Sports imPULSE

MLB Building Twitter Right Into MLB.tv Web Site

Major League Baseball, like many media organizations, is trying to figure out how to add "real-time" feedback to their products.

Here's a start: MLB Advanced Media is building Twitter streams into its Gameday dashboard and MLB.tv, its streaming TV product. Fans who use club hash tags in their tweets (#mets, #redsox, etc.) will appear in the stream.

Not sure if this adds a lot of value -- could be more noise than signal -- but it's an interesting start. If anything, it might help people discover other fans -- perhaps the ones with intelligent commentary -- to follow on Twitter.

Wii Fit: Rehab For Wounded Vets

 Wii Fit  is taking another great step helping wounded warriors, a new physical therapy treatment program at The Naval Health Clinic in Charleston, SC, includes activities on the Nintendo Wii Fit. Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Wise, physical therapy department head, said the interactive games will help wounded warriors address mobility and balance problems.  For example, the balance board on a Wii Fit shows exactly where a participant’s center of gravity lies, thus the benefit to soldiers who are severely injured or have lost a limb.

It's not surprising and I look forward to other success stories.

Is That A Camera On Your Helmet?

As you participate in sports, there are definitely times when it would helpful to see what your are doing and make sure your bio-mechanics are correct.  Enter GoPro, the world's smallest, wireless helmet and gear-mountable video camera for outdoor sports.

As you can imagine the applications are numerous, with some posting videos on YouTube, some to check their form and other to ensure their safety.   For example, the more your ride your bike for training or simply commute the more you want a record of what is going on around you. Cars not giving you the amount of room you deserve (3 feet) or truck buzzing you, at least when you go the the police and show them the video, you won't be called crazy.

The Helmet HERO Wide quick-release attaches to vented and non-vented helmets, bikes, kayaks, skis, snowboards, and even includes a head strap for wearing like a headlamp.

Shoot 56 minutes of high-resolution video and 5 megapixel photos automatically in "photo every 2 seconds" mode. Use as a hand held camera, too. Shockproof and waterproof to 100 feet/30 meters.

Oh, I can't wait to see some of these videos...

Hardcore Protection: The Shock Doctor

Innovative technology is the foundation for performance, comfort and protection and the core premise for this blog.  So we get genuinely excited when we come across companies with the same DNA.  A great example is The Shock Doctor.  When they're not out playing sports, they’re out scouring the globe for new ways of combining technology and design to make protection and performance one in the same.

Shock Doctor has grown from the unchallenged leader in mouthguard technology, to a leading sports protection brand, protecting athletes at all levels across all sports.  We will be highlighting their innovative products as updates are released and want to introduce their flagship, mouthguards.

Shock Doctor uses a patented technology process in it’s mouth guards, for the ultimate in impact protection. For example:

• The Gel Max Integrated Lip Guard protects both upper and lower lips with a flexible, durable lip guard. It is constructed of a high grade heavy duty rubber, that is shaped into an exoskeletal shock frame, providing integrated jaw pads for maximum protection for teeth, jaw and brain.

• The Ultra STC mouth guard uses a super tight compression gel technology that custom molds to teeth for a comfortable fit. The Ultra STC’s lightweight profile fits closer and directs impact away from the vulnerable front teeth by using stronger triple rooted molars that stabilize and shield teeth. Also, when the Ultra STC guard is worn correctly it’s performance is enhanced as it positions the lower jaw down and forward, while positioning the tongue up onto the roof of the mouth allowing easier breathing and speaking.

• The Double Braces uses Shock Doctor’s “Insta–Fit” technology, a special Ortho channel that fits around both upper and lower teeth brace brackets, allowing adaptable tooth position as braces are adjusted. This prevents lacerations from occurring for people wearing braces. Shock Doctor’s Double Braces meets NFHS high school wrestling rules, which require full coverage of upper and lower brace brackets in all wrestling competitions. It’s also made of 100% medical grade silicone, making boiling unnecessary.

Swimming Takes A Stand Against Technology

The news out of Rome was startling, at least to swimming fans and those who salivate at the thought of seeing Michael Phelps in a Speedo brief again.

Swimming is going retro.

Out with those sleek body suits. In with something, shall we say, a bit more comfortable?

Swimming officials are taking a stand. They're rolling back the clock beginning next year, stripping swimmers of the high-tech body suits that made them go so fast through water you swear little propellers had to be hidden inside.

It's a bold move by swimming's governing body, FINA, and it goes against the seemingly relentless quest for technological advancement in sports everywhere. It also carries a risk that it will alienate fans who are interested in swimming only when there's a world record at stake.

Is it the right thing to do?  I don't know.  Technology has changed some sports dramatically. If swimming officials needed any examples, all they had to do was look at tennis and golf, both of which did nothing while better equipment altered the very fundamentals of the game.  But at the same time, technology will continue to advance and as we've written in this blog many times, it is for the good of the sport and for the athletes.

What do you think?

Slowing Down To Speed Up - Individualized Training Programs Yield New Ways To Improve

In 1985, the 7-Eleven professional cycling team was a brand-new, untested team. And they were struggling. Their training focused mainly on volume, riding long and hard without a specific plan or goal. Then came Massimo Testa, M.D., a sports medicine physician who specialized in structured, individualized training programs. It was a pivotal moment in American pro cycling, and a pivotal moment in the young doctor's career.

Testa and Eric Heiden, winner of 5 Olympic Gold Medals in Speed Skating, teamed up to create a cutting-edge, individualized program for the members of Team 7-Eleven. Their efforts were met with incredible results. Team 7-Eleven took the European cycling world by storm, winning stages in the Giro d' Italia and the Tour de France. Lance Armstrong soon joined the team, and the rest is history.

This year, Eric Heiden and Massimo Testa, along with author Deane Musolf, the former editor-in-chief of Rock & Ice magazine, have released a book, Faster, Better, Stronger, that gives individualized training suggestions for athletes of all levels, from beginners to professionals. The book encapsulates the authors' years of medical research as well as their personal experiences at world championships, bike tours, and the Olympic Games.

Faster, Better, Stronger intends to teach readers how to create a specialized 12-week training program that incorporates cardiovascular exercise, strength training, and flexibility and agility exercises. The program begins with tests that readers can take to assess their own fitness levels.

The results of these tests help individuals find a starting point from which they can begin (or improve) their training.

MLB Brings Live Ballgames To Apple Devices

Major League Baseball is offering live video of games to subscribers through Apple's App Store. The new program, available for $9.99, lets subscribers to MLB.TV access games on an iPhone or iPod Touch, as well as on a computer.

It is MLB's latest move to solidify its place in online sports. What began with scores and text messages has moved to audio and video highlights and now to mobile screens. While MLB, the NFL and the NHL have begun streaming selected individual games on wireless devices, MLB.com is distributing its entire out-of-market game package that way.

The application, MLB.com At Bat 2009, lets users pause a game or rewind to review a play, and offers condensed games, an updated scorecard and audio feeds of both local and out-of-market games. The live streaming was made possible by new technology in the latest version of Apple's iPhone software, made available last month.

Jockeys Figure Out The Science Of Speed

Over a century after a Yankee Doodle jockey revolutionized how racehorses are ridden, scientists are figuring out why a jockey’s posture speeds up the horse.

Hint, it’s not wind resistance. That tough balancing crouch saves the horse some energy.

In more than 100 years of recorded race times, the biggest improvement in speed — a 5 percent to 7 percent change in the U.S. and Britain — came around the turn of the 20th century when jockeys changed their posture

The jockeys’ crouch lets them isolate their bodies from the horse’s movement — the horse is moving up and down a lot more than its rider. When the horse’s feet hit the ground, its motion temporarily slows until accelerating again with push-off. Through incredible effort that makes the jockey’s legs act like a spring, his or her mass stays at a more constant speed. It’s basic physics, as I am told.  I think I missed that specific physics class.

How To Watch The British Open LIVE Online

Tune into pga.com for your choice of two live British Open streams on Thursday and Friday:

• Starting at 4 am ET, watch the broadcast all day until play is over
• Or park yourself in the virtual grandstands and follow the groups at holes #9, 10, and 11 until about 3pm

Weekend online broadcasts end earlier when TNT turns on-air coverage over to ABC.

Follow on Twitter with #opengolf2009

The official site will have a live leaderboard, or check the leaderboard widget here.

New Technology Will Revolutionize Baseball Analysis

As baseball’s statistical revolution marches on, the last refuge for the diehard baseball fan has been the sport’s less quantifiable skills: outfielders’ arm strength, baserunning efficiency and other you-won’t-find-that-in-the-box-score esoterica. But debates over the quickest center fielder are about to graduate from argument to algorithm.

A new camera and software system in its final testing phases will record the exact speed and location of the ball and every player on the field, allowing the most digitized of sports to be overrun one more time by hundreds of innovative statistics that will rate players more accurately, almost certainly affect their compensation and perhaps alter how the game itself is played.

The camera system has been developed by Sportvision, the company that developed the yellow first-down line for football broadcasts and car-tracking software for NASCAR races.

Which shortstops reach the hard-hit grounders up the middle?  Which right fielders charge the ball quickest and then throw the ball hardest and most accurately? Although the game will continue to answer to forces like wind, glaring sun and the occasional gnat swarm, a good deal of time-honored guesswork will give way to more definite measurements — continuing the trend of baseball front offices trading some traditional game-watching scouts for video and statistical analysts.

This could actually be a big deal.  There is so much data available for offense, the challenging area has always been defensive analysis - objective defensive analysis.  What will remain to be seen is how all this new data will change the make up of the sports organizations.