The purpose of this study was to document physiological responses that result from participation in youth wheelchair basketball (WCB) games. Each participant (4 males, 2 females, mean age = 15.2 y, SD= 1.8 y) completed a peak aerobic capacity upper-body cycle ergometer test until fatigue. Additionally, each participant competed in two regular season youth WCB games while wearing a Polar Pro Team System heart rate (HR) monitor. During competition, average HR, peak heart rate (HRpeak), playing intensity, total distance covered, training load score, and caloric expenditure were recorded. Results from the study indicated a HR mean = 140.8 bmin-1 , SD = 19.8 bmin-1 , HRpeak mean = 188.9 bmin-1 , SD= 15.8 bmin-1 , and mean = 83.3%, SD = 13.7% level of exercise intensity from participation in the two games. Additionally, participation in WCB games revealed that players traversed mean= 909.4 meters, SD= 230.4 meters, achieved a training load score mean = 120.3, SD= 65.2, and expended mean = 718.2 calories, SD = 184.5 calories, across the two games. In conclusion, participation by adolescents in a WCB game meets the physiological demands needed to achieve health-related fitness benefits established by both the American College of Sports Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The purpose of this study was to analyze professional football coaches' coaching trees and the network they comprise. Employment histories were collected for head coaches (HCs) in the National Football League (NFL) along with the NFL HCs under whom they served as assistant coaches (ACs) prior to their first NFL HC position and repeated until no new mentors were found. Coaches' win-loss records, championships, and Pro Football Hall of Fame status were obtained. Three themes emerged from data analysis: (a) ''Roots are a Must, But Fewer are Stronger''; (b) ''Established Roots Prosper and Flourish''; and (c) ''Prolific Bounties are Not Necessarily Successful Ones''. Analysis revealed: (a) a limited number of apprenticeships appeared to be the best way to achieve HC success; (b) AC apprenticeships are best served under successful HCs; and (c) the weight attributed to an AC's experience working under a successful HC should be viewed cautiously.

An expert strength and conditioning coach can be an important component of a sports performance and medicine staff that will train their athletes to help them become more resilient to injury. Previous research in a variety of sports has shown that teams with players that have fewer games missed due to injury have achieved greater success. The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between games missed due to injury by offensive and defensive starters on National Football League (NFL) rosters and a NFL team’s ability to win during the 2010-19 NFL seasons. A Spearman rank-order correlation analysis set at (p ≤ 0.01) level of significance indicated that fewer games missed by starters in the NFL is correlated with multiple variables associated with winning such as games won per season and playoff appearances. These results were obtained after analyzing all 32 NFL teams from the 2010-19 seasons. Descriptive statistics were also used to further analyze the data set and found that teams ranked in the top-five in terms of fewest injuries outperformed the remainder of the teams in the NFL according to multiple variables associated with winning. The data in this study supports that NFL organizations should look to reduce the games missed due to injury of their athletes, which may be accomplished through hiring expert sports performance and medicine staff members, such as a strength and conditioning. hire an expert strength and conditioning coach capable of reducing the risk of athletes getting injured in order to increase their team’s chances of winning.

For most of the past century sailing was (besides very few exceptions) associated with pleasure and racing only. Recently, however, this is changing as the commercial maritime transport sector becomes increasingly interested in direct wind propulsion systems. The reasons are obvious: increasing fuel cost (direct or though emission penalties) and environmental awareness (intrinsic or driven by customer demands). In this paper differences between the design requirements in the commercial market and the pleasure or racing yacht industry are discussed and enhancements to the existing design tools relevant for commercial studies are presented. Sailing yacht studies have repeatedly shown how important it is to design and optimize the aero and the hydro aspects of the vessel in synchrony. This is equally or even more important for commercial ships, where part of the thrust might still come from the engine. Thus, the engine together with economic objectives of the shipping operations enter into the design space. With DynaRigs already having proved highly successful in the pleasure yacht market and possessing key features which are attractive for the commercial shipping, it serves as a good case-study. A few select results are first presented when analyzing the aerodynamic design space alone. Detailed results from several performance analyses via our Performance Prediction Program (PPP) are then discussed as well as some outcomes from the structural analysis to show the importance of combined aero, structure, hydro, and potentially engine as well as economic design decisions. The paper concludes with an outlook on future work.

No abstract