Taijuan Walker was only at the Driveline Baseball facility in Kent, Wash., for a few days after the 2019 season.
But the right-handed pitcher left with the data, tools and plan he needed to set in motion a bounce-back 2020 season that ultimately led him to the Mets.
The diagnosis? After tests and evaluations for the 2018 Tommy John surgery patient, Walker made some minor tweaks to his mechanics and got a few spin numbers he could target with his offspeed pitches. The results? A 2.70 ERA in 11 starts last season, which put him in position to sign a two-year, $20 million deal with the Mets in February.
“It’s pretty special to see someone come in for a handful of days, absorb the information, ask a ton of really good questions and then take that stuff and run with it and put in an unreal amount of work in the offseason on his own,” Bill Hezel, Driveline’s director of pitching, said in a recent phone interview. “And more importantly, see that translate onto the field for him in such a big way. I’m excited to see what he does this year.”
Prolonged or repeated respiratory tract illness is not inevitable for your athlete – do you just need to systematically assess respiratory health to help prevent it?
Respiratory tract illnesses (RTI) are the number one acute medical cause of time loss for athletes during major competitions and is an often-overlooked area of athlete care. RTI have traditionally been thought of as an unfortunate and unavoidable by-product of intense training, illness-inducing environments and hectic travel schedules(1). Over the last decade however, several studies have consistently demonstrated that respiratory issues are prevalent, often under-diagnosed, and not treated optimally in professional athletes, leaving them at higher risk of RTI susceptibility. We explore how a systematic approach to athlete respiratory health could help reduce the risk of illness and improve availability for performance.
The prevention of work-related upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs; e.g., neck pain and shoulder fatigue) requires frequent exercises of neck and shoulder that primarily rely on the assistance of joint motion monitoring devices. However, most available wearable healthcare sensors are rigid, bulky, and incapable of recognizing the full range of human motions. Here, we propose a kirigami-structured highly anisotropic piezoelectric network composite sensor that is able to monitor multiple information of joint motions, including bending direction, bending radius, and motion modes, and to distinguish them simultaneously within one sensor unit. On the basis of the modified template-assisted processing method, we design a functional piezoceramic kirigami with a honeycomb network structure that is stretchable (~100% strain), highly sensitive (15.4 mV kPa−1), and highly anisotropic to bending directions (17.3 times from 90° to 0°). An integrated monitoring system is further established to alarm the prolonged sedentary behaviors, facilitating the prevention of upper extremity MSDs.
… They will wear bespoke PROTECHT mouthguards (pictured above), which are produced by Swansea-based Sports & Wellbeing Analytics (SWA) and measure the frequency and intensity of impacts that occur when heading the ball.
The mouthguard contains an accelerometer, which measures linear accelerations (when the head moves in a straight line) and a gyroscope, which measures rotational accelerations (when the head twists), as well as a battery and flexible aerial, all encased within several layers of plastic.
The technology has to fit in a mouthguard because the upper jaw is the only part of the body that cannot move independently of the skull, meaning GPS devices fitted onto clothing, hair or skin are not as accurate.
Whilst the assessment of body composition is routine practice in sport, there remains considerable debate on the best tools available, with the chosen technique often based upon convenience rather than understanding the method and its limitations. The aim of this manuscript was threefold: (1) provide an overview of the common methodologies used within sport to measure body composition, specifically hydro-densitometry, air displacement plethysmography, bioelectrical impedance analysis and spectroscopy, ultra-sound, three-dimensional scanning, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and skinfold thickness; (2) compare the efficacy of what are widely believed to be the most accurate (DXA) and practical (skinfold thickness) assessment tools and (3) provide a framework to help select the most appropriate assessment in applied sports practice including insights from the authors’ experiences working in elite sport. Traditionally, skinfold thickness has been the most popular method of body composition but the use of DXA has increased in recent years, with a wide held belief that it is the criterion standard. When bone mineral content needs to be assessed, and/or when it is necessary to take limb-specific estimations of fat and fat-free mass, then DXA appears to be the preferred method, although it is crucial to be aware of the logistical constraints required to produce reliable data, including controlling food intake, prior exercise and hydration status. However, given the need for simplicity and after considering the evidence across all assessment methods, skinfolds appear to be the least affected by day-to-day variability, leading to the conclusion ‘come back skinfolds, all is forgiven’. [full text]
Earlier this month, I chatted with Will Ahmed on the future of fitness. For the uninitiated: he’s the 31-year-old founder of WHOOP, the Boston-based fitness tracking brand that was recently valued at $1.2 billion.
Amid a free-wheeling discussion on Silicon Valley, employee burnout and Transcendental Meditation, Ahmed explained why he wanted to get into health monitoring in the first place: “It’s one of the most important categories of the next five to 10 years — in terms of how profoundly it’s going to change society. It will so dramatically improve health for humanity.”
After two months of wearing a WHOOP, I’m inclined to agree.
In recent years there have been exciting breakthroughs in wearable technologies, like smartwatches that can monitor your breathing and blood oxygen levels.
But what about a wearable that can detect how you move as you do a physical activity or play a sport, and could potentially even offer feedback on how to improve your technique?
And, as a major bonus, what if the wearable were something you’d actually already be wearing, like a shirt of a pair of socks?
That’s the idea behind a new set of MIT-designed clothing that use special fibers to sense a person’s movement via touch. Among other things, the researchers showed that their clothes can actually determine things like if someone is sitting, walking, or doing particular poses.
From microwave ovens to Wi-Fi connections, the radio waves that permeate the environment are not just signals of energy consumed but are also sources of energy themselves. An international team of researchers, led by Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Professor in the Penn State Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, has developed a way to harvest energy from radio waves to power wearable devices.
The researchers recently published their method in Materials Today Physics.
According to Cheng, current energy sources for wearable health-monitoring devices have their place in powering sensor devices, but each has its setbacks. Solar power, for example, can only harvest energy when exposed to the sun. A self-powered triboelectric device can only harvest energy when the body is in motion.
University of Massachusetts Amherst, News & Media Relations from
A team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed the thinnest and most sensitive flow sensor, which could have significant implications for medical research and applications, according to new research published recently in Nature Communications.
The research was led by Jinglei Ping, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering and the Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS), along with a trio of mechanical engineering Ph.D. students: Xiaoyu Zhang, who fabricated the sensor and made the measurement, Eric Chia and Xiao Fan. The findings pave the way for future research on all-electronic in-vivo flow monitoring investigating ultra-low-flow life phenomena that is yet to be studied in metabolism processes, retinal hemorheology and neuroscience.
Flow sensors, also known as flowmeters, are devices used to measure the speed of liquid or gas flows. The speed of biofluidic flow is a key physiological parameter but existing flow sensors are either bulky or lack precision and stability. The new flow sensor developed by the UMass Amherst team is based on graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in honeycomb lattice, to pull in charge from continuous aqueous flow. This phenomenon provides an effective flow-sensing strategy that is self-powered and delivers key performance metrics higher than other electrical approaches by hundreds of times. The graphene flow sensor can detect flow rate as low as a micrometer per second, that is, less than four millimeter per hour, and holds the potential to distinguish minimal changes in blood flow in capillary vessels. The performance of the graphene flow sensor has been stable for periods exceeding half a year.
Major League Baseball issued a memo to teams on Monday outlining relaxed protocols for vaccinated players, coaches and staff members, creating a path for them to gather indoors, eat at restaurants, bring family members with them on the road and mostly restore their normal lives after nearly a full year of stringent health and safety policies.
The internal memo, obtained by ESPN, “strongly encouraged” players and staff members to receive one of the approved COVID-19 vaccines. The new protocols would apply to fully vaccinated Tier 1 individuals or teams where 85% of those Tier 1 individuals are fully vaccinated — a threshold met two weeks after the second dose of Pfizer or Moderna and two weeks after the first dose of Johnson & Johnson, a single-dose vaccine.
Individuals who meet that requirement can gather without masks in hotel rooms, carpool together, play cards on airplanes, eat at restaurants, meet outdoors while on the road with anyone of their choosing and stay at personal residences when traveling, among other things.
… Starting with the debut of Christian Pulisic, Borussia Dortmund has been at the epicenter of the American soccer media’s hype train. While that train seemed to lose a bit of steam after Pulisic’s departure to Chelsea, it quickly regained momentum with the debut of Gio Reyna. Both young men have been anointed as “the future of the USMNT” at various points in their young careers. After a handful of decent performances, the chatter of “is Gio Reyna already better than Christian Pulisic?” broke out. Listeners of the Men in Blazers podcast are treated to an almost weekly segment of how the USMNT is on the verge of global dominance. When discussing Gio Reyna, Men in Blazers co-host Rodger Bennett recently said, “He’s only one of the biggest teen prospects in global football.” To put this into context, Bennett made this statement after Reyna had made a grand total of 27 professional appearances.
Yes, 27 appearances will demonstrate if a player has ability however, it is not a big enough sample size to determine if a young player is one of the best on the planet. Bennett, who will never be accused of being late to an American hype party, said similar things of Christian Pulisic in a Vice News mini documentary that debut in 2016. The remarks on Pulisic, after a bit more success both in Bundesliga and European competitions, came after only 31 professional appearances. Neither of these young men had played the equivalent to a full season of first team soccer. Yet, Bennett along with many other members of the soccer media had no problem exploiting their brief success in an effort to capture the attention of the American market. Engaging in rhetoric such as this for the sole purpose of capturing the attention of the casual fan is irresponsible and creates a false narrative around the club and player.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Victoria Jackson from
By the end of the day Tuesday, the Final Four in both the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be set. On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in NCAA v. Alston. Amateurism will be on trial before the high court of the United States. Justices will consider if the current compensation for athletes — grants in aid up to the full cost of attendance — represents an artificial restraint and violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Former football and basketball college athletes led by the former West Virginia running back Shawne Alston are the plaintiffs. The NCAA petitioned the Supreme Court to review the lower courts’ (narrower) ruling that athletes in these sports should be permitted to receive additional compensation from colleges, but only if the benefits are tied to education.
What this means is the National Collegiate Athletic Association, a membership organization representing hundreds of institutions of higher education and committed to an educational model of sport, will be arguing against permitting colleges to increase spending on education for athletes in football and men’s and women’s basketball. The NCAA’s rebuttal brief to the Supreme Court argues that “these new allowances [up to $6,000 in academic or graduation awards or incentives] are indistinguishable from professional salaries … [this] is pay-for-play, pure and simple.”
… I was 18 when I got to Georgia Tech … and, suddenly, I became a little more famous and way more broke. In high school, I was allowed to make a few bucks here and there. In college, if I accepted a free jacket because I was cold, my school and my teammates would suffer the consequences.
That’s how college basketball works. It weighs on you.
I still remember trying to figure out how to get groceries when we didn’t have the money to buy them, or when we didn’t have a car we could use to get to the store. I remember feeling hype when the program would buy us Papa John’s for our home games — because it was better than the mystery meat that seven-foot prospects sustained ourselves on in the cafeteria. I remember walking a mile or so back to campus one night after a women’s game with my roommate and teammate, Jarrett Jack. It was my first winter in Atlanta, and we had just missed the school shuttle, the Stinger, because it stopped running around 9:30. Without enough in our bank accounts to pay for a cab to drive us that cold-ass mile back to the dorms, we both lost it. I remember Jarrett throwing up his hands and yelling in frustration, “This is not what college is supposed to be about!”
1/ Sports analytics has been able to provide value beyond traditional qualitative judgments because humans have limits that can be generally classified as:
– Mental constraints
– Situational constraints
2/ Let’s start with the mental constraints.
Perhaps the most obvious mental constraint is that our memory is limited.
We don’t have the capacity to remember and process everything that happened on every play.