… In NBA circles, few disagree with James and note his points are valid, though some suggest grandstanding. Again, James is out of the playoffs, and remaining in the spotlight, especially with his new “Space Jam” movie on the horizon, can only help.
Still, James has the clout to gripe about NBA affairs on social platforms, and few in the league office will challenge him publicly.
Defending the league’s stance on the matter in a statement, NBA spokesperson Mike Bass noted injury rates “were virtually the same this season as they were during the 2019-20 season while starter-level and All-Star players missed games due to injury at similar rates as the last three seasons.”
The aim of this study was to evaluate the biomechanical effects of a 6-week change-of-direction (COD) technique modification intervention on anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury risk (i.e., multiplanar knee joint loads) during 45° (CUT45) and 90° (CUT90) side-step cutting. A nonrandomized, controlled 6-week intervention study was administrated. Fifteen male multidirectional sport athletes formed the intervention group (IG) who participated in two 30-minute COD technique modification sessions per week, whereas 12 male multidirectional sport athletes formed the control group and continued their normal training. Subjects performed 6 trials of the CUT45 and CUT90 task whereby pre-to-post intervention changes in lower-limb and trunk kinetics and kinematics were evaluated using three-dimensional motion and ground reaction force analysis. Two-way mixed analyses of variance revealed no significant interaction effects of group for CUT45 and CUT90 multiplanar knee joint loads (p ≥ 0.116, η2 ≤ 0.096); however, considerable individual variation was observed (positive (n = 5-8) and negative responders (n = 7-8)). Based on IG group means, COD technique modification resulted in no meaningful reductions in multiplanar knee joint loads. However, individually, considerable variation was observed, with “higher-risk” subjects generally responding positively, and subjects initially considered “low-risk” tending to increase their multiplanar knee joint loads, albeit to magnitudes not considered hazardous or “high-risk.” Change-of-direction technique modification training is a simple, effective training method, requiring minimal equipment that can reduce knee joint loads and potential ACL injury risk in “higher-risk” subjects without compromising performance.
Research has shown that several nights of poor sleep can impair exercise performance. One of the foremost experts in this field, Shona Halson, discovered that insufficient sleep results in decreased speed and power output, reduced reaction times, a dip in the integrity of your immune system, and is detrimental to cognitive ability (which is important when it comes to factors like pacing).
… There was one curveball coaches were thrown that they all almost universally enjoyed and want to integrate moving forward.
The NCAA dubbed it “enhanced summer practice,” but what it boiled down to was a sort of pre-preseason practice to help players ease into more traditional training after so much time away because of COVID restrictions.
Similar to the NFL’s organized team activities, colleges were granted two extra weeks dedicated to weight training, conditioning, film review, walk-throughs and meetings. Players couldn’t wear helmets or pads during walk-throughs, but they could handle a football.
Alabama coach Nick Saban was a proponent of the plan, stressing how the practices would be non-contact and how they would provide more education, focusing on things like technique and fundamentals.
“I think that idea of focusing on the players, having them be a central focus, you know, making sure that we’re doing whatever we can in terms of helping them academically, helping them spiritually, helping them with mental health, prioritizing their holistic approach to who they are and how we can help them grow,” Collen described.
Part of that is player recovery, which she also described as load management, a term which has garnered an unfair negative connotation in recent years at the professional level.
That said, Collen did clarify that the reason that term isn’t used at the college level is there’s almost no instances of four games in seven days in the college game.
… Over the years Marucci has proven to be one of the most innovative minds in all of sports. He’s been the spearhead behind various advancements in sports medicine, including a 17-year study that helped cut down the recovery time from an ACL injury nearly twice as fast.
Marucci has also been a part of studies that touch on athletes’ processing and reaction times as well as various charater studies of past teams that have helped him project what kind of season the Tigers would have.
One major recent innovative piece of technology he helped bring to the forefront at LSU was Perch, a velocity based training mechanism which helped tailor an athlete’s workout schedule to his own weight and body type. We took a deep dive into the innovative technology last year right before the team arrived on campus for summer workouts after being away for three months because of COVID-19.
VKTRY Gear, a performance insole company, has announced that basketball Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady has joined the company as a brand ambassador and a member of VKTRY’s growing athlete advisory team.
The company’s insoles, made from aerospace-grade carbon fiber, aim to store and return energy to the athlete in a “spring-like” effect, improving shock absorption and reducing the load and stress on an athlete’s body. In independent performance testing, athletes wearing VKs increased their broad jump by an average of four inches, upped their vertical leap by 1.6 inches and improved their 40-yard dash times by 0.12 seconds. A recent study commissioned by the Korey Stringer Institute found 263 NCAA athletes showed foot injuries decreased by 41% and lower leg injuries by 22% when athletes use VKs.
Chemical oxygen demand (COD) is an important indicator of organic pollutants in water bodies. Most of the present testing methods have the disadvantages of having complicated steps, being time-consuming, and using toxic and hazardous substances. In this work, rapid potentiometric detection of chemical oxygen demand (COD) using a portable self-powered sensor chip was successfully developed. The indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode was etched by laser, and the photocatalytic materials TiO2/CuS and Pt were modified onto the photoanode and the cathode to prepare the sensor chip. Based on the principle of photocatalytic degradation, organic pollutants can be oxidized by TiO2/CuS, and the concentration will affect the generated voltage. The quantitative detection of COD in the range of 0.05–50 mg/L can be rapidly achieved within 5 min by a miniature device. Besides good portability and sensitivity, the proposed sensor also has the advantages of environmental friendliness and ease of use, which is an ideal choice for the on-site detection of water pollution.
… In the drive for marginal performance gains, British female athletes have been fitted with specially designed sports bras, to hoist, sculpt and support their path to victory.
“Everything we do in elite sport is aimed at trying to give that little tiny improvement,” said Dr Anita Biswas, senior sports physician and co-lead of female athlete health at the English Institute of Sport (EIS).
“Having an athlete who is comfortable, whether that’s through their equipment or clothing, can have a significant impact on their ability to focus on the task. We often think about the overgarments, we don’t think about the undergarments,” she said.
On July 14, 2021, all helmet prototypes will be officially submitted in the NFL Helmet Challenge, the multi-year innovation challenge aimed at stimulating the development of a new helmet that outperforms any model currently available to NFL players. An expert panel of judges has been assembled and is ready to award the $1 million prize that is up for grabs.
The judging panel brings together expertise in engineering, biomechanics, neurology, sports business, and notably, includes two NFL Legends and an NFL Equipment Manager. Judges will be tasked with reviewing each helmet prototype to ensure it meets all design and fit criteria and is a helmet that NFL players can realistically wear and be comfortable playing in.
SI.com, Fan Nation, All 49ers blog, Grant Cohn from
The 49ers can’t seem to solve their injury issue.
Part of the issue is the violent nature of football, but the other part is the non-contact injuries during the offseason that require surgery. Most recently Tarvarius Moore and Jeff Wilson Jr. In the past, Jalen Hurd and Jerick McKinnon.
To shed some light on this problem, I interviewed the Director of Sports Medicine at Benioff Children’s Hospitals and Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at UCSF Dr. Nirav Pandya, MD.
The pile of beige food pellets in a lab mouse’s cage might not be the most exciting part of an experiment, but it’s a detail researchers can’t afford to ignore. Nutrition scientists met last week to discuss possible revisions to the almost 30-year-old formulation of the diet consumed by laboratory rats and mice—the most commonly used animals in biomedical research. At a session of the online American Society for Nutrition (ASN) meeting, researchers described how making rodent feed more nutritious and consistent would improve the animals’ health and limit possible confounding variables in experiments.
“Having animals at their healthiest and then modifying the diet” gives researchers “a better base” to explore the effects of specific nutrients—and to understand how and when animals develop diseases, says Michael Pellizzon, a senior nutrition scientist at the lab animal diet manufacturer Research Diets, Inc., and a panelist at the ASN session.
Last year, Pellizzon co-authored a paper describing ways that diet choice can influence the results of experiments. For
Data has revolutionized many sports, from baseball to basketball . It is already a routine to record the events of the game and take that information to decide tactics, polish players or make signings. This transformation has come to football more slowly, due to its characteristics or its less quantitative culture, but right now it is a reality: football data is boiling.
The first step is taken by companies like Opta or Statsbomb , which are measuring thousands of actions from each game: passes, runs, shots. This Monday, for example, the Czech Patrik Schick scored a goal from 45 meters – this goal -, and after five minutes we knew that since 2014 1,554 similar shots have been made in the major leagues and that 30 have been scored. a community emerged. Companies like Spain’s Driblab and Olocip , which produce advanced statistics, make predictions and offer advice to clubs and agents. There are also journalists doing analytics , specialists , fansand research groups .
They are all pioneers, which is the most interesting thing for me: they are learning to capture a subtle game with numbers. What makes Cristiano Ronaldo or Kevin de Bruyne good? It’s tempting to think of them as intangibles, but that’s lazy. Coding in detail their actions on the field, their passes, their movements, their positions, we will end up finding out what they do. There will always be glimpses to be missed, but these analysts want to keep them to a minimum.