth level.
In soccer, it is relevant to understand the roles of Systems 1 (intuitive) and 2 (deliberative) in perceptual-cognitive processes and how they influence response time when making decisions. The aim of this study was to analyse how response time in decision making managed by Systems 1 and 2 is associated to the perceptual-cognitive processes of young soccer players. Ninety young soccer players participated. Perceptual-cognitive processes were assessed through visual search strategies, cognitive effort, and verbal reports. Participants wore a mobile-eye tracking system while viewing 11-a-side match play video-based soccer simulations. Response time in decision making was used to create two sub-groups: faster and slower decision-makers. Results indicated that players with faster response time in decision making employed more fixations of shorter duration, displayed less cognitive effort, as well as a greater number of thought processes associated with planning. These results reinforce that there are differences in the way of using the perceptive-cognitive processes from the priority system in the decision-making process. It is concluded that faster decision making, managed by System 1, implies greater ability to employ visual search strategies and to process information, thus enabling increased cognitive efficiency.
FitRankings, the fitness industry’s first to market universal health platform, is expanding its capabilities with new features, including milestone triggered messaging and interactive mapping. With these advancements, FitRankings partners can better leverage the world of connected health devices and wearables to build the most meaningful digital fitness experiences ever hosted on the internet.
Developing a successful virtual event takes two things: creativity and technology. FitRankings provides technology for partners to do more, engaging their communities in new, authentic ways. At the core of the FitRankings platform is the universal connection to wearables and apps, allowing participants to seamlessly connect any device.
… Such interventions as VAR afford an opportunity for social scientists to evaluate their impact. As such, there is a range of academic papers investigating the impact VAR has had. Jochim Spitz and co-authors have a fascinating paper in the Journal of Sport Sciences looking at the accuracy of decisions when VAR is used. They find that accuracy of decisions increases from 92% to 98% once VAR has been used on a decision.
Perhaps perversely, however, it is often this precision that angers fans. It can be any tiny part of a player’s anatomy (even armpits!), and the margin can be tiny. Great and beautiful goals can be chalked off by these fine margins, and fans get frustrated.
It is easy to criticise this response, mocking the fact that fans wanted more precision, and VAR has delivered that. But VAR was introduced to correct “clear and obvious errors” according to official channels. Hair’s breadth offsides are not clear and obvious errors. But equally, if something is “clear and obvious”, why is a television replay needed at all?
… Several thermal differences were found in this study. First was that manipulating the load of the HIIT session (time, intensity and type of running drill; COD or not) affected the thermoregulatory system in different ways.
One of the most interesting findings from Lastras (9) was that of the different HIIT formats targeted, localized thermal responses occurred in almost all regions from both the anterior and posterior chains (Figure 7).
Designed by the students of the Hongik University, the Traverse is a conceptual drone powered by AI that’s designed to be a personal trainer for recreational runners. The autonomous drone comes with the quad-propeller layout, and also features multiple fish-eye cameras that help it navigate through spaces without requiring any external controls. A main gimbal-mounted camera focuses on you, the runner, and the camera focuses on you as you run, monitoring your speed, performance, technique, laps, and charts your overall progress. While running, Traverse takes photos and videos of runners to give them Form correction & visual running feedback by tracking their posture with deep learning.
The Traverse drone is accompanied by the Pod, a wearable that sits around your neck. The drone uses the wearable as a tracking tag, while the Pod itself works as your personal coach, giving you audio feedback to improve your form and performance. A simple button-based interface on the Pod lets you toggle between various functions without having to look at your smartphone screen. After your workout’s done, detailed stats are sent to the Traverse’s companion app on the smartphone, allowing you to view every aspect of your run, from your route to your biostats and even your posture.
Football’s lawmakers have approved “extensive trials” for additional permanent concussion substitutes.
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) announced on Wednesday that it had given the go-ahead for trials to start from January 2021.
A statement read: “Following consultation with key stakeholders and recommendations from the Concussion Expert Group (CEG) and the IFAB’s Football and Technical Advisory Panels (FAP-TAP), today’s annual business meeting approved extensive trials with additional permanent substitutions for actual or suspected concussion as of January 2021.”
This summer, children living in a small town above the Arctic Circle took a dip in the lake. The region had reached an unprecedented 38°C. But it’s not all fun and games: Increased heat exposure is poised to impact the health of more than 4 billion people by 2100, causing everything from kidney problems to brain damage and organ failure. Watch to learn how straightforward solutions can lower these risks. [video, 3:51]
… Could the entire category really just be a rip-off? I turned to the National Institutes of Health. I spoke with Carol Haggans, a scientific and health communications consultant with the Office of Dietary Supplements, about vitamins and minerals, and to Craig Hopp, deputy director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), about botanical and other kinds of supplements.
Inter Miami has had an on-field product for less than a year, and already there has been a massive shakeup within the organization that will have a significant ripple effect for years to come.
Paul McDonough is no longer the sporting director and chief operations officer at Inter Miami after Wednesday’s shock announcement that he was stepping down from both positions with the team. The news was stunning on a lot of levels given that it seemed to come out of nowhere and that 2020 was the franchise’s first season, but it was also not entirely unpredictable.
The reality was that somebody was going to have to pay some sort of price for the dismal, disjointed, and disappointing first season that the ambitious Herons experienced in 2020. No one had yet, but someone was going to.
That someone ended up being McDonough, who is leaving Inter Miami probably more so because he was forced out rather than him deciding to go on his own accord.