Does Grunting Improve Your Sports Performance? | STACK

Does Grunting Improve Your Sports Performance?

				Does Grunting Improve Your Sports Performance? Find out whether grunting during tennis matches and other sports actually increases performance.
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If it does, it should be banned, right? Seriously, I've worked games where an opposing coach wants the softball pitcher who "excessively" grunts is distracting his hitters. I usually suggest he does a better job coaching his hitters so they are not so easily distracted, but whatever.

from STACK:
http://www.stack.com/2014/07/02/grunting-sports/

Some think it’s a tactic of deception—attempting to distract the opponent and hide the sound of the ball. Others think it actually impairs breathing and oxygen consumption.

 However, a recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that grunting may actually have tangible performance benefits.

Researchers from the University of Nebraska had five male and five female NCAA Division-I tennis players participate in two standardized practice sessions—one with grunting and the other without. Each athlete wore a portable metabolic unit to measure oxygen consumption, and each shot was measured with a radar gun.

RELATED: Who Wore the Best Tennis Shoes in History

The finding: grunting increased average groundstroke velocity by 3.8 percent. It also did not impair oxygen consumption—which came as a surprise.

.....

The researchers theorized that an increase in trunk stability when grunting produces the added velocity. The core can more efficiently transfer and produce force without wasting energy, which translates to more powerful groundstrokes.

This caused an instantaneous improvement among the tested athletes, which is remarkable given that NCAA athletes are already near the top of their game, so small improvements are hard to come by.

Did the study have limitations? Certainly. The athletes were only measured over two-minute periods, and a long tennis match can last upwards of five hours. Also, each athlete reported feeling more tired when grunting, even though physiological data indicated otherwise.

However, the study provides a pretty compelling reason to give grunting a try next time you play tennis. Also, it may also apply to other sports skills involving quick bursts of power, such as a baseball swing or a slap shot.

'via Blog this'

In the gym, I'm sure they get many complaints about excessive grunting.

Maria Sharapova turned it into an art form in tennis I suppose, but that's a post for another blog.

Oh what the heck, here we go. Gosh darn it if there isn't a thing called a "grunt-o-meter" and a formal ranking of the female tennis players -- never the males -- what's up with that?

http://www.businessinsider.com/loudest-womens-tennis-shrieks-2013-6?op=1

RANKED: The 10 Loudest Grunters And Shriekers In Women's Tennis

				RANKED: The 10 Loudest Grunters And Shriekers In W... Guess how high Maria Sharapova scored.
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WARNING: 

Don't let your spouse or boss (same thing, right?) catch you watching these (turn down the volume) or you'll be banned for a week from something you love to do, just like Stephen A. Smith. Apology or no apology.

BAN THE SOCCER FLOPPER and STEPHAN A. SMITH IS FOR THE BIRDS!!!

THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL - AND NO WHINING OR FAKING IN OUR OTHER SPORTS HERE!!!

Now that the USA has been eliminated, and my passion for the sport of soccer can go on another four year hiatus, I want to review some of my likes and dislikes of soccer.

DISLIKES: SOCCER FLOPPER

One of the enduring memories of the last match with Ghana was the sight of a Ghana defender writhing on the ground in agony after he fell unassisted to the ground late in the match. This was a blatant ploy to run out the clock as it took time for the referees to determine that he was in such agony that he required a makeshift stretcher to carry him off.

I maintain that here in the States, if that happened say in the NFL, it would be perfectly acceptable to me--and would actually written into the rules--that if ANY player were to perform that sort of planned fakery in order to win a game an opposing player would be allowed to come over and kick the player square in the nuts to give him something to actually be carried off the field for. NO HARM, NO FOUL = NO INJURY, NO STRETCHER.

If you delay the game like that and get carried off the field in a golf cart or a stretcher something better be wrong with your A$$. Sorry, but that's just how we roll here in the colonies.

I'm glad to see the USA coach agrees with me.




LIKES:

No commercial interruptions.

Enough said. A 90 minute game and at worst I only lose 90 minutes of my life that I'll never get back? How cool is that? I don't know how they'll market the game for US TV but that's not my problem. I mean, if NASCAR can cut away for commercials, so can soccer, right? It's not like the cars stop on the track when they cut away. I just worry that they'll cut away during the fake injury tom-foolery and I'll miss some real action.


Brazilian Soccer Fan

Enough said. Always a treat. Viva Brazil. Gratuitous perhaps, but true.

Brazilian Soccer Fan

See more funny pictures and videos at Fugly.

Brazilian Soccer Shirts

These are COOL!! I have one. I'm just glad my name doesn't translate into KAKA or something. Do you think he knows that, in English. his name sounds like what the l'il babies doo? I guess he does by now.

http://www.minimalsworld.net/BrazilName/brazilian.shtml


This article goes into how the Brazilian tradition may have started.

http://www.slate.com/id/2143404

Pele is easier on the tongue than Edison Arantes do Nascimento.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pel%C3%A9

PELE WAS TRULY A MAGICIAN WITH BALL - THE BABE RUTH OF SOCCER?

Maybe on the world stage, yes. While he gave soccer in the USA a real shot in the arm, he certainly didn't have the long-lasting effect on the sport in a foreign land that the Bambino had, let's say in Japan.




PELE DEBUTS WITH THE COSMOS.

Some of these highlights look cheesy by today's standards. Almost like watching Superstars or American Gladiators. God, do I feel old!!



MORE COSMOS HIGHLIGHTS



AND THE DRAMA OF PELE'S LAST GAME WITH THE COSMOS

Jim McKay closes with a near-weepy "Pele's number 10 will never be worn by another Cosmos player". True that, Jimbo. Unfortunately, not for the reasons envisioned. This was when soccer was going to be the sport of the 70's in America. He did do MUCH, MUCH more for the sport here in the States than David Beckham ever has.

Pele was THE MAN.

LOVE, LOVE LOVE, Indeed.

Classy man. This sport--really every sport--desperately needs more PELE's



----
STEPHAN A. SMITH IS FOR THE BIRDS!!!

From the guy who was once quoted thusly.....

...“And when you look at the internet business, what’s dangerous about it is that people who are clearly unqualified get to disseminate their piece to the masses. I respect the journalism industry, and the fact of the matter is ...someone with no training should not be allowed to have any kind of format whatsoever to disseminate to the masses to the level which they can. They are not trained. Not experts. More important are the level of ethics and integrity that comes along with the quote-unqoute profession hasn’t been firmly established and entrenched in the minds of those who’ve been given that license…”

....comes the following pearls of metaphorical buffoonery:


Stephan A., in defending his reporting of the LeBron-Bosh-Wade dream team development, told local Chi-town radio jocks that if his sources were in error that he would, and I quote,

"Have crow on my face"

Now Stephan......I am certainly no expert in the journalism industry....which requires apparently massive amounts of formal training....but not even I--a somewhat pathetic blogger-- would ever mix the metaphors "eat crow" or "have egg on my face" in such an unprofessionally comedic way. Maybe it's your formal training...or your expertise in linguistics......that allows you to pull it off and produce such profound, bastardized metaphors. Maybe it's the ethics.....or the integrity.......

OR MAYBE IT'S THE CHEEZE DOODLES....