Technology is more being more widely used in sports.
With some of the recent news in the NFL and NBA it seems like professional athletes are being turned into robots. On the surface, tracking a player’s sleep patterns, diet, fatigue level and even every move in the game might seem like a huge invasion of privacy. Say what you will, but the facts don’t lie.
Chip Kelly, coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, is a big supporter of these new sports sciences. Although he remains fairly tight-lipped on the innovations he has put in place throughout his coaching career, a few of his secrets have been revealed over the years.
The first and probably most “low-tech” of his changes he brought to the NFL was the use of military-grade material in braces worn by his players. Players also wear devices that monitor things like heart rate and movement during practice to prevent injuries and show how they train best.
Not all of these changes were welcomed right away and that became public when Kelly assigned everyone a specialized diet. During training camp, players were given meals based off of height, weight and demands of their position on the field. This was considered a huge offense since it marked the end of “Taco Tuesday” for the Eagles.
The adjustment curve was steep for many players but the results last year were something that helped everyone get onboard. The Eagles improved from 4-12 to 10-6 and claimed the National Football Conference East Division title in Kelly’s first season.
The NBA is jumping on the bandwagon of sport sciences with some of their own tactics. Before last season, every NBA team installed cameras in their arena to track player’s every movement on the court. Many in the league have also used wearable devices to track fatigue during activity.
Sleep patterns for NBA players are a big issue relating to in-game performance. For example, Andre Iguodala of Golden State would stay up late at night and attempt to recover the sleep in the afternoon before the next game, but he talked to the team’s trainer began wearing a device that monitors sleep patterns.
A study done by Stanford’s School of Medicine found players who get 10 hours of sleep at night saw an increase of nine percent from the free-throw line and an increase of 9.2 percent from the three-point arc.
The NBA also proposed a couple rule changes to shorten games and help protect player’s safety. The first will cut down time spent at the free-throw line by shortening all foul shots to one attempt, even if the player was fouled behind the three-point line. It is estimated it will save five minutes a game which would amount to almost seven hours saved per team each season.
The other rule would shorten games from 48 minutes to 44 minutes of gametime by using 11-minute quarters. This will be done as a trial on Sunday in a game between Brooklyn and Boston.
These changes may seem unnecessary, but results show they are justified.
The growth of technology should be welcomed in sports, we just need to make sure Calvin Johnson doesn’t literally turn into Megatron.
mf056713@ohio.edu
