Sports Science

The XVIth international chess tournament "Citta' di Padova" ended last Sunday with the victory of GM Kiril Georgiev, who got 7 points out of 9 games. The tournament saw the participation of 63 players from 13 countries, with a total of 11 grandmasters and 13 international masters, plus nine other Fide titled players. I participated in the event and scored a good 4.5/9, winning four games and losing four. Below I am showing some salient points from a few of my games. On round 1 I played with the white pieces against International Master Mrdja. I got a good position out of the opening, but as…

Can you control noisemaking chaos? Brazilian planners hope so. They'd rather not have the ear-splitting vuvuzela which took over the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Tens of thousands of those instruments blaring in packed stadiums became a major annoyance, disrupting players and even fans watching on TV.  So organizers for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil have introduced the maraca-like caxirola as the official instrument of the event. The caxirola, based on the African caxixi, was invented by Brazilian musician Carlinhos Brown to be more subdued than the vuvuzela.  Will it take off?…

The argument for using different bats in high school and the major leagues is primarily cost: wooden bats break when a fastball is hit too low on the bat.  But aside from skewing results for players - balls that would go nowhere due to a broken bat can be a hit using metal or composite bats - there is also a safety issue. For young players on defense, the ball can move much faster, because non-wood bats transfer energy to the ball better, a phenomenon called the "trampoline effect." That makes the ball more dangerous. Such concerns have led to uniform bat regulations in college and…

An analysis of the nation's largest 10-kilometer road running races show that women are in the majority. Researchers analyzed data from more than 400,000 runners who participated in 10 of the largest 10K (6.2 mile) races in the U.S. from as early as 2002 through 2011.   10K races have become increasingly popular in the U.S. over the past decade, with 1.3 million people participating in such races in 2010. Women began outnumbering men in the 2006 and 2007 time-frame and today make up the majority of runners who participate in these 10 large 10K races in the U.S., according to Dan…

In soccer, football in the rest of the world, a team is most vulnerable right after they score. That is why goals often come in pairs.  But there is also a more dangerous statistic relating to scoring. Players are at a greater risk of injury five minutes or after a goal has been scored and the frequency of player injuries also increases when their team has the lead, according to a paper that analyzed injuries over the last three World Cup tournaments.  Football players are fit so most injuries are not just parts giving out - instead, injury frequency follows a clear pattern that is…

Triathletes participate in a grueling endurance sport - in the Olympic version, it means swimming about 1 mile, bicycling 40 miles and then running 6.2 miles. Those in the Ironman version get even more extreme, a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike race and then running a full marathon, 26.2 miles. Clearly, in both training and competition, they regularly push their bodies beyond the limits most of us can endure. There is no doubt that triathletes are tougher than most people, the mystery is why. 19 triathletes and 17 non-athletes participated in a recent study. The triathletes were people who…

After 12 weeks of strength training, people over the age of 90 improved not only their strength, power and muscle mass, but also showed  an improvement in their balance, their walking speed and developed a greater capacity to get out of their chairs, according to new study. With aging, the functional capacity of the neuromuscular, cardiovascular and respiratory system progressively starts to diminish, and this leads to an increased risk of frailty. Physical inactivity is one of the fundamental factors that contributes to the loss of muscular mass and functional capacity, a key aspect in…

Researchers studying how oxidative stress in cells impacts sarcopenia, a loss of muscle mass and strength that occurs in all humans as they age, found that mice lacking a protective antioxidant protein did not have reduced size or number of muscles cells but they were weaker than normal ones. The antioxidant protein is called SOD1 and the researchers developed mice that did not have SOD1 in their muscles, though it was still present in other types of cells. They found that the lack of SOD1 at the muscle was not enough to cause atrophy, the total muscle mass in this mouse was larger, but they…

What's the diet for a high performance athlete? Despite the cultural pendulum of fad diets swinging back toward fat, high fiber, low-fat foods balanced with a training regimen remains the best way to maintain muscle while burning fat. It's not well-known but the United States leads the world in overweight athletes, a population many think of as untouched by the obesity crisis. Nationally, more than 45 percent of high school linebackers are obese, and the number of overweight students entering college level-sports is increasing. A review of studies by Oregon State University researcher Melinda…

Baseball players who have undergone ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) surgery have able to return to the same or higher level of competition for an extended period of time, according to results presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Chicago.  The study examined 256 patients, including high school, college and professional baseball players, and were contacted an average of 12.6 years after their UCL reconstruction. Approximately 83 percent of these athletes were able to return to the same or higher level of competition, with only 3…