Sports Performance Tech 09

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DR PAULO OPPERMANN LOOKS AT NEW

TECHNOLOGY IN CONTACT SPORT

HOW COULD NEW TECHNOLOGY HELP PREVENT INJURIES

AT THE WORLD CUP?

WORLD CUP SPECIAL

ISSUE 9

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Welcome to this issue of Sports Performance & Tech.

As the World Cup in Brazil is now well under-way, we want-ed to bring you some of the lat-est innovations being used over there. The main area that this issue will be concentrating on is the use of new technologies in injury prevention, an issue that is vital in this tournament.

With teams playing in hot, hu-mid conditions the chances of injury are increased as fatigue can onset much quicker. There-fore Paulo Oppermann looks at the ways in which technol-ogy is helping to improve inju-ry prevention in soccer as well as other sports. Dan Peterson also looks at how new technol-ogies could have allowed some of the stars not available to be playing, and how those there can monitor themselves to pre-vent future injuries.

In addition to these, Simon Barton talks to Tom Legg from the Craig Bellamy Foundation to follow up on their analytical approach to coaching young players. We also look at how the CIES Football Observatory report on player valuation uses data to put a price on a play-er’s head.

We discuss the use of new tech-

nologies in the NFL and junior American Football leagues fol-lowing the court cases against the NFL from former players.

As always, if you like the maga-zine please share it. It was cre-ated to spread ideas and if you think there is something in here that somebody else would find interesting please send it along to them.

If you have any questions or feedback please contact me at [email protected]

George HillManaging Editor

Are you are looking to put your products in front of key decision makers?

For Advertising contact Han-nah at [email protected]

Managing Editor: George Hill

Assistant EditorsSimon Barton

Art Director: Gavin Bailey

Advertising: Hannah [email protected]

Contributors:Dan PatersonDr. Paulo OttermannRichard AngusSean ForemanDavid BartonDavid WhiteWilliam Boll

General Enquiries: [email protected]

Front Cover Image Credit: Jon Le-Bon / Shutterstock.com

Letter From The Editor

Editor’s Letter

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Contents

We look at how new technologies in American Football can prevent concussions

P. 8

Dan Peterson looks at how new analytics and technology could have seen less stars injured before the world cupP. 14

Simon Barton talks to Tom Legg about his work in analytics with the Craig Bellamy Foundation

Dr. Paulo Oppermann gives us a rundown of the latest technology innovation in contact sports

P. 19

As protein supplements become a staple for many, we look at how Maxi Nutrition’s Cyclone breaks the mouldP. 34

P. 4

David White, CEO of Import.io talks us through the Basis Smart Watch from a technologist’s per-spectiveP. 40

We look at the Go Pro Hero 3+ Black to see how it performs compared to other action cams available

P. 37

Richard Angus, a leader in sports analytics, talks us through the metrics of soccer player valuationP. 29

William Boll looks at the ways that amateur athletes can prevent head trauma

P. 25

Contents

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Analytics At The Craig Bellamy Foundation: RevisitedSimon Barton Assistant Editor

4 Craig Bellamy

Foundation

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Back in August 2013 we spoke with Tom Legg, Head of Per-formance Analysis at The Craig Bellamy Foundation. Based in Sierra Leone, the academy was started when recently retired Welsh foot-baller, Craig Bellamy, visited the West African country. He managed to see through the desperate poverty that ef-fects much of the population and saw a chance to offer hope and a way out for the nation’s talented youth.

Nearly a year on and much has changed at the acade-my. They’re welcoming their second generation of players and have made real strides in streamlining their programme to deliver the right information to the right players. It’s about delivering data to the play-ers post-match as quickly as possible so that matches are fresh in their minds as this is when the real improvements can be made.

There is now a real emphasis on players to self-evaluation so that they have a firm grip on their own development. There is no pressure from the coaching staff to do this – but as Tom says; “it will strengthen mental development and al-low them to refer back to past events when they’re in trouble or in a loss of form”. This play-er-led focus has been able to flourish due to the advance-ment in video exporting appli-cations on the Performa plat-

form that allows the players to watch their own performanc-es in their own time on their mobile phones. This removes the constant coach/player re-lationship which some of them may find suffocating. Tom is clearly delighted with the di-rection that both his players and academy are heading in; “At the start of the pro-gramme it was about finding out about what was impor-tant for us, now we’re happy about that”.

Much of what we hear about sports analytics is focused at the elite level, where athletes’

explore every possible avenue to increase their performance. For those of us who simply use sport as a way of keeping fit, or as a source of enjoyment, analytics is an expensive, complicated tool that serves little purpose. Even after our data has been collected, making sense of it can be an impossible task. Having said that, there shouldn’t be a fear of exposing data to younger athletes’ who, by themselves, would perhaps fail to see the relationship between foot-ball and numbers. In the right hands data can be used by all

Craig Bellamy Foundation

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ages, but as Tom says; ‘You have to be careful about the way you show it to younger players’ and that ‘delivering context is vital to a players understanding’.

Tom described a situation where data demonstrated that an un-der 18 player had been strug-gling with his forward passing. Tom expresses his desire for context by saying; ‘you can’t just say you need to improve for-ward passing, you need to build a picture in their mind and get them engaged so they can im-prove that attribute that way’. It’s a process of discovery that gets the players to answer open ended questions which can lead to far more interesting conclu-sions like that their first touch isn’t sharp enough when receiv-ing the ball or that their vision on

the ball is lacking. These are the sorts of discoveries that make a real impact on a player’s devel-opment.

For the under 14’s data isn’t as important as it is at the under 18 level, especially when looking at specific attributes. At that age, as Tom says; “a lot of it is about self-exploration”. If something is continually going wrong they’ll still refer to data but it’s often a visual process that requires them to look at video footage, and again Tom and his staff lead with open questions that en-courage the youngsters to use their intuition to determine how they can improve their game.

I was also really interested to hear Tom’s opinions on what age a player starts to cement himself in a certain position. Tom expresses his fear of cementing a position to early by saying; “At 11 and 12 you can’t be securing a position – certain skills can sway them towards a certain catego-ry, but not a specific position”. If a player is particularly skilful then they may guide him towards a more offensive position, but it’s when they reach 14 and 15 that a player’s position starts to take shape.

For Tom this approach pays dividends because his players have become accustomed to a number of different positions. This means that their all-round game is considerably better than what it would have been if they had stuck with one position throughout their development.

Craig Bellamy Foundation

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The academies captain is a shining example of how posi-tional rotation can be benefi-cial. He entered the academy at right-back, and as Tom ex-plains “this meant he was able to develop his defensive skills, which allows him to play with more freedom now”. This has benefitted him in his new role as a central midfielder.

“An academies philosophy is about creating players, not teams,” remarks Tom. How-ever much the Craig Bellamy Foundation would like to see their academy side be the next Sierra Leone national team, the chances of that happen-ing are relatively slim. Howev-er, with analytics becoming in-creasingly widespread at the top of the game and tactics ever more sophisticated, I was interested to hear Tom’s opin-ions on whether certain ‘units’ are more catered to analyt-ics than others. In my mind, analytics are a reactive tool suited to professional teams like Chelsea FC, who are more defensive minded by default. This sentiment wasn’t shared entirely by Tom, who conced-ed that at the top level defen-sive players could profit more, but that in reality it’s depend-ant on the players personality and the way they both under-stand and react to data. He mentions that one of his cen-tral midfielders hasn’t really taken to analytics despite the vast array of KPI’s that could

potentially be of use to him.

Throughout the age groups at the academy the use of an-alytics is varied. Tom states; “Under 14’s is very much fo-cused on their technical abil-ity” whereas at the Under 18 level KPI’s are utilised to see what they can do off the ball as an individual and how they fit in with the team as a whole. But as always, analyt-ics is used to improve individ-ual performance not that of a team, which is completely un-derstandable and to the ben-efit of the players, as building a slick, well-drilled team might inhibit some of the players ability to express themselves freely on the pitch.

This is an interesting point be-cause it shows how analytics can be adapted in order to fit in with a player’s devel-opment. The methods of the Craig Bellamy foundation

have proven very successful and show first hand the power of football as a force for social change – since their inception they have had three gradu-ates go to the U.S.A. on schol-arships. They recently had 5 players called up to the Under 20 Sierra Leone squad, with two of them, Santigie Koroma and Sulaiman Samura partic-ipating in the match, a fantas-tic achievement considering the relatively tender age of the academy and the age of both players who were only 17 and 16 respectively when they were called up. Other success stories have come from Den-mark, where one of their play-er’s recently had a trial for a Danish team.

Craig Bellamy Foundation

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Technology In Preventing Football Concussions

George HillManaging Editor

8 Technology In Football

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An interesting aspect of sports technologies today is that they go beyond simply improving acceleration or the overall per-formance of a team. Although important in pushing sport for-ward, in reality they help with success in competitions but there are several aspects of sport that are more important.

A cliche that has been heard of-ten over the past few years has been ‘When this happens it re-ally puts it in perspective that this is only a game’. It is gener-ally used when there is a bad in-jury or even a death on a pitch or track. However, technology is being brought out to do more than simply improve times and scores, products are now be-coming available to stop these long lasting and serious injuries.

We are increasingly seeing concussions and other serious head injuries occurring in con-tact sports, especially American football. The issues that these cause in both the short and long term have been discussed at length and due to these the NFL is now facing huge bills to pay for healthcare for retired foot-ball players and those suffering from complications due to head injuries. With the size of this bill in mind, it is no surprise that 3.8 million sports-related concus-sions each year occur in the US, each of which could have long term consequences.

This has manifested itself in in-creasingly disturbing ways, with long term brain damage being

shown to have caused dementia in several subjects and in some tragic cases, it has even caused former players to commit sui-cide.

Mouth Guards

We have previously discussed mouth guards in the magazine in regards to identification of con-cussions and most important-ly in terms of preventing sec-ond-impact syndrome. This is when you receive a second con-cussion shortly after receiving a first, something that can easily happen in contact sports. Sec-ond-impact syndrome can have severe consequences, keeping players away from the playing field for longer or even causing

death in extreme circumstances.

Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com

Technology In Football

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At the moment this may not be caused through stubbornness or the failure of medical staff, but simply because an athlete may not realise that they have a concussion and therefore be unaware of the danger that they are in when coming into the next game. We previously discussed this with Mark Dillon, the inventor of the Mamori mouthguard. Here, through the use of accelerometers, it was possible to recognise when an impact was hard enough to have caused a concussion and measures that can be taken to assess whether or not this was actually the case.

Similar ideas are being discussed in the US, especially at institu-tions like MIT where new tech-nologies and sports are com-bined. The increased coverage

of concussion injuries amongst NFL players after court rulings in favour of former players have pushed the awareness of these kinds of injuries.

Companies like X2 have married the love of sports with the pre-vention of injuries, allowing for youngsters to play as competi-tively as possible without risking serious injury. This, is yet to really transcend into adult games but given that injuries within forma-tive years can have serious long term health effects, this is cer-tainly a step in the right direc-tion.

Helmets

In professional football, a play-er receives as many as 1500 hits to the head during their career, any one of which could cause concussions or worse. It is for

Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

Technology In Football

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this reason that football hel-mets are undoubtedly one of the most important pieces of equipment used and why companies are starting to look into ways to reduce the amount of trauma caused when hit in the head.

The difficulty with helmets (unlike gum shields) is that their primary function is to protect the head and there-fore it is important to under-stand what causes concus-sions and the forces involed in order to maximise head protection. Up until only a few years ago it was thought to have been bruising in the brain’s grey matter, but it is actually shown to be through the stretching and straining of nerves within the brain. Re-search has been conducted at Wayne State University that shows even small movements,

millimetres for instance, of the brain within the skull can cause these strains. Combine this with the standards used for helmet certification, which are largely unchanged since they came into effect in the early 1970s.

There are companies looking to remedy this, with prod-ucts including padding that is placed on top of existing hel-mets or additional padding inside the helmet itself. One of the aspects that is yet to be really addressed is the pre-vention of ‘rotational’ impacts (the rotation of the head) rather than linear impacts (the strike of the head). Both have been cited as causing concussions and other head

injuries, but it was only

recently that any

Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

Technology In Football

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attempts have been made to reduce rotational forces in hel-mets.

Although companies like Riddell have looked into new technologies to combat this, there is little on the market to have really reduced it. There have been moves by companies to remedy this, with MIPS (Multidirectional Impact Protection System) prime amongst them. Tests have shown that rotational forces can be decreased by around 50% with their system, but they are yet to be taken up by the bigger helmet manufacturers. This is for many reasons, both economic and legal (if it is shown that existing helmets are inadequate then it puts helmet manufacturers in a difficult position), but in the coming years, and with the clamour currently

surrounding the effects of concussions and other head injuries, it is only a matter of time until these systems become more widely used.

We are seeing exciting develop-ments around the use of tech-nology in the NFL, College foot-ball and even in junior variants. The fact is that as science has improved and cases where pro-tection has clearly been insuffi-cient the use of technology has been picked up. It is now a case of balancing losing face or leav-ing yourself open to legal issues in the future. For the sake of fu-ture player welfare, we have to hope for the former.

Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

Technology In Football

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World Cup Players Could Benefit From Injury Prediction And PreventionDan PetersonDirector, Metrifit

14 Injury Prevention in The World Cup

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Imagine this dream team kick-ing off at the 2014 World Cup; Falcao, Ribery, Reus and Wal-cott up top, Strootman and Gundogan holding down the middle, with Oviedo, Akaminko, Badstuber and Van der wiel as your back four. Put Victor Val-des in goal and you have a po-tential best XI. Unfortunately, all eleven of these global stars will miss the tournament in Bra-zil due to injury. Some are out as a result of a broken bone or torn ligaments from contact, but quite a few have muscular pulls and strains or are still recover-ing from previous medical is-sues. Could anything have been done to predict and possibly prevent those types of injuries, not only for these elite athletes but for the millions who play for their schools or clubs around the world?

In the past, injuries were an ac-cepted part of the game, but new training and prevention techniques along with technol-ogy tools have emerged that allow coaches and players to monitor their workload and pro-actively predict risk factors to avoid downtime.

In the top European football leagues, as well as many elite youth leagues, players can play between an average of 1.5 to 2 games per week for a 10-11 month season. Factor in multi-ple training sessions, travel and the ongoing stress of competi-tion and the likelihood of injuries and a missed game increases.

Previous research has shown that the most likely predictor of future injuries is a history of a similar injury (Olsen et al, 2004).

In fact, in a recent study, across elite adult male soccer players, there were 24.6 to 34.8 injuries per 1000 competitive match hours and 5.8 to 7.6 injuries per 1000 training hours (Walden et al, 2005) Specifically, 92% of soc-cer-related injuries are to the leg muscles: hamstrings, 37%; adductors, 23%; quadri-ceps 19% and calf mus-cles, 13% (Ekstrand et al, 2011).

Teams at all levels need a structured, long-term injury prevention program to have any real effect. Only sustained biomechanical and neuromuscular changes in a player will make an

Fingerhut / Shutterstock.com

15 Injury Prevention in

The World Cup

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impact on their availability for training and games.

One team in the MLS that has in-vested in a prevention program, and sports science in general, is the Seattle Sounders. GM,

Adrian Hanauer and Head Coach, Sigi Schmid, knew

they had to manage their players’ health proactively to be suc-cessful through an entire season. Enter David Tenney, lead fit-ness coach, to imple-

ment a complete train-ing and injury prevention

program.

“Being the business person and leader that he is, and being extremely into data, [Adrian Hanaauer] wants to be at the forefront of what people are doing with tech-nology and analytics,” Tenney explained to Forbes. “I think

being in the environment we’re in with Seattle, this

is an aspect of the club he really wants to

drive.”

Through the ac-quisition of giga-bytes of daily train-ing data, Tenney is building prediction

algorithms and models to better interpret player performance.

“What I’ve tried to stress just in what we’ve done in the last few months is to try and refine and create some probability models,” said Tenney. “I really

think that a year from now that kind of probability model will be in place. That our coaching staff will embrace it, and I think they will because it’s a lot bet-ter feedback to the coaches to move from saying, ‘Well I think this guy worked hard this week but should be OK this weekend,’ to ‘Based upon our data, this player has X% chance of injury, he’s fresh and he should play well.”

The key to developing this type of prediction system is the con-sistent daily collection of training data, including not only discrete measures such as GPS distance and heart rate but also subjec-tive measures including sleep quality, mood and stress. This complete player profile is re-quired to begin to understand the integrated factors leading up to an injury.

Jean-Pierre Meersseman, a Belgian chiropractor, is seen by many as the pioneer for injury prevention and understanding a player from a total mind-body perspective. As founder of the famous Milan Lab at AC Milan, he prolonged the careers of many injury-prone players including Clarence Seedorf, Paolo Maldini and even David Beckham during his short stay at Milan.

“That was one of the reasons why I started measuring everything,” Meersseman told the Guardian. “All the top clubs have cardiol-ogists, knee specialists and so on – but sometimes it’s difficult to look at the whole and that’s

Fingerhut / Shutterstock.com

16 Injury Prevention in The World Cup

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what we are trying to do.

He recently moved from Milan to England and has set-up an independent clinic for EPL play-ers. The demand for his ap-proach has been very high. Car-ly Barnes, a sports lawyer and player agent, understands why teams are so interested. “Play-ers are now enormous assets and, if they get injured, a club risks an enormous plunge in val-ue,” she told the Guardian.

Does this type of data gather-ing and analysis work? In the first year of the Milan Lab, total practice days lost to injury were down 43%, use of medicines were down 70%, and overall player injuries dropped by two-thirds.

Despite all of the training pro-fessionals using the latest tech-nology, there may be one cause of injury that no one can do an-ything about - angry witch doc-tors.

“I know what Cristiano Ronal-do’s injury is about,” Ghanaian Nana Kwaku Bonsam said this week. “I’m working on him. This injury can never be cured by any medic, they can never see what is causing the injury because it is spiritual.”

Maybe after Ronaldo’s Portugal team plays Ghana, his health will dramatically improve.

Sources:

Ekstrand J, Hagglund M & Walden M. Injury incidence and injury patterns in professional football: the UEFA injury study. Br J Sports Med 2011, 45: 553-558.

Olsen L, Scanlan 1, MacKay M, Babul S, Reid D, Clark M, Raina P. Strategies for prevention of soccer related injuries: a sys-tematic review. Br J Sports Med 2004, 38: 89-94.

Walden M, Hagglund M, & Ek-strand J. UEFA Champions League study: a prospective study of injuries in professional football during the 2001-2002 season. Br J Sports Med 2005, 39: 542-546.

Yiannis Kourtos / Shutterstock.com

Injury Prevention in The World Cup

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How Technology Is Changing Contact SportsDr. Paulo Oppermann Sports Scientist

Tech in Contact Sports

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Technology in contact sports has evolved in a very particular form in the past couple of decades and especially over the past few years. A significant amount of technology is becoming portable and wireless and data is now of-ten being made available in real time for coaches, trainers and sport scientists. This has sup-ported the transition of tech-nology from laboratory settings to practice fields, courts, and in some cases in official sport competitions.

A very recent example is the case of a partnership between Adidas and the Major League Soccer in the US in which the Adidas MiCoach system has been approved and is currently being utilized by all MLS teams during practice sessions and during official competitions to track athletes’ heart rate, speed, jump height, distance ran, and other data. This has been made possible with the use of minia-turized GPS, gyroscopes and accelerometers that have been embedded into a small system that is lodged in athletes’ jerseys and in some cases in their cleats. This system has also been uti-lized by Rugby teams in Europe, North America and Oceania.

Tracking systems like MiCoach and Under Armour39 also as-sist an athletes’ health main-tenance through a number of analyses that can be made in regards to fatigue, overtraining and other important health re-lated information with this infor-

mation then being compared to their unique physical and med-ical conditions. With the goal to monitor contact sports athletes’ health, another piece of tech-nology has entered our courts, fields and rinks – these technol-ogies have made it possible to track the intensity of head im-pacts experienced by athletes. This new device from Reebok, called Checklight, is a very small and flexible system that fits to the athlete’s head – the device is lodged in a beanie; it is also a standalone system that doesn’t need additional software or to be paired with another device, instead, it uses an LED indica-tor that displays a yellow signal in the event of a moderate im-pact to the head, or a red signal in the event of a more intense impact. The Reebok Checklight is a game changing device devel-oped by MC10, which is a com-pany that specializes in develop-ing stretchable, flexible, thin, and small sensors that are designed to be wearable and virtually un-noticeable by the user. MC10 is currently developing multiple devices in this new area, includ-ing a system that will provide data on athletes’ perspiration rate in real time. Within the same field Gatorade has developed and been working on analysis of sweat composition for each ath-lete in a team and implementing a personalized formula for rehy-dration for each team member according to the athletes’ loss of fluids, electrolytes and minerals. This product can be seen in dif-

20 Tech in

Contact Sports

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ferent sport teams and is going to be implemented during the 2014 FIFA World CUP.

The use of technology in contact sports has grown a lot within performance enhancement, in-jury prevention, injury recovery and athletes’ health mainte-nance. The use of advanced high speed and high definition cam-eras, along with the develop-ment of biomechanical software, has allowed teams to have an in depth view of athletes’ move-ments. This detailed view may assist coaches to better under-stand a hockey athlete’s kinetic link (chain of muscular, joints and body events) during a slap-shot, or a rugby player’s penalty kick, or a soccer player’s corner kick; this information is then used to improve speed, accuracy, but also to analyze possible indica-tors, like the imbalance of move-ment which may cause injury.

Another field of sport science and technology that has evolved significantly is neuro/physiology and neuro/biofeedback. With technological advances things that were only possible to be measured in the laboratory, like muscle activation, respiratory rhythms, and neurological ac-tivity are now available during practice and games, not only as a measure and assessment tool, but also as data that can be sent back to the athletes in real time. Devices like the FlexComp Infiniti from Thought Technology and the Nexus-10 from MindMe-dia are portable and allow data

transferring to be made wire-lessly through Bluetooth, which could potentially train athletes to have faster reaction times, quicker decision making, more focus and many other perfor-mance enhancing possibilities. It is now possible to measure how focused, how ready to react, and how warmed up a football play-er is in the line of scrimmage, or a soccer goalkeeper during a pen-alty kick, or a hockey player dur-ing a face-off, or a rugby player during a scrum; sport scientists and trainers are able to use this data and train their athletes to be at their peak level of perfor-mance for each circumstance. Moreover, the analysis during game-play or during practice may provide data on an athlete’s ideal ranges of motion, data on the balance between flexor and extensor muscle groups activa-tion. This is crucial information for performance, but more im-portantly, is paramount to the evaluation and training of ideal conditions to prevent injuries.

Another technological advance is the Hawk-Eye, from Hawk Eye Innovations. It is a precise ball speed and trajectory track-er that uses cameras and ad-vanced software - The Interna-tional Tennis Federation already approved the software for tour-nament play in 2005. It was launched in 2012 as a soccer simulator training system that tracks the ball’s trajectory, spin and speed.

Some sport organizations have

21Tech in

Contact Sports

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made use of geoanalytics to try to have a better understanding of team strategies by analyz-ing athletes’ and a team’s geo-graphical positioning and move-ment on the field/court, by using systems like ArcGis, which pro-vides data including team and individual movement and posi-tioning trends.

Besides technologies that can be applied on the field, there are options that can be used to im-prove performance from off the field variables, like athletes’ ac-tivity and sleep. Monitors that track athletes’ activity and sleep patterns (similar to the ones available commercially, like the Misfit-shine and Nike’s Fuelband SE) provide team profession-als with information that allows them to understand each ath-lete better. With this information professionals can provide ath-letes with individual guidance, according to the team’s travel, practice and competition sched-ule so that they can improve rest, recovery and readiness for performance.

Other advances also targeting athletes’ recovery are devices that emit electrical signals to stimulate small muscular con-tractions that assist on post-ac-tivity muscular recovery. These include TecElite from LG, and Marc Pro, which both require specific calibration and position-ing from a trained professional, and the FireFly from FirstKind which is a take home device that does not require calibration or

adjustment to specific levels and can be used by the athlete when away from the club.

More technology has been made available for on and off the field performance enhancement, and for athletes’ health mainte-nance; some professional teams have followed this phenomenon and have increased investments in sport sciences. While some teams have done so in a more public way, like AC Milan from Italy, with the Milan Lab, and Real Madrid FC from Spain, with the Real Madrid TEC-Sanitas center; other teams have made investments in a more discrete and even secret fashion.

With the fast growing advanc-es of the technological field in sports comes challenges, like finding trained professionals who know how to implement sport sciences with professional sport organizations in a seam-less way, or to train members of the training/coaching staff to be able to take full advantage of the benefits that technology is bringing to sports. An exam-ple is of what benefits advanced sleep and rest data can bring to a team. But if there is no one able to create a program to op-timize athletes’ rest, recovery and sleep quality will it be valu-able? Another important fact to highlight is that some technolo-gies provide objective data and measures that need processing, analysis of the data according to each athlete’s characteristics, and statistical analysis in or-

22 Tech in

Contact Sports

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der for it to make sense and to produce positive results for the teams. On the other hand, some of the technology that is be-ing made available can already make its own calculations and algorithmic analysis, providing an outcome that also needs to be looked at with caution, as in some instances these technolo-gies provide estimates and ap-proximations, instead of exact measurements.

Even though there are some ob-stacles, the future of sport and technology is bright – there is potential to see a great deal of improvement in team perfor-mance enhancement and health maintenance coming from sport and performance technologies, especially with programs that make the adequate use of, and correct adaptation of the tech-

nology that is currently availa-ble. Finally, there are plenty of reasons to be excited for and to be looking forward to the future of sport performance technolo-gies, as new conforming wireless technologies are being created and improved, and more efforts are being made in preparing knowledgeable professionals who will make the best use of them.

Tech in Contact Sports

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2525 Preventive Injury

Technology

Preventive Injury Technology To Help Your Amateur Recognize Body TraumaWilliam BollChief Operating Officer Pro Hockey Vision

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Sports-related concussions (or brain traumas) are recognized as a major public health con-cern. Concussions and their re-sidual long-term effects have been, and are currently, the concern of numerous people associated with sports medi-cine, sports management, and head trauma research, as well as athletes themselves. Many athletes are witnessing serious current and far-reaching de-bilitating health complications among their peers. Concussions that force the early retirement of high-profile professional ath-letes have created an increased public awareness of the reper-cussions of these injuries.

The key to preventing future sports injuries is to identify risk factors and make changes be-fore the athlete suffers an injury or establishes patterns that can cause overuse injuries.

A lack of pre-season condition-ing and preparation is a sig-nificant risk factor contribut-ing to sports injuries. Amateur athletes usually begin intense, competitive sports participation after being inactive for months, leaving them unprepared for the intense activity that is expected at the beginning of the season.

Risk factors for sports injuries in-clude:

• Lack of pre-participation physical exams

• Hazardous playing fields

• Conditioning and training

errors

• Playing whilst injured or overtired

• Poor nutrition

• Improper technique (e.g. in tennis, improper swing can lead to tennis injury)

• Inadequate supervision

• Psychological stress

• Coaches not properly trained to identify injuries

• Inflexibility due to growth

Parents and coaches are strong influencers in an athlete’s life. Coaches have a direct influ-ence on the incidence of injuries through the training and con-ditioning programs that they provide to the athletes, through their determination of when an athlete can return to competi-tion after an injury, and how ef-fectively they support the com-munication between the athlete and the sports medicine staff. Coaches also have an indirect influence through their coaching philosophy, including the abili-ty to affect the extent to which their athletes take risks, play with pain, and train strenuously. Trust and open communication between parents, coaches, and trainers is a must to increase awareness of injuries and stress levels that could contribute to injuries.

The profound consequences of brain trauma are often not al-ways immediately visible. The lasting effects of the injury tend

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to emerge over time. In the hours and days following the initial traumatic event, physio-logical changes occur that can pose both serious current and far-reaching medical complica-tions. Following the initial con-tact injury, even when the impact is not from great force, the met-abolic distress renders the brain highly vulnerable, thus greatly increasing the probability of fur-ther, more permanent brain in-jury. A study by Guskiewcz et.al. revealed that American football players who had already expe-rienced a concussion were three times more likely to experience a second concussion during the same sports season. A 2003 NCAA study drew a similar con-clusion.

Concussions are usually pro-duced when both linear and ro-tational accelerations impact the brain. These accelerations cause internal straining deep within the brain. This deep stress appears to produce a major ef-fect on both the current and long-term brain health of an athlete. The effects of repeated, but lesser, accelerations on the inside of the brain parallels the effect created by a substantial direct impact.

Amateur athletes under the age of 18 are known to be more vul-nerable to concussion and to ex-perience more serious short and long-term symptoms of concus-sion than adults. Youth athletes with concussion may experience fatigue, inattention, lack of con-

centration, memory loss and headaches, which can have dev-astating effects on both athlet-ic and academic performance. Subtle cognitive deficits may persist for up to a year in some youths. However, it is not as easy to identify the visual cues of a player who may be near the threshold of head trauma after having received multiple smaller impacts.

Quantum Sports LLC is using its expertise in the sport of ice hockey and in the future other sports to reduce the subjectivi-ty and reliance on visual use by measuring the force on a play-er’s body (whether it occurs di-rectly or through the ‘whiplash’ that occurs during a severe hit to the body). These consistent measurements provide coach-es, trainers, and others who monitor the continuing health of an athlete with a more objective method for determining when treatment is required.

Quantum Sports has developed a system that detects magni-tude, frequency, location and direction of impacts made to the body. It records the line-ar and rotational accelerations that were received as a result of multiple impact exposures dur-ing the game. The detection and evaluation of these accelera-tions can then be used to assess the effects of internal stress on the brain to reveal the causes of concussions occurring deep within the brain.

The Quantum Sports system

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uses a patented technology to measure both the ‘big hit’ and the ‘multiple hits’ that occur, and just like a traffic light, it registers green if the player has not ex-perienced any changes, yellow if the player has received enough g-forces to reach a cautionary state and red if a single hit or the accumulation of hits has put this player in a concussed state and should be removed from the activity.

By embedding Quantum Sports’ patented motion-sensory tech-nology anywhere on the body, Quantum Sports is able to measure the frequency, mag-nitude of force and direction/vector of each contact that oc-curs immediately upon impact. After recording, tabulating and comparing the accumulated contact data with current med-ically-known thresholds of injury producing impacts, the sensors create an Injury Reduction Data Base. The technology can then assess the on-going ‘real-time’ impacts being made to the head of each athlete as it occurs dur-ing play and evaluating the ac-tual effects of impact vectors on the athlete’s cognitive and motor skills. This information is immediately transmitted by and through the embedded sensory components. It is then instantly relayed to the appropriate med-ical personnel in ‘real time’ and allows them to render appro-priate first aid to the player as needed.

As safety is always the primary

focus of each parent (as well as that of the athletic department), having advanced tools that pro-vide a proactive data-based view of the athlete’s health can reduce the subjective ‘guess work’ of a possible concussion, replace subjective visual cues with up-to-date medical data, assuage parental fears of life altering injury.

These advanced tools reduce the risk and severity of inju-ry and provide the information needed to know if immediate treatment is required, if the ath-lete should be temporally side-lined, or if he can resume play. This data eliminates the ‘guess work’ of possible head trauma. And most importantly, Quantum Sports provides data correlation between injuries and long-term performance of athletes.

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CIES Football Observatory Value ReportRichard AngusSports Analytics Leader

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The rise of the Galácticos marked a turning point in player valuation. Since Luis Fi-go’s transfer to the Real Ma-drid, the Spanish side have continually upped the ante, breaking the highest trans-fer fee record a further four times, with their most recent acquisition, Gareth Bale, cost-ing them a reported 100m eu-ros.

With these enormous sums being spent, actually valuating a player is difficult. Increasing-ly, clubs pay what they need to in order to guarantee they get the player they want. This often means paying well over the odds for a player and this acceptance of overpayment has had a considerable ef-fect on player valuation in the common market. If we factor in inflation, Ronaldo, the Bra-zilian striker, regarded as an all-time great, transferred for around 4,000,000 euros less than Andy Carroll, a player who at the age of 25 failed to make England’s World Cup squad.

Comparing Andy Carroll and Ronaldo isn’t an attempt to shame current football man-agers or even their finan-cial advisors; players are just worth more than they were 15 years ago. Many would argue that the worlds of football and economics have become syn-onymous, after all, analysing a player’s value solely on his on-pitch ability is short-sight-

ed. This is perhaps the main reason why FC Barcelona opted to sign Neymar, instead of a much-needed defender. By having Brazil’s standout player, in a year in which Bra-zil are hosting the World Cup, it keeps your club fresh in the minds of millions, regardless of how well you’re doing on the pitch. Neymar’s’ former club, Santos, would have known this and therefore would have held out for as long as possi-ble knowing his importance to Barcelona.

The CIES Football Observato-ry recently conducted a rank-ings table that profiled the Top 60 most valuable players ply-ing their trade in Europe. It’s an interesting list that on first glance will shock a few peo-ple as it is anything but a run down of the Top 60 players in the world, instead, it takes

into account an eclectic mix of metrics that allow it to give a truer reflection of a player’s valuation.

Their powerful econometrical model is based on the analysis of 1,500 players that have been transferred from the English, Spanish, French, Italian and German leagues since the 2009/2010 season. In order to determine the individual value of the players that were in the table, a number of metrics are considered, including; age, contract length, stature of current club and player performance.

On first viewing the table isn’t that surprising – the gener-al consensus is that Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez are the three best players in the world and they head up the list. It’s not even

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that strange to see Lionel Mes-si valued at almost the twice

of Ronaldo (Messi being 26 and Ron-aldo nearly 30).

It’s not un-til you reach the sixth po-sition that things start to become a little harder

to com-prehend

– Paul

Pogba, the 21-year old, France international has an upper val-uation of 70.4 million euros, a figure that is surely grossly over exaggerated and a sum more suited to the back pages of tab-loid newspapers. However, from an analytical standpoint the figure is incredibly conceivable. He’s young, played a pivotal role for Juventus, one of Europe’s premier clubs, a fully-fledged French international primed to play a central role in France’s World Cup bid and has a con-tract to 2016. When put like this it becomes clear why CIES’ eco-nomic model values him higher than say, Yaya Toure, a player who’s widely considered to be more accomplished in Pogba’s position at the moment. Pogba, quite rightly, is viewed as an in-

vestment, whereas Yaya Toure would be a short-term fix.

The comparison of these two players brings a number of in-valuable insights that go a long way to prove the reliability of this model. If we put ourselves in the shoes of a manager at a top European Club who’s look-ing to purchase a powerful cen-tral midfielder. The two players available on the market, Pogba and Toure, have differing values of over 30 million euros; Pogba valued at 70.4 million euros and Toure 33.3 million euros. If we take it as fact that both play-er will retire at the age of 34 (or cease to play a pivotal role in their respective clubs), Toure, aged 31 will play around 3 more seasons at the top level, put-ting his value per season at 11.1 million euros. Pogba on the oth-er hand, at 21 years of age will cost around 5.4 million euros per season – and with that the club will get him throughout his late twenties, a period of time when players are considered to be at their prime. When put in this context, the analytical model of CIES becomes remarkably ac-curate.

The beauty of this analytical model is that it values youth over experience in an era when clubs are more than willing to invest heavily in young players rather than take the risk on the academy roll-out. From a Pre-mier League perspective, it is also really interesting to see the higher valuation of young Eng-

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lish players. The model seems to have considered the fact that English players tend to stay within their home league and that big English clubs are hap-py to pay a premium to attract the best English talent. This is evident in the valuation of Ross Barkley, a player who has burst onto the scene this season as a raw 20-year old talent – his valuation is higher than Thom-as Muller who is also young, a Champions League winner and an experienced German inter-national. The CIES table reflects clubs preference to sign younger players and in these situations it is incredibly valuable for home club’s to have statistical knowl-edge that can paint an accurate picture as to the kind of bid that should be deemed acceptable.

The table is also dominated by so called ‘big clubs’ barring per-haps Southampton, Everton, Fiorentina, Schalke and Mona-co (who have 6 players on the list between them). The financial status of clubs like Chelsea, Real Madrid, Paris SG and Manches-ter City means that in order to attract one of their players a bid well in excess of their true value would be needed to sway them into letting them go, as bringing in extra money is less important than keeping their top talent. This sentiment is unlikely to be shared by the smaller clubs who have less financial clout. This represents yet another reason to celebrate the accuracy of the econometrical model deployed

by CIES observatory.

One drawback of the model is that it can’t predict whether there will be multiple bids for a player coming from differing clubs. If this happens, like it did with Neymar, where a whole host of large European teams were courting the player, his val-uation, by the very virtue of the bidding process, will increase. From an analytical standpoint this would be incredibly difficult to incorporate but nevertheless marks a slight flaw in its work-ings.

It remains to be seen whether any of the players on the list will be sold in the summer transfer window, but you can guaran-tee that one of themwill be up for grabs. Big name players like; Luis Suarez, Eden Hazard and even Lionel Messi have been ru-mored to be on the move and it will be really interesting to see whether the CIES Football Observatory econometric model stands up to the un-predictability of the transfer market.

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Review: Maxi Nutrition - CycloneSean Foreman Sports Nutritionist

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I am always on the lookout for a product that can support my strength and fitness goals and before we go any further with this review, it’s important to say that this latest Maxi Nutrition instalment, the Cyclone, works incredibly well. I gained half a stone in mass, whilst also seeing my body fat percentage drop by 1.5% - a change that I have nev-er experienced before with an-other product.

The reason it works so well is because it packs a considera-ble punch – 5g of Creatine and easily digestible whey proteins that aid the restoration and de-velopment of muscle. Having a product that actually helps recovery is really important to me because I go to the gym on average 6 times a week, which means that for muscle develop-ment, I have to be taking quali-ty supplements. Over the cycle I was able to train vigorously from Monday to Saturday, with a rest day on Sunday without feeling too fatigued.

I’ve heard that many people are put off creatine based protein shakes by the taste and although it’s never been a problem for me, I can understand why it could re-duce your appetite for the prod-uct. My protein cycle lasted for 3 months (3 weeks on, 1 week off) and I can safely say that it was the best tasting creatine prod-uct I have ever had, and for even the pickiest of gym-goer it’s un-likely to be unpleasant. It comes in a variety of different flavours,

including: strawberry, chocolate, vanilla and banana.

Some could complain about the price (it costs £49.99) but you pay for what you get, as I said before, it’s a quality product and I’d much rather spend £10 more on this than on another protein supplement.

Having had a good deal of ex-perience with poor protein prod-ucts in the past, it was a real sur-prise to see so much progress in a relatively short period of time. Maxi Nutrition aren’t lead-ers in this field for nothing and if you’re looking for a good tasting, quality product you won’t go far wrong with this Maxi Nutrition outreach. Having said that, it’s certainly not a product for those of us who are trying to put on substantial muscle mass, as it says on the tin, it’s designed to get you fit and lean.

I often hear newcomers to the gym expressing real fear about using protein, normally because they feel it’s unnecessary cal-ories, but it’s a vital tool that allows you to reach your fit-ness goals quicker, and with the added creatine kick, increased strength is far easier to reach. This product will increase your capacity to get those last couple of reps out, reps which are im-perative to your development. I would have no qualms in recom-mending Maxi Nutrition, Cyclone, 1.32 KG to anyone who’s looking to get lean and in shape.

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Changing Technology?

Send It For [email protected]

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Review: Go Pro Hero 3+ Black

David BartonWearable Technology Leader

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Go Pro has long been seen as the brand synonymous with ‘ac-tion cams’. In fact, when videos are posted online from a helmet, the normal reactions are that it is a ‘Go Pro Video’.

Having used similar products in the past I was excited to try out the Go Pro 3+ Black.

When first opening the box one of the most noticeable aspects was that the camera is incred-ibly durable. There are multiple mounts and hinges that al-low the camera to be po-sitioned in a variety of an-gles and positions when filming. This meant that on a decent cycling helmet (which has multiple vents and therefore thinner ar-eas to place the camera bracket) it is easy to find an area on which to place the bracket and adjust the hinges accordingly to fit the camera.

When wearing the cam-era, it is certafinly more obvious than others in the same space. Due to its rectangular shape and the fame of the camera itself, it is incredibly obvious when you are wearing it. It is of-ten bizarre seeing peo-ple duck out of the way when dismounting due to the camera being on my helmet and I certainly noticed that cars were much ‘better behaved’ when they saw the camera.

The footage and audio produced by the camera is good and cer-tainly measures up to others in the same space. Comparisons between other camera’s in re-gards to this shows that there are minimal differences, with crisp imaging a clear sound.

It is also relatively light and is comparable to others in this re-gard. This made wearing it sim-ple without being too cumber-some or awkward. When it is

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on your helmet it can be easy to forget that it’s there as it doesn’t hinder your movements and due to the robust nature of the hinges and the bracket it can be fitted to make it as comfortable as possible.

There are a few downsides to the camera and the main one is the battery life. The battery will only stay charged for two hours at the most whilst recording. This is certainly an issue if you are using the camera for longer journeys or to film across multi-ple days without a power supply. For a camera that is designed to be used in action situations this is certainly one of the major downsides.

Another issue with the camera was that the brackets do not allow for the use of cable ties,

which means that specialised brackets need to be bought. I found that the original place-ment of my first bracket frus-trating after the first fortnight, so wanted to change it slightly and as the original sticky mount was no longer strong enough, there was no way of doing this.

Aside from the battery life, the camera is impressive, the film capturing on it is crisp and the audio is impressive for a cam-era of this size that is encased in plastic during use. Overall, I am impressed by the Go Pro 3+, it continues the impressive line of action cams that precede it and justifies why Go Pro is seen as the market leader in this arena.

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Basis Smart Watch: ReviewDavid WhiteCEO, Import.io

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When I decided it was finally time to lose the extra 20 kilos I packed on during the early stag-es of starting my own company, I knew I was going to need some serious motivation. As the CEO of a data company, joining the quantified self movement and measuring my personal data seemed like a good place to start.

I needed a wearable device that I could keep on all day and that would measure things like steps, calories, hours slept, etc. There are a wealth of products out there, all of which claim to be the ultimate lifestyle monitor, and choosing one wasn’t easy. I’d previously tried the BodyMe-dia armband, which was pret-ty good from a measurement standpoint, but the feedback mechanism wasn’t great (a little extra pendant you clip to your-self). I could have gotten over this except that it didn’t have the one major feature I wanted: a constant heart rate monitor. This was a deal breaker for me since I was really interested in measuring how my stress levels affected my weight retention.

After several days of research, I settled on the Basis B1 Band (Carbon Steel Edition), mostly because it is the only product on the market which gives you a constant HR without requir-ing you to wear a chest strap while at the same time having all the other features I was

looking for. Unfortunately, the Basis is currently only available

in the US but since I travel back and forth regularly this wasn’t a huge issue.

My first impression of the Basis is that it looked better than most of the competition. It’s not exact-ly a Rolex, but it doesn’t look like it was made by Fisher Price ei-ther. It has a decently sleek and unassuming design, it’s reason-ably well made and I find it quite comfortable - it’s really not as bulky as it looks. A little side note here, I actually quite like watch-es as an accessory so I wear the Basis on my right arm and often rock two watches at once - so far no one has commented that this looks weird.

I’ve been using it now for around two months and I have to say the data is amazing. Not only does it give me a constant heart rate, but I can see calories burnt, steps taken, hours slept, sleep quality, skin temperature and perspiration levels. The sheer amount of data it captures is great and based on my, albeit unscientific, tests it appears to be pretty accurate. The steps seem to match my other ped-ometers pretty well and I actu-ally think the calories measure-ment might be more accurate because of the constant HR monitor. Not to mention there are hardly any gaps!

The sleep data is a little more subjective. It gives you a sleep quality score each night out of 100, which I personally think does align with how I feel about that night’s sleep. It’s one of the

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most interesting things to meas-ure and the one I think I’ve seen the most improvement in. Re-gardless of how accurate the sleep score is, it is consistent and it gives you a baseline to meas-ure good vs bad sleep. I think this measurement is particularly important because sleep is gen-erally the element of our per-sonal data that we are the least good at quantifying. I thought I was pretty good at going to bed and getting a good night’s sleep, but after only a week of looking at the data from the Basis I re-alised I wasn’t. The other great thing about it is that it knows au-tomatically when you are sleep-ing, you don’t have to tell it the way you do with most devices.

One thing the Basis is definite-ly not good at, is measuring heart rate during exercise. To be honest, I expected that to be the case since the Basis bills it-

self as a lifestyle monitor, not an exercise tool. I actually don’t mind this at all because I use a specialist heart rate monitor for when I’m exercising which pro-vides me with a more accurate heart rate and GPS information.

As a device, the Basis is easy to use. You sync it with the app on your phone using the bluetooth and simply press the button once a day when you want to update your data. The display is large and easy to use and there is plenty of functionality built into the watch which I found easi-ly navigable (there’s only four buttons). The battery life is quite good as well. I charge mine for 20 minutes every day while I’m in the shower (though it is water resistant), which keeps it topped up and gives me a consistent gap in my data.

The app itself is ok, I don’t use it much personally, but the web-

site is great. The visualizations are simple and visually appeal-ing and allow you to view your data in a lot of different ways. The patterns are my favourite part, you can find some real-ly interesting (and sometimes weird) things by tracking them. For example, for a completely unknown reason about twice a week my skin temperature spikes at night and my perspi-ration increases. You can see this reflected in the data, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s causing it. I also really like the activities charts, they’re simple to use and provide you

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with some really great trends.

Basis also offers what it calls “habits”, which are essentially points you can earn by being ac-tive. They are supposed to pro-vide you with added motivation. Personally, I find these a bit gim-micky and unhelpful, since you can’t do much in the way of cus-tomisation. The nice thing about the Basis is that it doesn’t bom-bard you with them, so if you want to ignore them, you can.

The one thing that really annoys me about the Basis is that there is no official API, nor is there any way of exporting your data at all. This seems like a massive over-sight to me. Basis themselves admit that the B1 isn’t great at monitoring exercise, so presum-ably they realise that anyone serious about fitness data will want to have multiple devices. Not having a way to export my data means that I can’t combine it with my other fitness data. I like to do my own data analysis, so it is frustrating that there isn’t a way for me to see any-thing other than the charts Basis creates for me.

Fortunately, with a little googling you’ll find that a few members of the Ba-sis community have found a way hacking data out of the Basis app and into a CSV. So if you’re a bit tech-nical you can get the data out, but it certainly isn’t ideal; and Basis should support an official API. Though they’ve recently been bought by

Intel, so maybe this is already in the pipeline.

Overall the Basis has been a major help in my goal to getting fitter. Despite the lack of data export and the fact that it’s not great at exercise monitoring, I still think this is the best lifestyle monitoring tool on the market. It’s the only one that will give you a constant heart rate, the data monitoring is very accurate and the website’s charts are great for identifying patterns and trends. If I had to put a number to it - and I will because I’m a data nerd - I’d give it a solid 8.7 out of 10.

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Email [email protected] for more information

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