August In Review

Quotes/Thoughts

• Appreciate the influence our surroundings have on us
• People are inspired by their environments
• Where there is a negative, there is a positive
• Explore the edges of a “technique”
• The opportunity of a lifetime is being who you are
• Technique is linked to the information source
• As the awareness & use of constraints become more popular in training & practice, it’s important to remember - constraints exclude movements/options, they should not necessarily prescribe a specific movement. The athlete still gets to choose their own movement/solve the problem.
  

 
Articles

• The Cost of Fake Toughness and Macho Masculinity – Brad Stulberg
• Improving Acceleration Performance in Football (soccer) Players – JB Morin
• Turning the Weight Room Warrior Into a Perceptual Monster: The Missing Link in Physical Preparation
• Teacher Influenced Constraints vs Skill/Action Scenario Constraints in PE (Constraints To Learning and Constraints Of Learning)- Balbinder Singh
• Improve creativity by applying the principles of differential learning – Tim Buszard
• It’s Time We Realize Football Is A Little Less Important
• An Objective Biomechanics Model for Better Program Design – Pat Davidson
• Respecting the Movement Problem – Shawn Myszka
• Modifications In My NFL Movement Skill Refinement Process – Shawn Myszka
• Reorganizing the Athlete’s Brain – Adding Noise as a Function of Neuroplasticity
  

 
Podcasts

• Carving Nature at Her Joints – Talent Equation w/ Andrew Wilson
• Perception Action Podcast – Jeff Fairbrother
• Perception Action Podcast – Shared Mental Models vs Shared Affordances in Team Coordination
• Joe Rogan Experience – Neil Degrasse Tyson
• Just Fly Podcast – Dr. John Wagle
• Physiology Secrets – 7% Improvement in Power in Just 4-Days?
• Pacey Performance Podcast – Martin Buchheit
  

 
Research
 
Harper DJ, Kiely J. Damaging nature of decelerations: Do we adequately prepare players? BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine. 2018; 4 :e000379. Doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000379 :    
 

• Training-specific research, and training practice in general, has historically focused primarily on enhancing acceleration and high-velocity running capacities. While such efforts are undoubtedly important, the future evolution of match play preparation philosophy also requires that we develop training techniques focused on enhancing deceleration-handling capacities, in tandem with aligned monitoring strategies enabling us to better discern and quantify the specific mechanical stressors driving deceleration-imposed deficits. Finally, these insights may hold special relevance for those tasked with the management, delivery and monitoring of training interventions designed to enhance injury resilience and reduce injury risk.
  

 
Wild, J. J., Bezodis, I. N., North, J. S., & Bezodis, N. E. (2018). Differences in step characteristics and linear kinematics between rugby players and sprinters during initial sprint acceleration. European journal of sport science, 1-11.
 

• The initial steps of a sprint are important in team sports, such as rugby, where there is an inherent requirement to maximally accelerate over short distances. Current understanding of sprint acceleration technique is primarily based on data from track and field sprinters, although whether this information is transferable to athletes such as rugby players is unclear, due to differing ecological constraints. Sagittal plane video data were collected (240 Hz) and manually digitised to calculate the kinematics of professional rugby forwards (n = 15) and backs (n = 15), and sprinters (n = 18; 100 m personal best range = 9.96–11.33 s) during the first three steps of three maximal sprint accelerations. Using a between-group research design, differences between groups were determined using magnitude-based inferences, and within-group relationships between technique variables and initial sprint acceleration performance were established using correlation. Substantial between-group differences were observed in multiple variables. Only one variable, toe-off distance, differed between groups (d = −0.42 to −2.62) and also demonstrated meaningful relationships with sprint performance within all three groups (r = −0.44 to −0.58), whereby a stance foot position more posterior relative to the centre of mass at toe-off was associated with better sprint performance. While toe-off distance appears to be an important technical feature for sprint acceleration performance in both sprinters and rugby players, caution should be applied to the direct transfer of other kinematic information from sprinters to inform the technical development of acceleration in team sports athletes.

 
Simperingham, K. D., Cronin, J. B., & Ross, A. (2016). Advances in sprint acceleration profiling for field-based team-sport athletes: Utility, reliability, validity and limitations. Sports Medicine, 46(11), 1619-1645.
 

• Radar, laser, NMT and TT technologies can be used to reliably measure sprint acceleration performance and to provide insight into the determinants of sprinting speed. However, further research is required to establish the validity of the kinetic measurements made with NMT and TT. Radar and laser technology may not be suitable for measuring the first few steps of a sprint acceleration.

 
Cross, M. R., Lahti, J., Brown, S. R., Chedati, M., Jimenez-Reyes, P., Samozino, P., & Morin, J. B. (2018). Training at maximal power in resisted sprinting: Optimal load determination methodology and pilot results in team sport athletes. PloS one, 13(4), e0195477.
 

• In the current study we investigated the effects of resisted sprint training on sprinting performance and underlying mechanical parameters (force-velocity-power profile) based on two different training protocols: (i) loads that represented maximum power output (Lopt) and a 50% decrease in maximum unresisted sprinting velocity and (ii) lighter loads that represented a 10% decrease in maximum unresisted sprinting velocity, as drawn from previous research (L10). Both resisted-sprint training protocols were likely to improve performance after a short training intervention in already sprint trained athletes. However, widely varied individualised results indicated that adaptations may be dependent on pre-training force-velocity characteristics.
  

 
Silva, P., Garganta, J., Araújo, D., Davids, K., & Aguiar, P. (2013). Shared knowledge or shared affordances? Insights from an ecological dynamics approach to team coordination in sports. Sports Medicine, 43(9), 765-772.
 

• Previous research has proposed that team coordination is based on shared knowledge of the performance context, responsible for linking teammates’ mental representations for collective, internalized action solutions. However, this representational approach raises many questions including: how do individual schemata of team members become reformulated together? How much time does it take for this collective cognitive process to occur? How do different cues perceived by different individuals sustain a general shared mental representation? This representational approach is challenged by an ecological dynamics perspective of shared knowledge in team coordination. We argue that the traditional shared knowledge assumption is predicated on ‘knowledge about’ the environment, which can be used to share knowledge and influence intentions of others prior to competition. Rather, during competitive performance, the control of action by perceiving surrounding informational constraints is expressed in ‘knowledge of’ the environment. This crucial distinction emphasizes perception of shared affordances (for others and of others) as the main communication channel between team members during team coordination tasks. From this perspective, the emergence of coordinated behaviours in sports teams is based on the formation of interpersonal synergies between players resulting from collective actions predicated on shared affordances.
  

 
Matute, H., Cubillas, C. P., & Garaizar, P. (2017). Learning to infer the time of our actions and decisions from their consequences. Consciousness and cognition, 56, 37-49.
 

• Research shows that people infer the time of their actions and decisions from their consequences. We asked how people know how much time to subtract from consequences in order to infer their actions and decisions. They could either subtract a fixed, default, time from consequences, or learn from experience how much time to subtract in each situation. In two experiments, participants’ actions were followed by a tone, which was presented either immediately or after a delay. In Experiment 1, participants estimated the time of their actions; in Experiment 2, the time of their decisions to act. Both actions and decisions were judged to occur sooner or later as a function of whether consequences were immediate or delayed. Estimations tended to be shifted toward their consequences, but in some cases they were shifted away from them. Most importantly, in all cases participants learned progressively to adjust their estimations with experience.
  

 
Broatch, J. R., Petersen, A., & Bishop, D. J. (2018). The Influence of Post-Exercise Cold-Water Immersion on Adaptive Responses to Exercise: A Review of the Literature. Sports Medicine, 1-19.
 

• Post-exercise cold-water immersion (CWI) is used extensively in exercise training as a means to minimise fatigue and expedite recovery between sessions. However, debate exists around its merit in long-term training regimens. While an improvement in recovery following a single session of exercise may improve subsequent training quality and stimulus, reports have emerged suggesting CWI may attenuate long-term adaptations to exercise training. Recent developments in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing the adaptive response to exercise in human skeletal muscle have provided potential mechanistic insight into the effects of CWI on training adaptations. Preliminary evidence suggests that CWI may blunt resistance signalling pathways following a single exercise session, as well as attenuate key long-term resistance training adaptations such as strength and muscle mass. Conversely, CWI may augment endurance signalling pathways and the expression of genes key to mitochondrial biogenesis following a single endurance exercise session, but have little to no effect on the content of proteins key to mitochondrial biogenesis following long-term endurance training. This review explores current evidence regarding the underlying molecular mechanisms by which CWI may alter cellular signalling and the long-term adaptive response to exercise in human skeletal muscle.
  

 
 
Random
 

• This is a great thread about some of the biggest myths that prevail in movement and coaching - https://twitter.com/ollylogo/status/1034814564825747457​
  

Books

• The Performance Cortex – Zach Schonbrun
• The Playmaker’s Advantage – Leonard Zaichkowski &Daniel Peterson

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