Peaking vs Freshness in Team Sports

by

There is a growing school of thought that training you team to “peak” at a certain time of the year is no longer the best idea in team sports.

In individual sports like swimming or track, sure, peaking will always be important. it’s pretty obvious that the athlete wants to peak at precisely the right time to put in their best performance of the season in the big event.

But with team sports, it’s not all that feasible that coaches will be able to get all their athletes – or at least the right group of them – to peak at the same time. Injuries, different work-ethics, and varying outside factors of each athlete all contribute to an unmanageable peaking calendar. [Read more…]

Elite Athletes Track Their Sleep. Shouldn’t You?

by

One of DRIVN’s more popular features is the Trackers, which provides coaches and athletes a way to monitor, record and chart data to help maximize performance.

Are a couple of the team’s athletes more fatigued than the others? Is muscle soreness an issue within the team? Is the stress level higher at one point in the season than others? It’s easy to understand how those factors can be important to the performance of an individual or team.

But what about sleep? The amount of sleep your players are getting is also measured through DRIVN’s trackers. Is sleep really that important? [Read more…]

Stop Guessing at Performance Issues

by

{{cta(‘a44ae1e7-de66-4a0a-8b91-6f6ca8a727e3’)}}

So, you have a player who is not performing as well as you’d like, and it’s frustrating. They are among your most talented players, but they just don’t get it done.

You have your own theories as to why, and over time you convince yourself you are right – he’s just lazy, he’s too slow, he’s not aggressive enough.

But what if you are wrong? What if there is a simple explanation that neither you nor the player have considered? What a waste that would be.

“People make choices based on what they know, and if they don’t have all the information, they can’t make the best choices,” says Darcy Norman, AS Roma’s director of performance and a DRIVN user. “Collecting data helps you make a more informed decision.

[Read more…]