In the first chapter of David Halberstam’s “Playing for Keeps” nestled amidst the highest of possible praise for the book’s subject from the likes of Phil Jackson, Jerry West, and Larry Bird, is a quote from the author and Chicago-native Scott Turow that best encapsulates the place the man has held in the collective consciousness for going on three decades: “Michael Jordan plays basketball better than anyone else in the world does anything else.”
Imagine having someone say that of you and having it being close enough to true to make people stop and think of who else — William Shakespeare? Genghis Khan? — it might possibly apply to. Imagine someone saying that you were “the Michael Jordan of basketball” and having that phrase actually mean something.
Mike Trout’s injuries are mounting. From 2012 through 2016, the first half-decade of his reign as the best player in baseball, Trout never took a single trip to the injured list, nor did he ever miss more than three Angels games in a row after being called up for good from the minor leagues.
But over the last half-decade, the Angels’ star center fielder has become far too acquainted with the IL. He missed 39 games in 2017 with a torn thumb ligament. He missed 19 games in 2018 because of wrist inflammation. He missed 19 more games in 2019 after foot surgery. And now he’s expected to miss six to eight weeks in 2021 with a calf strain, suffered while jogging on the basepaths Monday night.
This latest injury is a crushing blow, in the present, to the Angels’ playoff hopes; at the start of the season, the ZiPS projection system unsurprisingly labeled Trout as the most irreplaceable player in the sport. And it’s also a crushing blow for the future: With Trout, baseball history is always top of mind, but injuries keep costing him chances to further his statistical legacy.
EurekAlert! Science News, Kobe University (Japan) from
A study using a mouse model of eccentric contraction (*1) has revealed that icing injured muscles delays muscle regeneration. The discovery was made by a research group including Associate Professor ARAKAWA Takamitsu and then PhD. Student KAWASHIMA Masato from Kobe University’s Graduate School of Health Sciences, and Chiba Institute of Technology’s Associate Professor KAWANISHI Noriaki et al. In addition, the researchers illuminated that this phenomenon may be related to pro-inflammatory macrophages’ (*2, 3, 4) ability to infiltrate damaged cells. This research raises questions as to whether or not severe muscle injuries (such as torn muscles) should be iced.
… In her new book, How to Change, Milkman offers simple yet profound insights about why better understanding our own internal obstacles—such as laziness, procrastination, forgetfulness, or our tendency to favor instant gratification over long-term rewards—is key to changing ourselves for good. Too often, books deliver one-size-fits-all approaches to common goals, like getting in shape or eating healthier. But since the internal forces preventing me from starting a new habit might be different from those preventing you from starting the same one, that doesn’t really work. That’s why it’s essential to tailor the science to our own barriers, picking and choosing strategies where they fit the internal opponent we’re up against, says Milkman.
Each chapter is designed to help readers “solve” the problem of a specific internal obstacle, such as impulsivity or laziness. And each offers a cornucopia of the most effective behavior change strategies to counter it—everything from using a commitment device to make breaking a resolution more costly, to the power of giving someone advice (which can help you figure out how to handle a similar situation), to copy and pasting someone else’s tactics, to gamification (making a task or the pursuit of a goal more exciting by adding game-like elements to it).
A new basketball league created for standout high school players is building a state-of-the-art facility in Atlanta.
Also under construction: the high-level hoopsters set to join a league that offers another possible avenue to the NBA.
Overtime Elite announced Wednesday it is constructing a 103,000-square-foot complex where prep players will train, study and compete. The new league markets itself to top-notch players between 16 and 18 years old with promises of an academic education and a six-figure salary. It’s another potential route to the NBA besides college, the developmental G League or heading overseas.
Wear OS is getting a major overhaul. An updated version of the smartwatch platform debuted during Google I/O 2021, promising a slew of new features and some serious surprises. (Still no Pixel Watch, though.)
Amid rumors the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 will switch from Tizen to Google’s software, we’ve wondered how Wear OS would step up its game to suit one of the best smartwatches expected to arrive this year. The answer, apparently, is merging with Tizen. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
COROS has begun rollout of their EvoLab, which is a slate of metrics that are largely focused on training load, their impact, and recovery. In addition, for running specifically, they’ve got a number of predictive metrics including marathon level and race predictor, as well as running VO2Max. This update is partially on the app side, and partially on the watch side. They’re supporting the COROS Pace 2, APEX, APEX Pro, and Vertix for both app and watch side. Whereas the original Pace will only see the app side training load.
In a peer-reviewed published study, Celliant, the infrared responsive fibre technology developed by Hologenix, has been shown to moderate autoimmune and inflammatory response in rats with collagen type II-induced arthritis.
Already clinically shown to increase tissue oxygen levels in the body for stronger performance, faster recovery, better sleep and to help with pain reduction, this study supports the use of infrared-emitting bed linen, bandages or garments as adjuvant non-pharmacological treatments for rheumatoid arthritis patients, and possibly for those suffering from other inflammatory antibody-mediated autoimmune diseases.
When watching an NHL game on television, a compilation of advanced stats are often displayed on the screen. There’s a player’s sprint speed statistic, for example. Or the likelihood of a shot finding its way to the back of the net in real time.
The NHL has made an abundance of technological advancements to its televised product over the years, and one of the pioneers behind the movement is David Lehanski, a 1996 Bowdoin College graduate who played goalie for the Polar Bears.
“If you look at hockey, the stats haven’t changed in the past 100 years,” said Lehanski, 46, who is the executive vice president for business development and innovation with the NHL. “We believe we can do something to change that with the new sources of data we have today.”
University of Maryland, The Diamondback student newspaper, Rina Torchinsky from
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed the Jordan McNair Safe and Fair Play Act into law Tuesday afternoon, bolstering health precautions for student-athletes at institutions within the University System of Maryland.
The bill also permits student-athletes to profit off of their own name, image and likeness, which allows athletes to receive endorsement deals.
The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury rate for athletes in girls’/women’s sport has not changed in over 20 years, and they remain 3-6 times more likely to experience this injury when compared with athletes in boys’/men’s sport.
Injury prevention research in this area has, to date, focused heavily on seemingly ‘sex-based’ differences between girls/women and boys/men to explain and try to prevent ACL injury. This work has focused particularly on biological factors, like anatomy (such as the shape of hips) or hormones (such as during the menstrual cycle), to explain why women and girls may be more susceptible to this injury.
Unfortunately, this approach has not been overly successful, with ACL injury rates remaining higher for athletes in girl’s/women’s sport. This has led to a general perception that athletes in girls’/women’s sports are innately more likely to get this injury, and for biological reasons largely out of our control.
We found it curious that this ‘biological’ narrative has become the widely accepted in injury prevention for athletes who are girls/women. Given the persistent disparity in ACL injury rates for girls and women, we wondered whether it was time to explore alternative paradigms that could help us conceptualise new ways to intervene in the injury cycle – one that may actually take steps towards reducing rates of ACL injury in future.
… Launched in April and co-founded by Los Angeles Lakers star Kyle Kuzma, Barcode is the culmination of 10 years’ worth of research, tinkering, testing, and poring over details by Malik.
With diabetes and other chronic illnesses being prevalent in his family, Bar Malik had never been a fan of the big name sports drinks on the market because of the sugar content. He began making his own formula in small batches from his kitchen. His test subjects would be some of the New England Patriots, thanks to his relationship with the team dietitian. Once he was offered the Knicks role, he put that formula up, but would revisit it just three years ago due to personal circumstances.
Another NBA regular season is winding to a close. Time for the state-of-the-league address.
Let’s see, 1) LeBron James is growing creakier (and grumpier) by the minute — apparently, he does age, after all, and not in Tom-Brady years; 2) nobody seemed to miss the 10 games that were axed from the regular-season schedule (how about 20? 30?); 3) the defending champs appear headed for the play-in round (and James suddenly thinks that format is a bad idea); 4) fundamentals are (still) in decline, says at least one coach (stating the obvious); 5) so are NBA ratings; 6) and, the good news: in a much-needed shakeup of the league, the top six teams in the Western Conference are non-super teams.
… “It’s unbelievable,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “I’ve talked to Theo [Epstein, who is a consultant for Major League Baseball regarding on-field issues] about it. I’ve talked to other managers about it. I watched a game the other night, the first three innings, the ball wasn’t put in play by either team. Everyone struck out. I’ve never seen that.”
A general manager called this week to discuss injuries or, really, the volume of injuries besieging MLB. My knee-jerk response was to repeat common wisdom about going from a 60-game pandemic schedule back to 162 games and the impact that has on the body.
“Yeah,” the GM said. “But we haven’t even played 60 games yet. What is this going to look like when we get beyond 60? What does this look like in July, August and September?”
Those who study injury caution that one-quarter of a season is still too small a sample size to make overriding determinations about what is happening. At this point we don’t even know if playing 100 fewer games last year actually helped with reducing wear and tear on the body and, thus, is an injury preventive as opposed to a root cause of problems.