Athlete performance tracking, which was virtually unheard of before the early 2000s, has made use of powerful GPS-capable hardware and software, as well as tremendous developments in the miniaturization of technology like gyroscopes, pulse oximeters, and accelerometers. Today’s athlete performance tracking gadgets allow for a level of individual performance analysis that previous generations of coaches and athletes could only dream of.
Although this technology is still in its infancy, the benefits to early adopters are significant. Individual athletes’ strengths and shortcomings can be assessed to a remarkable degree, allowing coaches to assemble teams with precisely the right individuals in precisely the appropriate positions and conditions. The following is a list of the top five reasons to use athlete performance tracking.
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Workload Management
Training consistently, hard, and intelligently is a crucial aspect in long-term success for up-and-coming athletes, especially those with college-level aspirations or beyond. Field sports such as soccer, football, lacrosse, and baseball necessitate strong skill sets that can only be attained by year-round, consistent training.
Overtraining, on the other hand, can be dangerous to both the player and the team’s immediate prospects. Coaches have long known that overworking their teams in the weeks leading up to game day is a bad idea in every way. Until the introduction of athlete tracking tools, however, determining how far to push their athletes was always a gut-level decision.
Now, accurate athlete measurements may be used to determine not only when to back off and when to go all out at the team level, but also at the individual athlete level. This ensures that important players are in peak condition on game day. Player training can be scheduled on specific days to ensure that players get enough relaxation and have enough intense practice sessions to achieve optimum progress during their crucial high school years.
Performance Evaluations
Self-awareness of every facet of one’s on-field performance may be weak, especially in young athletes. One of the most important roles of a good coach is to attract attention to both the players’ talents and faults. However, getting players to truly realize their own flaws, particularly in the latter situation, can be a challenging task, especially when the players believe their coaches’ views are erroneous or exaggerated.
Coaches’ duties are made much easier with play-by-play tracking analytics. Players can be provided hard facts about their in-game performance, which is virtually impossible to dispute. The sooner athletes understand their own flaws, the more likely they are to fully commit to training to overcome them.
Injury Risk is Reduced
Injuries are a scourge that must be avoided at all costs for both players and teams. This is especially true for injuries that are preventable, either because they are caused by training or because they are prompted by it.
Athlete tracking can provide you with a lot of information about what training thresholds are right for you. In both games and practices, avoiding overworking and maintaining fatigue and stress below acceptable limits can have a huge impact on total injury rates. This can be done with a high degree of rigor by setting red flags for injuries, which are parameters that, once surpassed, greatly increase the danger of an athlete injuring themselves.
A high-school football team, for example, was able to minimize overall player injuries by 87 percent simply by using athlete tracking technology.
Making It Easier for Coaches to Make Better Decisions
Sports software is game-changing from the standpoint of a coach. Coaches who run combines or other talent-hunting events can simply assess what they observe in recruits objectively. This goes far beyond recording 40-meter speeds or measuring vertical jumps, thanks to today’s sophisticated athlete tracking technology.
Making It Easier for Coaches to Make Better Decisions
Sports software is game-changing from the standpoint of a coach. Coaches who run combines or other talent-hunting events can simply assess what they observe in recruits objectively. This goes far beyond recording 40-meter speeds or measuring vertical jumps, thanks to today’s sophisticated athlete tracking technology.
Similarly, when it comes to deploying talent, coaches no longer have to make educated guesses. Coaches can build their teams out as if they were piecing together a fine-tuned racing engine, relying on engineering-quality data every step of the way and even running simulations of how various team configurations might perform against real or hypothetical opponents, thanks to a trove of objective data for every player on the roster.
Rehabilitation
The number of players on a team’s disabled list can be drastically reduced by using athletic tracking. Injuries do, however, occur. When they do, athlete tracking can help adjust programs to reduce the athlete’s time on the injured list and the risk of new or repeated injuries.
One of the major risk factors for acquiring a new injury, as both coaches and athletes know all too well, is already being injured. Overcompensation puts significantly more stress on damaged athletes’ joints, bones, ligaments, and muscles, putting them at a far higher risk of injury. Coaches and players may obtain 100 per cent objective performance data with athlete tracking software, which tells them whether a previously injured player is back to pre-injury performance levels, is still getting there, or has a long way to go.
We’ve just scraped the surface of the advantages that athlete tracking can provide in this brief review.
For example, whole-team modeling, which allows coaches to observe how their team performs in an almost infinite number of scenarios, is another area where athlete monitoring may make a major difference. Coaches can also use objective team-level data to construct focused practice regimes, maximizing the utilization of limited practice time to address areas where significant improvements are needed.
Sports analytics software is a game-changer for coaches and athletes alike. Without a doubt, programs and athletes who are able to successfully exploit the potentially enormous benefits that athlete tracking systems provide will be well-positioned to excel in the medium term.
Similarly, when it comes to deploying talent, coaches no longer have to make educated guesses. Coaches can build their teams out as if they were piecing together a fine-tuned racing engine, relying on engineering-quality data every step of the way and even running simulations of how various team configurations might perform against real or hypothetical opponents, thanks to a trove of objective data for every player on the roster.
Rehabilitation
The number of players on a team’s disabled list can be drastically reduced by using athletic tracking. Injuries do, however, occur. When they do, athlete tracking can help adjust programs to reduce the athlete’s time on the injured list and the risk of new or repeated injuries.
One of the major risk factors for acquiring a new injury, as both coaches and athletes know all too well, is already being injured. Overcompensation puts significantly more stress on damaged athletes’ joints, bones, ligaments, and muscles, putting them at a far higher risk of injury. Coaches and players may obtain 100 per cent objective performance data with athlete tracking software, which tells them whether a previously injured player is back to pre-injury performance levels, is still getting there, or has a long way to go.
We’ve just scraped the surface of the advantages that athlete tracking can provide in this brief review.
Coaches can also use objective team-level data to construct focused practice regimes, maximizing the utilization of limited practice time to address areas where significant improvements are needed.
Sports analytics software is a game-changer for coaches and athletes alike. Without a doubt, programs and athletes who are able to successfully exploit the potentially enormous benefits that athlete tracking systems provide will be well-positioned to excel in the medium term.
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