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Strength and conditioning coach, Daniel Martinez, recently talked to a roundtable of seven coaches and trainers from four different countries about several sports science topics. This is the fourth in this series of Sports Science Roundtable articles.

Daniel Martinez: What type of monitoring do you and your staff implement and how does this either inform or alter your process?

Cory Innes: We use an athlete management system (AMS) developed by the Australian Institute of Sport. This tends to be shifted towards being more physiotherapy- and physiology-driven and monitored than S&C for training measures, although a more specific strength and conditioning monitoring system is planned to be released shortly. In the meantime, I utilize Excel for load monitoring in gym exercises, as well as tracking neuromuscular measures.

I also developed a comprehensive monitoring system for badminton, incorporating training load, S&C load, tournament load, and wellness measures. However, any of these measures are only as useful as the compliance from the athletes, as well as “reporting fatigue”—i.e., the athlete’s propensity to return to a standard feedback option—as to whether you can gain true meaningful data. This is the reason we have moved back to basic communication on different training measures, as well as fatigue measures (neuromuscular) and athlete daily feedback as more effective tools to alter training sessions.

Cory Kennedy: For monitoring, we use a few different strategies, and each team will look slightly different. Most athletes fill out a questionnaire (usually Hooper-Mackinnon), and track training load using sessional RPE. This is usually collected daily, but analyzed weekly. Then we use a countermovement jump (typically three to five times a week) with most athletes for an objective performance measure. We have built a fairly robust system that takes into account each athlete’s individual variability, to allow us to view the performance through a clear lens. Finally, we have a variety of tests we collect monthly that usually have a component specific to the sport (time trials, etc.), and we use them as a reference point for the rest of our collected data.

As for process, there needs to be a general decision-making framework, and we discuss this regularly. First, we try to be fluid in our daily choices to meet the athletes where they are. Then we review where we are in the year and how much fatigue we can afford to collect. Finally, we regularly review the long-term view of our physical qualities to see if we are actually making a lasting change, or returning to square one every year.

Devan McConnell: We use a number of tools to monitor and assess fatigue/readiness and development. Subjective wellness questionnaires, HRV, and RSI via drop jump constitute our “front end” analytics. This combination is utilized to have a better indication of where our athletes are at before we begin on any given day, and what the latent cost of previous work was. The “back end” is used to inform our staff and players what we did—what the immediate cost of training was—so that we have a better idea of what needs to be done moving forward. This consists of various internal workload metrics via heart rate, sRPE, and, of course, a host of physical development parameters. These include several jump metrics, strength, and power measurements via tonnage, as well as velocity, on ice speed, and conditioning testing, etc.

Jonas Dodoo: In track, we perform CMJ (countermovement jump testing) weekly in normal phases, and drop jump and CMJ two to three times a week in high CNS stress phases. In all cycles, we will run fast at least to 30 meters through Optojump with a speed gun at least once every three to four weeks, but this can increase to once every 10 days in pre-comp phases. Jumps are mainly for performance monitoring, as opposed to fatigue. We see drops in performance values when we expect athletes to be fatigued. Drops rarely come from a significant reduction in height or stride length, but from an increase in contraction time (eccentric phase) and ground contact time.

We have used sRPE questionnaires in the past a lot, but we get so much more pertinent information verbally from the athletes on a daily basis that the questionnaires seemed like a box ticking exercise. Athletes get on the therapy table with a physio or osteo at least twice a week and this is where a lot of information is collected verbally, as well as through muscle testing, movement analysis, groin squeeze of different lengths, single leg hop or drop jump, and Nordbord.

The information can vary depending on the therapist, but is always extremely valuable for letting us know where the athlete is now compared to their norms. Athlete reports and medical reports greatly influence my decision-making around session content. Sometimes a hard day becomes Plan B or Plan C; sometimes active recovery day can actually become a second day of stress. We are constantly learning about the way athletes respond to training, and we are flexible with our microcycles to get the best out of the athletes while keeping them healthy.

These tools are all used in team sports as well. The difference is the flexibility around training content. The good managers listen to their staff and adjust.

Mike Boykin: The idea of simply observing athletes as they go about normal activities (walking into practice, interacting with teammates, etc.) and train was first introduced to me by Jim Snider at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As the strength and conditioning coach for the men’s and women’s hockey teams, Jim is especially attuned to athlete mood and overall energy during pre-season and competitive season, when physical and emotional loads are highest. Central to his philosophy is ensuring that what he does in the weight room is a beneficial stressor versus one that simply adds more load.

This “active observation” of athletes during all activities is our first metric at ALTIS when it comes to daily monitoring. How vocal (or not) an athlete is, the amount of eye contact they make, their posture, their weight shifts, the amount they laugh—it can all be placed on a sliding scale and compared to their normal range to help create a global picture of their well-being.

Because we work in track and field, the training itself keeps tabs on how individuals are progressing simply by timing, measuring, or weighing. While it is not as simple as seeing fly 30 times decrease over the course of the season, observing the change and interaction of various menu items and different bio-motor abilities helps to create a multi-layered understanding of where someone may be adapting versus maladapting.

The final piece—and how many people will want this question answered—involves a daily monitoring questionnaire from Athletigen through their Iris application. The questions asked and information gleaned from the application is similar to the Hooper-Mackinnon or Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaires. Having access to objective data from subjective markers helps us to avoid heuristics and biases that can skew perception from reality. Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, is particularly interesting material to read on this topic.

What Athletigen has done particularly well on this front is ensure that the information presented to coaches separates acute and chronic trends from simply noise, or daily fluctuations, which can be expected from a dynamic system. While there certainly may be daily prescriptions that are altered based upon the data from the questionnaire, this will always go hand in hand with a conversation to gain a deeper understanding of why certain acute changes are occurring. The chronic information gleaned from the app allows us to examine weekly, cycle, and long-term trends as they relate to individual athletes.

Nate Brookreson: Because of the relationships that exist within our department, different monitoring strategies are utilized among S&C and their respective sports. For swimming, we examine subjective RPEs and countermovement vertical jumps all year, and look more closely at bar velocities relative to load in the strength-speed, speed-strength, and peaking phases. We also examine ground contact time and vertical jump height with our depth and drop jumps. In the pool, the coaches track starts from the blocks and push times with set loads on power racks, and speed decrement over 25/50s almost weekly to determine progress.

Typically, the information is provided to create context and open dialogue. If we see negative trends regarding our tracking and performance outcomes in dual meets, we sit and have more detailed meetings. This might include ATCs to talk about visits to the training room and nutritionists to discuss most recent body fat testing or blood biomarkers. We try to address the low-hanging fruit first (statistically significant changes in objective/subjective markers, increased visits to trainer, blood/body fat changes). If unclear, we will look at long-term trends in sRPE training loads and vertical jump, along with performance outcomes in the pool, to determine a course of action. Most of the time, issues are caught early because of the consistent communication and fluidity of how both S&C and swim and dive operate.

Patrick Ward: The three main things we utilize are morning wellness questionnaires, GPS/Accelerometer during training, and sRPE post training. This information allows us to quantify the long-term impact of training/competition on the players (wellness questionnaire), as well as what they physically did during practice (GPS/accelerometer) and how hard they perceived the session to be (sRPE). This gets fed through some analysis that allows us to flag players when things don’t look right (i.e., when things are different then we predicted them to be). Doing this allows us to have more specific conversations with the player and plan an intervention strategy, if necessary, to try and get them back on the right track.

The next installment of this Sports Science Roundtable series is: “The Best Ways to Get Buy-In.”

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Strength and conditioning coach, Daniel Martinez, recently talked to a roundtable of seven coaches and trainers from four different countries about several sports science topics. This is the third in this series of Sports Science Roundtable articles.

Daniel Martinez: What is your view on periodization and its relevance to your team’s needs?

Cory Innes: A well-rounded knowledge of basic periodization structure and the detraining effect of the various bio-motor qualities is crucial. This knowledge should be so well understood that the practitioner can adjust and adapt training both within the wider plan and daily. (For instance, being able to stick to the periodization structure of what you are trying to achieve but being flexible within that process because, in the real world, perfect concentrated loaded periods and deloading periods don’t occur on a constant 3:1 macrocycle.)

There also needs to be reflection on what you expect to see, what you are seeing, what the difference is, and why there is a difference. This helps you understand an athlete at an individual level. There should also be a greater emphasis on skill development so that exercises performed are performed with perfect mechanics for what you have programmed. The “how” is more important than the “what,” and you need a vision of what you want to see in what time period, and what skill progressions you may need to achieve that.

Cory Kennedy: I think periodization is a very important starting point with every group you work with, but it is not final. There are definitely key periods of the year that are pre-defined with a specific type of training, which is probably the case for most people in our field. Early off-season, with GPP (General Physical Preparation), happens close to universally, although what that means can change from sport to sport. After that, we definitely employ a blend of block training with fluid periodization. We typically establish specific objectives for the athlete and the two to three qualities we need to build in the next cycle. Then, using the different monitoring tools at our disposal, we try to adjust our daily choices based on the state of the athlete. There are many roads that lead to Rome, so as long as our destination remains clear, our daily choices can be somewhat adaptable.

’Sport science’ informs the direction that the necessary ebbs and flows of training, practicing, competing, and all other stressors must take relative to the original periodization model. ~ Devan McConnell

Devan McConnell: Periodization lays the general framework for how I structure our training, both on a micro and macro level. I find great usefulness and success in the long-term planning of training, despite this being recently out of fashion. That being said, I don’t think that it is appropriate to consider any periodized plan as “gospel.” The entire point of tools such as subjective wellness questionnaires, sRPE, internal and external load monitoring, and CNS and ANS assessments is to provide relevant, immediate feedback on an athlete’s ability to adapt to stress. Ignoring this information blindly because it does not fit with the pre-ordained, periodized model would be foolish. Therefore, “sport science” informs the direction that the necessary ebbs and flows of training, practicing, competing, and all other stressors must take relative to the original periodization model.

Jonas Dodoo: I have always been a believer in training all components throughout the year in a “complex hierarchy,” where you essentially list all your training components and their objectives. You also list which ones will have primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary (and so on) priority when planning learning objectives, training focus, training time, training stress, etc. It’s always easy to address your primary priority within each phase/cycle, but the problem I encountered early in my career is that it’s easy to overshoot your tertiary and quaternary priorities. This can become a problem, as these priorities can demand more adaptation reserve than planned and lead to over-training or dilution of training. It’s just as easy to undershoot these components, which may have detrimental long-term implications.

Mike Boykin: Periodization, or the structured and systematic implementation of a plan, is obviously exceptionally important, although perhaps not in the classical sense of a coach having all training-related details laid out until the “peak” competition. For our staff and athletes, periodization is more practically applied to ensure that the people involved in an athlete’s preparation understand what the goal(s) is/are for a certain period of time and which objective or subjective metrics need to be monitored most carefully.

This is always dynamic, and it shifts depending on numerous factors including, but not limited to: an athlete’s health (physical and emotional), technical progress, and physical development, as well as time of year. To give a fairly straightforward example, take an athlete who is coming off a chronic injury that has caused numerous compensatory strategies and limited consistent training. Until this athlete has stabilized health factors and mechanics, performance markers (such as times during practice or weight lifted in the gym) are not a priority. Unless the entire coaching/therapy staff is on the same page with this, an athlete will consistently receive mixed messages on what they should be focusing on.

Nate Brookreson: I believe that the planning of a yearly training block is one of the most important processes a coach can go through. It creates communication with sport coaches in determining the most important competitions to plan for, allows you to stratify programming between different levels of athletes, permits you to have meaningful conversations with athletes about how you are going to achieve success and what markers you will use to determine this, and serves as a road map for other coaches who might be assisting you with your team to see your thought process and rationale. I don’t feel that a periodized plan needs to be at the level of individual exercises because I think these will be influenced by what team you are working with and your exercise preferences with them.

I believe in creating a plan based on your training goals (e.g., strength endurance, strength, strength speed, etc.) and then filling in exercises, sets/reps, and percentages based on these goals. I try to be as scripted with the training in the off-season as possible, as there are times when I am trying to create fatigue to target specific adaptations, although within reason. However, when we reach our in-season phase, there are specific competitions at which my objective is to attenuate fatigue, and I am more sensitive to getting feedback from the athletes to manage the training loads and make changes in programming as necessary.

Patrick Ward: Periodization comes down to logical, structured planning. In team sport, I look at it in two main ways—mesocycle and microcycle. The mesocycle is going to be dependent on the phase of the season (e.g., training camp, in-season quarter 1, etc.), while the microcycle is specific to what we do that week in preparation for the upcoming competition. The microcycle layout is critical in team sport, given the frequent competitions and how one week flows into the next. Understanding that weekly structure and preparation is something I strongly believe in. Then, how subsequent weeks feed into a block of time—a mesocycle—helps you take a longer term look at things.

I left macrocycle off the list only because looking at programming/planning from year to year isn’t as critical for us, given that a pro sports team turns over a lot of players each year. There are also coaching changes, and these athlete and coach changes alter the training context each season. There isn’t as much consistency from year to year, like there might have been before the times of free agency.

The next installment of this Sports Science Roundtable series is: “The Effect of Monitoring on the Training Process.”

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Strength and conditioning coach, Daniel Martinez, recently talked to a roundtable of seven coaches and trainers from four different countries about several sports science topics. This is the second in this series of Sports Science Roundtable articles.

Daniel Martinez: What are the challenges of your current work environment?

Cory Innes: The challenges of my work environment tend to revolve around funding and, therefore, athlete access. The result of working within a government system is that funding is limited, so servicing needs to cover a wide range of athletes. There have been recent moves to decrease athlete-to-staff ratios to provide greater in-depth performance, but this then leaves the developing or non-performing athlete vulnerable to being cut off from access to servicing. So, there is constantly a trade-off between who needs help and how/if they can be serviced. Additionally, relationship building is a key requirement of the position and one of the biggest challenges lies in communication with the coach, other service providers, and athletes.

“Relationship building is a key requirement… and one of the biggest challenges lies in communication.”

Cory Kennedy: Personally, I like to think of advantages over challenges, but I don’t fault you for asking. I would say the largest challenge we face is the allocation of resources. Since most of our funding comes through the federal government, there is a comprehensive process that determines each sport’s level of support from year to year. This means that some sports that have more success will reap the rewards of a higher budget. So, while Olympic hopeful athletes from a variety of sports share the same space, training side by side on a daily basis, our level of involvement is dictated by the allocated resources. Each athlete has a drive to reach the podium, and we like to offer each athlete their best chance to reach those dreams. Unfortunately, we can’t always spend the same amount of time with each of them.

Devan McConnell: I am a one-man show. My primary responsibility is the physical training of the team, but all other aspects of the position still fall on my shoulders. These other duties are often the sole responsibility of other individuals within a larger or more well-funded organization. Specifically, on the sport science side, I find it always a challenge (although a well-appreciated one) to “sell” the usefulness of the data to the head coach. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the complete lack of understanding of my role and/or its significance to the program by administrative-level individuals.

Jonas Dodoo: At Speed Works, the challenge is that we are a registered charity in an amateur sport during a time when sponsors are put off due to the financial climate and the controversies that consistently occur within our sport. So, we are balling on a budget.

High Performance Advisor connects vision and reality for young developing players who are often paid more than staff members. As a result, these athletes have traditionally had more power to decide how they train.

Mike Boykin: At ALTIS, we face similar challenges to what most relatively new companies encounter. Resources are appropriately allotted in order to maintain a high level of coaching and therapy expertise on-site to best serve the athlete population. This means that there are fewer (read: no) individuals here in Phoenix who are 100% dedicated to what most practitioners think of as “classical sports science.”

However, this “issue” is mitigated greatly by the fact that John Godina hired coaches (initially Dan Pfaff, Stuart McMillan, and Andreas Behm) who have a wealth of knowledge and a high level of understanding in areas that are often saved for a specialist. This is why the paradigm of sports science as hooking up a GPS (just to pick one example) should instead be viewed more holistically as the “science of sport,” where the coach is a fantastic generalist with a broad educational background in an environment where they can continue to grow.

The challenges of being a start-up have forced us to adapt. Therefore, many of our partnerships are formed around creating better athlete support systems. One example is the work we do with Athletigen in providing genetic and environmental data to our coaches and athletes. If there’s something we cannot adequately do, there is someone within our network who can assist.

Nate Brookreson: As silly as this might sound, I try to not view anything about my role as a “challenge” anymore. I think early in my career, I definitely had this mentality regarding things like communication between support staff, the lack of understanding with my sport coaches when it came to physiology, and the difficulty in articulating my role in the competition performance of athletes in mixed sports. I am now at a point in my career where I try to be solution-oriented.

I have forcibly increased communication with support staff through frequent meetings that have a specific agenda. I have increased the information I share with sport coaches and attempt to educate regarding weekly practice structure and peaking protocols. I also understand the limitations in trying to explain all performance outcomes, but share the information that I can reliably collect and track using research (whether others or my own) to pick validated indicators of performance. Maybe the only legitimate challenge I still face is time management (knowing when to walk away from certain projects).

Patrick Ward: The challenges are the challenges faced anywhere and are not specific to professional sport. Anytime you have information that challenges antiquity or dogma, you will meet with some resistance. It takes a lot of time to help people understand where you are coming from or maybe even to change their thinking on things. Sometimes it isn’t even about changing the thinking as much as it is getting people to look at things from a different angle and conceptualize things in a different way. So, being patient can sometimes be a challenge, as things never move as fast as you want them to. As they say, it takes a long time to make a right turn on the Titanic.

The next installment of this Sports Science Roundtable series is: “The Relevance of Periodization.”

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Cory Innes (Victorian Institute of Sport – Lead S&C T&F/Badminton)
Cory is the Lead Strength and Conditioning Coach for Track and Field and Badminton at the Victorian Institute of Sport in Melbourne, Australia. He provides strength and conditioning support to nationally identified athletes in these sports, and develops programs for training camps and education to national junior squads. Additionally, he operates as the National Sport Science and Medicine Manager for Badminton and sits on the High-Performance Committee, which involves the development of a national structure and framework around strength and conditioning and medical support.

Cory Kennedy (Institut National du Sport du Québec – Head of S&C)
Cory is the Head of Strength and Conditioning at Institut National du Sport du Québec. This role includes being the lead for certain training groups, as well as managing the delivery of strength and conditioning as a whole within the Institut. This means helping to guide other team members in their journey in strength and conditioning, as well as managing the logistics and equipment within the training space.

Devan McConnell (UMass Lowell – Head of Hockey Performance)
Devan serves as the Head of Hockey Performance at UMass Lowell. His role is essentially to oversee everything that goes into development off the ice. This includes strength and conditioning, recovery and regeneration, nutrition, sport science data collection and interpretation, and continuing education for the staff and players.

Jonas Dodoo (Speed Works – Head Coach of Athletics and High Performance Consultant)
Jonas is the Head Coach of Speed Works, a track group based in London. He is also a high-performance advisor to professional sports teams (mainly rugby and soccer).

Mike Boykin (ALTIS – Sprints & Hurdles Coach/Sports Science Lead)
Mike is currently a Sprints and Hurdles Coach at ALTIS, overseeing the development of a group of 200m and 400m sprinters, and 400m hurdlers. He also serves as the sports science lead on The ALTIS performance team.

Nate Brookreson (NC State University – Director of Olympic Sports)
Nate is currently the Director of Olympic Sports at North Carolina State University, where his primary team responsibilities are with women’s basketball, swimming, and men and women’s golf. As a coach, his job is athlete management, which consists of the planning and implementation of training programs; the review of the plans through observation of performance qualities to determine if they are producing expected outcomes; and making changes based on testing, monitoring and performance results. As a supervisor, he assists staff in the: creation of needs analyses for the respective sports; centralization and management of performance and monitoring data; dissemination of information to improve the staff’s knowledge and programming; and creation of opportunities for the staff to complete departmental projects to positively impact the Pack Performance unit.

Patrick Ward (Sports Science Analyst at Seattle Seahawks)
Patrick is a Sport Scientist for the Seattle Seahawks and was formerly with Nike’s SPARQ Division in Portland.

Strength and conditioning coach, Daniel Martinez, recently talked to a roundtable of coaches and trainers from four different countries about several sports science topics. We will be presenting these questions, and their answers, in a series of Sports Science Roundtable articles, starting with this one on the definition of success.

Daniel Martinez: How do you define success for your team and your role?

Cory Innes: Success is defined by performance. If the sport performance is not improving, then
we are not doing all we can to help facilitate that. My role involves helping create individual performance plans (IPPs), in consultation with the coaches, national sport organizations (NSOs), and a wider support team (sport science, physiotherapy, psychology, nutrition, etc.), which focus on identifying areas of improvement within the athlete’s performance and then developing ways of measuring improvement in each area.

This is an integrated approach with accountability from each contributing team member, and these are reviewed and adjusted as required. This allows us to see specifically where or if we have been successful in our contribution to performance. In my role, I look at specific measures that identify whether my contribution is successful at a strength and conditioning level, but also whether this improvement transferred to the sports performance.

Cory Kennedy: Success as a strength and conditioning staff member (or a sport scientist) is difficult to define, as some colleagues regularly remind us. So, we look at success in a few different areas. Approval and trust from an athlete can sometimes be the low-hanging fruit, but it is essential. You need their trust, and they need yours. Matching each other’s expectations is so important. Secondly, you need to have the coaches’ approval. Sometimes we think the coaches are wrong, and vice versa. Yet, we have to trust each other and get along.

Lastly, are we offering something to the sport that they never had before? Is there a legacy that we are providing? We tirelessly shake every tree for research and innovation opportunities, because we are learning new things about different sports, training methods, equipment, and human beings. This means that there will always be opportunities to improve on processes. This could be the way coaches view training and practice, or tests used to identify or track talent, or they could be validating equipment that enters the marketplace.

If we can publish reviews or original research, this is a huge success. Even if it’s not published, if the sport assimilates it into their way of doing things, that is a big win for us. Within those principles, we have an Integrated Support Team (IST) around each sport (think of the different specialists), and we do our best to really get on the same page, collaborate on projects, and share similar perspectives, so we can offer a sport a well-functioning team.

Devan McConnell: Success, in a general sense for our team, comes from the basic premise of wins/losses, just as with any other athletic organization. At the end of the day, our staff and program are judged by how we finish within our league, and if and how we earn an opportunity to compete in the NCAA tournament. On a more specific level to my position, in addition to our team success, the success of my role is reflected by our “man games lost” statistic, or what our injury ratio is. I am also judged, from an athletic development perspective, by how many of our players move on to play professional hockey after their college career.

Finally, in addition to all this, I personally view success as how “successful” my athletes are once they are done being athletes…. Do they leave us as a better version of themselves? I measure their success by how much more mature, worldly, and prepared they are to be productive members of our society; and by the depth of the relationships they have formed along the way.

Jonas Dodoo: Success is always measured by the progression of performance. Running fast and winning games are essentially what stake holders will measure players, athletes, teams, and coaches by. But, within our team, we measure our success by progression towards high performance. Some may talk about this being culture and some may just call this being professional. Either way, we identify the behaviors, processes, and benchmarks of high performance, then work on bridging the gap between where we want to be and where we are now. If we are doing everything in our power to close this gap, then we expect to see more wins, faster times, and healthy athletes.

Mike Boykin: When we sat down as a performance team in September, which was the start of our 2016-2017 training season, the No. 1 goal for this year was international level success of our athletes. While success in this context can be defined numerous ways, in track and field and in our situation, it was simply having athletes performing their best in meets, with a long-term focus on premier competitions, while staying healthy.

There are multiple ways to achieve this and certain landmarks must be hit along the way, as it requires doing things correctly when it comes to supporting the athlete group. Many people have written and spoken about this before and Good to Great by Jim Collins is a fantastic reference on the topic, but it begins with the people involved. ALTIS’ infrastructure was built on high-level coaches and therapists working together with the athlete, in what Dan Pfaff and Gerry Ramogida have aptly termed the “Coach-Athlete-Therapist Triad.”

The keystone to success in this model is the ability of all three members to communicate openly with each other and put ego aside to best serve the athlete and their goals. All other support services are just that—support. Things that are classically defined as “sports science,” whether it be some sort of physiological, biomechanical, psychological, nutritional, etc. information, must inform the coach and therapist, and, where appropriate, the athlete. These support services are present to give the team increased access to a wealth of information that they theoretically would not have due to lack of expertise in a particular area.

Anything that aids in best practice must be put in a framework that the coach and therapist can apply (or at least file away for a later date), rather than an isolated factoid that simply feeds that athlete with additional information.

Nate Brookreson: Success in my role is multifaceted. In the role of support staff to a sport coach, my primary responsibility is to optimize the development of our student-athletes to be able to compete for conference and national championships. While this topic has been discussed in detail in recent months, my success in this role is related to athlete availability and measurable performance improvement. Athlete availability is quantified in missed practices and competitions, as well as missed training opportunities in the off-season. Measurable performance diagnostics are separated into orthopedic, strength, power, speed, and fitness categories, and further subcategorized from there.

Developmental emphasis is placed in certain categories depending on the sport, time of year (i.e., basketball movement/orthopedic early off-season, strength, power, and fitness late off-season), and developmental stage of the athlete. All performance testing is evaluated based on the work of Will Hopkins and his magnitude-based inferential statistics to determine meaningful performance changes. We then compile this information into detailed performance profiles for our athletes that we can share with sport coaches and administrators.

Patrick Ward: Defining success in any support role is always challenging in team sport. It isn’t like individual endurance sports where, as a physiologist/coach/strength coach, there may be a more direct link between what you do and how it impacts successful performances. Team sport is inherently “noisy” because success, in the form of winning games, is dependent on a variety of factors that can often be outside your control.

For myself, I think success is more defined by my contributions back to the four main departments in a pro sports team: Management/Scouting, Coaching, Strength Coach, and Medical/ATC. I look at the role of a sport science department as an information services role (to steal from the business world), whereby you are helping people in those departments answer relevant questions that may aid them in making decisions. If I am able to listen to people in those departments, understand what is relevant and important to them, and then use a scientific approach to answer questions for them and set up analysis that may explain some sort of phenomenon or uncover information that is not directly observable to the human eye that allows them to take action, then I feel pretty successful.

The next installment of this Sports Science Roundtable series is: “The Challenges of the Work Environment for Coaches and Trainers.”

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Teaching proper hurdling technique to a novice track-and-field athlete can seem like a daunting task. It’s not as simple as “step-step-step-clear,” or treating it like a free-for-all obstacle race. Proper form is essential for both the safety and efficiency of the athlete. The instruction of this complex motor skill must be done in a step-wise, simplistic fashion, where each component phase is broken down and trained separately. Difficulties in learning this complex motor skill can arise in a number of ways.

Don’t Overwhelm the Athlete

Over-coaching with too many verbal cues can have a negative effect on the learning process, hindering motor development and reinforcement. If you give too much information to the athlete at one time, it could cause a stimulus overload. If the athlete receives too many cues, then the focus gets spread too thin and becomes lost. Therefore, give one cue at a time between repetitions so the athlete doesn’t become overwhelmed.

Too much feedback between trials has the same effect as an overabundance of pre-cueing. More than anything, a coach’s job is to focus on the intrinsic feedback that the athlete feels: This teaches autonomy and control over his or her own body. One concise statement of constructive criticism every few trials is the best way to ensure the athlete focuses on the task at hand and then listens for when the words do come. If feedback is too wordy or given for every trial, it will lose its effect.

Go Back to the Basics

Issues such as weak leg power, hip flexor weakness, ankle instability, and lack of upper body control all affect the underlying biomechanics of the hurdle form. If an athlete is struggling to complete the moves or achieve full range of motion, the coach must go back to the basics of strength development. This will ensure the athlete has the fundamental muscle and tendon power to carry out the technique.

In other words, elastic capability must come first: hurdlers are sprinters first (Rogers, 2015). Deep hip flexor muscles such as the iliacus are responsible for keeping the lead leg in line and tightly adducted (McKinnon & Comerford, 2013). A lack of necessary strength when trying to perform a certain move can quickly lead to frustration and drained confidence in an athlete, especially if not recognized by the coach, or mislabeled as defiance or a lack of concentration.

Difficulty in getting three steps between each of the hurdles can be a function of poor ground reactive force, sprint mechanics, stride power, or rhythm. Rhythm is imperative for running an efficient hurdle race and preserving running economy. Any deceleration in the three-step rhythm can cause the athlete to come up short on the next hurdle; this usually develops with poor flight or landing mechanics. If the lead leg does not follow a straight path over the hurdle, the center of balance will be off, and the landing unbalanced (Rogers, 2015). It is helpful to have the athlete perform wall drills with the lead leg and work on controlling the upper body to counter the lead leg.

Coaches can cue to lead with a slightly-flexed knee rather than the foot of the lead leg, to avoid a straight-legged “braked” landing (McKinnon & Comerford, 2013). The hurdles can also be moved closer together until the three-step technique is mastered (Rogers, 2015). If the struggle is in reaching the first hurdle, there may be poor acceleration or comfort out of the blocks; the starting legs can be reversed in the blocks to add an extra step for the correction and cue the athlete to aggressively attack the hurdles.

Difficulty staying low to the hurdle is usually a measure of confidence and flexibility. Hamstring flexibility is crucial for full leg extension and hip spread. Core strength over the hurdle is essential to balance the limbs and land with proper center of mass. McKinnon and Comerford state that core strength is about “coordination, alignment, efficiency, and controlling the body’s natural compensations for minor restrictions,” which can compensate for a less-than-perfect takeoff or foot placement if necessary.

Running over lower-height hurdles can be a great confidence builder and help overcome the obstacle fear (Rogers, 2015). Emphasis should be placed on “running” the hurdles, rather than “jumping” the hurdles.

Prioritize the Athlete

As a closing note: The athlete’s well-being should always come first. If too many trials are being practiced in a single session, the neuromuscular system will become overtaxed and burnt out. Small gains in training and milestones in skill mastery should be noted and praised in the athlete. As coaches, our first priority is always keeping our athletes healthy and safe.

Consider the other stressors in the athlete’s everyday life that may be affecting his or her training life. When an athlete feels balanced and well-rounded, the focus and motivation on skill development is less likely to waiver.

References

• McKinnon, G. & Comerford, M. (2013). “Hip control issues for clearing the hurdle and reducing flight time.” Modern Athlete and Coach, 51(2): 31-34.
• Rogers, J. (2015). Track and field coaching essentials: USA track & field level 1 coach education manual. W. Freeman (Ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

During my years of coaching, I’ve had athletes who became very good at the drills I gave them, but they didn’t improve their form or speed. At times, my athletes have gotten so good at the drills, they were no longer challenged, and they stagnated. I wasn’t challenging their systems. The drills in this article address important points of movement and show how to progress your athletes to make their bodies organize.

My Learning Progression

There is nothing like the spectacle of a track meet. The tension of 100m and 4x100m races gets everyone up in the stands before the gun goes off. The bell laps in distance races when everyone waits to see who has been hanging back and make the fatal mistake of making a move too early. The final jumps or throws in the field events when the crowd claps in unison to motivate the athlete for a bigger performance. And who can forget the drama of a final 4×400 when the meet is on the line.

Even before the meet, there are memorable images. My favorite is when all the pole vaulters are lined up in a big meet, waiting for their run-through. It reminds me of a jousting tournament with all of the knights lined up, waiting their turn.

Equally enjoyable is watching the variety of warm-up drills different teams use: watching runners go through their A skips in perfect unison, runners lying face down doing scorpions, or up against the fence with their hip mobility drills. I wonder how and why coaches pick their warm-up drills.

I, too, bought the speed dynamics video and used it for years. It was fairly easy to implement and, if others were doing it, I believed I should too. I saw Loren Seagrave twice in packed halls, and everyone was sold. He changed the culture of the warm-up.

Questioning the Purpose of Specific Drills

But then I hit a few hurdles. I questioned what I was doing when I had athletes who could do the drills very well, almost as good as the video, but weren’t improving their form or speed. Also, we were getting so good at the drills that they were no longer challenging. It almost became something we did just “because.”

Then, I started to question the purpose of the drills. A perfect example is B skips. I know people love them, but I don’t think there is much pawing of the ground. To change things up, we went to a warm-up with a variety of stiff legged runs (Payton’s or Prime-times, depending on what part of the country you live in). They worked great early in the season but again, we stagnated.

Then, I found some things that really helped my athletes move along. The first was the implementation of Reflexive Performance Reset (RPR). Athletes use a particular recruitment pattern to move their body. Most of the time, athletes are in a neurological survival mode, which means they’re using smaller muscles to do the work. As they strengthen these patterns, their bodies default to these movement patterns.

For example, when an athlete sprints, he’ll initiate hip flexion with his psoas muscle and extend with this glute max. But when an athlete goes through his strength tests, these muscles fail. By performing RPR wake-up drills, an athlete can get his prime movers, or performance muscles, to become the initiators of the movement pattern. From a coaches’ perspective, they run differently. From an athlete’s perspective, they feel lighter and faster.

Frans Bosch

Also, I figured out Frans Bosch. I bought the DVD, Running: The BK Method, watched it quickly, and discarded its contents onto a pile of other DVDs. But for some reason, I was brought back to the DVD. And it clicked. So, I bought the book, Running. I think my copy has more of my pencil markings than the ink used to print the book. I started an email correspondence with Frans to learn more. I started to implement his drills in our practices and saw the impact on how my athletes moved. A big impact, in fact. We ran very fast. Some of the fastest times in the history of the state with kids that had no business being on that stage based on their looks.

But again, I hit another hurdle. We got really good at doing the drills about four weeks into the season, and then we stagnated. We were doing the drills just to do the drills. We weren’t challenging our systems.

Bosch then released Strength Training and Coordination: An Integrative Approach which offers insight into challenging the motor learning system. The basic drills are the elements of running—quick foot off the ground followed by a hip drive with strong lateral support. The result is toe off position with the knee under the glute and the swing knee out in front for a positive running position.

Drills for Progression

As we get better at specific movements, we need to challenge the body to find the point where the body self-organizes when challenged and where the body is allowed to get out of a limited self-protection mode. If we change the environment or pattern, we teach the system to reorganize and strengthen the patterns we want to strengthen. (Trying to explanation this would be a whole article in itself). The book explains this concept throughout multiple chapters. For a nice quick summary, check out bettermovement.com.

I use some basic movement patterns that we drill. I don’t like calling it a warm-up. Too many athletes think a warm-up is a social time when things are done just to get the blood moving. These drills become worthless once that attitude surfaces. I sometimes change when we do the drills in practice to challenge the “state of the body” or challenge the body when fatigued. The drills address important points of movement and show how we progress to make the body organize.

High Knee Action

We call these booms.

Purpose: To train the high knee action with support from the opposite hip. At least that’s how it looks. It’s actually a movement that trains the scissoring motion of the legs and teaches the “foot from above” principle. It also teaches a high hip posture of the stance leg. Once we’re strong in this position, we learn to scissor the leg in a fast action.

Progressions: Stress the movement while other actions occur, always challenging the movement to be as clean as possible. It becomes the go-to position. Key points are tall posture and reaching for the ground, and knees passing as high up as possible to simulate positive running.

• Week 1: Boom, just a switch of the leg, workout (WO) 2 hands overhead, WO 3 hands push or press, WO 4 halos.
• Week 2: Boom-Boom, same progression
• Week 3: Boom-Boom-Boom, same progression
• Week 4: High knees, same progression
• Week 5: High knees onto 1- to 2-inch mats with the same progression
• Week 6: High knees with a stop every 3rd or 4th step, same upper progression
• Week 7: High knees mixing week 5 and 6, same upper progression
• Week 8: High knees with a twist, rotate 45 degrees every 4 to 5 steps, same upper progression
• Week 9: High knees with 10lb bar on back
• Week 10: Up to 8-inch box with a stop, same arm progression as week 1
• Week 11: Stairs
• Week 12: Stairs with a stop
• Week 13: Stairs with light bar on back

Hip Hike or High Hip Action

Purpose: To teach a better position for the hips. Ideally, when an athlete is on one leg at midstance phase, the hip of the stance leg should hold the leg in place directly underneath the hip socket, and the outside of the foot should line up with the outside of the body. The hip of the swing leg hip should be slightly higher than the hip of the stance leg.

• Week 1: Spiderman crawls, lateral crawls
• Week 2: Step downs
• Week 3: Weighted step downs
• Week 4: Weighted step downs, wall touches with bounce
• Week 5: High knees with a bounce, lateral high knees with bounce
• Week 6: Weight overhead high knees with a bounce, lateral high knees with bounce
• Week 7: Weight overhead, skips over hurdle
• Week 8: Skips over hurdle, WO 2 overhead
• Week 9: Skips for power (speed and distance)
• Week 10: Skips power and speed with bar on back (no rotation)
• Week 11: Skips power w/twist
• Week 12: Skips power, halo

Ankle Foot Action

Progression: Works on the stiffness of the ankle. The key is to keep the ankles as stiff as possible.

• Week 1-2: Legged toe pops
• Week 2: 2-legged toe pops with weight
• Week 3: 2-legged pops onto mats/boxes (6-8 inches)
• Week 4: Alternating toe pops
• Week 5: Single leg pops
• Week 6: Single leg pops with mat on side, double leg up a hill
• Week 7: Single leg pops with box on side, alternating up a hill
• Week 8: Single leg up a hill, double skip prime time
• Week 9: Single up a hill distance, double skip prime time overhead
• Week 10: Double leg hurdle jumps small to big, single leg pops on box
• Week 11: Small box over hurdle over hurdle, single leg hops over hurdle
• Week 12: Hurdle bounce box bounce hurdle, single leg hops over hurdles
• Week 13: Consecutive big hurdles

A coach can adjust the drills at any time. While the goal is to constantly challenge the body to learn better movement, if the athletes are stuck, there is nothing wrong with repeating a week of work or slowing things down. To get a better picture of what the drills look like, I have some rough videos of the progressions for sale through my websites, Slow Speed Guy and videos here. Thanks for the support.

For those who missed the Track and Football Consortium 4, we have the entire Consortium filmed. We have great topics for download. Here is the link for the Consortium, including my hour presentation on the subject of this article that further explains the exercises.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Data collection has been a part of the daily routine of strength and conditioning coaches since well before the invention of software-based spreadsheets. There has long been a focus on quantifying heights, times, distances, weights, and much more within a strength and conditioning program. Regardless of programming paradigm, the ability to objectively define improvements in performance is a central need of strength and conditioning coaches.

While handwritten records have largely progressed to a digital format, the process and procedures involved in testing and recording data have not experienced the same evolution. The logistics of data collection and recording in a large team environment where supervision and coaching take precedence creates many issues for strength coaches. The result of these actions creates an issue: How sure are we that the data we are recording in strength and conditioning, practice, competition, nutrition, rehabilitation, wellness, and recovery is accurate and reliable?

The quality of information we have available limits our ability as coaches to make truly informed decisions. To better understand this issue, it is worth diving into the field of measurement in research, statistics, and analytics to gain a mastery of foundational elements affecting the quality of the information you collect on athlete performance.

Your Methods Matter

Whether you are using advanced technologies, a pen and pad, or a simple questionnaire, the method to your measurements matters. The measurement of physical performance metrics such as speed, time, weight lifted, length, height, acceleration, distances covered, heart rate responses, and heart rate recovery is a crucial element when assessing activity and performance in many team-athletic populations. Although measurement is only one of the many aspects that strength coaches, sport scientists, and all allied health staff must give attention to, its impact has the potential to directly affect nearly every area of performance. Given this reality, it becomes paramount to establish a systematic approach when considering measurement of physical performance. Because of the objective and quantitative nature of the data associated with human performance in sports, a more classical view of measurement may be appropriate:

Measurement: The assignment of numbers to objects or events according to rules^[1].

While the majority of information collected on performance is highly quantitative in nature, there are instances where critical analysis and understanding of the data collected becomes more subjective. For example, this may happen when practitioners evaluate the total distance of sprinting performed by an athlete during a single practice session, and subsequently try to establish a relative indicator of the intensity of that practice session.

There are many subjective factors that might affect the athlete’s perception of the session RPE that may not match intensity scales used by practitioners. Some of these factors include: the daily readiness of the athlete to physically perform, the physical preparedness levels of the athlete, the content of the drills performed, the nature of instruction given to the athlete, peer and authoritative feedback, and atmospheric conditions. In such cases, a second definition of measurement is applicable:

Measurement: The process of linking abstract concepts to empirical indicants^[1].

In this instance, consider the abstract concept as the relative intensity level of the practice session given by practitioners to describe the physical effects on the individual athlete. Even in cases where more qualitative analysis of information occurs, a systematic approach to measurement is still necessary.

As an operational definition of measurement is established, it is necessary to discuss the desirable qualities of the measurement process and instrumentation. A primary quality lies within the idea of reliability, or the extent to which the experiment, test, or measuring procedure will yield the same results on repeated trials. Reliability is an element concerning the consistency and repeatability of the measurements performed by both technology measuring performance, such as GPS, accelerometers, and HR monitors, as well as manual measurements taken by practitioners, including RPE scales, ROM and orthopedic testing, sprint timing, and weightlifting maxes.

Proper data interpretation will ultimately determine the success of the application process, where collected information affects future decision-making when planning activities. However, the reliability of the tools and methods is a primary factor that affects the entire data analysis and application process for practitioners. Because of this factor, attention must be directed to issues that negatively affect the reliability of measurements and create measurement errors.

Practitioners must accept that measurement error will almost always be present during the data collection process, despite efforts to minimize their effects. Practitioners must outline a procedure that reduces non-random error, or error due to a systematic biasing effect on measurement instruments. Non-random error for practitioners using high-tech tools may be due to the calibration of GPS units, connectivity of HRM to skin, an untrained intern incorrectly administering an Omegawave scan, or incorrect positioning of barbell velocity equipment. With low-tech interventions, non-random error could be due to improper wording of a question on a recovery survey, or peer influence on task knowledge.

Conversely, random error is inversely related to the reliability of the measurement instrumentation and is associated with unknown or unpredictable changes. An example of random error for practitioners using high-tech tools are an HRM losing contact with a player’s skin because of contact with another player during a drill, GPS satellite spacing affecting local connectivity to athlete units, batteries dying in an electronic timing unit, or other equipment breaking during testing. There are few ways to predict exactly when and how it might happen, but practitioners can expect random error to happen at some point of the measurement process.

It is important to understand that measurements taken by tools such as GPS, accelerometers, tendo units, and HRM will yield an observed score for a particular aspect, such as peak speed, heart rate ranges, distances covered, or acceleration, in addition to many other parameters. Observed scores can also be taken when coaches manually time sprints, measure jump heights, or record the results of a maximum weightlifting test. The observed scores obtained by the instrumentation and tester are composed of a true score and an error score:

Observed Score = True Score + Error Score

The duty of practitioners is to minimize the error score within the measurement process by identifying factors that can be controlled. The true score many never be fully known; however, a structured and systematic approach to measurement of human performance may allow a clearer picture of the true score to be realized. When accounting for sources of error, consider the following elements:

Participants

Consider the daily readiness of the individual athlete being monitored. If an athlete has incurred any level of acute or cumulative fatigue from prior practice or training sessions, the readings of that day may not give an accurate representation of normal performance standards.

Additionally, the motivation, mood, or intentions of an individual may cause errors in measurement readings. If an athlete feels they must prove themselves in any matter while being monitored or measured, they may give an effort above and beyond a normal daily expenditure. This resulting data would not give an accurate reflection of normal practice or the training parameters of that individual athlete.

Previous practice, prior experiences, or a lack of either may also account for errors in measurement. If an athlete is experiencing a drill or activity for the first time, the resulting physical performance may not be a true indicator of the athlete’s actual ability level. The readings would then reflect a portion of the learning and adaptation process rather than the athlete’s true ability level within the activity. An example of this is the monitoring of maximum speed during a particular drill during practice where athletes are learning a new skill or technique. While a maximum speed reading will be obtained from the drill, it would not reflect the true ability of the athlete at that particular activity due to a lack of practice and a lack of prior experience with the drill.

Testing Procedures

Regarding the actual activity being monitored, clarity of directions for the activity being introduced will affect performance outcomes. If the athletes are supposed to run at a specific pace during a conditioning drill, but deviate from that speed because of unclear instructions, the interpretation of the information collected is based on a false premise of uniformity in running speeds. This element is also present in various movement screenings where uniformity of instruction may alter the performance of one athlete to the next, regardless of their capabilities.

After administering instructions, it is also important to monitor how well the procedures are followed. Consider giving additional emphasis to the quality and clarity of initial instruction; external feedback may ensure that athletes fall within the desired constructs of the activity. In order to perform repeated sprints within certain heart rate ranges while monitoring recovery markers, speed, or time, athletes must adhere to specific start-and-stop prompts so they don’t create an error in the measurement of the specifically designed task.

Consider also the uniformity and type of feedback and directions administered by practitioners during activities—i.e., when a group of practitioners are present during an activity and offer conflicting coaching or motivational reinforcement to the athlete or group of athletes being monitored. This may materialize with variances in measurement of the activity performed, such as varying ranges of speed, heart rates, or scoring on a movement screen.

Scoring

When observing, scoring, or classifying data measured by high-tech tools and manual measurements alike, the competence or experience of the scorers and observers will also affect reliability. The practitioners must possess content knowledge of the physical activity performed, which necessitates an understanding of physiology, mechanics, technique, and tactics. Additionally, they would need experience with the proper use and care of the equipment, as well as in monitoring and classifying the parameters being measured during the activity.

If the practitioners in charge of live monitoring or post-activity data classification lack competency regarding population norms of the parameters being measured, view any interpretation offered by those practitioners with caution. For example, practitioners unfamiliar with the potential for error in readings of speed, heart rate, or human movement may portray erroneous readings as being accurate and valid.

These errors can often compound, as is evident using heart rate monitors, for example. The subsequent caloric expenditure that is partially based on heart rate would also be incorrect if issues arise and are not identified. The practitioner reporting these figures to the sports nutritionist would be presenting figures that are inaccurately high because of erroneous readings. This is only one example of the importance of having observers and scorers that are both experienced and competent.

The scorer’s attention and dedication is also important, as oversights during the data collection and classification process will lead to erroneous readings. During real-time data collection in practice, training, or testing, scoring error may occur if the tools being used experience technical difficulties from uncharged batteries, excessive position alteration of straps and harnesses supporting the equipment, a change in location of the activity away from the predetermined activity space, or the unwillingness, in some cases, of the athlete to wear devices at all times during the activity.

Post-activity data summary and classification would require the practitioner to upload and review information measured during the activity. During the review, outlying values of all parameters must be identified to determine if they might be erroneous scores or if they are a reliable and accurate measurement. Making this determination requires content knowledge and measurement experience, as well as attention to the activity as it was measured in real time.

Instrumentation

Tools like GPS, HR monitors, accelerometers, bar velocity units, and other items used to measure physical performance can also act as a source of error during the measurement process. Basic calibration of both software and hardware features of the equipment can ultimately affect the measurement and scoring process, which in turn would affect classification of the activity. Initial calibration of software and hardware is a cornerstone of the set-up and installation procedure, and it is also necessary to insure that these parameters have been maintained during the course of normal use.

As the equipment is used daily, its actual setup on the athletes being monitored may differ if intertester reliability is low. Essentially, different practitioners setting up the equipment on the same athletes may not obtain the same scores for the same tests. Because of this, uniformity of instruction and technique of the allocation and fitting of the equipment is of paramount concern during this process. Any deviation from the adopted instructions and techniques may contribute to variances and the collection of unreliable information. A consistent and objective approach to the allocation and equipment-fitting process is a necessity for practitioners.

The Takeaways: Steps to Enhance Reliability

When approaching the measurement process, the strength coaches, sport scientists, and all allied health and performance staff must acknowledge that, to enhance reliability of the entire process of measurement, efforts must be focused on measuring on an individual basis. As attention is given to each individual athlete and each individual data collection session, practitioners should strive to enhance consistency of their efforts during each data collection process and apply it to each successive measurement in the same manner.

When focusing on the methodology used to enhance reliability, the standardization of procedures and protocols becomes the foundational focus of the process. Include all practitioners in group training sessions where working knowledge and mastery of the equipment, software, and technique is gained. As methods for implementation are developed, a written form of a standard operational procedure manual may be utilized as a step-by-step reference for the setup and use of the specific equipment being implemented by the practitioner. These written instructions can serve as the basis for:

Preparing the physical environment for data collection:

1. Determine the physical area of activity to establish the proper setup of live- monitoring stations, test recorders, spotters, and equipment, according to manufacturer specifications. All equipment must be placed at safe distances from the athletes and activity to avoid collisions. For low-tech monitoring, the practitioner should be stationed in areas close enough to safely monitor all aspects of the activity.
2. Think of the needs of the tools you are using. For example, if practitioners can choose a space for training activities, an area outside that is away from tall structures may be the most ideal setting, as technologies like GPS units rely on connectivity with satellites that may be affected at times during outdoor training activities.

Preparing the subject for data collection:

1. Educate the athlete on what they need to do when wearing or using specific equipment. The athlete must understand that they are to work and practice in exactly the same manner as they have in the past, unless specifically directed otherwise by a coach. The testing and monitoring should not change their normal effort!
2. Establish a dialogue with the athlete to help them understand the importance and benefit of assessing their performance. If any portion of this process becomes a burden to the athlete, their motivation to continue to adhere to the process will be diminished if they do not see a benefit. Give strong emphasis to benefits of measurement and direct dialogue away from all negative notions of assessment. In some cases, measurement of performance fosters competition between athletes. Use this to your (and their) advantage.
3. If the fitting of equipment is involved in your measurement or assessment process, give the athlete a simple reference for keeping the equipment secured during activity. A trained staff member should not only administer the fitting, but should also give instruction to the athlete as to how the equipment should stay in place and steps the athlete can take to address fitting issues. This applies to equipment that athletes wear, like GPS or HR monitors, as well as equipment the athletes might use, such as timers, jump mats, or bar velocity measuring units.
4. Ensure that the dialogue between practitioners and athletes is in relatable and understandable terms for the athlete. We can’t expect all athletes to have a mastery of Hz sampling rates in GPS monitors, or positioning of triaxial accelerometers as being algorithm-specific. What we can communicate to them is that these tools are also found on their cellphone, like a map application for directions, or the way their phone screens flip when they tilt their phone.
5. Communicate to the athlete that practitioners will be present on the field or around the weight room during training or practice to assist with any equipment issues.
6. Provide opportunities to foster autonomy when outfitting or setting up equipment in order to enhance motivation to participate in the measurement process. Getting the athlete involved in this process facilities a feeling of ownership over their results.
7. Give simple and relatable feedback to the athlete based upon measured performances. This engages the athlete with the process and further encourages a sense of ownership over performance metrics and accomplishment during activity.

Performing outfitting, adjustments, and collections of equipment:

1. Outfit all units on athletes or equipment in the weight room according to manufacturer guidelines and standard operation procedures prior to activity, giving attention to the way that other equipment, such as sport specific padding, specialized braces, or other equipment, fits around your devices.
2. Ensure each piece of equipment is powered on according to manufacturer guidelines.
3. Allocate staff members to be present during activities to assist athletes with all adjustments of equipment.
4. Make efforts to collect individually worn pieces of equipment from each athlete in person post activity to allow for the communication of any equipment issues.
5. Give attention to manufacturer guidelines in regard to keeping units powered on or turned off post activity and prior to data upload.

Live monitoring of activity:

1. Determine which staff members will observe activity, be available for equipment adjustments, and manage live data monitoring devices.
2. Identify parameters to be evaluated in real-time monitoring, as well as staff members that are to be notified regarding changes in the defined parameters.
3. Define markers of activity by creating manual or automated time markers corresponding to specific drills or periods of practice and training.

Practices for data uploading, input, and analysis:

1. Ensure that all units have been collected post activity and they remained powered on according to manufacturer guidelines.
2. Clean units prior to data upload, or according to manufacturer recommendations. If required, connect each unit into uploading stations and ensure that the uploading dock itself is connected to a power source. This is especially true for equipment like heart rate monitors, accelerometers, and GPS units.
3. If using technology specific to one athlete, like a GPS unit or heart rate monitor, check in the specific software package supplied by the manufacturer and identify all units as being assigned to the correct athlete prior to confirming the data upload process.
4. If necessary, have a staff member present during the actual upload process to ensure the upload occurs without interruption from software updates or computer error.
5. After the data input or upload from the session is complete, normalize activity parameters to reflect the actual time and events of the activities performed. Additionally, manually review data to determine if outlying data points are present and attributable to error in measurement.
6. Summarize information in accordance with the desired application of data. (This is the subject of a future blog—stay tuned!) Formulate a summary of activities using either offerings from existing manufacturer software or manually derived means such as an Excel spreadsheet.
7. Send a digital or hard copy of data reports to necessary program members from sports performance staff, sports medicine staff, team nutritionists, and sports coaching staff.

Regardless of the type of technology used, these concepts will allow for the data collected from athletes to paint the most accurate and reliable picture of performance as possible. Data reliability is a central issue impacting our ability as coaches and sport scientists to make informed decisions, and is essential as part of the foundation of performance analysis in sport.

Reference

1. Carmines, E. & Zeller, R. (1979). Reliability and Validity Assessment. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF