Fred VanVleet has been giving out a lot of hugs lately, for the simple fact that he’s thrilled to know the worst of his COVID-19 experience is now over.
For the Toronto Raptors, that news couldn’t come quickly enough.
VanVleet and three other Raptors — Pascal Siakam, Malachi Flynn and Patrick McCaw — were back with the team for practice Tuesday, after missing more than two weeks for virus-related reasons. Siakam, Flynn and McCaw are questionable to play Wednesday in Detroit; VanVleet and OG Anunoby are likely to remain out until at least Friday’s home game in Tampa, Florida against Utah.
This year, skateboarding is on course to make its debut as an Olympic sport, and Britain’s hopefuls are competing for the chance to claim a spot on the podium. But while most elite athletes are ruled by rigid schedules and marginal gains, so far skateboarding has managed to remain true to its counter-cultural roots. Will that always be the case? We dropped in on Team GB to find out
During running, the mechanical energy of the centre of mass of the body (COM) oscillates throughout the step like a spring-mass system, where part of its mechanical energy is stored during negative phases to be released during the following positive phases. This storage-release of energy improves muscle-tendon efficiency, which is related to lower-limb stiffness. This study explores the effect of sports background on the bouncing mechanism, by examining differences in stiffness and step spatiotemporal parameters between swimmers and football athletes. All athletes performed three consecutive running bouts on an instrumented treadmill at three different speeds (3.9, 4.4 and 5.0 m·s−1). The ground reaction forces were recorded. Vertical stiffness and step spatiotemporal parameters were analysed and compared using a two-way ANOVA. Vertical stiffness of football players was on average 21.0 ± 1.1% higher than swimmers. The modification of step spatiotemporal parameters also suggests a more elastic rebound by increasing the stretch of tendons relative to muscle within muscle–tendon units in football players. Compared to swimmers, they (1) decrease the effective contact time by 9.7 ± 2.4% and (2) decrease the duration of the push by 15.0 ± 6.4%, suggesting that background training adaptations influence spring-mass behaviour during running.
Running movements are parametrised using a wide variety of devices. Misleading interpretations can be avoided if the interdependencies and redundancies between biomechanical parameters are taken into account. In this synthetic review, commonly measured running parameters are discussed in relation to each other, culminating in a concise, yet comprehensive description of the full spectrum of running styles. Since the goal of running movements is to transport the body centre of mass (BCoM), and the BCoM trajectory can be derived from spatiotemporal parameters, we anticipate that different running styles are reflected in those spatiotemporal parameters. To this end, this review focuses on spatiotemporal parameters and their relationships with speed, ground reaction force and whole-body kinematics. Based on this evaluation, we submit that the full spectrum of running styles can be described by only two parameters, namely the step frequency and the duty factor (the ratio of stance time and stride time) as assessed at a given speed. These key parameters led to the conceptualisation of a so-called Dual-axis framework. This framework allows categorisation of distinctive running styles (coined ‘Stick’, ‘Bounce’, ‘Push’, ‘Hop’, and ‘Sit’) and provides a practical overview to guide future measurement and interpretation of running biomechanics. [full text]
Previous research documented differences in executive functions between elite athletes in different sports. It was argued that athletes in sport disciplines with higher cognitive demands (i.e., open-skill) show better executive functions than athletes in less cognitively challenging sport disciplines (i.e., closed-skill). In the current study, we aimed at detecting differences in executive functions between elite athletes in open-skill versus closed-skill sports and questioned the role of their total involvement in these sports until the age of 18 on executive functions.
Seventy-five elite athletes (45 males and 30 females; Mage = 23.03 ± 4.41 years) from various sports were classified as open- or closed-skill athletes based on the sport they currently competed in. The athletes conducted a series of neuro-psychological tests measuring working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility (Design Fluency test, Trail Making test, Flanker task, and a 2-back task). Retrospective interviews assessed athletes’ sport involvement in open-skill and closed-skill sports until the age of 18.
MANCOVAs revealed that athletes in open-skill sports performed better on measures of working memory and cognitive flexibility. Generalized Linear Models displayed that elite athletes in closed-skill sports, with greater involvement in open-skill sports until the age of 18, performed better during working memory and cognitive flexibility tasks.
The results indicate that extensive time spent in open- and closed-skill sports can affect executive functions in elite athletes. A high involvement in open-skill sports proved to be beneficial for executive functions, in particular for elite athletes in closed-skill sports. These findings suggest that experiences in cognitively demanding sports may cause benefits for the development of executive functions. [full text]
Thanks to more advanced features on the Apple Watch, Garmin, Polar, and other running watches, VO2max is the latest buzzy metric getting runners all worked up. People track this measurement because, in theory, the higher that number is, the more efficient you are while burning aerobic energy. Translation: You’ll be able to run faster while expending less effort.
But “VO2 is a measurement of cardiorespiratory fitness, not of performance,” says Melissa M. Markofski, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston and an ASCM-certified exercise physiologist. It refers to the maximum rate at which your body can deliver oxygen to your exercising muscles; it affects how fast or far you can run but isn’t the only factor at play.
… How did those two runners run sub 4:07 for 1600m with two other competitors at 4:10 or better? Assessing that race, those top finishers each took their places at the starting line possessing all four pillars necessary to hold up the house of distance running.
The founder of Zybek Sports Mike Weinstein joins our host Ric Serritella on The State of Football. Zybek Sports has been providing the NFL scouts with the most reliable laser timing and measurables at the combine and recent pro-day circuit. Ric and Montreal’s Director of US scouting, Russ Lande give Mike all the hard questions to find out the latest technology coming out of Zybek Sports and if laser timing is more reliable than the old way of hand held times. Mike unveils how Zybek Sports can dissect all areas of an athlete’s ability including power, explosiveness, agility, and intelligence for a team to select their best fit and what NFL player ran the fastest 40-yard dash on his laser timing system. The State of Football, your new home for the most reliable football news!
… This guide will give you enough information to give you a strong understanding of HIPAA without getting bogged down in the legalese. We’ve tried to keep it straight forward, written in plain language.
Former Manchester City manager Mark Hughes has called for more mental health support for younger football players, who may struggle to cope with the highs and lows of the game.
The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham and member of the League Managers’ Association (LMA), including Hughes, have launched a new partnership that aims to encourage conversations about mental health.
As part of the initiative, members of the LMA will be given a training course on how to improve “suicide awareness”.
… Dan Gavitt, senior vice president of basketball with the NCAA, said it should not be assumed that any of those come from players or coaches.
At this point, Gavitt said he does not anticipate having to replace any of the 68 teams. However, some officials have already been replaced after one tested positive and five others were considered close contacts by the Marion County Public Health Department.
“We have a replacement policy for teams, for officials, we have very clearly defined and communicated protocols in place for team travel, testing,” said Gavitt.
In that golden decade when Team Sky and British Cycling won almost everything in sight, their media acolytes would often attribute their success to marginal gains, the pursuit of microscopic advantages in myriad areas, right down to washing hands before entering a building.
However, a different form of handwashing took place after a medical tribunal in Manchester dispensed its guilty verdict against the former Team Sky and British Cycling doctor Richard Freeman for ordering banned testosterone “knowing or believing” it was for an unnamed rider.
For in a statement released hours after the verdict, Ineos Grenadiers – formerly Team Sky – said Freeman had fallen “short of the ethical standards required of him as a doctor and acted dishonestly” before adding that the “team does not believe that any athlete ever used or sought to use Testogel or any other performance enhancing substance. No evidence has been provided that this ever happened.”
For many people, the last year would have been a lot harder without football. It has provided a fantastic distraction, something to break up our monotonous weeks and assuage our pervasive dread; basically, something to think and talk about other than coronavirus.
Yet watching football in its current form has also been distinctly bittersweet. The game has been quite literally stripped of its humanity: the boarded-up pubs, the echoing stadiums – thank god for the fake crowd sounds – and the endless proliferation of advertisements, which have escaped the confines of billboards and replaced punters in the stands. Against this backdrop the story of Football Index, the online betting firm that went into administration last week, seems even sadder.
Football Index marketed itself as a fantasy league stock exchange, where users were encouraged to turn their knowledge into cash. They bought ‘shares’ in players; good performances led to ‘dividends’. Users invested thousands: some made serious returns. Then, last week, via a blunt announcement on its website, the company announced it was slashing these dividends. Chaos ensued. On Saturday, the site announced it was going into administration. Scores of people have been left in financial ruin, some losing their entire life savings.