football (Page 6)

Football player early deaths show it’s not possible – As the baseball season winds up for the year, we turn our attention to the NFL. Today’s athletes are bigger than ever, and size and strength can mean the difference between championships, scholarships and million-dollar paydays. But new research comparing the signs of metabolic syndrome in professional baseball and football players reveals that the larger professional athletes, especially football linemen, may encounter future health problems despite their rigorous exercise routines. Professional football players are twice as likely to die before age 50 as professional baseball players.
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Baseball season is almost over, which means that football season will be here soon. NFL players have a short burst of glory which they often suffer health problems from during the rest of their lives. These are big guys, and for them it’s a job, so they often gain weight on purpose in order to mount a more intimidating defense. More than half of all professional football players are considered overweight or obese. Since weight gain often leads to heart disease, are these men headed for trouble in the future?
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As we get ready for another weekend of football, we should be aware that football players sustain head blows equivalent to a severe car crash in every game. They get an average of 50 head blows per game, each one equal to a boxer’s punch. Researcher Stefan Duma says players “have headaches after every game.”

Shaoni Bhattacharya writes in New Scientist that the average force of a blow to the head during a game is 40G, which is 40 times the force of gravity. Duma says, “That’s loosely analogous to a boxer punching another boxer with a gloved hand.” The most severe blows, at 120G, are “more analogous to a severe car crash.” He doesn’t know how players endure blows like this week after week, but he does know they can be left “dazed and confused.”
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Now that football season is here and we’re also looking forward to the World Series, scientists from the University of Budapest decided to figure out how many people are needed to produce The Wave?that undulating up-and-down motion that moves across entire stadiums. They studied video tapes of the 1986 World Cup in soccer and built a mathematical model to describe how The Wave works. Tamas Vicsek and his colleagues discovered that at least 30 people are necessary to get a Wave started and Waves are more likely to work during calm times, when spectators aren’t overexcited.
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