Reflections about coaching, strength and conditioning and the emergence of cargo cult science in sport

I have been thinking long and hard about writing this blog. Mostly because time to put in words what I have been thinking about in the last few months has been lacking but also because I wanted to reflect about what I have been seeing in the last 12 months around the World and take stock.

For the readers, I am not having a go at any particular individual and/or association/group of people, I am just writing about my worries and they way I see things going.

Before getting into some details, it is important to understand where this reflection is coming from. It is coming from my personal career history, where I started and how my journey is going, and how things have changed during my journey.

When I started this career in 1993, right after graduating with my first degree in Sports Science, I was mostly a coach with an interest in the scientific applications of strength and conditioning. I was fortunate enough to have met Professor Bruno Cacchi who was the Head Coach of Italian Athletics which setup the first laboratory to study strength training in Italy in the then ISEF of Rome. What I learnt in the 4-5 years I was in that lab was to develop an inquisitive approach to training. Prof Cacchi was the most famous Italian track and field coach at the time and I remember him telling me that he organised the lab so he could learn more about what he was doing as he had many questions about the activities he did with his athletes on track. So he wanted to measure as much as he could and simulate sessions he was doing to separate the wheat form the chaff. Equipment was very limited at the time, computers were running MsDos and Windows 3.1. Very few laptops were available and the state of the art for our testing activities was the biorobot (the early version of Muscle Lab) and photocells mounted everywhere (with very basic software). My coaching was mostly on the track and on handball courts and I was starting to provide strength and conditioning support to various sports. What Prof Cacchi always told me was: "if we want to understand what we do as coaches we have to have a training programme, we have to know what the athlete completes and we have to assess how they progress". This lesson still drives me today but somewhat it seems lost.

This was taken in 1998 in Sportilia in a training camp with the Italian Handball NT

Despite the enormous advancements of sports science and the subsequent professionalisation of sports science specialists, things do not seem to get much better. I still see enormous improvisation in the coaching community, with far too many people not having a programme and a structured approach to assessing what works and what does not work. There is still a lot of improvisation in too many places. Coaches turn up and do something, completely unstructured, with not much clarity and knowledge over the implications of their sessions and unclear ideas about progressions. In many cases, I see coaches picking "sessions" in random order and with limited control over loading. This is why I believe we see many injuries still. Injuries are too many times the result of inappropriate loading patterns which is a consequence of poor planning and/or inappropriate training choices.

Scientific support in these cases is challenging, as most of the times it is only necessary to point out inadequacy of the training paradigms used. And there is no way sports scientists can help improving the quality of a training programme if there is no programme.

The other worry is the proliferation of cargo-cult science in coaching communities. The Internet is now full of courses, podcasts, articles, online access to content. Information is now available anytime anywhere. But sadly there is also a proliferation of coaching courses offered by various entities in different part of the World of dubious quality. International and national federations do offer coaching courses which should have some form of quality control/assurance, but clearly the big bucks are in courses and activities offered by private institutions and/or individuals. While I am a strong believer that knowledge comes form anywhere and confining it to rigid structures can be counterproductive, I also believe that somehow somebody somewhere should guarantee quality of the message. 

Well, in many instances I see a lot of pseudoscience and absolute rubbish being "sold" to coaches. Some of the terminology I hear makes no sense, and the mutterings of aerobic, anaerobic, power, force, CNS etc etc in random order really drives me insane. Not to mention the non existing definitions and /or observations and definitions that have no evidence and are totally non-sensical. If you have ever heard about "CNS session" you know what I mean. This is not a war on semantics, it is about making sure that the distribution of bullshit stops. Too many coaches are now convinced about things that do not exist and in an era of high speed cameras are still convinced they can see stuff that it is not there (I will call it the "Nessie Phenomenon" to pay tribute to the monster nobody can see in the North of Scotland). 

Training Philosophies are now turning into religious-like beliefs (are you a "believer" and a follower of coach X method? ) and this is probably the consequence of too many coaches teaching other coaches such beliefs not supported by evidence or sold on the basis of some athlete winning some medal somewhere. What I have rarely experienced is a coach which lectures about what they do (for real!) without too much philosophy but with evidence of what is the programme, what they assess and when, what are the typical changes in whatever indicators they have during the seasons and what evidence they use to predict performances for their athletes as the season progresses. Instead of this, I sit in too many lectures in which I hear about philosophies, I listen to non-existing pseudo-science, and I see few pictures or videos of successful athletes. But no idea of the content (what did the coach do? How was the load progressed? How progress was assessed, how did the coach "teach" the athlete", what did the athlete learn etc etc.).

The worrying aspect is when coaches are also encouraged to branch out to other professions providing therapy, nutritional advice, medical advice, interpretation of clinical examinations etc etc. This is unacceptable and dangerous. This is the reason why sometimes athletes may fail a doping test and/or might delay rehabilitation following an injury and/or develop an injury. Coaches should be great at coaching and teaching as well as creating positive environments for athletes to improve. Everything else should be left to specialists, people that know what they are doing. Having a coaching philosophy is for sure a good idea (anybody needs a vision/beliefs/ways of approaching a problem), but at the end of the day sport performance is brutally simple, it is in fact about getting better and trying to be better than others. 

Philosophies seem to permeate the development of the strength and conditioning community as well. When I started, it was pretty clear to me that my job was to try to make people stronger, faster, more flexible, I was driven by writing content and assessing outcomes and trying to understand what worked and what didn't. In my view after having seen quite a few lectures/presentations from strength and conditioning specialists, I hear a lot about philosophies but I rarely see content and I mostly see poor or non-existing outcomes. I fear the scientific approach is gone (and for science I do not mean the one you do to write a paper, I mean systematic approaches to documenting what you do and measuring some outcomes). While I see all this, the era of Big Data is upon us. Everyone talks about it, but many are struggling to see where the big data are. To me the biggest data still missing are the ones related to training content, what is planned vs what is executed and how things progress. I am also interested in knowing about technical development, how we should teach things to athletes and we should assess if they develop technically. In the Athletics World you hear a lot about techniques and how coaches "see" technical errors in sessions and in competition. What I am stil struggling to find is evidence about how true are such errors and most of all how and if such errors can be corrected. This to me is the art of coaching, but we can now build the evidence for it and we should strive to understand this aspect more.

Sports science is evolving, we have more devices, more information, more ideas. However we are still lacking easy, simple, non-invasive ways to understand more about the implications of single training sessions as well as the effectiveness of different training schemes. We have to still rely on invasive approaches in physiology and some of the approaches in other aspects of science are not practical in the real world (have you ever tried to play table tennis with an EEG cap and wires?). So this is where the biggest gains will come, in the ability to understand more what happens in the real world moving the labs on the field as much as possible.

So this is my pledge, I will try to understand more, learn more and try to develop better ways to work in sport. My advice to you working as a coach, as a strength and conditioning specialist or as an "ologist" with athletes at any level is to avoid the "Nessie Phenomenon" and try to critically analyse any information coming your way. Do not accept what you hear or what others tell you. Go and find the information, try things yourself, try to assess what works and what not, document your experiences, reflect. Only in this way you will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

We are exposed to B--sh-t every day, and there is science about it too, just read this paper and hopefully you can find a way to use appropriate filters.

Free pain assessment tool

I just came across a fantastic (free) pain assessment tool developed by Emilie McMahon.

A study showed how it was well accepted and easy to use with an heterogeneous group of participants. But if you want to know more about pain scales, you really need to read this recent systematic review.

In the Zone launched

Endorsed by Sir Steve Redgrave, In the Zone aims to engage young people and the general public with the science of how their body works during sport, exercise and movement. I was involved as a member of the advisory group to define the experiments and kit and provide ideas and advice on the interactive touring exhibition. It was a true multidisciplinary effort with experts from a variety of fields from education to textile technology to art. I think the result is amazing and I hope many schools will contact the Wellcome trust to receive the FREE educational kits (you can see them below).

Make sure you visit the website http://www.getinthezone.org.uk/ with all the information about this project as well as details on how to obtain the free kits for your school and the dates of the touring exhibition.

(Primary School kit – credits The Wellcome Trust)

The initiative will send free science investigation kits for every primary school, secondary school and further education college in the UK.

(Secondary School kit – credits The Wellcome Trust)

For primary schools

Download the Curriculum Planning Guide - ages 4-11.

Brilliant Bodies (ages 4-5)
Investigate balance and find out about different parts of the body.

Stupendous Steppers (ages 5-7)
Explore how quick off the mark you are and how many steps you take to do different activities.

Super Athletes (ages 7-9)
Discover whether having longer legs helps you to jump further.

Heart Beaters (ages 9-11)
Find out the effect exercise has on your body and what affects recovery.

For secondary schools and colleges

Download the Curriculum Planning Guide - ages 11-19.

On Your Marks…Get Set…Breathe! (ages 11-14)
Discover how exercise affects your breath and your breathing rate.

From Strength to Strength (ages 14-16)
Explore the strength of your muscles and discover how they are used during movement.

I've Got the Power (ages 16-19)
Investigate how the cardiovascular system adapts during different exercise or sports.

Here is a short movie about the project.

Science, scientific papers and the Internet universe

The Internet is a wonderful place, where everyone can freely communicate and write and discuss pretty much about everything. Freedom is a great thing, sadly it also poses its risks. In fact pretty much everyone can put up a website and become a self proclaimed expert in everything as well as writing about sensational theories and claim they have invented something. Last but not least, a website can also be a place where you can pretty much claim you know it all and everyone one else is wrong as well as claim magic effects of applications of your theories. I came across few of these, where self-proclaimed experts with no qualifications try to sell everything, from miraculous training methods, to super-foods and supplement to amazing exercise machines as well as selling their own pseudo-expertise.

(This image is copyright of Ben Tremblay, read his wonderful blog here)

This is all possible simply because everyone can write whatever they want on a website or blog without undergoing the peer review process which is the basis of a scientific publication. I can use this blog in fact to write whatever I want and I totally control the content. However my aim is to write and discuss scientific matters related to sport providing my views on particular issues and/or reporting some interesting (to me) findings published in the scientific literature.

I don’t propose wacky theories, I don’t claim to be the only person on the planet with all the right answers and I don’t plan to build some cargo cult science following unlike so many individuals on the internet.

Some people in fact have websites where they criticize everything and everyone, they claim to have the right theories and they claim to have made inventions as well as stating that scientists (the ones that publish on scientific peer reviewed journals!) don’t get it, are wrong and don’t understand what they are talking about. But such people have never published anything anywhere, have never patented an invention and most of the times do not even have a basic degree in the field.

In this post I want to explain what is a scientific publication, what is the process needed to get a paper published and how a scientific paper looks like.

Scientific literature comprises scientific publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Scientific research on original work initially published in scientific journals is called primary literature. Patents and technical reports, for minor research results and engineering and design work (including computer software) can also be considered primary literature. Secondary sources include articles in review journals (which provide a synthesis of research articles on a topic to highlight advances and new lines of research), and books for large projects, broad arguments, or compilations of articles. Tertiary sources might include encyclopedias and similar works intended for broad public consumption.

A blog or a website is not considered (quite rightly) scientific literature or a scientific publication. None of the articles I write on this blog can be considered scientific literature.

What is the process to get a paper published on a scientific journal and how long does it take?
The process is quite long and sometimes it can take years from the idea to the publication on a scientific journal.

The basic criterion is that there is a formalized process of peer-review prior to publication – so this presents a barrier to publication that acts as a quality control filter. Typically, the journal editor will give a submitted paper to a small number of qualified peers – recognized experts in the relevant field. The reviewers will then submit detailed criticism of the paper along with a recommendation to reject, accept with major revisions, accept with minor revisions, or accept as is. It is rare to get an acceptance as is on the first round.

The editor also reviews the paper, and may break a tie among the reviewers or add their own comments. 

The process, although at times painful, is quite useful in not only checking the quality of submitted work, but improving the quality. A reviewer, for example, may point out prior research the authors did not comment on, or may point our errors in the paper which can be fixed.

This is not a perfect process but at least creates some filter to information. I am and have been a reviewer to hundreds of manuscripts submitted for publication to various journals and always strived to provide a fair and constructive review as well as rejecting work which was not of the right quality.

The value of a scientific publication goes beyond the simple benefit of being filtered by peer review. It’s also a way to communicate your ideas to your scientific peers, and invite them to express an informed view as well as using your findings to advance knowledge in the field.

Peer review is not always perfect. Peer review is often represented as some kind of policing system for truth, but in reality, some dreadful nonsense gets published, and mercifully so: dubious and low quality material can sometimes get published; then the academic readers of this literature, who are trained to critically appraise a scientific case, can make their own judgement. This is the real stage of review in my view.

After publication other scientists will decide. If there are flaws in your case, responses can be written, as letters, or even whole new papers. If there is merit in your work, then new ideas and research will be triggered and your work gets cited. That is the real process of science.

Structure of a scientific paper

The first part is normally an abstract; this is a short summary of the work, and is intended to serve as a guide for determining if the articles is pertinent, and to furnish subject metadata for indexing services.

Abstracts should be read only when trying to find pertinent articles. The real information is NEVER in the abstract. If you only read abstracts you have not read the paper, you don’t know anything about the details of the experiment.

The content is  presented in the context of previous scientific investigations, by citation of relevant documents in the existing literature, in a section called an "Introduction".

This section helps the reader in setting the scene, presenting current state of the art and leading the reader to the hypothesis of the research project,

Empirical techniques, laid out in a section usually called "Materials and Methods", are described in such a way that a subsequent scientist, with appropriate knowledge of and experience in the relevant field, should be able to repeat the observations and know whether he or she has obtained the same result.

The methods section allows the reader to understand what happened as well as read the research design and the statistical techniques used.

The results of the investigation, in a section usually called "Results", are presented in tabular or graphic form (image, chart, schematic, diagram or drawing) as well as text.

Interpretation of the meaning of the results is usually addressed in a "Discussion" and/or "Conclusion" section. The conclusions drawn should be based on previous literature and/or new empirical results, in such a way that any reader with knowledge of the field can follow the argument and confirm that the conclusions are sound.

Conclusions must not depend on personal authority, rhetorical skill, or faith but should be based on the results.

Finally, a "References" or "Literature Cited" section lists the primary sources cited by the authors in the format required by the journal.

Lessons

When reading information on the internet try to understand where it is coming from. When you want to know and understand more, always go to the primary sources. Don’t read only the abstract, try to get the full paper and read and study each section to understand the details. Make your mind up and read again, sometimes you might miss important points or relevant papers cited.

Reflections on the Italian conference on track and field

I am on the plane back to London returning from Italy after having spoken at a conference organised by the Italian Track and Field Federation’s regional committee of Veneto and the regional branch of the Italian Olympic Committee. I spent interesting 2 days in Abano Terme for a variety of reasons, some of which I will write about here. I also had time to reflect about my career so far and where I started.
First of all, I have to say it is always a pleasure to get back to Italy. I left many years ago to study and further my education (my first “escape” was in 1996 [time goes fast!]). After the USA, Spain, Hungary and bits and bobs around the World, I arrived in the UK in 2001 (yes it is now 10 years) to pursue a career in sports science. First in academia and since 2005 with the British Olympic Association. When I left Italy, It was with a bitter taste, many things happened which helped me decide to “throw in the towel” and move on.
The main issues were: the lack of meritocracy, the lack of vision and thinking big, the lack of jobs and clear career paths, the inability to work in partnership and the constant bad influence on politics in every field. However bitterness was then transformed in pleasantness by the realisation that leaving Italy was not an exile like some Italians think, but in reality a great opportunity to be thankful for. In fact, since arriving in the UK, I have been blessed with continuous opportunities. I have met some fantastic people, I have had the opportunity to work and collaborate with World Class colleagues in many fields in academia and sport and I have the privilege to work towards the London Olympics for the biggest sporting event which will happen in my country of adoption at least for my generation.
Reflecting on the last 18 years since I started this journey, I realised how much I have learnt and and how much I have evolved as a professional thanks not only to my own hard work and sacrifice, but also thanks to the countless interactions I have had and still have with various people in many fields and thanks to the opportunities I have been presented with.
The conference was also an emotional moment. It was primarily organised to discuss athletics in Italy and around the World thanks to contributors coming from Germany and France. But the main aim of the conference was to remember the immense contribution from the greatest Sports Scientist Italy ever had (in my view): Professor Carmelo Bosco. Prof. Bosco was my PhD supervisor, and I enjoyed some years of hard work on the road with him not only working on various research projects but also working on applied projects with athletes and higher education.
 

(With Prof. Bosco on a trip)

Working with a genius is never easy. It takes effort, it is difficult, it is stressful and requires long hours of “deep” practice and a strong character as well as the willingness to accept criticism and work hard to learn. I feel so lucky of having been working with people like him, Atko Viru, Jozsef Tihanyi (to name a few), because these guys not only were great at what they did (and Josefz still is), but they were passionate about their jobs and were/are totally driven to learn more every day.

(1998, Tartu Estonia – picture credit Bill Laich)

Italy was a difficult place to work at the time. The faculty of Sports Science did not have a library. If you wanted to read scientific literature, you needed to book access to the School of Sport of CONI and you were allowed few hours only few days per month. So if you wanted to have knowledge you had to go and get it and it was not easy to do so (mind you there were no queues…so clearly few people were interested in reading!). Unlike now, knowledge is “on tap” [but so is crap], and there is really no excuse for not trying to learn something new every day. For the young readers, this was the pre-PDF era when you had to go to the library, find the journal, take notes or make photocopies. It was a time when a literature search required a week to be done. You needed to hand in at reception a floppy disk with a list of keywords and come back a week later to receive the files with the literature search outputs. We had an office to do literature search with 1 computer. There were brick walls everywhere. But, as Randy Pausch said in his last lecture, brick walls are there to separate the people that really want something from the ones not willing to overcome the obstacles.
At the conference, I spoke about how great it was to discuss about science and training methodology 24 hours per day for few years. Having strong debates, doing calculations, performing experiments, discussing and arguing with coaches and scientists filled my days at the time. That was proper “deep practice”. Everything was an opportunity for growth and such environment was what made Italian sport successful and innovative in those years. It was great, and I treasure every minute of that time.

Yury Verkchoschanski, Carmelo Bosco and Atko Viru discussing data. A normal day at the office in Rome in the 90s being in the same place working with these guys was brilliant. 

In Abano I also met an old friend and had the pleasure of translating his lecture. The old friend is Professor Paavo Komi. Prof. Komi was another inspiring figure in my career. I went to “study” him in 1997 in Denver at the ACSM when I was a student in the USA for my Master. I had read all his papers and books and wanted to see/hear his keynote lecture as well as understand how somebody can prepare a scientific presentation about his data and showcase his work in front of hundreds of people without panicking. I quietly entered the empty auditorium while he was aligning his slides (for the youngsters, at that time PowerPoint was not really an option) and asked politely if I could see him preparing the talk. He was a bit puzzled at first, but then he allowed me to stay. That day I learnt how meticulous preparation has to be in every field and I was inspired to try to reach his levels of knowledge and positive influence on the strength and conditioning and scientific community.
In Italy I was asked to translate his presentation and I loved every moment of it, as the work he has done with numerous collaborators around the world has been truly amazing as well as being totally relevant to strength and conditioning. I also had lunch with Paavo and we chatted about past times as well the origins of the European College of Sports Science and how things have changed in this profession so quickly (for the good) in the last 15 years. We should be thankful to this group of guys. They had a vision and not much money (actually they had none...) and they created a great organisation to foster collaboration, innovation and education as well as a job market for our profession. It is amazing what people can do if their noses are pointing in the same direction.
Few lessons here. People and ideas drive innovation and change and help athletes reaching new heights. Facilities and gadgets help and support people and ideas. Not the other way around. Likeminded people willing to park the ego at the door for bigger achievements than personal self promotion can do amazing things. Lessons from the past are good. Experience helps in framing the path to the future.
There is a tendency these days to discard what happened in the past in every field. As well as a tendency to forget about the people which were there before and got their t-shirts. I guess it is a sign of the times. Old school is perceived to be not relevant anymore. I like old school. In particular if old school means application of basic, sound concepts with attention to detail.
I think we should make sure we know and understand well what happened in the past to learn and we should seek wisdom from the people who were trying to do what we do now years ago so we don’t re-invent the wheel. In our field we have still the same unanswered questions. We still don’t have 100% knowledge on how to individualise and maximise training programmes, we haven’t cracked the code on overtraining and fatigue and we still don’t understand fully what it takes to transform successful young athletes in winning performers.
So, if you are a young sports scientist, make sure you listen to the people teaching and mentoring you. They may sound old school, sometimes pedantic, sometimes a bit hard to deal with. Listen to them, there is a lot to learn and you will thank them ten years from now. Also, make sure you also read scientific papers published many years ago. Not all the recent literature is “recent”, lots of things have been done before and they are “sold” as new.
If you are looking for examples, go and read the work from Professor Angelo Mosso and look at his ergograph developed in 1890. You will find out that the use of dynamometry to measure fatigue is not a new idea after all.

Epidermal Electronics

I have been recently reading a lot about epidermal electronics. Pretty soon patients in hospitals (and sports people) should be able to wear skin mounted electrodes to be able to measure a variety of physiological indicators in real time for a prolonged period of time.

The latest innovation comes from the University of Illinois. A new device looking like a tattoo, has been developed and proposed as an innovative smart skin solution. Researchers at the University of Illinois who came up with this device made circuits with a wide array of components, to prove it could work: sensors, LEDs, transistors, radio frequency capacitors and wireless antennas. The devices can draw power from induction or even from mini solar cells!

Inventors say they could be used for various medical applications, especially sensors that monitor heart and muscle activity, which currently require conductive gels and/or relatively bulky equipment. To prove it, they measured electrical activity produced by the heart, brain, and skeletal muscles, some data are reported in Science.

You can also see a video of the technology below. Pretty impressive technology which will be hopefully available soon!

This is impressive technology, pushing the boundaries of wearable sensors and providing incredible possibilities for studying human movement.

(Example of a sensor setup for EEG and other measurements. Photo courtesy of Prof. John Rogers)

(Easy removal of the skin mounted electrode. Photo courtesy of Prof. John Rogers)

You can learn more about this and other technologies developed by Professor Rogers’ group here.

Interesting things at the ACSM

I promised to write something about the ACSM conference in Denver and then lack of time did the rest….and never got around writing anything.

So, with a bit of time available I will write few reflections about the conference.

The topics covered in the sessions were quite diverse as usual, ranging from obesity to military medicine to sport performance and there were loads of parallel sessions which makes it impossible to follow everything happening. I will provide few notes on the ones I attended, but my overall impression of the conference was that sport performance research is becoming more and more rare and there is a lot of emphasis on exercise science clearly due to funding opportunities. Also, I sense a bit of staleness in the scientific community as I keep seeing a lot of experiments repeated over and over again and few innovative approaches/ideas. I have discussed this topic on my article on “the Leader” newsletter, and will not replicate it here, but I sense that the disconnect between the lab and the field is getting bigger.

Nutrition in rehabilitation

Professor Kevin Tipton from Stirling University (http://www.sports.stir.ac.uk/staff/kevin-tipton.php) provided a good overview for the use of protein for muscle remodelling. Kevin wrote a great chapter in my book on strength and conditioning and presented his work in a very elegant manner.

Some good evidence was provided on the negative effects of a reduction in energy intake when injured. This in fact, may be bad news as it might slow down muscle recovery. So nutritional advice for athletes in rehab should be carefully planned as while it is true that excess energy intake will lead to weight gain and alterations in body composition, it is also true that reducing energy intake too much might slow down muscle remodelling.

He also suggested the use of Omega 3 Fatty acids to facilitate recovery as indicated in recent papers from Bettina Mittendofer’s Lab (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21501117)

Professor Stuart Phillips gave also a good talk on protein metabolism and suggested the Omega 3 FA approach as well (4g of FDA approved Lovaza http://www.lovaza.com/). I am sure more research will be published soon on the use of Mega 3 FAs for muscle remodelling.

Dr. Ferrando talked about a “Cocktail” of supplements showing great promise (so not a single product) in his very-applied talk on how to speed up recovery following hip replacement. He suggested that in the real world we want to use all we know from research and apply it for our patients/clients. Showed some data of reduced day in hospital using a drink made of all compounds suggested to have beneficial effects on muscle remodelling (e.g. creatine, proteins, Omega 3, etc etc).

New Techniques

Some very interesting work was presented by Dr. Minoru Shinonara’s Lab. Dr. Shinonara is doing some work with a new ultrasound technique able to quantify muscle stiffness http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Shinohara%20M%22%5BAuthor%5D%20and%20muscle%20stiffness

A very interesting technique as you can see here: http://www.supersonicimagine.fr/product_0_1_shearwave-elastography,en.htm

Overtraining

There was an entire afternoon session on overtraining.Consensus is that there is not a single marker, but a variety of things which can be measured to assess if an individual is at risk of overtraining or already overtrained. It was pretty much a series of presentations of data already available in the literature.

The most interesting talk was from Dr. Bradley Nindl. In particular some new techniques and some data recently published:

Some practical data showing the effects of extreme physical training in army recruits. This  interesting transdermal method to measure IGF-1 following exercise. As well as blood spots technique to measure IGF-1.

Dr.Nindl talked about the concept of “fit to fight” which is very similar to the sport concept of readiness to train or compete.

Creatine

There was a good update on the status of research on creatine, which still is perceived to be a “bad supplement” in the media. However, the recent work from Kley et al 2011 clearly showed there are no issues with creatine supplementation.

Recent data show also a reduction in pain in muscle dystrophy with creatine and also that brain creatine can be increased from 4 to 9% with supplementation.

We do not know well if it works in older adults; however basal brain creatine seems to be inversely related to uptake. So the more you have, the less you are likely to gain with supplementation. Recent work suggests the potential use of creatine supplementation for a variety of pathological conditions indicating that more work on its effects on the central nervous system will shed more light on other potential uses.

Very interesting recent work from my dear colleague and friend Dr. Christian Cook has shown the potential for creatine to counteract the negative effects of sleep deprivation.

Recent work on creatine safety from Dr. Gualano was also mentioned here.

One of the speakers in this session mentioned the IOWA accident (http://www.businessinsider.com/exertional-rhabdomyolysis-iowa-football-players-hospitalized-after-their-workout-2011-1), with reference to the public health report showing that Creatine had nothing to do with what happened to the athletes. However, creatine was mentioned causing the media to then speculate about the possible influence of creatine intake on the health of the athletes.

Muscle atrophy and sarcopenia

Good tutorial lecture from Professor Marco Narici from Manchester Met. University (http://www.shs.mmu.ac.uk/staff_list/staffbiog/?StaffID=740). Marco gave a good overview of what happens to muscle and tendon with immobilisation. He also showed data on concentric vs. eccentric loading and the effects on muscle fascicles and tendon stiffness.

He showed that with immobilisation, muscle size decreased 0.4% per day! And you can lose about 2700 sarcomeres after 10 days of immobilisation. Some good data to keep in mind next time an athlete is in a cast!

Barefoot running

Possibly the most interesting session of the conference. Some great speakers and great arguments/data to support barefoot running.

It was all generated by recent work from Lieberman (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20111000). However when you look at the data carefully the obvious conclusions is that it needs to be introduced slowly with athletes as there are some risks of injury. But, if the technique is mastered could potentially be a great methods to strengthen the muscles controlling the foot and the ankle and eventually also lead to performance as well as reduction of injuries.

One of the most interesting data was the actual lack of evidence of effectiveness of running shoes in reducing injury risk. That is, there is not a single study that has shown that shoes reduce the risk of injury. In fact, there is now evidence that the risk of injury is unchanged, maybe even higher in the expensive shoes. Injury rates haven't come down even a little bit since the 1970s, the period which has seen the explosion in the running shoe industry. Back in the 70s, the shoes resemble today's minimalist shoes, but about 70% of runners were getting injured, the same rate as today.

Russ Tucker has written a good review of the session on his blog if you want to know more about this issue:

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/06/barefoot-running-shoes-and-born-to-run.html

Pacing and fatigue

Dr. Ross Tucker gave an elegant talk on how the brain controls how hard you go during a time trial and how it controls your pacing. More details on www.sportsscientists.com

I really enjoyed the excellent work done by Dr. Markus Amman. I really like his model to study fatigue and if you want to know more you should really read some recent work published from his lab:

Amann M, Secher NH. (2010). Afferent feedback from fatigued locomotor muscles is an important determinant of endurance exercise performance. J Appl Physiol, 108, 452-454.

Amann M, Secher NH. (2010). Point: Afferent feedback from fatigued locomotor muscles is an important determinant of endurance exercise performance. J Appl Physiol, 108(2), 452-4; discussion 457; author reply 470

Prof. Romain Meeusen provided a good overview of the central aspects of fatigue using human and animal models.

However the highlight for me was Dr. Schneider from Germany.He presented some interesting data on a new approach to EEG to study human performance in a variety of settings. His recent work on music and exercise is quite amusing http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20845211 as well as the link between exercising and neurocognitive function with astronauts http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21654620.

There was a lot more going on with more than 6000 delegates attending the conference. But the above is what made it interesting for me. It was of course a great opportunity to catch up with old colleagues and friends as well as meet new people and learn more about the fascinating work they are doing and the challenges currently faced by academics in this field struggling to attract significant funding to conduct research projects.

Unfortunately I will not be able to attend next years’ conference in San Francisco, but I hope to be able to make the 2013 annual conference in Indianapolis.

New visualisations of interesting data

I just came across the wonderful infographics of the Cure Together blog. Alexandra Carmichael and Daniel Reda launched CureTogether in July 2008 to help the people they knew and the millions they didn’t who live in daily chronic pain. Starting with 3 conditions, it quickly expanded as people wrote in to request that their conditions be added to this ongoing study. CureTogether is currently funded by its founders and angel investment, and has partnered with several universities and research organizations.

They provide some excellent infographics on common conditions. The graphic below shows the most effective treatments for chronic fatigue expressed by popularity and effectiveness. A really nice way to express findings. It should be said that the findings are generated by people filling in questionnaires online.

Below is the result of a questionnaire aimed at understanding the effectiveness of various common colds remedies. Here are the results:

TO generate the data above, at CureTogether, 139 people who have experienced the Common Cold have come together to share 1,079 data points about treatments they had tried and how well they worked or didn’t work.

Last but not least, David McCandless and his team have updated the snake oil infographic. And the results are of course very interesting, showing some more supplements with potential.

Nanosensing and biochemistry

This is not really new…but it was new to me today when I found some articles on this innovative technology. I am talking about a nanosensor that could be injected into the skin, much like tattoo dye, to monitor an individual's gluclose level. As the glucose level increases, the dye would fluoresce under an infrared light.

The researchers at Draper Laboratory, in Cambridge (MA), have already tested a sodium-sensing version of the device in mice, and are due to begin animal tests of the glucose-specific sensor.

The material consists of 120-nanometer polymer beads coated with a biocompatible material. A patent application has been filed. Within each bead is a fluorescent dye and specialized sensor molecules, designed to detect specific chemicals (so far the work has been done on sodium and glucose).

When injected into the skin, the sensor molecule pulls the target chemical into the polymer from the interstitial fluid. To compensate for the newly acquired positive charge of a sodium ion, a dye molecule releases a positive ion, making the molecule fluoresce. The level of fluorescence increases with the concentration of the chemical target.  The range of concentrations that the sensor can detect can apparently be varied, depending on whether it is important to measure precise concentrations or more broad variability.

The sodium sensor has shown early success in animals. The researchers have developed a glucose sensor that works via a similar mechanism. It has been shown to work in a solution but has not yet been tested in animals.

Still, the researchers have a long way to go before the sensor is ready for human testing. However, if it works and it is accessible, this could be a good way to make a good use of a tattoo :-)

 

 

Want to know more about Near Infrared Spectroscopy?

If you are curious about Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) and happen to be in Edinburgh in the next few weeks make sure you visit the science festival.

The primary application of NIRS to the human body uses the fact that the transmission and absorption of NIR light in human body tissues contains information about hemoglobin concentration changes. When a specific area of the brain or a muscle is activated, the localized blood volume in that area changes quickly. Optical imaging can measure the location and activity of specific regions of the brain or muscles by continuously monitoring blood hemoglobin levels through the determination of optical absorption coefficients.

My PhD student Catherine Hesford has just started a blog here. Catherine will conduct an experiment with members of the public and will explain the theory behind NIRS together with my colleague Professor Chris Cooper.

The Science Festival in Edinburgh starts on the 9th of April, all details are available here.

Data visualization. Innovative techniques and interesting data

I have been recently reading a lot about data visualization. However, after having seen this TED talk by David McCandless:

I have been fascinated by the enormous opportunities now available to improve the way we can present data. This is particularly important when we share data with coaches and athletes, but also when we present complex data sets for reporting purposes or when lecturing diverse audiences. Considering the fact that in sports science we are dealing with more ad more data, it is clearly now needed to improve how we process and present them to improve our understanding and trying to communicate clearly specific outcomes.
If you are curious. You should go and visit this interactive webpage.

It shows the evidence for supplements for various conditions. As you can see…few things seem to work. Data are taken and updated from PubMed and Cochrane.
Amazing isn’t it?
If you want to know more, you should read this book.

I had the time to play a bit with Google Ngram viewer.
This google tool allows you to interrogate the occurrence of keywords in a large database of books.
Here is the result for strength training, athletics training and exercise physiology in English.

Current issues in Sports Nutrition

A great, free, online resource on current issues in sports nutrition has just been published by the Annals of nutrition and metabolism.

This special issue has been edited by Professor Asker Jeukendrup and contains comprehensive reviews of specific aspects of sports nutrition.

The special issue is available here.

Great authors, great chapters and excellent content. Well done Asker!

 

Technorati Tags: Nutrition,Performance,Science,Sports Science

Current markers of the Athlete Blood Passport are not able to flag microdose EPO doping.

The introduction of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is intended to equip anti-doping organizations with a robust framework in which to pursue anti-doping rule violations and to support intelligent, targeted testing of athletes (WADA 2009). The physiological basis of this strategy is that biological variables, normally maintained in homeostasis, will be disturbed when an athlete dopes. Longitudinal evaluation of an athlete’s results is therefore employed to identify abnormal changes caused by doping against a background of normal biological variability.

Some insight into the normal biological variability encountered in professional endurance athletes have been previously described by few scientific studies.
For cyclists (the International Cycling Union or UCI, was the first to formally implement a passport approach) haemoglobin concentration ([Hb]) has been shown to be marginally reduced (1.3 g/dL) during the competition season, whilst exercise-induced hypervolemia has been shown to reduce Hb values by 11.5% during the Tour de France (Morkeberg et al. 2009).
Athletes have been reported to injecting frequent "microdoses" of recombinant human erythropoietin [rhEPO] in order to minimize the persistence of rhEPO in their system and lessen the risk of being caught via conventional anti-doping controls (Ashenden et al. 2006).

For this reason WADA has developed a specific software to analyze longitudinal data from the ABP in order to detect athletes cheating using illegal substances like rhEPO.
A lot of doubts have been already raised by the sensitivity of the software. More doubts are clear now. A very recent paper from Ashenden et al. (2011) now puts some serious doubts on this software’s ability to detect cheats. Ashenden and colleagues injected 10 healthy subjects with a microdose regimen and monitored blood values using the ABP software. Their aim was to assess whether the software would flag the subject’s blood results as abnormal during the midst of a rhEPO microdose programme. Ten subjects were given twice weekly intravenous injections of rhEPO for up to 12 weeks.
The treatment regimen elicited a 10% increase in total haemoglobin mass equivalent to approximately two bags of re-infused blood. The passport software did not flag any subjects as being suspicious of doping whilst they were receiving rhEPO.
This shows how serious the issue is and the need to do more large scale studies to improve the detection algorithms of the ABP software and become an effective tool to identify cheats. For sure, investigations of other detection strategies should also be sought.

Analyzing your health by phone?

Just read an interesting article on a new voice recognition software able to detect how you are feeling. The emotional decoding software has been developed in Israel and sounds interesting.

The technology, developed by eXaudios Technologies, is already being used to transform the world of tele sales (sadly…), and future applications could include diagnosis of conditions such as autism and Parkinson's, as well as their severity.

I believe there is mileage in looking at applications of voice and face recognition to understand fatigue/staleness and stress in athletic populations as well as in coaching staff. Previous work by Greeley et al. has suggested the possibility of detecting fatigue with voice recognition. Work by Ruiz et al. (1990) already suggested the possibility of voice analysis to detect psychological or physical state of an individual.

All I can say is that this technology is part of a speculative grant application to look at a multidisciplinary approach to understand and quantify stress and fatigue in various populations. Let’s hope it gets funded so you may see the results in few years time!

In the meantime, the video from Exaudios technologies is here.

Daily Twitter aggregator on Science

I am learning something new every day about twitter. I just found out it is possible to produce a daily paper with a twitter aggregator.
So here it is:

The daily twitter science…presenting all tweets related to #science.
It looks good and it’s an easy way to get to read interesting news.
There is also an Olympics Daily for everything #Olympics.

Light and wound healing

I recently came across a very interesting journal called “Recent Patents on Biomedical Engineering” to keep me up to date with recent development in this field and read a very interesting article on a new device which I would like to share with the readers of this blog.

This has nothing to do with training and athletic performance, however, considering that in contact sports unfortunately athletes do get injured and may suffer from wounds, I thought this could be something of interest for may of the readers.

The device in question is used to perform a form of therapy called Phototherapy. Phototherapy, the use of light for healing, has in recent years been a field of advanced multidisciplinary research. This modality has been shown to be beneficial in a wide and diverse array of maladies including the healing of chronic and acute wounds, as demonstrated in the use of laser light and LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology. Many in-vitro studies and animal models have shown the promising effects of phototherapy on wound healing. Human studies with laser light have demonstrated greater amounts of epithelialization for wound closure and stimulation of skin graft healing (Conlan MJ, Rapley JW, Cobb CM. Biostimulation of wound healing by low-energy laser irradiation. J Clin Periodont 1996; 23: 492-496; Whelan HT, Smits RL Jr, Buchman EV, et al. Effect of NASA light-emitting diode irradiation on wound healing. Clin Laser Med Surg 2001; 9: 105-14).

Visible and near IR light can be absorbed by cellular photosensitizers such as cytochromes and flavins/riboflavins . Absorption of light by these photosensitizers causes their excitation and relaxation by transferring electrons to O2, thereby generating reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are probably best known in biology for their ability to cause oxidative stress. They can damage DNA, cell membranes and cellular proteins and may lead to cell death. However, low ROS fluxes play an important role in the activation and control of many cellular processes, such as the release of transcription factors, gene expression, muscle contraction and cell growth (Rhee SG. Redox signaling: hydrogen peroxide as intracellular messenger. Exp Mol Med 1999; 31: 53-59). Therefore, it makes sense that an appropriate does of phototherapy could be beneficial for wound healing (and I would like also to add…if specific light wavelengths can be reach deep enough muscle healing?).

Various devices have been implemented in phototherapy, especially in wound healing. The most prevalent to date are low level lasers (~10mW/cm^2) and LEDs which typically produce low energy intensities (10-50 mW/cm^2) at a band width of around 10 nm. Broadband light emitting systems with visible-range and near IR only were neglected until recently due to the potential of broadband stimulators (400-800nm) to determine photobiostimulation.

In the paper presented by Lubart et al. (2008)  a new device consisting of a halogen lamp with appropriate filters for the UV and IR wavelengths, and emitting light only in the visible and near IR region, 400-800 nm was tested on diabetic patients and patients with chronic ulcers.The authors state that the ability to irradiate large areas is very important for wound-healing and for killing bacteria, in contradistinction to the narrow laser or LED beam. Another advantage is its low cost, which will enable patients to purchase it for home use.

The results are quite impressive (images from Recent Patents on Biomedical Engineering 2008, 1, 13-17):

.

Also, this light setup was capable of sensibly capable of eradicating bacteria on the wound.

Interesting field, I definitively need to read more about this as I am sure there are new ways to speed up tissue repair which may benefit athletes!

Technorati Tags: science,technology,wound healing

Talent…or repetitions?

I have been having few debates with colleagues on the topic of Talent and talent ID programmes. Due to the success of some talent transfers in some physical sports, there seems to be a large number of people convinced that such approach can also be successful in team sports. Needless to say I totally disagree with that. Having worked as a coach developing young athletes and as a coach of senior athletes in a team sport I can definitively say that in order to produce a World Class team you need to have the talent in the team as well as people who have done thousands of hours perfecting their skills. You just cannot change an average Basketball player in his/her 20s in a World class handball player and vice versa, you cannot identify a tall guy/girl and within 4 years turn him/her into a World class volleyball player. Why not? Simple: because no matter how physically talented they are, it is unlikely they can make up in few years for the lost time of practice as compared to people who started their sport when they were children. If you believe that nobody in 4-5 years can become as good as Lionel Messi having never played football, then you are part of my club.

I am not going to write about this issue in this post, but I promise will write more as talent id-ing is really an interesting field, and I am passionate about its proper applications at the right age group and understanding also the limitations in the possibilities of talent transfer in particular in some sports.

I have recently come across Daniel Coyle’s blog, and it is a refreshing read proving that talent alone is not enough and in many fields it is possible to reach success using a variety of training coaching methods, motivation and coaching. Most of all he talks about the importance of deliberate practice when an incredible number of repetitions are performed which allow someone to become a master in a specific field.

I have ordered the book and I am looking forward to read it, in the meantime, I am enjoying the blog which is plenty of useful examples in sports.

Technorati Tags: talent,performance,science