Applied Sports Science newsletter – May 24, 2021

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for May 24, 2021

 

Why are late-in-life runners winning races?

The Washington Post, Ian McMahan from

Most people assume that top masters athletes (in running, this class applies to competitors 40 and above) are lifelong exercises, said Hirofumi Tanaka, a professor of exercise science at the University of Texas at Austin who researches aging. “If you look around among all the masters athletes, there are not many who were elite athletes when they were young,” he said. “Most of the athletes are pretty new, and they are able to improve.”

The people who successfully start a late-in-life running career generally fall into three categories, said Michael Joyner, a physician and human performance researcher at the Mayo Clinic.

“There are the people that are good athletes that got brought into running, that have been physically active,” Joyner said. “The other group are those that had a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment, in some cases leading an unhealthy lifestyle before they got into running. The last is someone who was a good runner young but took time off and got good late.”


Multisport athletes see success while pulling double duty

Los Angeles Times, Eric Sondheimer from

Superman had his phone booth to change from Clark Kent to superhero. Cameron MacDonald of Brentwood and Brendan Terry of Santa Monica Crossroads use their parents’ cars to undergo the transformation from baseball player to basketball player. It’s a matter of switching from cleats to Nikes and replacing pants with shorts.

“That’s the phone booth — the car ride,” Brentwood basketball coach Ryan Bailey said.

The delay in sports seasons because of coronavirus restrictions has forced multisport athletes to go to great lengths to play two sports at the same time. It’s working out for a select few because coaches are cooperating, athletes are deploying time management skills and parents are returning to the Little League days by serving as chauffeurs for their teenage sons and daughters, driving them to parks, gyms and fields.

“I’m really appreciative of my coaches,” said MacDonald, a starting center fielder for the baseball team and starting guard for the basketball team. “They support me 100%. I’m really enjoying this experience. It’s like being a kid again going from one practice to another like a full-time athlete.”


The Arrival Of ‘The Academy’: Charlotte FC Brings Huge Changes For Youth Soccer In The Carolinas

WFAE (Charlotte, NC), Queens University News Service, Elvis Menayese from

… Before the arrival of Charlotte FC, regional clubs focused on youth development within the Major League Soccer academy system. They include Charlotte Independence and the Charlotte Soccer Club. Beyond the clubs, UNC Charlotte, Davidson College, Queens University of Charlotte, and area high schools field soccer teams.

Many of these soccer organizations say they welcome losing talent to the Charlotte FC Academy because they believe the MLS team will improve their former players.

“From my perspective, at least speaking to Charlotte Independence youth coaches and directors, they are thrilled that Charlotte FC is in town,” said Matt Spear, ambassador for Charlotte Independence and former men’s soccer coach for Davidson College.


Rennie returns as Head of Medical at Bristol City

Training Ground Guru, Simon Austin from

Dave Rennie, who was Leicester City’s Head Physio for more than 20 years, has been appointed Head of Medical Performance at Bristol City.

The move reunites him with City manager Nigel Pearson, with whom he worked for four years with the Foxes.


For soccer players, the less brain they use, the better for penalty kicks

CBC Radio, Quirks & Quarks from

… For the study, 22 volunteers took a total of 15 penalty kicks in three separate rounds. They were wearing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) headsets. This technology measures brain activity while a participant is on the move.

With each round, the pressure to score increased. In the first round, there was no goalkeeper. In the second round, there was a goalkeeper present, but they made little effort to prevent scoring. The third round was as close to real game conditions as possible, including distraction such as ‘trash talking’. [audio, 6:50]


Google Taps Samsung to Co-Develop Wear OS, Fitbit to Debut New Smartwatches

WIRED, Gear, Julian Chokkattu from

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. That’s Google’s strategy for the ailing smartwatch platform it launched back in 2014. To better compete with the likes of Apple, Google has a new three-pronged plan to invigorate Wear OS, and it involves partnerships with two brands it previously competed against in the wearable category: Samsung and Fitbit.

First, Wear OS will launch later this year as a unified platform co-developed with Samsung, merging select features from the Tizen operating system the Korean company uses for its Galaxy smartwatches. That means future Samsung watches will run Wear instead of Tizen. Second, Google will add more of its own apps to the Wear platform and will update its existing apps to give them more robust capabilities. Finally, Wear’s health and fitness features have been rebuilt from the ground up with input from Samsung and Fitbit, respectively, and Fitbit Wear smartwatches are on the way. (Google completed its acquisition of Fitbit earlier this year, so now the Wear team and the Fitbit teams are under the same roof.)


MLOps: How to choose the best ML model tools

Ambiata, Wilson Pok from

MLOps is a rapidly growing field aimed at standardising and streamlining the lifecycle of ML models, from development and deployment through to ongoing maintenance. In this post we discuss some key considerations when selecting the right set of MLOps tools for an organisation.


The suitability of a quasi-Newton algorithm for estimating fitness-fatigue models: Sensitivity, troublesome local optima, and implications for future research (An in silico experimental design)

SportRxiv Preprints; Ben Stephens Hemingway Paul Swinton Ben Ogorek from

Fitting an FFM via NLS in practice assumes that a unique optimal solution exists and can be found by the algorithm applied. However, this idealistic scenario may not hold for two reasons: 1) the absolute minimum may not be unique; and 2) local minima, saddle points, and/or plateau features may exist that cause problems for certain algorithms. If there exist different parameter sets in the domain that share the same global minimum under standard NLS, then there is a situation where parameters aren’t uniquely identified without additional constraints or regularisation terms. However, more likely is that problems with the typical FFM fitting process will stem from the existence of local minima, saddles, or plateau features that cause the algorithm to converge to a solution not equal to the global minimum. Local optima can provoke sensitivities in the fitting process for first and second-order algorithms that are by definition local optimisers. This manifests as sensitivity to initial parameter estimates (i.e., the starting point the algorithm initialises the search from). The extent of starting point sensitivity is largely unknown in the context of FFMs for common algorithms adopted and has not been studied directly. Given this concern, research reporting a single model solution derived from ‘one shot’ minimisation of NLS via typical first and second-order algorithms is fundamentally limited by possible uncertainty as to the suitability of fitted estimates as global minimisers. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to investigate the sensitivity of a classical first-order search algorithm to selection of initial estimates when fitting a fitness-fatigue model (FFM) via nonlinear least-squares (NLS), and to subsequently assess the existence of local optima. A secondary aim of this study was to examine the implications of any findings in relation to previous research and provide considerations for future experimentation.


Shooting machine making big difference for Knicks

New York Post, Marc Berman from

One of Tom Thibodeau’s mantras is “the magic is in the work.’’ The Knicks coach could have also used another slogan late this season: “The magic is in the machine.’’

In early February, the Knicks installed a high-tech computerized shot-tracking device, designed by the company Noah Basketball, for each of the six practice courts at their Tarrytown campus.

The Noah Basketball Shot Tracking System measures each player’s arc/trajectory, his “left-right consistency’’ and “depth of shot.’’

Thibodeau pushed for the purchase after the Garden initially mulled the system in 2017. Though Noah has worked with about 20 teams in some capacity, the Knicks have the most operating shot machines in the NBA.


Wearable and Mobile Sensors for Personalized Nutrition

ACS Sensors journal from

While wearable and mobile chemical sensors have experienced tremendous growth over the past decade, their potential for tracking and guiding nutrition has emerged only over the past three years. Currently, guidelines from doctors and dietitians represent the most common approach for maintaining optimal nutrition status. However, such recommendations rely on population averages and do not take into account individual variability in responding to nutrients. Precision nutrition has recently emerged to address the large heterogeneity in individuals’ responses to diet, by tailoring nutrition based on the specific requirements of each person. It aims at preventing and managing diseases by formulating personalized dietary interventions to individuals on the basis of their metabolic profile, background, and environmental exposure. Recent advances in digital nutrition technology, including calories-counting mobile apps and wearable motion tracking devices, lack the ability of monitoring nutrition at the molecular level. The realization of effective precision nutrition requires synergy from different sensor modalities in order to make timely reliable predictions and efficient feedback. This work reviews key opportunities and challenges toward the successful realization of effective wearable and mobile nutrition monitoring platforms. Non-invasive wearable and mobile electrochemical sensors, capable of monitoring temporal chemical variations upon the intake of food and supplements, are excellent candidates to bridge the gap between digital and biochemical analyses for a successful personalized nutrition approach. By providing timely (previously unavailable) dietary information, such wearable and mobile sensors offer the guidance necessary for supporting dietary behavior change toward a managed nutritional balance. Coupling of the rapidly emerging wearable chemical sensing devices—generating enormous dynamic analytical data—with efficient data-fusion and data-mining methods that identify patterns and make predictions is expected to revolutionize dietary decision-making toward effective precision nutrition.


Improving the way videos are organized

MIT News from

At any given moment, many thousands of new videos are being posted to sites like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. An increasing number of those videos are being recorded and streamed live. But tech and media companies still struggle to understand what’s going in all that content.

Now MIT alumnus-founded Netra is using artificial intelligence to improve video analysis at scale. The company’s system can identify activities, objects, emotions, locations, and more to organize and provide context to videos in new ways.

Companies are using Netra’s solution to group similar content into highlight reels or news segments, flag nudity and violence, and improve ad placement. In advertising, Netra is helping ensure videos are paired with relevant ads so brands can move away from tracking individual people, which has led to privacy concerns.


The Link between Diet, Inflammation, and Disease

American Society for Nutrition, Eric Graber from

Studies have shown that chronic low-grade inflammation is associated with the development of a number of chronic diseases. In particular, it is associated with an increased risk of mortality from all causes, as well as an increased risk of cancer, type 2 diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, and cardiovascular disease. In addition to physical diseases, chronic inflammation is implicated in the development of mental illness, including depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.

Diet plays a key role in inflammation. For example, Mediterranean dietary patterns, which are rich in fruits, vegetables, fatty fish, poultry, extra virgin olive oil and whole grains, are associated with lower systemic inflammation. On the other hand, Western dietary patterns, which are characterized by low consumption of fruits and vegetables and high consumption of ultra-processed high-calorie foods, are associated with increased levels of inflammation.


Sports How Sean Marks brought Nets to this championship point

New York Post, Brian Lewis from

When Sean Marks arrived in Brooklyn in February 2016, he stepped into the midst of an abysmal 21-61 campaign. His first full season as Nets general manager, they were the worst team in the NBA, finishing 20-62.

Now, the Nets open the 2021 playoffs as the favorites to win it all.

How did that turnaround happen?

It was about reading the terrain, sensing the direction the league was heading — that it was becoming all about player empowerment. And then figuring out how to build a foundation and culture that could lure empowered stars.


Injuries are spiking this season across MLB. What can the Phillies do to survive?

Philadadelphia Inquirer, Scott Lauber from

Archie Bradley recently missed 33 games with a strained muscle in his left side. During the reliever’s absence, nine teammates joined him on the Phillies’ injured list, and a few others, including Bryce Harper and J.T. Realmuto, remained active despite being unable to play for a few days. Manager Joe Girardi this week described the roster as a “M*A*S*H unit.”

And the Phillies are one of the healthier teams in baseball.

With one-quarter of the season complete, two trends are emerging as baseball’s biggest story lines. Offense is down to levels unseen in more than half a century, while injuries are up at an alarming rate.

The former is an existential crisis for a sport desperate to inject action into games that have become, as Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly put it this week, “sometimes unwatchable.”


The Most Disappointing Teams In MLB So Far

FiveThirtyEight, Neil Paine from

When the Minnesota Twins burst into the playoffs with 101 wins in 2019 — hitting an MLB-record 307 home runs — they were one of baseball’s most pleasant surprises. When they followed that up with the league’s fourth-best record during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, it seemed to announce that Minnesota was here to stay as a contender.1 Across those two seasons, the Twins went 137-85, notching the second-best winning percentage (.617) in any pair of consecutive seasons in franchise history, trailing only the 1932-33 Washington Senators.

But in 2021, the Twins have gone from revelation to ruin. After Wednesday’s loss to the Chicago White Sox, Minnesota owns the second-worst record in the game (14-27), and its playoff odds in our forecast model have dwindled from 64 percent in the preseason to a mere 7 percent today.

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