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.
And you only have to look at the peak of a mountain to figure out that there is a big drop immediately after you reach the summit. Some coaches and athletic trainers are looking more at “freshness” as a way to prepare their teams for the rigors of a season.
Of course, striving for freshness requires the ability to monitor several key factors in your athletes. Are they eating properly, getting enough sleep, under an unusual amount of stress? Are they staying motivated? Are they enjoying practices and workouts? All that is important to know, but perhaps the most important information coaches can collect has to do with fatigue.
“Knowing when an athlete is responding well to training, versus when the athlete is not, is essential from a training prescription standpoint,” writes Devin Wyatt, who works with professional basketball players in the Dallas area, in an article on Science for Sport. “Having this information will allow the coach to adjust an athlete’s training program as necessary to ensure continual adaptation, prevent overtraining, and ultimately maximize performance.
“The importance and advantage of implementing a fatigue monitoring system is having the ability to see how each athlete is responding to training. If the goal is to maximize or maintain performance, then having the knowledge as to how the athlete’s body is responding is critical.”
DRIVN’s Wellness Questionnaire, which is answered daily by players on their phones, allows coaches to track and chart different factors that effect their players fatigue, allowing the coach the ability to plan training appropriately.
Fatigue, sleep, soreness and stress are all measured with DRIVN, providing information that will help your teams “peak” all the time.