Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Overuse Injuries
- All Subjects: Analytics
- Creators: Kurland, Brett
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
Youth club sport has become a dominant part of society and the forefront of many childhoods. Youth sport participation holds various physical, psychological, and social benefits for children but as this industry continues to expand, when poorly managed, sport participation can become detrimental (Meân, 2013, p. 339). In this study the experiences and perceptions of female youth club volleyball players (ages 15-17) were explored through semi-structured interviews with a particular focus on key areas of concern identified in the research literature: early specialization, overuse injury, and burnout (Hedstrom & Gould, 2004, p. 4, 15-37). A thematic analysis was used to explore these a priori themes alongside emergent themes that were identified: early motivation and perception, current motivation and perception, pressure and athletic scholarships, perception of high school volleyball, and schedules. The positive perceptions arising from the themes were addressed as a foundation to improve on the negative perceptions. Recommendations to reduce the pressure and stress associated with winning are made, in addition to proposals regarding the schedule of club volleyball in an effort to provide athletes with adequate rest period in order to reduce risks of burnout and overuse injury.
Keywords: youth sport, specialization, overuse injury, burnout, club volleyball.
Keywords: youth sport, specialization, overuse injury, burnout, club volleyball.
ContributorsLifgren, Taylor Nicole (Author) / Mean, Lindsey (Thesis director) / Cayetano, Catalina (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Basketball has been evolving since its inception during the winter of 1891. A myriad of factors have played into its growth and evolution over time, among them being the subject of this paper: the integration of advanced statistics and analytics. Taking inspiration from baseball's analytics revolution, a sport that is vastly different from basketball, coaches and statisticians began to innovate new ways to evaluate teams and players outside of the constraints of the traditional basketball box score. In recent decades, their work has spread throughout the basketball community, and now both fans and team front offices alike have found value in the application of empirical analysis to professional basketball. The effects of their work have emerged with the passage of time, and can be seen both on and off the court. Through advanced analytics, players and teams have shifted their focus towards efficient play, which has resulted in the exploitation of the very geometry of the basketball court itself. Recent technological innovations look to push this trend into a new era, and hint at the future of the sports fan experience. In short, basketball has not had a strong relationship with statistics. Early basketball statistics were born out of convenience, and over time the statisticians of the sport introduced new ways to quantify team and player performances. This paper looks to examine this progression over time, and show that advanced statistics and analytics have firmly planted themselves in the way basketball is viewed, evaluated, and covered.
ContributorsDiego, Jonathan Patrick Long (Author) / Kurland, Brett (Thesis director) / Reed, Sada (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
For this project, I analyzed both the amount of overuse injuries or repetitive stress injuries occurring in college baseball and tried to understand why they were happening so frequently. I interviewed over a dozen people to get thoughts and messages on the subject from a variety of people from current college players, to Major League players, to current college coaches. While I spent the majority of the project working on the research and interviews of how these injuries effect college athletes, I always spent time speaking with journalists about the proper ways they go about reporting on injuries, especially those within college athletes. I found data that showed that the average rate of fastballs in Major League Baseball is going up and that is indirectly affecting the way in which players and specifically pitchers are learning to play as they go through college baseball. I got valuable perspective on how the game changing is affecting the injuries that are so common today. The most common occurring repetitive stress issue in baseball has been happening most with pitchers so much of the project is tailored toward the views of some of the best pitchers in college baseball. I found out how college pitchers are taking care of their bodies and using the offseason to help regain strength. Why do some pitchers not take as long an offseason as others? How intense is the pressure to stay healthy in college, as many of these athletes are pursuing professional baseball? What is the mental toll these student-athletes have on a day-to-day basis? All these questions and more are answered in the paper. Included in the long-form paper are all of the full transcripts from the interviews with players, coaches, trainers, doctors, and reporters.
ContributorsWerner, Robert Joseph (Author) / Kurland, Brett (Thesis director) / Dieffenbach, Paola (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
Construction work is ergonomically hazardous, as it requires numerous awkward postures, heavy lifting and other forceful exertions. Prolonged repetition and overexertion have a cumulative effect on workers often resulting in work related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). The United States spends approximately $850 billion a year on WMSDs. Mechanical installation workers experience serious overexertion injuries at rates exceeding the national average for all industries and all construction workers, and second only to laborers. The main contributing factors of WMSDs are ergonomic loads and extreme stresses due to incorrect postures. The motivation for this study is to reduce the WMSDs among mechanical system (HVAC system) installation workers. To achieve this goal, it is critical to reduce the ergonomic loads and extreme postures of these installers. This study has the following specific aims: (1) To measure the ergonomic loads on specific body regions (shoulders, back, neck, and legs) for different HVAC installation activities; and (2) To investigate how different activity parameters (material characteristics, equipment, workers, etc.) affect the severity and duration of ergonomic demands. The study focuses on the following activities: (1) layout, (2) ground assembly of ductwork, and (3) installation of duct and equipment at ceiling height using different methods. The researcher observed and analyzed 15 HVAC installation activities among three Arizona mechanical contractors. Ergonomic analysis of the activities using a postural guide developed from RULA and REBA methods was performed. The simultaneous analysis of the production tasks and the ergonomic loads identified the tasks with the highest postural loads for different body regions and the influence of the different work variables on extreme body postures. Based on this analysis the results support recommendations to mitigate long duration activities and exposure to extreme postures. These recommendations can potentially reduce risk, improve productivity and lower injury costs in the long term.
ContributorsHussain, Sanaa Fatima (Author) / Mitropoulos, Panagiotis (Thesis advisor) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Guarascio-Howard, Linda (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In recent years, advanced metrics have dominated the game of Major League Baseball. One such metric, the Pythagorean Win-Loss Formula, is commonly used by fans, reporters, analysts and teams alike to use a team’s runs scored and runs allowed to estimate their expected winning percentage. However, this method is not perfect, and shows notable room for improvement. One such area that could be improved is its ability to be affected drastically by a single blowout game, a game in which one team significantly outscores their opponent.<br/>We hypothesize that meaningless runs scored in blowouts are harming the predictive power of Pythagorean Win-Loss and similar win expectancy statistics such as the Linear Formula for Baseball and BaseRuns. We developed a win probability-based cutoff approach that tallied the score of each game once a certain win probability threshold was passed, effectively removing those meaningless runs from a team’s season-long runs scored and runs allowed totals. These truncated totals were then inserted into the Pythagorean Win-Loss and Linear Formulas and tested against the base models.<br/>The preliminary results show that, while certain runs are more meaningful than others depending on the situation in which they are scored, the base models more accurately predicted future record than our truncated versions. For now, there is not enough evidence to either confirm or reject our hypothesis. In this paper, we suggest several potential improvement strategies for the results.<br/>At the end, we address how these results speak to the importance of responsibility and restraint when using advanced statistics within reporting.
ContributorsIversen, Joshua Allen (Author) / Satpathy, Asish (Thesis director) / Kurland, Brett (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Comm (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05