For me, it’s really just simplifying the game. There was a time where, when I was bouncing from outside back to center mid to forward, I was like, ‘There’s so much going on.’ What I realized is, it’s just the same sport. Yes, I am in a different position on the field. But at the same time, it’s being very sound on the ball, solving problems, working hard—those are all qualities that I instill, regardless of where I am on the field. I will say it is definitely different being in the backline when you can’t make any mistakes because it could lead into a goal. But ultimately, that puts a lot of pressure on me to be technically sound and really be crisp on the ball.
It’s actually really fun. I try to encourage young players all the time to really be versatile, because you never know where a coach is going to put you. And it’s better to be prepared than to be completely spooked by, ‘Oh, this coach wants me to play in a different role.’ So I think it’s made me unique.
… “I mean, wasn’t the greatest season for me personally,” Walker said following the Celtics’ season-ending loss to Brooklyn. “There’s definitely some things. I would like to play better, more consistently.”
The latter has certainly been a problem for Walker, too, as not even a complete season of an unwavering commitment to proper load management and rest-and-recovery could keep Walker’s knee together for when the Celtics needed him the most. This even after Walker’s own admission that he and the Celtics dealt with his knee ‘pretty good’ this season.
Much has changed for Timothy Weah since he last played on American soil.
The date was Oct. 16, 2018, and the United States men’s national team had just tied Peru 1-1. His 90-plus-minute stint came at a moment when the U.S. was transitioning to a new generation of players. Back then, Weah was a raw prospect, full of hope and potential.
In the ensuing years, the Brooklyn-born Weah has experienced a career’s worth of ups and downs. There were league titles with Paris Saint-Germain and Celtic, although he admits he didn’t feel completely part of those teams due to a lack of playing time. That was followed by a lost inaugural season with Lille in which he sustained a trio of hamstring injuries, and considered quitting the game.
This study examined whether intensity of endurance stimulus within a concurrent training paradigm influenced the phosphorylation of signaling proteins associated with the mTOR and AMPK networks. Eight male cyclists completed (1) resistance exercise (RES), 6 × 8 squats at 80% 1-RM; (2) resistance exercise and moderate intensity cycling of 40 min at 65% V̇O2peak, (RES + MIC); (3) resistance exercise and high intensity interval cycling of 40 min with 6 alternating 3 min intervals of 85 and 45% V̇O2peak (RES + HIIC), in a cross-over design. Muscle biopsies were collected at rest and 3 h post-RES. There was a main effect of condition for mTORS2448 (p = 0.043), with a greater response in the RES + MIC relative to RES condition (p = 0.033). There was a main effect of condition for AMPKα2T172 (p = 0.041), with a greater response in RES + MIC, relative to both RES + HIIC (p = 0.026) and RES (p = 0.046). There were no other condition effects for the remaining protein kinases assessed (p > 0.05). These data do not support a molecular interference effect in cyclists under controlled conditions. There was no intensity-dependent regulation of AMPK, nor differential activation of anabolism with the manipulation of endurance exercise intensity.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) announced today the unveiling of NBA Launchpad, the league’s latest initiative to source, evaluate, and pilot emerging technologies that advance the NBA’s top basketball priorities across all levels of the game.
Starting today, companies and entrepreneurs can apply to NBA Launchpad by submitting innovations that address one of four priority areas: Elevating Health and Wellness in Youth Basketball, Enhancing Elite Youth Player Performance, Innovating Ankle Injury Prevention and Recovery, and Advancing Referee Training and Development.
… Fans have the NBA and Microsoft to thank for NBA CourtOptix powered by Microsoft Azure highlights a glimpse into the future.
Not only is NBA CourtOptix providing data nuggets like sprint speed, but it’s also beginning to shine a light on player’s true ability that tells the story in a digestible manner.
When it comes to the human body, the best way to determine what’s going on inside is by monitoring what comes out. This narrative lies at the center of every gastroenterology practice. Stool can give doctors vital information to diagnose and treat various health conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, colon cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s. However, this depends on patients self-reporting their data, which can often be unreliable.
Duke University’s Center for Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Infectious Disease (WaSH-AID) has come up with a solution. ‘Smart Toilet’ utilizes artificial intelligence to track bowel health and report data, which aids gastroenterologists in creating and modifying treatment plans.
The aim of this study was to determine whether risk factors for foot or ankle injuries could be identified using quantitative foot measurements. Male and female soccer players of all levels from 9 to 40 years old were included in this cross-sectional study. Soccer history, foot and ankle function and injury history were investigated. Foot symmetry, length and arch height flexibility and plantar pressure captured with a mat were measured. All variables showing a significant correlation (P ≤ .05) and the presence of at least one foot or ankle injury were integrated into a multivariate logistic regression model using forward stepwise selection. We recruited 277 players (196 males), and 79 participants had sustained at least one foot or ankle soccer-related injury. The significant variables were as follows: age, gender, pressure on the lateral heel and on the fourth and fifth metatarsals. Based on the model, the area under the ROC curve was 81.2%. To achieve a specificity of 80%, the corresponding sensitivity was 72.2%. Plantar pressure measurements can objectively assess foot alignment. Increased pressure on the lateral heel and fourth and fifth metatarsal cavovarus foot type represent a risk factor for foot and ankle injuries in soccer.
… The keyword for the nutrition philosophy within Jumbo-Visma is consistency. “A good nutrition plan is not something you can do for just a couple days and then pay no attention to it anymore,” Redegeld explains. “We design a year-round daily nutrition schedule for every rider. Before the start of the season, we check the race program and the weight of each rider. In this way we can make an individual plan where one chooses, for example, to keep the weight steady, where we need to gain or lose weight. If a rider will join a stage race with a lot of climbing, then we know that less weight is important for that period of time. Besides the calendar, we also keep track of the health of the riders, and how we can create the maximum training gain based on nutrition.”
Worldwide, unsustainable farming practices are damaging both the global environment and the health and wellbeing of people everywhere. At the same time, climate change is making our food systems more fragile, while the global population continues to rapidly increase. Solving both of these challenges requires more sustainable approaches to producing, consuming, and disposing of food.
A new campaign under The 100 Questions Initiative, led by the Governance Lab (The GovLab) at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, in partnership with the Barilla Foundation, and the Center for European Policy Studies, aims to engage the wisdom of the crowd to drive innovative solutions. The Food Systems Sustainability domain seeks to identify the 10 most important questions that need to be answered to make food systems more sustainable.
At the start of the next season, three Bundesliga powerhouses will have a new manager. How will Julian Nagelsmann, Marco Rose and Jesse Marsch stamp their mark on FC Bayern, BVB and RB Leipzig respectively?
Becoming Human: Artificial Intelligence Magazine, Exposit from
On Aug. 5, 2018, Bielsa’s Leeds kicked down the doors of the Championship and announced that this was no gimmick. Hosting Stoke City at Elland Road – a team freshly relegated from the top flight and armed with one of the second tier’s best squads, Leeds made their case not by the weight of the 3-1 scoreline but for the way in which they had played. From the team who had finished 13th the previous season, this version was unrecognisable in its redeeming features. Bielsa’s 4-1-4-1 system was characterised by its vibrancy in possession and ferocity without it; an attacking style that was unique in the Championship, and far beyond the consensus capabilities of the squad that he had inherited.
Perhaps the most seductive aspect of Leeds’ victory was the fact that only one player in the starting XI against Stoke had been signed under Bielsa. That was left back Barry Douglas. Besides the Scot, the other 10 players had all spanned at least two previous managers at the club. And then there was the array of positional changes: Pablo Hernández moved to an inverted wide role, Mateusz Klich switched from a deep-lying midfielder to an attacking No. 8, Kemar Roofe was suddenly a hard-pressing centre forward, and Kalvin Phillips — a player whose seven league goals in 2017-18 were surpassed by only two teammates – was sent in the opposite direction to become a defensive midfielder.
Between the personnel and existing style, it was a remarkable transformation within the space of a few summer months: the type that most managers would have been allowed the rope to instil over the course of multiple years, never mind a single pre-season. As the weeks turned to months, with their evolution continuing to roll, Leeds’ new project looked like it could at last be the defining one.
On average, a professional football team made up of 25 players experiences 50 injuries over a season, so each player can get injured twice a year.1 One of the main training objectives is players’ availability to work out and compete. Financial loss and negative effects caused by injuries can unfold into a negative scenario or even lead to losing a game or a championship.2,3,4
In spite of all the measures implemented by professional clubs to avoid injuries and get their athletes back to the field as soon as possible, the injury rate in football is still high. A recent publication reviewed research aimed to quantify the injury incidence in professional football.
… The first thing we notice is a clear difference between the better shooters- shown in green- and the worse ones- in red.
The “good shooters” have both a lower peak velocity and a less intense dip afterwards.
Intuitively, this makes sense. We believe this gives good shooters a higher margin for error as they spend more time near their desired velocity window.
PLOS One; Mitchell Welch, Timothy M. Schaerf, Aron Murphy from
Movement, positioning and coordination of player formations is a key aspect for the performance of teams within field-based sports. The increased availability of player tracking data has given rise to numerous studies that focus on the relationship between simple descriptive statistics surrounding team formation and performance. While these existing approaches have provided a high-level a view of team-based spatial formations, there is limited research on the nature of collective movement across players within teams and the establishment of stable collective states within game play. This study draws inspiration from the analysis of collective movement in nature, such as that observed within schools of fish and flocking birds, to explore the existence of collective states within the phases of play in soccer. Order parameters and metrics describing group motion and shape are derived from player movement tracks to uncover the nature of the team’s collective states and transitions. This represents a unique addition to the current body of work around the analysis of player movement in team sports. The results from this study demonstrate that sequences of ordered collective behaviours exist with relatively rapid transitions between highly aligned polar and un-ordered swarm behaviours (and vice-versa). Defensive phases of play have a higher proportion of ordered team movement than attacking phases, indicating that movements linked with attacking tactics, such as player dispersion to generate passing and shooting opportunities leads to lower overall collective order. Exploration within this study suggests that defensive tactics, such as reducing the depth or width to close passing opportunities, allows for higher team movement speeds and increased levels of collective order. This study provides a novel view of player movement by visualising the collective states present across the phases of play in football. [full text]