Handball and sports science….why so behind?

Handball (also known as team handball, Olympic handball or European handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outfield players and a goalkeeper) pass and bounce a ball to throw it into the goal of the opposing team. The team with the most goals after two periods of 30 minutes wins. Handball is by far my favourite sport. I played handball for many years in Italy (a bit more seriously) and...

Linear encoder systems: A new kid on the block

In the last few years I have seen many companies develop linear encoder and accelerometry-based systems to measure power output during weightlifting exercises. This is mostly due to the fact that linear encoders and accelerometers are becoming relatively cheap and it is getting easier to write appropriate software routines to perform all measurements. I have been using for one year the SmartCoach and I am very pleased...

Thank you!

  Thank you for taking your time to visit my blog and read my articles. This year the blog received more than 7000 visits from 6 continents. Most of the visits were from Europe and North America with some visits from Africa and a larger number than last year from Asia and Oceania. Unfortunately due to many changes at work I was unable to write many articles, I hope to be better in 2010. The field of sports...

Praising the invention of E-book readers

I have just opened my Christmas presents and found an incredible new gadget: a PRS-600 Sony Touch e-book reader.What a brilliant tool! After a quick installation of the software, I downloaded many free books on the device and a lot of PDFs from my library of scientific papers. This is a fantastic tool. You can in fact take with you your full library of books and articles everywhere in the World, read your materials...

Playing videogames and social networking….good news or bad news for sports people?

It has become a matter of discussion in recent years and most of all a matter of concern for most of us working in sport: video games. Athletes nowadays travel with their playing consoles around the World, spend a lot of time updating their social network sites and personal websites, watch DVD and do all sorts of things in their “downtime” which are totally different from the old times when they used to go out for a...