Headache and sport

Headache is prevalent within the community and can have an impact on sport in both the amateur and the elite player. Initiatives to increase activity levels in the population make this an important area. Against a background of a limited evidence base, this chapter suggests how headache can be classified within this context and offers guidance for treating both the amateur and the elite athlete. The impact of headache in sport may be unrecognized and undertreated, and further research is needed in this area.

Practitioners’ multi-disciplinary perspectives of soccer talent according to phase of development and playing position

The study aimed to establish the perceived importance that academy soccer practitioners placed on technical/tactical, physical, psycho-social player attributes during player selection and explore whether perceptions change according to Elite Player Performance Plan phase. Seventy academy practitioners working within Elite Player Performance Plan programs (Category 1: n = 29; Category 2: n = 13 and Category 3: n = 28) completed an online survey. Psychological factors were rated significantly ( p ≤ 0.01) higher than sociological, technical/tactical, and physical factors, with recruitment staff specifically valuing psychological factors significantly ( p ≤ 0.01) more than medical staff. Youth Development phase practitioners valued sociological factors significantly ( p < 0.05) more than in the Foundation phase, which was also true for physical factors. Practitioners indicated significant positional differences for most physical and technical/tactical attributes. There was no playing position effect for relative age effect or maturity. Between playing position variance of outfield players for most technical and physical attributes increased according to advancing Elite Player Performance Plan phase. Attitudes to holistic talent identification criteria likely change according to practitioner role. Therefore, this study provides evidence to suggest that Elite Player Performance Plan practitioners place less perceived importance on enhanced maturity status and relative age of players but does indicate an enhancing and significant positional preference for physical and technical/tactical attributes. Suggesting that practitioners are less likely to (de)select players based on transient, maturity-related attributes and instead place greater emphasis on specialist physical/technical position-specific attributes as players navigate the Elite Player Performance Plan pathway towards professional status.

Stress test specific to tennis (Test): Case study of an elite player

Although assessment of the technical, physical and physiological qualities required for performance optimisation is complex in tennis, it is nonetheless essential to training planning. While physical goals are often dissociated from technical ones, we argue that a recently validated stress test specific to tennis, known as “TEST” (Brechbuhl, Girard, Millet, & Schmitt, 2016), allows to combine both effectively. Differences in forehand and backhand efficiency may occur as a result of fatigue under standardised conditions, thus minimising emotional and tactical effects. The aim of the present case study is to offer a practical reading of TEST in an elite player.

Are Canadian Stakeholders Resting on Their Laurels? A Comparative Study of the Athlete Pathway Through the Swedish and Canadian Male Ice Hockey Systems

Organizations in a sport system compete against one another while working together to sustain a competitive environment and to provide opportunities for competition at the provincial/state, national, or international level. This paper is a multicase study comparison of the elite sport development systems of Canada and Sweden to explore the differences and similarities between their approaches to the delivery of ice hockey. Semistructured interviews took place with participants from North America and Europe. Additional data came from media articles from Canada and Sweden. Findings revealed six themes/characteristics: the cost of hockey, residential boundaries, the player selection process, skill development, early specialization, and coaching. The results suggest that Canadian and Swedish hockey systems offer two different approaches to elite player development (closed vs. open systems), resulting in different trajectories regarding international success in the World Junior Championships and in the number of players drafted into the National Hockey League.