The Real Science of Sport Podcast

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Show notes

In this week's Spotlight, Ross and Gareth take on the news:

(00:02:00) Football World Cup: England survived altitude and Mexico, and Ross's numbers explain how — less total running, fewer sprints, the game deliberately slowed down. It's a collective pacing strategy dictated by physiology, not just tactics. Plus VAR is amplifying the chaos rather than ending it (Argentina's late smash-and-grab over Egypt, a sensor in the ball denying Croatia), and six African teams knocked out in the dying minutes.
(00:28:00) Tour de France: our first read on the opening stages, and why the new team time trial format, where the rider's individual time counted, added genuine tactical intrigue.
(00:31:00) The story that troubled us most: riders starting stages very sick in 40°C heat. After De Lie and Uijtdebroeks pushed on while ill, we discuss the incentives in elite high performance sport that put team doctors is unenviable and often compromised positions, and whether, as with concussion in rugby, sports governing bodies should step in to alleviate the conflicts faced by medics?
(00:39:00) The science of pre-cooling: why INEOS sat in a row with their forearms in cold water. Ross explains the AVAs, the skin's heat-dumping shortcut, and why the water mustn't be too cold or you shut the whole thing down.
(00:53:00) Record watch: Josh Kerr's unusual race-free build-up and his 3:42 fixation, Keely Hodgkinson's choppy season, and Faith Kipyegon's first 1500m/mile defeat in five years.
(00:58:00) A cracking paper spotted by listener Steve O'Hale: 870,000 Berlin finishers show men are twice as likely to hit the wall as women. And, counter-intuitively, the faster the men, the more likely they are to blow up, relative to women. Ego or physiology? We dig in.
(01:08:00) And finally: a 10-year-old tennis prodigy, homeschooled and training seven days a week. A feel-good story, or early specialisation and survivorship bias dressed up as one? Plus Wimbledon heads for it's 9th straight first time winner on the women's side.

Links

Our football World Cup thread, for Supporters Club members, containing all the Mexico-England analysis and more discussion on the tournament
Movistar under fire as Uijtdebroeks races on while ill
The Stanford Glove - researchers thought they'd found a way to 'hack' cooling with a Zoolander like vacuum glove
BBC article on Josh Kerr's 3:42 target preparations
Kerr on the importance of psychology in his preparation
The Nature paper on men vs women pacing strategies in the marathon
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Show notes

Formula 1 is one sport we've never properly tackled, so who better to guide us through it than a man who spent 25 years on the inside? Dom Riefstahl is a mechanical engineer who went straight from graduation into BMW's F1 programme, later moving to the Sauber F1 team and then to the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 outfit, where he worked with seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. Riefstahl now keeps his eye on the ball as an F1 pundit for Luxembourg public broadcaster RTL.

In this interview, Riefstahl takes us inside the world's most sophisticated sport, and, in particular, the fascinating triangle among driver, engineer, and car. He explains how a driver's feel for the car is translated into action by engineers armed with 400 sensors and 40 000 channels of data, why the great drivers are the ones who can tell whether a problem comes from their own driving or from the car itself, and how a top driver sometimes feels things the technology can't yet measure. Along the way, we learn what it costs to develop a driver from karting to an F1 seat, why reaction time can quietly end a career, why the truly great champions are hypersensitive about everything from tyre temperatures to wafts of garlic, and why the driver you're most likely to have a pint with will probably never be world champion.
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Show notes

A bonus hype show ahead of Sunday's World Cup round of 16 between Mexico and England, where altitude has become the story everyone is talking about. Sparked by Thomas Tuchel's lament over a FIFA rule and the team's potential "smash and grab" altitude adaptation theory, Ross explains why the idea of sneaking in and out before altitude bites has no supporting evidence at all. You only ever get better from the moment you arrive, and so FIFA compelling England to travel earlier is quietly helping them!

From there, Ross unpacks the physiology: lower air pressure, less oxygen reaching the muscles, a compromised VO2 max ceiling, and everything performed at a higher relative intensity. Drawing on repeated-sprint studies and FIFA match data from Mexico's altitude venues, he builds and tests a hypothesis, that visiting teams run less at high speed and make fewer sprints, with a dose-dependent decline as altitude rises. The small, admittedly limited study illustrates how Mexico's altitude adapted advantage might manifest in sprint and high speed running differences from the start, getting progressively larger. Ross closes on what England can realistically do tactically to respect the physiology.

Links

The Guardian article on England's foiled smash-and-grab paradigm, fortunately for them!
This is the study I've seen cited in support of the late-arrival theory, even though its conclusion actually refutes the advantage!
A study showing that you only get better, over 6h, 17h and then 48h, so get in as soon as you can
Another one, this time over longer time frames, looking at how we improve with more time at altitude
Brosnan study on repeat sprint interactions with altitude and rest period

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Show notes

This week's Spotlight checks in on our global durability study, takes another lap of the World Cup, visits the Diamond League in Paris, previews the Tour de France and its heat challenge, and ends with saltwater crocodiles.

In this show:

Our listener durability study is underway (members only!), and Ross and Gareth compare notes after completing the first session, a brutal five minute TT plus 20 minute FTP protocol. Ross explains why you have to drain the anaerobic battery before the 20 minute test, why pacing a time trial on your own is harder than you think, and why the biggest limitation in the study might not be physiology
The World Cup is into the knockout rounds and listener Robert Ridley has done the maths on whether teams that go to extra time are at a disadvantage in the next game. The answer might be yes, about 1.5x more likely to lose if they play a team who hadn't had ET the game before, but we discover the confounding factor that complicates that finding
A proposal resurfaced on Discourse and social media this week for a structural fix to extra time football, one that involves running the penalty shootout before the 30 minutes rather than after it. Ross explains where the idea came from, what the data says about goals in extra time, and why football fans on social media were not especially receptive
Moving onto athletics, Audrey Werro ran 1:53.80 in Paris, another personal best that edges her closer to the oldest WR in the sport, but we explain why the record attempt fell short, and what her split data tells you about the mindset that Werro and Hodgkinson need to bring to their races to really threaten the WR. Femke Bol is now in the picture too, and her progression curve is worth paying close attention to
Marco Arop ran 1:41.84 in the men's 800 and declared he is going for Rudisha's world record. We discuss whether the men's record might actually fall before the women's
The Tour de France starts this weekend in temperatures forecast to exceed 40 degrees by the end of the first week. We discuss a study documenting rising temperatures at the race over the decades, why the UCI's heat protocols are again under scrutiny, and what the Tour's own route designer says about how he is now choosing routes specifically for shade
UCI president Lappartient has floated the idea of reducing Tour de France team sizes from eight to six riders and introducing budget caps. The internet reacted badly, including a memorable contribution from Johan Bruyneel. We make the case that smaller teams might actually create more dynamic racing and more opportunities for smaller squads, with the acceptance that there are economic factors in play. But we wonder, why criticism is often so loud, but so empty?
And finally, an IOC official has just discovered that the rowing venue for Brisbane 2032 is in a river that is also home to saltwater crocodiles. His suggested solution was a fence. We hope the rowers don't catch a croc...
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From muscle growth to a treatment for Alzheimers, creatine has been touted as the 'King of Supplements'. But what does the science say about one of the most researched products in sport? Enter Dr Eric S. Rawson, Chair and Professor of Health, Nutrition, and Exercise Science at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who has spent two decades studying the effects of creatine on the brain and muscle. In this in-depth interview, Rawson breaks down the long history of creatine research, how it works, who it works best for, and the latest research into its cognitive benefits. Rawson has been an active member of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) since 1996, has served on the ACSM Board of Trustees and is a Fellow of the ACSM (FACSM). Dr Rawson has delivered more than 180 professional presentations, is co-editor of the text Nutrition for Elite Athletes, co-author of Nutrition for Health Fitness and Sport, and has authored/co-authored numerous articles and book chapters. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and various foundations.

SHOW NOTES

Rawson was involved in the IOC consensus papers on supplementation. Here is the latest of these, including a section on creatine

A systematic review and meta-analysis on creatine use, combined with resistance training

A review on safety concerns over creatine

The 13500 person review on the side effects of creatine use with long-term supplementation

Widely hailed as the original creatine paper, by Harris et al, this showed that supplementation with creatine could increase muscle stores significantly

Studies showing that muscular performance was enhanced by creatine supplementation

A recent scoping review explores the available evidence on the possible protective effect of creatine in concussion management

Disclosures from Dr Eric Rawson:
• Been taking creatine since 1992
• Have published/presented a fair bit about creatine and other supplements. You can see Eric’s research profile here
• Been fortunate to receive funding from NIH, various foundations, universities, and companies
• Current research funding: none
• Have received speaking honoraria for lectures that included creatine
• On SAB of Alzchem (studied creatine supplements for 20+ years first).

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