… “Delly is definitely a coach,” Sexton said with a bright smile following the Cavaliers’ 112-109 overtime win against the East-leading 76ers. “I know once Delly is finished playing basketball he’s going to be a coach. He will give you the good, warm and fuzzy, and then come back and let you know he’s here with you. It’s amazing to see him on the sideline just because he hasn’t been in a while. Also good to see his progress and see him getting better. We definitely need Delly. A lot of his stuff don’t show up (on the stat sheet). He’s one of the leaders on our team.”
Blake Griffin used to be one of the most exciting players in the league. Now just 31 but sapped of his explosiveness, the Pistons forward is learning—like other players of a certain vintage—that in today’s NBA, if you can’t adapt, you can’t fit it.
San Jose Mercury News, Bay Area News Group, Wes Goldberg from
As questions swirl about how long Stephen Curry can extend his prime, there is no greater role model in the modern NBA than the player he will face Sunday evening, LeBron James.
“He’s still playing at such a high level,” head coach Steve Kerr said before the Warriors’ game against the Lakers at Staples Center. “He’s a little like Tom Brady. At some point, you have to slow down, but he doesn’t seem to slow down.”
… Despite its many moving parts, this is a natural process that usually takes care of itself, even when you’re running, says [William] Roberts. “The brain has sensors that detect reductions in blood oxygen and will respond by ‘telling’ the body to breath faster and deeper,” he explains.
Lowered oxygen levels may account for the feeling of breathlessness early in your run, Dr. Roberts explains. This will be especially notable in those who are novice runners and/or who don’t exercise much. “You’ll [also] see people at the end of a race who are panting because they’re trying to make up for their [oxygen] losses,” he explains.
Generally, running coach Rebeka Stowe says that the best way to remedy this is to work for deeper breaths. “[Breathe] from your diaphragm and fill up your whole rib cage, 360 degrees,” she says. “Avoid shorter, shallow breathing from your chest.”
Top NFL prospects would normally be gathering in Indianapolis this week for the annual Scouting Combine. But due to the pandemic, this year’s event has been canceled.
What they’re saying: No combine means no 40-yard dash times making headlines. Could that be a glimpse of the future? Former scout and current NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah thinks so:
“We’re about 2–3 years away from personnel departments not caring about 40 times. The game GPS data is going to replace it. Who cares what he ran in the 40, I know exactly how fast he ran in game conditions & I have 5 years of data for context.”
Generally speaking, coaches and runners alike love to critique form. And it makes sense. It’s exciting to think that changing one small aspect of every stride will lead to faster race finishes, less fatigue and/or a reduced likelihood for injury. One form tweak that has siphoned a lot of this attention is footstrike pattern. Prior to reading this article, you might have thought, a rearfoot strike pattern will inevitably yield a running-related injury. Although the concern is valid, given the amount of conflicting advice out there, based on my own coaching experience and research, I think we need to look at the broader picture before making changes
In this article, I will look at biomechanical factors that affect running and shed light on the question “Does a specific footstrike pattern really cause injury?”.
The weight room at the Bobby Mattick Training Center in Dunedin, Fla., which Toronto Blue Jays minor-leaguers had been using during spring training since the franchise’s inception nearly 35 years ago, was not a spacious one.
Even after a 2002 renovation, the facility fit only about 15-20 players at a time. And that was stretching it. Really, it could accommodate about eight adults comfortably before backlogs began to form at various pieces of equipment. Local high schools had better facilities. Your office gym was more practical.
But in his role as Toronto’s minor-league strength and conditioning coordinator, Steve Rassel’s job is to be creative. To work with the resources he’s given. So, when he was programming workouts for Blue Jays prospects, he didn’t order exercises based on what was optimal from a training perspective; rather, it was based on what wouldn’t create bottlenecks.
The disposable adhesive patches measure biomarkers like sweat and sodium loss, which are combined with external fitness and nutrition data to generate personalized workout and recovery recommendations.
Scientists at UCL and the IIT –Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) have created a temporary tattoo with light-emitting technology used in TV and smartphone screens, paving the way for a new type of “smart tattoo” with a range of potential uses.
We implemented a machine learning approach to investigate individual indicators of training load and wellness that may predict the emergence or development of overuse injuries in professional volleyball. In this retrospective study, we collected data of 14 elite volleyball players (mean ± SD age: 27 ± 3 years, weight: 90.5 ± 6.3 kg, height: 1.97 ± 0.07 m) during 24 weeks of the 2018 international season. Physical load was tracked by manually logging the performed physical activities and by capturing the jump load using wearable devices. On a daily basis, the athletes answered questions about their wellness, and overuse complaints were monitored via the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center (OSTRC) questionnaire. Based on training load and wellness indicators, we identified subgroups of days with increased injury risk for each volleyball player using the machine learning technique Subgroup Discovery. For most players and facets of overuse injuries (such as reduced sports participation), we have identified personalized training load and wellness variables that are significantly related to overuse issues. We demonstrate that the emergence and development of overuse injuries can be better understood using daily monitoring, taking into account interactions between training load and wellness indicators, and by applying a personalized approach. [full text]
The NCAA is committed to the health and safety of all student-athletes, staff and fans. To satisfy this commitment, the Association has collaborated with leading members of the medical and scientific community with expertise in public health and COVID-19 management to establish guidelines for a return to championships.
British Journal of Sports Medicine, Editorial from
Achilles tendinopathy is the term used to describe the clinical entity of localised Achilles tendon pain that is associated with load-bearing activities. Achilles tendinopathy as a term was agreed on the 2018 International Scientific Tendinopathy Symposium Consensus (ICON) statement—which followed an expert meeting in Groningen (the Netherlands).1 Having uniform terminology is important for many reasons. But a clinical term is not the same as a diagnosis with clear diagnostic criteria. Clear diagnostic criteria help patients understand their problem, guide treatment and determine prognosis. Naming a medical condition can be likened to naming a recipe, but the exact ingredients used can differ between chefs. In this editorial, we discuss the diagnostic challenges, where ‘top chefs’ disagree which ingredients are present in mid-portion Achilles tendinopathy. [full text]
… More recently, [Chaim] Bloom suggested that his organizational goal for 2021 is to see “that next core that is going to be the center of a sustainable championship contender … taking shape.”
Given that mission, it’s worth asking: Why hasn’t perception of the farm system improved in the last year?
Entering 2020, shortly after the deal that sent Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers, Baseball America ranked the Red Sox system 20th among the 30 organizations. Entering 2021, it ranks the Red Sox … 20th.
… As underdogs, Brentford have to think differently from the rest of the London clubs around them such as Chelsea, West Ham, Fulham, Tottenham, Arsenal, and Crystal Palace. The presence of these clubs has gone a long way to help Brentford go about their business quietly, and [Mathew] Benham’s philosophy is bringing the club into the limelight. He had cracked the football betting market through the use of algorithms and formed his own betting company Smartodds in 2004, which provides statistical research and sports modeling services to gamblers.
Benham’s ideas were always going to take time to implement in England, so in 2014 he decided to try it in the less popular Danish league, with underperforming FC Midtjylland. Benham gathered a team with similar ideas like Rasmus Ankersen who was chairman and now serves as co-director of football at Brentford with Phil Giles.
They started looking at “football inefficiencies, “ a term coined by Ankersen, who believes to outthink and outsmart the competition you have to be able to be innovative especially if you do not have the resources and the wealth of your rivals. So far they have achieved this by using a similar model to what Benham used for his betting company to predict goals and assists; they even went as far as getting a free kick coach, a specialist kicking coach, and even a throwing coach, philosophy coach all to make sure the players are well drilled and the best that they can be.