A better understanding of a squad’s menstrual cycles could be the “extra inch” between World Cup success and failure, England star Lucy Bronze has said.
The Manchester City full-back, voted the best player in the world in FIFA’s 2020 awards, says she and her Lionesses team-mates knew very little about the impact of their periods on performance heading into the 2019 finals in France.
That changed when Dawn Scott, who was part of the victorious United States team’s set-up, joined forces with England after the tournament as their new physical performance manager.
Golden Knights goaltender Robin Lehner said Wednesday the upper-body injury that caused him to miss more than a month was a concussion.
Lehner said it was the third concussion of his career. The goaltender hasn’t played since Feb. 7 and didn’t practice again with the Knights until Monday’s morning skate.
Back in 2014, while we were coaching our respective athletes at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, we sat down and discussed quite a few topics in depth. This post was the result of one of these discussions – and was based on a question I had for him: what is the point of sport science?
This post highlights the importance of the following four points:
You may not have heard of Simone Lewis, but you’re probably aware of one the Premier League initiatives she pioneered – or have even been involved with one or more of them.
Hundreds of staff have now been through programmes including the Elite Coach Apprenticeship Scheme (ECAS), the Elite Heads of Coaching (EHOC) and Elite Academy Managers (EAM).
Lewis, a former professional volleyball player, stepped down as the Premier League’s Head of Learning and Development last summer after seven years with the organisation.
When I asked former Premier League Director of Football Development Ged Roddy for a comment about her, he said: “Simone drove the development of coach education initiatives that have truly transformed the way we work with coaches and coach developers – she left quite a legacy.”
Until recently, there has been less demand for and interest in female-specific sport and exercise science data. As a result, the vast majority of high-quality sport and exercise science data have been derived from studies with men as participants, which reduces the application of these data due to the known physiological differences between the sexes, specifically with regard to reproductive endocrinology. Furthermore, a shortage of specialist knowledge on female physiology in the sport science community, coupled with a reluctance to effectively adapt experimental designs to incorporate female-specific considerations, such as the menstrual cycle, hormonal contraceptive use, pregnancy and the menopause, has slowed the pursuit of knowledge in this field of research. In addition, a lack of agreement on the terminology and methodological approaches (i.e., gold-standard techniques) used within this research area has further hindered the ability of researchers to adequately develop evidenced-based guidelines for female exercisers. The purpose of this paper was to highlight the specific considerations needed when employing women (i.e., from athletes to non-athletes) as participants in sport and exercise science-based research. These considerations relate to participant selection criteria and adaptations for experimental design and address the diversity and complexities associated with female reproductive endocrinology across the lifespan. This statement intends to promote an increase in the inclusion of women as participants in studies related to sport and exercise science and an enhanced execution of these studies resulting in more high-quality female-specific data. [full text]
… Women’s teams, on the other hand, don’t have access to a weight room of any kind until the Sweet 16, multiple performance coaches said.
In the meantime, their accommodations are meager. Women’s basketball “only has access to 1 stationary bike and a ‘weight pyramid’ for the first 2 rounds,” Texas director of sports performance Zack Zillner said on Twitter.
Nudging, now more than a decade old as an intervention tool, has become something of a poster child for the behavioral sciences. We know that people don’t always act in their own best interest—sometimes spectacularly so—and nudges have emerged as a noncoercive way to live better in a world shaped by our behavioral foibles.
But with nudging’s maturity, we’ve also begun to understand some of the ways that it falls short. Take, for instance, research by Linda Thunström and her colleagues. They found that “successful” nudges can actually harm subgroups of a population. In their research, spendthrifts (those who spend freely) spent less when nudged, bringing them closer to optimal spending. But when given the same nudge, tightwads also spent less, taking them further from the optimal.
While a nudge might appear effective because a population benefited on average, at the individual level the story could be different. Should nudging penalize people that differ from the average just because, on the whole, a policy would benefit the population? Though individual versus population trade-offs are part and parcel to policymaking, as our ability to personalize advances, through technology and data, these trade-offs seem less and less appealing.
Coaches usually know a lot about their sport and have a good command of how to help their athletes to do better. It is necessary to have deep understanding of a variety of disciplines which influence sports performance. Nobody wins by chance or gets the respect of their collaborators and players if they are not great experts in their fields. Obtaining a coaching qualification through training courses organised by each sports Federation is a legal requirement to be able to practise professionally. However, we know very little about how coaches acquire such highly qualified practical knowledge.
Research has studied which methods coaches prefer to improve their skills and why. 1 In this study, published in the Journal of Sports Sciences in 2016, coaches were asked about the usefulness of training for their professional development through formal education (coaches’ training courses and training activities at the University), non-formal education (workshops/clinics, conferences and exchange with other coaches) and informal education (Internet: social medial, web pages or YouTube; practical experience: experience as coach, reflection; reading: books/journals, academic publications). The sample consisted of 320 male and female coaches (289 men and 31 women) with different levels of experience and qualifications, from 26 different countries and 30 different sports. The most represented specialities were football (n=141), rugby (n=45) and basketball (n=11). The results are amazing
At least three parties are working to supply teams with the next generation of batting-practice tools—ones that can replicate any pitch in MLB—either this season or next. Could they level the playing field between hitters and pitchers?
… Only a fourth of people with hypertension have it under control, in part because sphygmomanometers, whether used in a doctor’s office or via clunky home units, don’t supply a steady stream of readings, multiple times a day and in different settings, to help determine the proper treatment. A new company, launching today, thinks it can improve those grim statistics. It’s called Riva Health, chosen as a tribute to the Italian inventor. Riva measures blood pressure from the arteries of one’s fingertip, which it captures using the flash of an iPhone’s camera.
Google Translate, ITespresso (Germany), Thomas Wingenfeld from
Sport is hardly imaginable without technology, regardless of whether it is for personal fitness, club or competitive sport. Almost everyone wears a fitness bracelet or smartwatch these days. For athletes, this gadget has become an indispensable part to optimize training sessions. Cutting-edge technology is also playing an increasingly important role in the professional sector.
How do you turn “dumb” headphones into smart ones? Rutgers engineers have invented a cheap and easy way by transforming headphones into sensors that can be plugged into smartphones, identify their users, monitor their heart rates and perform other services.
Their invention, called HeadFi, is based on a small plug-in headphone adapter that turns a regular headphone into a sensing device. Unlike smart headphones, regular headphones lack sensors. HeadFi would allow users to avoid having to buy a new pair of smart headphones with embedded sensors to enjoy sensing features.
“HeadFi could turn hundreds of millions of existing, regular headphones worldwide into intelligent ones with a simple upgrade,” said Xiaoran Fan, a HeadFi primary inventor. He is a recent Rutgers doctoral graduate who completed the research during his final year at the university and now works at Samsung Artificial Intelligence Center.
As part of its continued efforts to prioritize the health and safety of its player members – past, present and future – the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) has teamed up with Cleveland Clinic on a joint initiative to use artificial intelligence to better characterize neurological disease. The goal is to improve diagnosis, prediction of disease progression and help guide treatments. The collaborative research aims to not only improve the brain health of former NFL players, but to enhance cognitive well-being among athletes in general and the larger community.
After failing to record a win for a 12th straight game, Ralph Krueger’s tenure behind the Buffalo Sabres bench came to an end Wednesday. The Sabres are an NHL-worst 6-18-4 this season and trail 30th place by six points. After signing former league MVP Taylor Hall as a free agent and trading for Eric Staal, to say this team has underachieved even modest expectations would be an understatement.
So, how big a challenge lies ahead for interim coach Don Granato and assistants Matt Ellis and Dan Girardi? Well, they’ll need to make adjustments and improvements in just about every key performance area in the game.
Making Sense Of: Trapped Priors
You can only do something for the first time once. I often find myself repeating the phrase when, in conversation, someone tells about something they’ve recently done themselves for the very first time. I have long felt that, if possible, it’s useful to pause and reflect when anyone undertakes and completes a significant first.
The idea of a “trapped prior” and how it can be a precursor to bias helped me to understand the importance of first experiences. It’s good reading at the Astral Codex Ten newsletter.
ACT newsletter points to three sources for trapped priors and for subsequent bias: cognition, emotion and economic self-interest. In each case there’s a situation that prevents future evidence from reaching your brain. And it seems that it is harder to re-open the closed channel than it is to maintain an open mind in the first place.
One solution, whether it’s for a personal bias or an unwanted habit: the psychological reset. Prominent behavioral economics wonder if the end of the pandemic is an occasion for societal reset.
There’s a new day coming. Best get ready. Thanks for reading.
-Brad